I don’t know if I’ve posted a definitive “personal definition of erotica/erotic romance” blog here, or not. As I recall, it’s almost standard inagural-post fare for writers who get a contract to publish an “erotic romance.” The first question out of anybody’s mouth is “do you have a blog?” shortly thereafter followed by the need to justify yourself as not a smut-peddler, or alternatively, to claim that you are, and revel in it. Either way, this leads to the need for an ubiquitous “What is Erotic Romance?” post in your blog. I’m usually one who bucks a trend (mostly by not showing up for it, or being at the airport when the ship’s waiting at the dock). Well, this wouldn’t be the first time I’m late to a trend, and it won’t be the last, I’m sure. So here’s my thoughts on what erotica is, what erotic romance is, and as a bonus, you get some reasoning behind it instead of this simply being a post to reassure my mother that I’m not working somehow in the pr0n industry. Follow me below the fold for some thoughts on smart writer’s branding and why a writer’s personal definition for teh_hawt_stuff can be one of the rudders with which to steer a career.

My Take on Erotica

My definition of Erotica–and this is purely subjective and personal, so YMMV.  My personal definition of erotica is a story in which the characters’ growth arcs, characterizations, flaws, and strengths are portrayed through sex, sexual metaphor, or sexual expression. It doesn’t require a happy ending, or a relationship.

My Take on Erotic Romance

Same goes here on the definitions. YMMV. In an erotic romance that I write, the characters’ relationship arc, growth, and completion (to a satisfying ending that is 99% of the time “happily ever after” or “happily for now”) is portrayed with a focus on, but not exclusively focusing on, their sexual relationship.

What About Branding?

I’ll come right out and say it–the majority of the market for erotica and erotic romance has a huge overlap (and a huge overlap with the market for more traditional romance), and one thing they (we, since I do count myself as the “market.” What? I read, too, yanno) do NOT like is to be baited-and-switched.

Every author of genre fiction knows in some way that there’s an expectation that begins when a reader picks up (opens up) a book. That expectation is your contract with the reader. If you give them something that’s not what they were expecting, 99% of the time they will not think it’s cute, clever, or stunning–they’ll just be pissed off that it’s not what it says on the tin. Now obvious randomness aside in the form of things that the author has little control over (covers, shelving location, and sometimes, back blurb), if you claim to be writing erotic romance, then your story ought to be hot.

I’ll be honest–I’m not the best at the branding. I had a cutely alliterative tagline when I published my first novel, and I had it in my sig line. But it was one of what is now thousands of cutely alliterative taglines among thousands of authors, and Lord knows I didn’t pimp it enough for it to become notable. I was too busy writing very slowly, and well, while it was cutely alliterative just like all the others…it wasn’t really me.

My new tagline (“The passion of a thousand burning suns,” in case it’s not clear from the blog header) is a lot closer to “me” mostly because it’s a little bit of a snarky inside joke-slash-play on words that has as much to do with internet memes as it does SF/Futuristic erotic romance. But it’s a lot better because of that–it’s closer to who I am and what I write, and it might sort of indicate an expected heat level.

The other aspect of my branding is my name. Xandra Gregory. I chose it because it sounds a lot sexier than my real name (which gets butchered on a regular basis by telemarketers), because it has meaning to me, and because having your name start with X rather than just about any other letter makes you sound just that much sexier. People have told me this when I tell ‘em my nom de pixel. “Oooh, that sounds racy.” “How sexy.” (Although they usually tell me this when I’m eating something at a party and I think I must be hawt schtuff with my face full of salsa).

So combine a tagline with a pseudonym and you get…an expectation. Set when I published my first novel, and maybe reinforced by my second–I’ll be honest–while the first is het and the second M/M, they’re both near-future and sci-fi in nature, and fit well within my personal definition of “erotic romance.” Subsequent novels are going to have to fit the same bill. My critique partner, Roxy, will be happy to read this, because she’s been hammering at me for years about picking a genre and sticking with it.

But should my writing take me in another direction, then my branding efforts–such as they are–will be diluted, and more to the point, I’ll no longer be delivering a Xandra product (with the passion of a thousand burning suns–see what I did there?). Part of my personal contract with “the reader” is to not bait-and-switch ‘em. If I’m not writing erotic romance, I’m not being Xandra Gregory.

Lucky for me, there’s a whole phone book of other names out there from which I can craft another diabolical pseudonym and inflict myself on a different subgenre.

The minute you press “Publish” on your first blog post, or the minute you make that heart-pounding decision to show your work to somebody who could, one day, maybe give you some money for it, is the minute where you have to become Savvy.  Writers groups speak a lot about writing “the book of your heart” because it’s a phenomenon that broadsides all of us at different times.  Even when we think we’re ready for it and facing the cutlass with both eyes open, only to find out it’s the cannon from the side that’s just pounded us to hamburger.  And what’s that cannon loaded with?  Nothing more or less than the lead shot and gunpowder of The Market.

As writers, we signed up for this gig to, well, write.  Now when we want to share our work with the world, it turns out that we have to do things that are the opposite of writing.  We have to pay attention to markets.  We have to promote.  We have to be aware of whether or not the words coming from our hearts and the stories begging to be told are morsels tasty enough to be fed to the beast that thrashes the calm waters of our creativity and devours unsuspecting sailors when plucked from the riggings of their tiny, tossed boats.  The Market…will eat you alive if you let it.

Every writer has to find his or her own fine line to walk between the appetite of The Market, and the uncut purity of self-expression.  It’s important to understand that The Market is never the same beast twice.  Sometimes it can be fed, placated with some morsels of marketability in your works.  Other times, it is a demanding maw that can, if you allow it, suck out all the soul from your work in exchange for safe passage through troubled waters.

That isn’t to say that The Market can’t be negotiated with.  There are many tools in the writer’s belowdecks good for navigating The Market’s hungers.  The first is to stay informed.  Its twin is to stand firm.  A writer who completely writes to The Market is often chasing from behind, pursuing a beast that is faster and sleeker than can be overcome.  Some writers can catch up to that beast close enough to harpoon it from the backside and let it pull them along.  Other writers find that The Market’s path carries it close enough for them to leap and catch a wild ride, if they react quickly enough.  Still other writers may find that The Market’s main body is far away from them, save for one of its many adjunct limbs that may be stalked and tamed for a time.  Some writers will steer far away from the thrashings of the beast and concentrate on smaller, calmer waters.

Each of these paths has its benefits and disadvantages.  The beast-hunter can only ride for the length of the harpoon rope, and a sudden change in the beast’s direction can mean a quick and messy scuttle.  The leapers can only ride for as long as the thrashes take the beast close to their home waters, and should they find themselves moving in a different direction, it is the beast that will leave them behind, no matter how hard they pull and how tight they hold.  And the limb-tamers can too easily find themselves severed from the beast in its efforts towards self-preservation.  Those who navigate the calm waters away from the beast will never see the action that the beast’s movements bring to their sea.

Staying informed will help the writer track the beast that is The Market.  Standing firm will help the writer track the limits of what their craft can take in pursuit of the beast.  How much of Jack Sparrow and how much of Captain Ahab you want to be is up to you, the writer.

My first thought was, “Well, that’s a big Duh.”  Followed by, “I write…” and then some silence.  Thick silence.  Silence that had been placed on a strict diet of lard, turkey gravy, and cheetos until it was so thick it needed a triple bypass to even exist.

I realized that making a declaration like that was something that shouldn’t be done lightly.  Uniformly, the advice from more experienced writers, industry professionals, and writing career how-to books has been solidly in the “pick a lane and stay in it” camp.  There are reasons ranging from the marketing-oriented to reader expectation which combine to make a great case for finding a tone and (sub)genre to call your own.  Not to mention playing to your strengths.

But here’s where I came up short.  Alien Communion pretty much wrote itself to a certain extent.  I had so much fun creating the Alcaini and sexually liberating my heroine that the rest just sort of fell into place.  I just finished a draft of a really scorching hot M/M that did the same–I just took dictation from the characters.   And I’m letting my big, sprawling space opera WIP take a breather while I work on something that’s distinctly paranormal in nature.  Not to mention the urban fantasy I have in the archives, or the six romantic comedies I wrote several years back.  Granted, not all of these stories were birthed fully formed from a crack in my head, but they all are representative of me.  Of what makes me a writer.  How do I limit myself to just one aspect of that?

So late on a Saturday night when most people are partying their little bunz off, I’m sitting in bed, blogging and thinking (of course, if I wasn’t blogging and thinking, I’d still be in bed–I have kids and therefore no social life).  I should probably pick a lane, and stay in it…at least long enough to get to the next exit.

What makes a story hot?

I’ve been asking myself that almost since I started writing (bearing in mind that I started writing when I was old enough to pick up a pencil, but didn’t start thinking about heat and sexual tension until I started writing romance with a career in it in mind).  I haven’t been able to articulate a definitive answer, and in digging through my older stories and my current works in progress, I  wonder if I’m any closer to an answer than I was ten years ago.  It seems the correct answer is, like a lot that centers around sex–I’ll know it when I see it.

There seems to be a fluid standard when it comes to heat.  At least for me.  I know, for example, that what turns me on is not always what is hot.  And something that is hot doesn’t always turn me on.  Yes, I know it makes sense in my head.  It’s got everything to do with different senses of heat.  To give you a f’rex – one of the hottest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie wasn’t in Body Heat, or 9 1/2 Weeks, or even the GBS in Basic Instinct, or anything in Boogie Nights.  No.  It was Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn in Terminator.  Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese had been on the run , she was just coming to understand how important she was to the future.  The sexiest moment isn’t filled with the usual pr0n-fare.  The shot is simple.  Two hands, intertwined, on bedsheets.  That image, more than naked, sweaty bodies, or cries of, “Oh, hell yeah, baby!” projected the sensuality of the moment.  I totally bought both the reason they climbed into the sack and the potential for happily-for-now they could have.

And yet, in other movies or books, the whole “holding-hands” thing doesn’t fly.  Even to the point of–if I don’t follow them into the bedroom and know exactly what they’re up to, I feel cheated.  It’s harder to buy the HEA (or the HFN).

The best theory as to why this is that I can come up with is that the sex is part of the relationship.  I know, news from the land of Duh there, huh?  You’d think it would be obvious–and easy.  Because who hasn’t, at some point in their lives, let or wanted to let pure physical lust make their relationship decisions, eh?  And just like the rainbow that is human sexuality, each relationship places its own weight and emphasis on sex.  Some relationships–some characters–have to have their sex lives expressed for me to understand their relationship.  If you are a writer, and you’ve gotten used to the average level of heat you find yourself putting in your stories, have you ever been struck when a character or set of characters in a particular work in progress knock you out of that zone?  It’s surprising to find yourself writing something erotica-level when you formerly wrote light romantic comedies that shut the bedroom door.  Equally surprising is to find yourself comfortably immersed in writing scenes of such frank boldness that they make dockside whores lower their eyes and blush, only to wind up with a sudden broken nose when your characters, in no uncertain terms, slam the bedroom door in your face and against your will.

Oh no.  Oh no.  Oh no they di’in’t.

Oh yes they did.

So why?  And is that where the line between erotica and erotic romance lives?  Or the other line between spicy romance and erotic romance?  Yes, I’m asking you.

I’m not afraid to say that I lovelovelove worldbuilding. I love developing cultures, and spinning out the worldviews that become the lenses through which the characters experience the events of the story. I love threading through the evolution of the strange-to-us becoming the commonplace to the characters. I love exotic situations where the expected is turned on its head. I love making myself, as the author, shift my own worldview to adopt that of the character’s. I’ve always been a fan of the “walk a mile in another’s moccasins” philosophy, and it holds twice the meaning for a character in a world of my own making–I learn not only about the character, but about the world itself.

And the wackier the world, the better. I write futuristics, and I find the thought of a future world that’s pretty much the same as ours, only with more batteries, depressing (even if it is more probable than the ones I come up with). One of the reasons I first started reading SF back when I was a youngling was that the worlds were so exotic. So different and strange, and hella more exciting than living in Mundania, USA. But the books I liked weren’t what appealed to my romance-reading friends. Now I admit, back then we were just as interested in scouring the Johanna Lindseys and Janet Daileys and Penelope Neris (and loads of others) for the smutty parts as we were reading them for their story value (but we did read them eventually. After we’d dog-eared all the love scenes). We read the stories and we all liked the stories of handsome warriors and headstrong women with traitorous bodies betraying them (yes, it was the 80′s and yes, we were teenage girls).

At the same time we were googly over Raistlin Majere. and we all wanted golden Pern dragons of our own to ride. But while most of the other girls in our little gaggle wanted the dragons and the wizards to come here, some of us wanted to go there, wherever “there” happened to be. I spent hours imagining down to the last detail of what it would be like to wake up every morning and go feed a dragon, read a magic spell book, or clump along the corridors of an alien habitat composed entirely of sentient jelly that only responded to commands given in song.

What appeals to you in an SF story – the weirdness of it? The differences between the SF world and the contemporary world? Or the keys of commonality? The similarities?

I realize that everybody’s boundaries are different, and I’m certainly no vanguard when it comes to adventurous sexual themes. But I find myself wondering at a piece of my writing and remembering how much passion I put into it and then realizing when I look at it that, well, it ain’t that new. But I read it, and if I’ve done it properly, when I read it again, I still feel the same heart coming through the writing.

Romance as a genre is partly predicated on the fact that there are certain conventions–reader expectations, so to speak, that need to be present in order to make the story more enjoyable. It creates a conundrum, then, when I look at what I’ve written and it doesn’t seem unsettling. It didn’t make me nervous, or challenge my sense of boundaries…but it made me feel content that those characters were in a better place from where they started out. I put the piece down and I’m happy that the characters have grown into something better, or happier.

But when I read some of that boundary-pushing erotica, I finish the piece without that happy, contented feeling about the characters. Like Story of O. I finished the piece wanting to rewrite the last half of the book to show O discovering mutant superpowers, kicking the boyfriend in the jaw, and burning the Chateau to the ground. And then finding a nice, respectful man who would worship her to settle down with. Or at least, stop being a damn dishrag. Oh, sure, later on, I thought, “Wow, what an amazing commentary on the psychology of submission, and how interesting it is that a person can feel fulfilled by allowing their self-determination to be subsumed by someone else’s desires. And wow, I think I used ‘subsumed’ right but I’m not totally sure. Oh, look–shiny!”

So the question that begs for an answer is this–how do the expectations of romance intersect with the deliberate absence of expectations in erotica? What kind of balance does an author strive for between the emotionally comfortable and the thought-provoking squick?