Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Romance vs. Erotica & Excerpt

I finished and submitted chapters for Venus School and Submission yesterday, which made me very happy, although the chapter for Venus School was a little bit shorter than I might have liked. It made me realize that my focus has definitely changed from the sex to the plot, and I need to focus more on the latter because the sex is just an interlude... so the next chapter is going to be a little bit longer and get right to the important stuff... the menage class! ;)

Writing for Lit is so interesting because I feel a lot of pressure to have some kind of sex in every single chapter that I post. It's what usually ends up the chapter - going out with a bang as it were. But it means that the plot and character development often get pushed aside for what I see as the point of erotica: the sex.  Romances are different, to me, they have more plot and build up and eventually there's sex but usually not until several chapters into the book at the very least, and there's always more plot than sex.  Erotica has more sex than plot.

Which is why, in my opinion, Shades of Grey is more of a romance than erotica... it just barely has more plot than sex. Although it toes the line.

I write mostly erotica. Lots of sex, little bit less plot, and very detailed descriptions of everything that's happening. Oh, and I use dirty words ;) Woot! However, I am starting to try and make the foray over into more of what I consider romance, especially with the efforts I'm putting out on Kindle. Poker Loser in particular has been interesting to re-write because the further into re-writing the story I've gotten, the more the characters have changed. I think it's making for a better, fuller story and I'm looking forward to putting it out... I'm about 90% finished and hope to have it out on Kindle by next week.

So because of that... here's another teaser excerpt:

Although Allison spent almost her entire Thursday afternoon hanging around the library, until she absolutely had to go home or be late for family dinner, there was no sign of Todd. She’d hoped that he might show up and give her an excuse to see him before Friday but he was nowhere to be seen.  In fact, he hadn’t been outside the gym when she’d walked by earlier either.
It was rather disheartening to think that he might be avoiding her.  But, she reassured herself, she was probably over thinking things. Assuming that he wasn’t outside the gym because he was staying away from her seemed incredibly self-centered.  The fundraiser that he was working on was coming up in a few weeks, right before the end of the school year. So promoting it and trying to meet the new goals that had been set was probably keeping him really busy.
And it was absolutely ridiculous to feel disappointed about not seeing him.
Dinner with her parents that night dragged. They were obsessing over a backyard pool party that her dad was having for his clients on Saturday afternoon.  Allison hated the yearly event, although she was required to attend and be a good hostess. Her father’s lecherous old clients always enjoyed a good gawk at her in a bikini. It was the only day of the year that she didn’t feel comfortable swimming. 
The upside was that, stuck in full planning mode, her parents were basically ignoring her.  There weren’t a lot of details to be planned, since the same basic format for the party was followed every year, but a few days before the party her parents would always go into a frenzy, as if something major had changed last minute.  So Allison was able to eat as quickly as possible, occasionally adding a meaningless comment or opinion when her parents would ask about the appetizers they were planning on serving, the arrangement of the dessert table or whether or not they should cancel their usual string quartet and update to a DJ.
Allison wasn’t in the mood to focus on these discussions, although usually they were what she enjoyed most about the event. Normally she would sit with her parents and banter, arguing back and forth about the pros and cons of changing things, before everyone decided to keep things as is.  She didn’t want things as is anymore.
Her focus was all on the next day and her upcoming 'date' with Todd.

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