The Secret to Erotic Romance – The Erotic Premise

I’ve been writing erotic romance from the very beginning of the genre—1995, in Volume 1 of Secrets from Red Sage Publishing. By happy mistake, I learned from the start that for a story to have that extra sexual edge that puts it over the boundary from hot into super-sensual, it must be about sex in a way other stories aren’t. In other words, the very premise of the story and/or the plot centers on sex.

I stumbled on what I thought was a luscious idea—a male sex slave. I called him a lady’s handsome man, and his only function in life was to satisfy the daughter of the noble house in which he served. Obviously, this was a fantasy story. He’d escaped from his master and was on the run. Whose cabin should he stumble into? A priestess who’d fallen from grace by having a sexual liaison with her mentor.

Given the tension between this couple, the story was about sex, even when they weren’t actually engaged in the act. The man, who’d spent his life learning how to satisfy a woman, was sex in a basic way.

I often judge writing contests, and I’ve found that some authors think all they have to do is create a story and put a lot of sex in it. In my experience, that doesn’t work. A general test for whether or not you have a sexy premise is to try to imagine the story as a sweet romance. If you could take the sex out of it and still write the story, you don’t have an erotic story.

For comparison purposes, let’s think of a few premises and see which ones are sexy.
Story 1: A woman needs a fake fiancé for a weekend at a friend’s wedding.
Story 2: A woman needs a fake fiancé for an “explore your sexuality” weekend.
Story 3: A man wants to win back his ex-wife, knowing that he was the only man who could satisfy her in bed.
Story 4: A man wants to win back his ex-wife by using his company’s latest acquisition, the exclusive fantasy sex club she’s been attending.
Story 5: A woman is trapped in a snow storm in a mountain cabin with a man she’s always been attracted to. Story 6: A woman is trapped in a snow storm in a mountain cabin with a man who offers her the opportunity to act out all her sexual fantasies.

I think you can see that the even numbered stories maintain a sexual tension throughout the pages. Virtually every moment is going to be sexually charged.

As an exercise, try to think up some sexy premises. You’ll find a treasure trove of story ideas.

By the way, I wrote Story 4. It’s called Cox Club, and it’s out now in Secrets, Volume 30 from Red Sage. Here’s an excerpt:

Blake Crawford went from the back entrance of Cox Club up the narrow stairs to the control room. If an employee—now a former employee—hadn’t acquired a place like this, he would have never set foot in it at all. He sure as hell wasn’t going to risk any of the patrons or staff recognizing him and alerting the media that Crawford Hotels and Entertainment, Inc. owned a sex club, even one as exclusive as this one.

A small man with a balding head and a bit of a paunch over the belt of his slacks greeted him at the top of the stairs, extending his hand. “You the new owner?”

Blake shook. “Temporarily.”

“Don’t know why Becker sold. This place practically mints money,” the man said. “I’m Howard, by the way.”

“Blake Crawford.”

“I recognized you. Come on in.”

The man led Blake into a dimly lit room full of control panels and video screens like the ones used in high-tech security. One showed the front of the building and another the dance floor. Various other monitors captured more remote corners of the club.

“You tape your customers?” he asked.

“We don’t tape anyone, but we watch.”

“In God’s name, why?”

Howard laughed. “You’re the first guy ever to ask that. Everyone else just volunteers.”

“Seriously, don’t the customers complain?”
Read the rest of this entry »

Psst! Be sure to check out today’s blog at Girls Who Bite! C.J. Ellison is donating two copies of both books in The V V Inn series to two commenters today!

In the meantime… Yup, I have a short story in The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance, which releases today in the U.S.! It’s entitled “Hot Out Here”—and the only way you’ll get to read it is if you happen to beg, borrow, or buy your very own copy. Enjoy the excerpt!

Beads of condensation, glittering jewel-like in the sputtering candlelight, ran in rivulets down the sides of Jason’s ice-cold beer.

Detail I shouldn’t have been able to note, given the fact I wasn’t anywhere near him.

As I lowered my nephew’s toy binoculars, I reflected that I had indeed sunk to a new low. You see, my bedroom window conveniently overlooked Jason and Robert’s fenced backyard. A fact that never registered with the previous tenants, but one that proved too delicious to ignore after the arrival of the handsome duo.

I began a furtive surveillance at once. One that had me cringing in embarrassment each time I greeted them in passing and feeling even more ashamed when we struck up a friendship.

We’d shared meals, drinks, watched football games together on their wide-screen TV. And still, I peeked into their backyard, waiting for those moments when they popped outside to mow it or catch a few summer rays. Their bodies gleamed with sweat while raw lust warred inside me along with the fear that I’d mess up our relationship if I let the guys know how I really felt.

My convenient perch on the windowsill afforded me a window into their private lives, and I was hooked from the very beginning. They’d become an obsession, one frustrated by the fact they treated me like a kid sister rather than a woman one of them might desire.

And therein lay another problem. I’d resisted the urge to seek a deeper relationship because then I’d have to choose. My libido was completely fickle, lusting after Jason’s muscled physique, then sighing over the possibilities of what Robert’s tall, bony frame and large feet hinted at. That their personalities were perfect bookends, fierce and funny, confused my heart as well.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m busy unpacking from this past weekend’s trip to Memphis. I have pictures, but they’re still in the camera. I hope to get to those this week, but I’m also gearing up for one last trip this coming weekend. I’m heading to Oklahoma City for a ranch rodeo. More about that later!

A reminder: Tomorrow, The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance releases, officially, here in The States! It’s one of those huge compilations with tons of A-list authors. I have a story, Hot Out Here, that’s a sexy, contemporary menage. Just sayin’…

The Little Lizard Boy contest continues. Next week when this one winds down, I have some Elvis memorabilia to share. So stay tuned!

In the meantime, I have a lot of catching up to do. Lord, it’s good to be back home! ~DD

Politically Incorrect?

Normally, erotic romance authors don’t worry about being politically incorrect—that’s what we are, by nature. But there are some lines most of us are very hesitant to cross.

I don’t mean only the taboos our publishers mention—the icky and very politically questionable topics that make me cringe whenever they cross my kinky mind—but also those we shy away from for fear of angering some of our readers.

Michele Obama can decry obesity all she wants, and nobody cares except the kids in school who don’t much care for healthy foods in the cafeteria—at least not much. The subject, though, is not one you often see in erotic romances, at least not from the angle that the First Lady attacks it—as a health issue rather than one of aesthetics, sexual attractiveness and so on.

The big, beautiful Domme I had sketched out in my mind for hot, submissive linebacker, Matt Rubin, in PRIME DEFENDER, took on a different shape in my mind when my daughter’s high school friend died this spring from complications of morbid obesity. After that, I couldn’t not give Keisha a similar problem—but with a happy ending.

I’m sure there will be some readers who’ll be offended that Keisha went from being a really big beautiful woman to one who’s still big by most standards, but healthy with a bright future dominating her hot, submissive husband and lover. I don’t care. If one reader realizes the stress that being overweight can place on a human body and uses that knowledge to help herself or a loved one, it will be worth it.

PRIME DEFENDER is scheduled for release September 2 at Ellora’s Cave. I’m hoping most readers will enjoy the “different” take on “rubenesque” along with the steamy, BDSM love story.

Ann Jacobs

The Little Lizard Boy contest continues.
Every comment here and on my Facebook page counts as an entry!

SEXY, HAWT, SCORCHING, FILTHY, AND OMG!
THAT’S JUST PORN!

It’s a matter of personal tastes, isn’t it? Of boundaries, imagination, inhibitions or the lack thereof. One person’s sexy romance novel is another’s scorching hot read. One reader’s erotic is another reader’s filthy, and one reader’s filthy is another reader’s Oh My God! This is just pornographic!

If you’re my mother, anything after chaste kisses but before third base is filthy. Third base and beyond is porn.
It’s all subjective.

I was thinking about this recently as I was proofreading a book for one of my co-bloggers. Juniper Bell writes in a number of genres, under a number of pen names. She has an historical series coming out with Avon soon. But she also writes great erotic romance. She just got the rights back for her first book, a very hot erotic, and she’s going to self-publish it.

I loved the story—well-rounded characters, logical plot, wonderfully smooth, evocative language. And the sex!!! Hoo boy. I tweeted that I was proofing a durty, durty book. Juniper replied that it’s not that dirty—she’s written much dirtier than that. I was like, Really? Dirtier than the rec room scene? The rest of our co-bloggers (we’re the Nine Naughty Novelists just in case you want to, you know, check us out) got a kick out of that. I have an aversion to buttsecks, which always makes them laugh.

[By the way, I think I’ve finally figured out the difference between hot romance, erotic romance and erotica. If the H&H have durty, durty sex before knowing each other’s full names, and they wind up with an HEA, it’s erotic romance. If there’s no HEA, it’s erotica. You’re welcome.)

Now, I write graphic sex, but my stuff’s not as hot as Juniper’s. And although I haven’t read a lot of Delilah’s stuff (I’ve read a few titles—my sister-in-law has read nearly everything La Devlin’s written), I think Delilah’s stuff is hotter than Juniper’s. When people I know say they want to read my books, I always warn them about the graphic sex because, for people who never read romance, it might be surprising. But as far as hot romance goes, my books are not at all shocking—monogamous, hetero sex with an HEA. Pretty darned vanilla.

My mother told me this week that my books and my website are nasty, and she wishes she’d never read them. I wish she’d never read my stuff, too. I reminded her that I’ve told her, since the day I sold my first book, that she shouldn’t read it. Mom thinks oral sex is on the outer limits of human sexual perversity and that it was invented by hippies in 1968. So, no, she shouldn’t read my stuff. Unsurprisingly (if you knew my mom), she wouldn’t listen and now she’s been horrified and appalled and nauseated and honestly, it’s not my fault. (Mom was considered prude by her contemporaries back in the fifties. She didn’t like Elvis. She didn’t like Elvis.)

I will admit to being embarrassed when certain people read my stuff. Not ashamed—just embarrassed. I’m not ashamed that I have sex with my husband, but I’d be embarrassed to discuss details of it with people at church or my daughter’s school. I absolutely can’t imagine people at my church knowing about my books. More and more folks at Diva’s school know about my alter ego and so far, there have been no crowds or pitch forks.

My sister-in-law—the one who reads all of Delilah’s stuff—says that if she could write, and her books got published, she’d be so proud she’d tell everyone, including clergy and old people. I wish I could be that open and unconcerned with other peoples’ opinions.

On the other hand, when I told my mom how much I’ve earned in royalties this year, she immediately quit complaining about my shameful career as a pornographer. My mom is the most practical prude you’ll ever meet. Me, I’m just thrilled that people like my stuff enough to pay to read it, and that werewolf lovin’ is helping my family get through a very lean period.

What’s all this got to do with werewolves? Nothing. The following excerpt isn’t even a love scene. Oh well—I promise you, there’s a great sex scene in Ready to Run. But it’s not Juniper or Delilah hot.
And that’s okay. It’s all subjective.

Kinsey Holley is the pen name of a sweet middle-aged Catholic lady in Houston, Texas. She lives at www.kinseyholley.com and Nine Naughty Novelists. She spends way too much time on Twitter, and she loves to get email at kinseyholley@gmail.com.

And she’s seriously considering writing a BDSM story. She’s just not sure she’d have the guts to publish it. Maybe she needs a new pen name…

Ready to Run is the latest book in her Werewolves in Love series.
 
Sometimes a girl’s gotta save herself.

A Werewolves in Love story.

Sara Hedges had planned to escape the backwater, bigoted town of Luxor, Texas on the wings of a college degree—not on the back of a Harley, riding for her life.

Just a couple months shy of loading up her Miata, however, betrayal bares its ugly fangs. Her scumbag uncle has sold her to a pack of werewolves willing to pay any price for her special bloodline and it looks like there’s no way out. She never expected the new-in-town, sex-on-a-stick loner to come riding to her rescue. Or to discover he’s a werewolf, too. A good one…with one too many secrets.

Bryan Keeton waited two months deep undercover for the chance to get his hands on one of the gangster Eurowolves wreaking havoc across the South. After calling in the FBI to blow the lid off Luxor, he’d planned to leave town before he did something he might regret—like get involved with the suspect’s niece.
But Sara makes him stupid. And now they’re on the run from the Feds, who aren’t interested in her innocence, and from the wolves who want her for their own personal squeaky toy…

Warning: This story includes an undercover alpha with a sexy Texan drawl, a heroine with a dangerous secret, a ring of wolves willing to pay just about anything to own her, and a small town that needs to learn a little something about tolerance.

Read the rest of this entry »

Writing Good Sex

As an erotica author, I’m asked so many times where I get my inspiration from. I have to be honest, much of what I write comes from experience. Now before you all gasp and I’m labelled something I’m not (I’ve been the same man since I was twenty-one) I have had good sex. I’m talking all kinds; passionate, dirty, with a vast range of toys and other funs things going on.

There are some things I haven’t experienced. I’ve not had any forays into any lesbian encounters but in those situations, I’ve got a pretty decent imagination, and hell, haven’t we all fantasized?

So when I’m writing, I definitely use my own personal experiences to help describe the sex in my books. And writing good sex is all about the description. The reader wants to be taken along with every last lick and suck and nibble. They want to feel exactly what the characters are feeling and, by reading, experience the range of sensations and emotions for themselves.

When I first started writing erotica, I never imagined it would be of benefit in my regular writing (I also write paranormal fiction) but it definitely has. I’m so much more aware now of how I’m conveying the senses of my characters to my readers. I now consciously think about every sense; the taste of salt on someone’s skin, the musky scent of a woman’s arousal, the hard ridge of muscle on a man’s stomach. In erotica, we want details. We want to know everything the character is experiencing.

Here is a “no-no” when it comes to writing erotica. Never, ever finish a really hot sex scene with “and then he/she came…” Just like real sex, it’s all about the big “O”. The reader wants to experience every toe-curling, body shuddering, last delightful thrust of it. The orgasm is the turning point in the story, the moment when the couple (or more) go from that height of excitement into whatever relationship they’ll have going forward.

I read a discussion recently about whether a virgin would be able to write good erotica. Surely, like many other things an author may write about (sci-fi authors describing going into space/horror authors describing being eaten by zombies/historical authors describing living in the 1800’s) just because they haven’t actually done any of it, doesn’t mean they should be any less good at writing about it. It’s a good argument but it’s one I would have to disagree with. Writing erotica is all about the sensations and if it’s a feeling you’ve never experienced properly (or at all!) how can you properly convey it to others?

Sure, the type of sex we want to read about might not be quite what we’re used to experiencing—the setting is bound to be sexier, the characters are going to be hotter (no beer bellies or saggy bits please!) but that doesn’t mean we can’t add a little of our own experiences to our tales.

So here’s what I think, to all those would-be erotica authors out there. Want to write about toys or anal, then why not give it a go first? After all, there is no better research than experiencing something for yourself and if you want to write about it, why the hell not have a bit of fun at the same time!

M.K. Elliott was born in Devon, England, where she now lives with her husband , two young daughters, a mad Spanish rescued dog and four hens. Though she has a degree in Zoology, her true love has always been writing and she now works as a full time author. M.K. writes everything from contemporary romance to steaming hot erotica, and her love of travel and adventure is her main influence in her stories.

M.K. is the author of the Barnes & Noble best-selling collection, Rescued. She’s also had a number of titles in the Amazon top 100 for erotica, including Rescued, Some Love it Hot, and her bi-sexual vampire novella, Deadly Beauty. Her latest short story collection, Some Love it Rough is now available to buy from Amazon.com.

You can find out more about M.K. by visiting her Facebook page or by following her on Twitter.

Remember, the Little Lizard Boy contest continues.
Every comment here and on my Facebook page counts as an entry!

A reminder to all you writers out there! Submissions for Cleis Press’s The Cowboy will close at the end of this month! Details regarding the guidelines can be found here: Submission Guidelines

For the rest of you, I’m heading to Memphis tomorrow and have guest bloggers lined up to keep you entertained. Be sure to drop by and say hello!

Friday—Marissa Elliott
Saturday—Kinsey Holley
Sunday—Ann Jacobs

Now, I know you want to find something to say today so you’re entered in that FABOO contest, I’ll pose a question…

Which punctuation mark would best describe your personality?