Back when I was learning to cook, I had an absolute monster file of shortcut recipes for The Poor Student Cook (that would be me). Honestly, I look back, and I don’t know how Hubby and I survived my cooking, which wasn’t so much about actual culinary skill but about embracing the mathematical answer to the question, “How much sodium can one person ingest in one meal?”
Slather chicken with condensed soup? Oh yeah. Slather more chicken with other processed goop? Yup. Save extra goop to put on the Lipton side, which consisted of noodles and sodium? Yeah. I’m embarrassed.
But back before I knew better, that was cooking. And I was so proud to be in my kitchen, my apartment, mine mine mine, that I cooked and cooked and cooked… using processed ingredients and all kinds of narst.
Little did I know, I could have been famous. Do you know Sandra Lee? Creator of the “Semi-Homemade” empire, which those who dislike her call “Semi-Ho?” Her entire schtick is to create “semi-homemade” meals using prepared ingredients that have been scooped, reconstituted, seasoned, and beaten into a shadow of their former sodium-laden selves. The hallmarks of her show are her habit of tilting forward Giada-style into the camera boobs-first, the massive, absolutely happy-hour-worthy cocktail pitcher she’ll make in every episode, and the “tablescape,” which looks like Michael’s Crafts and the Rag Shop did the hunky chunky together and in their moment of passion burst into flame and exploded, kind of like the couple at the end of Like Water For chocolate only much more explodey, and with a mother ton of tschotskes.
There’s a Sandra Lee drinking game, for heaven’s sake. Have a look at Sandra’s alcohol-drenched Christmas tree. From scooping out pre-made pumpkin pies to pouring 90% of a bottle of vodka in a pitcher and splashing it with a tablespoon of Sprite. If you really feel like working out your abs, find Heather Osborn and ask her about Sandra Lee. Lee is hilarious and horrific: hilarious because it cannot possibly be real – and horrific because, oh, yes, it is.
And (alert! Abrupt sort-of change in topic!) that’s kind of how I feel about a lot of the erotic romance on the market right now. I mentioned to Jane recently that the fallout of her turning me on to ebooks and my purchase of the Kindle-ade is that I’m a lot less patient as a reader. Used to be if I was trapped on the bus with one book, and I didn’t like it, I’d keep going because, well, I was trapped on the bus. But with the Kindle-Ade, if I don’t like something, click, click, there’s about fourteen thousand something-else’s I can try. There’s a much smaller window of opportunity to grab me when I know I’ve got a buffet of other books waiting in my hands.
Erotic romance is a tough one with me. This is not because I don’t like explicit sex, but because there are times when the construction of the erotic romance reads like someone took an average plot and brought it over to the Semi-Homemade set for some processed doctoring. Erotic romance, Semi-Homemade style, is a perfectly fine basic narrative, with sodium-heavy, tasteless, partially hydrogenated sex stuffed into every possible orifice, coupled with impossible paranormal backstories that allow any number of coy bestiality hints or what have you.
Look at it like this: imagine your basic contemporary plot. It’s a store bought angel food cake (Sandra Lee LOVES those) and you need to doctor it up for the erotic romance party that’s coming over to your house to gawk and chatter at the Kama Sutra tablescape you constructed with coathangers, some Chinese silk remnants, those web-and-flower-sparkle slippers that everyone wore two years ago, a peace lily, and a bowling ball. What can you do with your angel-food cake plot to make it over-the-top Erotic Romance, the semi-homemade way? Add the following:
Name Brands:
Always stuff as many named brands as possible into your erotic romance. Not only does it show you did your research, but it lends that touch of realism that just can’t be faked. Sure, your hero may have a fourteen foot man-hose, and the heroine might like triple-double penetration (that’s six dudes, two holes) and you’re wondering how that might be choreographed, but one mention of Folger’s crystals and your reader will be transported into a reality that is too, too real, and that makes the absolutely-anatomically-impossible sex that much more possible. And thus, more hotter.
Manwich:
This is a two-part Semi-Homemade improvement. Dump two cans of Manwich on your angel-food cake plot. First, always have a threesome, or a manwich, wherein the heroine gets smushed between two men. It doesn’t matter who the other dude is. He might be an ancillary character. He might be some guy who is glued to the wall in a priapic state who exists merely for the manwich purposes. He might not be a he—he might be a pole in the ground. Doesn’t matter. Not only does the heroine need to take it in the two-hole for it to cross the border into erotic romance, she needs a double-stuffing for that erotic romance to float the boats of today’s discerning crowd.
What, angel food cake and Manwich don’t really go together? Tough. We need manwiches and threesomes galore.
And speaking of men, there’s part two of the Manwhich requirement. If your hero can muse to himself as much as possible using the word “Man,” it adds that certain touch of quality to your erotic romance. Nothing says “man who thinks with his dick” than constant use of the word “man” itself. From Man, her ass was tight inside her jeans, so tight he wondered if he’d be able to pull them off or would he have to get the shoehorn he kept hidden in the bedside table as a backup amorous device? to Man, her boobs jiggle a lot, the erotic romance hero must constantly self-identify to remind himself that he is, in fact, so manfully manly and manhoodly-man-man. Man.
Scent:
Your Brand-name Manwich angel food cake erotic romance plot needs scent. All these alpha predatory male heroes, man, are sniffing up her skirt, scenting her essence, and generally remarking on the whiff eau heroine, man. This is particularly true for paranormals, because it’s not an erotic paranormal romance unless the animal-esque hero ruminates upon the smell of her arousal at least three or four times. Get it? He’s part-animal, that sexy man-beast, and his sense of smell is fourteen thousand times more sensitive than everyone else’s, and so you have no secrets every time you’re hot to trot. There’s nothing more erotic than being turned on and having the dude who turned you on inform you that he could tell each and every time you were turned on in the past four years since you moved into the apartment next door, and what is it about QVC that gets your love honey flowing, anyway? Is it the Quacker Factory?
Love’s Baby Soft:
After you’ve covered your angel food cake plot with Manwich, threesomes, some additional scent, and enough name brand references to choke a shopaholic, there’s just one more thing you need to make a Semi-Homemade Erotic Romance: “baby.”
Ever notice that moments after the erotic romance hero meets his erotic romance heroine, and he’s figured out that between that page and the end of the book he’s gonna get a loooootta tail, he starts calling her “Baby?” It’s part of that whole alpha-male protection thing, and part of the sexy treatment that makes any Semi-Homemade erotic romance such a total treat to read. If he’s not remarking to himself, man, he’s calling the newly-met heroine “Baby,” regardless of whether she’s older than he is, or whether she might even like the reduction of power inherent in a diminutive nickname. Maybe she has a name, but after she meets him, it’s “Baby.” And you can bet your sweet bippy he’ll be putting baby in the corner, over the banister, in the back yard, up the wall, in the shower, and on the kitchen table.
Now that you’ve put your personal Semi-Homemade touch on a basic romance plot, and used 30% fresh ingredients to make that narrative your own, it’s time to shop it around for sale. This is when the Kama Sutra/Bowling League tablescape will come (ha!) in handy: invite all the erotic romance editors whose names you can find online over to your house for a Semi-Homemade erotic romance party.
But don’t forget the cocktails that are at least 85% alcohol. They’ll need at least three.
Remember, keep it simple, keep it smelly, keep it sexy, but always keep it Semi-Homemade Erotic Romance.
where does erotic romance fall between the two? Any thoughts or opinions would be welcome.
As you said: between the two. Ideally, both the romance and the sex scenes are tightly woven into the story. Some erotic romance is more successful as erotica, some as romance. Or neither: sometimes a hybrid genre bellyflops.
It’s probably similar to what you called romance with hardcore sex. Though in my experience, in erotic romance you might find more books that bend the genre’s rules—e.g. some erotic romance publishers are looser about requiring a happily-ever-after, or a HEA between *two* people, or a man and a woman. (Though obviously I haven’t read everything; I’ve never run across a can of Folger’s in a sex scene!)
Gawd, I’m so glad I’m not the only one who finds her annoying as hell.
I don’t consider anything she does worthy of a film crew. But there’s something stepfordwifey about her that drives me absolutely buggy.
I’m starting to wish publishers would disclose a book’s editor on its buy-page. Not only would that make it easier to find books I might like (once I decide an editor has tastes that match mine) but it would help me weed out books with atrocious typos and obvious grammatical errors—that sometimes occur on EVERY EFFING PAGE, and which never fail to drag me kicking and screaming right out of a story—before I buy them.
Sherry Thomas said:
I’m writing a m/m/f right now, and I’m not even planning a manwich scene. (At least, not one with girl filling, hehe.) They just don’t do a lot for me, even vicariously speaking *ahem*.
Sarah, I have noticed many of your gripes apply only to contemp and paranormal, neither of which I write, or particularly enjoy reading. I’m curious, have you read much historical or traditional fantasy erotic romance?
If you want good, plot-driven erotica, try Charlene Teglia. If you want good erotic romance (historical) try Robin Schone.
Other than that, all I can say is that this column was truly spew-worthy! Thanks for the best laugh I’ve had in days.
Oh baby—I’m swearing off of angel food and Manwich sauce for life! (ROFLMFAO!)
But not erotica. Because somewhere out there—and you know’em when you find’em, there are authors that write characters and plot, and that recognize that sex is part of fully developed characters, and then you’ll be reading and reading “and you’ll realize suddenly that you’re not reading for character development or to further the plot, you’re reading for the “Oooooooooh.” “
(I quoted a friend of mine for that last part—but it was a good quote, and I couldn’t let it exist in the obscurity of my e-mail.)
Anyway—I know exactly what you mean, but I will remain ever hopeful. Some characters just stick with you. Some threesomes are real. Some mansexin just gets a girl right…well, wherever you’re imagine me pointing, that’s where it gets a girl. You just hold on and hope you find the right ones, that’s why. (Sort of like dating, but with your Kindle!)
Damn European time zones, I’m always late to reply, but will anyway. Actually, I have questions for those who’ve been in the romance community longer than I have. Bear with me, it’s early and my head, it is all explody, as Scalzi says.
What I’ve been reading about erotic romance in this thread reminds me of what I used to think of romance as a whole. Thin plots barely able to hold the story, romance for the sake of romance because there has to be a lot of it to qualify, improbable and infuriating characters, etc. Replace manwich with clinch, were/vamp with sheik/pirate, sex with sexual tension. It’s like some in the science fiction/fantasy (SF/F) community getting worked up over the difference in “hard†SF, space opera, “soft†SF, etc. I think you have to be *in* the genre to even recognize the sometimes subtle differences. So to me, only those within romance can even appreciate (or not) the standard parameters in erotic romance. To me, it’s all the same, it’s all under the big umbrella of romance, except with more sex than some other stories.
When I started writing romance not that long ago, I didn’t know much about it. Still don’t. I learn every day. Yay for the SB! But I’ll tell you what, it’s helluva much larger inside than how it appears on the outside! And I love it! For example, my first romance novel? I killed the hero at the end. Good thing I had an experienced romance author revise my manuscript before I sent it to publishing houses. She told me “Dude, you can’t kill your hero in a romance!†I said, shocked “Dude?†To which she replied, sagely “Dude.†I learned about the expectations of a happy ever after from the part of romance readers, that you can’t, as author R.A. Salvatore tends to do (damn him, I love him), kill the main dude. The couple/trio/baker’s dozen, finish together in the end. And you know, it makes sense.
Another example of how someone outside the genre wouldn’t know the difference between an erotic romance and a romance (if there’s one). When I won an RT award this spring and made a complete moron of myself getting up on-stage (afterward SB Sarah came over to hug me and didn’t even laugh, bless her), I called all my SF/F writing buddies and let my inner Chihuahua take complete control. After a while, one of the guys asked me “What’s RT?†For a second, I was “But! But! RT, man, Ahrr-Tee!!!†Much linkage from me to them ensued, this site/blog first and foremost. Now they know.
So my questions become: what does it matter if a book is classified romance, erotic romance, whatever? I know there has to be some sort of shelving aides. I don’t want to spend 2 hours looking for stuff that’s in alphabetical order only (although a place I know is like that and I’ve discovered quite a few authors new-to-me). But that’s what titles, covers, and especially blurbs are for (even blurbs that don’t work well, they still tell you if it’s a mystery, SF/F, horror and so on). But why all these “warnings†and ratings on romance books? If it’s a romance, you *know* the couple/trio/baker’s dozen will end up together. Why is it so important *how* they’ll get there? Isn’t that why we read in the first place, to get a ride, get a rush, experience something new to us?
As far as I’m concerned, when a story sucks, it’s the author’s fault. Not the genre, sub-genre, editor, publisher or the neighbor’s dog for barking all night. When a book sucks, I think *that* author, in *that* particular book, fucked up. Simply not my taste. If I read another book by that same author and it still doesn’t make my inner Chihuahua chase her tail with savage glee, then that’s it for that author. But I’ll keep reading in the genre no matter how much French poodle ass some of the books suck.
Damn, I’ve never posted such a long comment anywhere before. I’ll go back to lurking now. Before I go, the SB, they rock!
she is still in horror.
Which is not entirely inappropriate, given the quality of the sex scenes.
This is a really interesting discussion to read for me.
I do my romance/porn reading for free on the net, in a fandom which has a lot of quality writing. And there’s really no distinction at all there between romance and erotica as different genres. There are just stories with more or less sex in them. Some people, but by no means all, will label their stories with NC-17 or similar, to point out the explicit ones, but there’s no conceptual divide. A lot of authors write both explicit and non-explicit stories, and I’d say that most readers don’t have a very strong preference for one or the other either. Which of course means that if you do like a lot of sex in your stories, or you don’t, there’s really no way of finding appropriate stories other than to follow particular authors or get recs.
It’s very interesting to see a different way of doing it. I’m trying to imagine how my popslash webpage, or other people’s web pages, would look divided up into romance or erotica genres. I think I’d find it pretty difficult, as there are a lot which would fall into a grey area (lots of plot and romance, but also very explicit).
Cool.
If you can skip over the sex in an erotic romance then a) it must be bad sex, and b) I’m not surprised it only takes 14 minutes. Because the point of an erotic romance is that the sex is part of the romance. It’s not erotica—sex with no romance—and it sure as hell isn’t porn (sex with no plot).
Think of a good romantic historical, or romantic suspense. If you took out historical frocks and carriages, or the mystery/suspense elements, would that romance still exist? If the answer is yes, then the historical or suspense parts of the story are entirely gratuitous.
The same goes with erotic romance. The sex should never be gratuitous, it should be part of the story and the developing romance. Otherwise it’s just there to titivate.
As for threesomes, I’m constantly being begged by my editor for more. They sell. My biggest sales have been with ménage titles. But I don’t do a lot of them, for exactly the reasons Sarah mentioned. I’m writing a romance, and as Charles and Diana could have told you, three is not a romantic number. So I’ve got to try and think of a way these three people are going to work together, in the long or short term. Is the third party just there for funsies? Does he strengthen the relationship of the original couple (incidentally, check out Cris Anson’s A Third Party for a great example of a couple +1). Or can you see these three people actually making a life together?
Calling a romantic partner ‘baby’ makes me feel icky. It’s infantilising someone you’re having sex with. Ew. I remember giggling over this very endearment with friends when I was a teenager. It was one of the things that was so terrible about the romances we read.
Scent in erotic romances. Well, if you’re writing werewolves, scent is important. Ask your dog. But I’m not a huge fan of it otherwise (the whole ‘scent of her arousal’ thing just makes me reel slightly queasy). In my first book I had one character tell her werewolf buddy that going around sniffing people was kind of gross.
And brand names? Let me finish my Diet Coke and I’ll get back to you.
That’s an excellent point, Ms. Manna. Since you mentioned popslash, I don’t think we’re in the same fandom, but all of the fandoms I’ve read have not only had this lack of a divide, but even the PWP stories (Porn Without Plot or “Plot? What Plot?”) use the sex scenes to explore the characters. How those characters behave during sex, what they say and do, is used to illuminate their thoughts, etc., just like in a non-sex scene.
Perhaps that’s what I liked so much about Fairyville and Broken: the sense that I was learning about the characters even though they were “just” having sex. *ponders*
Yes, the divisions are primarily about marketing/shelving.
I don’t think that’s universal. It sounds like I read like you—I want an adventure with the *author* in control, even if it goes somewhere I’m not sure I like. And if the author convinces me I like it after all, that’s the best read of all.
However, manymany readers don’t like surprises. The more specific the blurbs, the better; the more solid the expectation of the happy ending, the better. It’s a whole different style of selecting books.
I can’t say I like *all* surprises—I do skim blurbs and first chapters before I buy! But I don’t read blurbs—or reviews—that are heavy on plot. Apart from not wanting to know it all ahead of time, I’m more interested in the writing style, the atmosphere, and the subject matter.
Then you’re reading bad ones. Like any genre.
You know, I’d never seen it that way. It’s true that you do feel it when the author is taking you on a ride in which s/he is in complete control. Conversely, you can smell it a mile away when s/he is not. Regardless of the outcome or the journey there, if you trust the author, then that’s going to be a good story even if it took you places you wouldn’t have gone yourself.
I do skim first chapters too, to make sure that reading a couple of lines of that author’s “voice” won’t make me want to gnaw my arm off. But the thought of having warnings and ratings on romance books makes me scratch my head. What next? Warning people about every instance of coarse language and the exact nature of the conflict so people will know what to expect? I’m just worried books will become “pre-chewed” (that’s a nice image for you) for the readers.
A bad book is a bad book, not a bad genre.
Actually, warnings kind of make sense to me. Lord knows I’ve seen so many Amazon (and other) ‘reviews’ boil down to something like ‘OMG this book had SEX in it!’ or ‘OMG this book had KINKY sex in it!’ The fact is that a lot of people are very specific about the kinds of sex they do (or don’t) feel comfortable reading about… sometimes because of simple preference, sometimes because of prudishness or religious beliefs, and sometimes because of particularly bad past experiences. I think those people should be able to pick a book that will suit their needs. It’s easy enough to just not read those warnings if they’re present and you don’t need them, but it’s a lot harder for readers with certain hangups if they aren’t present. That’s why I always try to give at least some basic idea of whether explicit sex is present in a book I review, and I also tend to mention if it’s something more than plain vanilla, although I don’t go into detail.
Thanks to whichever of you mentioned Pat’s Murphy’s book NADYA. I’d never heard of it, but I remember having read and enjoyed her space opera riff on THE HOBBIT, so I just popped over to Amazon and ordered copies of both of those books.
I’ve managed to steer clear of Sandra Lee, although sadly haven’t avoided erotic romances that are the printed equivalent of her horrors. I’ll gladly sit through hours of her craziness if someone will promise me I won’t be subjected to any more “I can smell you a mile away, baby, and now let’s play dog pile on the wabbit with all the other guys in the pack.”
Not just sex: many readers want to know if one of the characters has a particular occupation, or kids, or some physical trait—height, race, weight (e.g. the recent post here looking for plus-size heroines).
That may be a down side of blurbs serving as warnings. They’re great for finding (or avoiding) something specific, but I think they can also encourage us to be pickier readers. It gets easy to dismiss a book that doesn’t exactly meet your specs, even if it’s a great story you might enjoy. I’ve sometimes avoided an author for years because of a preconception, but later realized I’d been missing out needlessly.
subgenres, warnings, etc – one of the things about porn is you can walk into your neighborhood porn store and say “I want vanilla het threesomes, no ass-to-mouth, no violence.” and they will say “Aisle 3 for all-white, Aisle 4 everybody else, interracial on the endcap.”
For some reason, romance publishers aren’t willing to be that clear on what they’re packaging. So, seriously, Katie Fforde and Emma Holly get the exact same packaging. It can make it hard to find what you’re looking for – or, worse, to avoid things you hate.
If you look at some of the romance review sites, there are a lot of people with very specific dislikes. It can be anything from “Nothing explicit because I share books with my middle school kids” to “rape scenes give me nightmares” to “there’s nothing romantic about infidelity”. That’s what the labeling is about.
And I do think it’s different than the SF/fantasy subgenre distinctions, because sex & love is more highly charged than most anything else. Lois Bujold has said that she deliberately *under*emphasizes the sex scenes in her books, because they’re implicitly “louder” than other scenes to people. I think she’s right.
snort.
And my biggest fear is that they may someday do. Nice, little books pre-chewed for us in nice, little bites.
Pardon the cynicism, can’t help myself.
I had never heard of semi-ho. Now I’m hooked.
There is a place for sozzled cooking show hosts. I used to watch the old Graham Kerr show—Galloping Gormet (circa 1970). He very liberally splashed the wine around and featured such gastronomical wonders (to an appalachian high school kid) as spotted dick—a reference to a std acquired by Richard Whittington in 1407?