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Romance Author Roundtable
6.
AOTW: Which do you think readers prefer, the more erotic/graphic romance or the old-fashioned romance that leaves most everything to the imagination? Has this changed over the years?
Judith McNaught: On this subject, I'm only fairly certain of three things: (1) Every reader has a definite, frequently adamant, opinion and their opinions span the entire gamut. (2) The long, graphically sexual scenes, that used to captivate and startle readers --- including me --- have now lost their novelty. Our genre has pushed that envelope so far, for so long, and in so many books, that a fairly large contingent of readers are finding those same scenes boring, predictable, and even annoying. (3) As a writer, none of this should ever influence how or what I write. It's my goal, and my responsibility, to produce the best book I'm capable of writing. I let the story, and the characters, and my knowledge of my own strengths and weaknesses, determine how best to accomplish that.
Candace Camp: Are there still romances that leave most everything to the imagination? No doubt there are people who don't like erotic love scenes in a book, but I don't think they're in the majority. I think romance readers like a certain level of eroticism. However, I think that readers don't like erotic scenes that are distasteful or gross or too graphic. They don't want porn.
Christina Skye: I think there are readers for both types. That's the wonderful thing about the state of the romance market today: readers can find some of everything. There are so many strong writers doing so many fresh, unusual things today. No one is dictating length or style of romantic encounters, and that is wonderful. But in the end, my sense is that romance readers all want one thing --- emotional intimacy. All the physical grappling and heavy breathing in the world can't come close to the power of emotional barriers being broken between two strong people. I love that moment!
Brenda Novak: I don't think there's one simple answer to this. Among tried and true, veteran romance readers, I think the pendulum has swung pretty far toward the explicit. But I think readers new to the genre might be put off by such graphic scenes. I write what I prefer to read, what I consider tasteful love scenes that are emotionally gratifying.
Julia Quinn: I think most readers prefer something in the middle. As a reader, I prefer books with love scenes over those without, but not when the love scenes feel as if they are just pasted in. As a writer, my motto is that every love scene ought to move the story forward, whether it is in terms of plot or characterization or whatever.
Kerrelyn Sparks: I think there will always be a market for the sweet traditional or Regency romances, but the popularity of those is declining. If you look at the most popular, best-selling romances, you will find graphic sex. I believe the majority of readers have come to expect it and will feel cheated if the book doesn't deliver. This is, indeed, a change from the Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt romances that I grew up reading. Not only has the bedroom door been blown wide open, but the male point of view has also been included.
Mary Lynn Baxter: I think readers want it both ways. Some like 'em hot and some don't. That hasn't changed. But I think every reader wants a good story first with sex as the icing on the cake, so to speak.
Jo Beverley: All readers are different. Certainly there are a lot more explicit sex scenes in romances now than there were, say, forty years ago, and that indicates that most readers like them. I don't think it's so much a matter of imagination, because reading any novel demands that the reader participate by using her imagination, but of wanting sexuality to be treated as honestly as other parts or the characters' lives.
Why depict a fight and not sex? Why show a killing and not consummation? Why stop at the kiss, or as they slip into bed? It's certainly not true that all love scenes are the same, or we all know what happens. Anything can happen, including nothing.
In a good romance, the reader has participated in these people's lives through many incidents and adventures. They may have been there as they were beaten, or as they killed, or as they underwent painful medical treatments or grievous losses, but now, at a deeply important moment, the reader is shut out? Once readers have been included in love scenes they seem to feel the exclusion as unsatisfactory, or even as an affront.
Barbara Samuel: I think this depends entirely upon the reader --- but I'd guess most of them fall somewhere in the middle of the scale, as most writers do.
Gaelen Foley: I think there are two different sets of readers for each type of book. One group wants their books the hotter the better, and a book without explicit love scenes will be a wallbanger for them. The other group frowns on explicit love scenes and either skips them or only chooses authors known for writing "sweeter" books.
But, as an aside, I'm not sure the word "old-fashioned" describes the "sweet" books. In actuality, the romances of the 1970s and early 1980s were far, far bolder in their erotic content than the level of sensuality that you typically find in romances today.
Leslie Carroll: I think it's entirely a matter of personal preference. It can be a general preference or change depending on a reader's mood and what's going on in her own life; what sort of literary comfort food will feed her soul that week. I don't know how, or whether, this preference has changed over the years, other than guessing that some women may feel more comfortable now than they did thirty or so years ago about admitting that they get turned on by erotica. I think all readers like a good, well-paced story with interesting, complex and sympathetic characters. I feel that's my bargain with the readers; I am honor-bound to give them a good story. And if you're writing romances, I think every couple's relationship must be unique and true to their background, situation, and circumstances. As a writer that's my concern: to be true to the characters when I write love/sex scenes. Of course, if the characters are undeveloped and unbelievable, and the sex and love scenes are merely draped over the narrative like cheap polyester, it doesn't matter one bit whether the love scenes are steamy or simply suggestive.
Dorothy Garlock: I can only speak for my readers. They prefer love scenes between to committed adults, not raunchy sex between sometimes almost complete strangers. You can go far enough to make it realistic without getting into erotica.
Teresa Medeiros: I think our genre is broad enough to accommodate both sweet and erotic romance or a mingling of both. I love a well-written love scene, but I also think Mary Stewart, who never wrote a graphic love scene, wrote some of the sexiest books ever. It's really the sexual tension between the protagonists that's most important. I tried writing a "closed door" love scene once, but I felt as if I'd cheated my characters and my readers. If I'm going to walk the reader through every step of that courtship, then it didn't feel fair to close the door in their face during that pivotal moment. Besides, I wanted to know what happened!
Carly Phillips: Based on my stories and reader reaction, I'd have to say current trend is the preference for the more erotic romance. That said, I think the answer varies for each individual reader, but my audience prefers hot books. I do think this has changed, but so have television shows. Sex and the City, The Osbornes, etc., all go for more graphic, in-your-face views of the world. I like to think that my stories, while hot, have an element of the traditional romance at heart. By that I mean, you want to bring the reader to the point where they're panting along with the heroine and you don't need over the top sex to do that. You need sexual attraction, sexual tension, and real and true building feelings between the characters. But there's no leave-it-at-the-door sex scenes in my stories.
Rachel Gibson: I tend to think that more erotic romances do sale better than the sweeter romance novels. I think over the past few years, romance readers have come to prefer their books a little less like a Disney cartoon and more like real life.
Shirlee Busbee: I dunno. As a reader myself, I prefer both kinds of books, the graphic and the modest. I probably prefer a middle of the road, not so graphic that it borders on porno, yet not everything is left to the imagination. As for changes over the years. Yikes! When I started writing historicals, we wouldn't dare use the word "penis," and now even in Regencies you see the word (Georgette Heyer would die at what passes for a Regency today!) Love scenes today have gotten more graphic or maybe just more specific, like calling a climax a climax and well, a penis a penis.
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