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e-maginings: What Is Erotic Romance?

August 16, 2009 by in category Archives tagged as , , ,


There seems to be a lot of different opinions about what constitutes erotic romance, so I thought I’d explore some definitions today. It’s a little more complicated than you might think.

Some believe erotic romance is all sex with no plot, so is it the literary equivalent of a porno flick? In order to answer that, we have to distinguish between erotica and porn. I discovered that the word pornography literally means “writing about prostitutes”, and in the 19th century, it was used for factual reports about prostitution. Erotica, on the other hand, comes from Eros, the Greek god of love. So a literal definition might be that pornography is solely about the lusts of the body, while erotica is about the longings of the heart as well. In practical terms, the definition is always somewhat subjective.

Erotica is a sex story; that means it has a plot with a beginning, a middle and an end. Pornography may or may not have a plot. In fact, I was reading recently that some porn stars are lamenting the fact that they don’t even get dialogue any more!

Generally speaking, erotica differs from erotic romance in that it’s the story of a character’s sexual journey rather than the story of a developing relationship. In erotica the main character may have more than one partner and a happily-ever-after twosome is not guaranteed. However, a HEA threesome is a definite possibility!

Like other romances, erotic romance is a love story and you better believe that your readers will expect that HEA. I got dinged by a reviewer for not providing one for my Revolutionary Way spy story, Seducing The Enemy. While the characters did develop a relationship, they were unable to be together in the end, so technically it was erotica, not erotic romance.

In Passionate Ink: A Guide to Writing Erotic Romance, Loose Id, LLC, 2007, regarding the difference between sensual and erotic romance, Angela Knight points out, correctly IMO, that what drives sensual romances “isn’t sex, but not having sex”. In order to maintain sexual tension between hero and heroine, the writer devises external and internal reasons why going to bed with each other is a bad idea. The actual act of making love often signals a significant drop in sexual tension and the writer then has to find a way to make the conflict kick in again.

So what drives erotic romance?

Obviously, there still have to be reasons why the happily-ever-after ending isn’t guaranteed, despite the fact that they’re having sex at any and every opportunity. Knight refers to this as “romantic tension”. Again, this means strong conflict, especially if you’re writing a full-length novel. I think I prefer to call if “dramatic tension”.

For a little more background, check out this article at my Lyndi Lamont website. And if you’re at all interested in writing erotic romance, I do recommend Knight’s book.

How would you define erotic romance?

Linda / Lyndi

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e-maginings: Writing Again

July 17, 2009 by in category The Romance Journey by Linda Mclaughlin tagged as , ,

This week I started writing again after, literally, months of hibernation. That is, if you count a three-page synopsis and revisions as writing. I did spend a lot of time thinking about the project and tweaking the plot until I felt I had a complete story. I have to say, it felt good.

That’s the good news. The bad news is I was thinking about my story and not what I was going to blog about, so I have nothing. I don’t feel too bad about it though. You see, I started writing this week after a very long hiatus. 😀

Now if I can just keep up the momentum, maybe I’ll even finish the story. Wish me luck.

Linda McLaughlin
w/a Lyndi Lamont

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E-maginings: The Power of Affirmations

July 23, 2008 by in category Archives tagged as , , ,

When I joined OCC 20 years ago (yikes!), on of the first special events I attended was a workshop on affirmations given by author Rita Rainville. Since then I’ve used affirmations off and on with some success. If you’re not familiar with the concept, an affirmation is a positive statement of something you want to be true in the here and now. It’s different from a goal which is a specific outcome to be achieved at some point in the future. Affirmations are statements like “I am a talented and prolific writer”. Not “I will be”, “I’m learning to be”, “I want to be”, but “I am”. Right now.

As I was learning the craft and business of writing, I heard many things. One was, find a place to write. A room, a desk, a laptop, whatever. For a long while I didn’t have that special place to write. I used the desktop, the laptop, a yellow pad, whatever was available. In the last few years, I’ve been dividing my time between my home in Anaheim and my MIL’s house in San Clemente, and I finally found that special place to write. In San Clemente. It’s a mixed blessing. But I’m not there all week, and I wasn’t getting as much writing done as I wanted to. So I revised my affirmation, adding a statement about being able to write anywhere, any time. That came in handy last week when I had to finish Ilona’s Wolf, my next story, in a big hurry. I found I was able to write anywhere, any time, even if that meant midnight. I wonder if I’d have been able to pull it off if I hadn’t been doing my affirmations.

For a couple of years I’d noticed that my short stories weren’t being reviewed in a timely fashion. Sometimes the first review wouldn’t come out until five-six months after the release. I didn’t know what to do about it. The review process is out of my control. But I tried adding an affirmation that says “I get fantastic, timely reviews” any way. I had no idea if it would make a difference, but my most recent story. Alliance: Cosmic Scandal, was published on June 29 and I’ve already received two reviews for it! 😮

I’m not entirely sure how this affirmation process really works. Oh, I get the part about me talking to my subconscious mind about things that are under my control. When I say I can write anywhere, any time, I’m basically telling my subconscious not to throw up roadblocks when the routine changes. That makes sense. But when I affirm that I’ll get “fantastic, timely reviews”, I’m talking about something I have no control over. I’m just putting that thought out into the universe in hopes that someone is listening, and apparently they are. It’s a little spooky when you think about it, but nice.

It’s not too late to make some affirmations before conference. If you’re shy, affirm that “I’m a friendly person who enjoys meeting new friends”. You never know who you’ll run into at conference. Like Debra Holland said at the last meeting, we all need to become extraverted for a few days.

Have you tried using affirmations and did they help?

Linda Mac / Lyndi Lamont

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e-maginings: EPICon2008 Report

March 23, 2008 by in category Archives tagged as , , , ,

Earlier this month I attended EPICon2008 in Portland, Oregon. For those not familiar with EPICon, it’s the annual meeting of EPIC, the Electronically Published Internet Connection, an organization of e-book authors and publishers. This is one of my favorite cons, as it is small and intimate, and thus great for networking.

There were some great workshop, but I’ll only mention a few. Two of the best were given by publicist Penny Sansivieri, of Author Marketing Experts, Inc. The compnay specializes in internet marketing. She spoke on “Red Hot Web Tricks” and “Red Hot Internet Publicity”. Among other things, she recommended that bloggers put their blog on their website, so hits are credited to your site rather than Blogger.com or WordPress or whoever, and to update the blog at least once a week. More often is better. She also said blog commenting is a powerful tool (hint, hint). Posts should be relative to your interests and include a link back to your site. She also said an email newsletter is “83% more effective than any other promo”. Guess I’d better start doing that more frequently! Author Marketing Experts has a free newsletter you can subscribe to with more promotional hints. Their website is AMarketingExpert.com.

The Paranormal Panel: Bigfoot Has Feelings Too! was chaired by author Murdoch Hughes, complete with werewolf mask. I didn’t have my camera with me, but author Debbie Fritter did and sent me this photo. Murdoch’s latest mystery, The Seattle Barista Killer, features a vegan werewolf as sleuth. Other panelists were Frances Evlin, Michelle Levigne and Brenna Lyons.

Caitlyn Willows, aka our own Catherine Snodgrass, gave an excellent and frank talk on How to Research Erotica. She pointed out that “graphic language alone doesn’t make erotica”. Your story should be about the full experience of body and emotions, anticipation and fulfillment”. She suggested considering a subscription to Playboy or Playgirl, as well as investing in a good book (or two or three) on human sexuality.

One Saturday morning, author Adrianna Dane and I did a talk on Author As Producer: How To Create Your Own Book Trailers on a Budget. I’m happy to report that the talk went well and we had a lot of positive feedback afterwards. I had blogged about this topic a few days before and I received a comment on the post from Sheila Clover English about her new ebook, The Book Trailer Revolution: Book Marketing and Promotion Through Digital Video. It’s free as a download from Circle of Seven.

Saturday evening was the EPPIE Banquet, preceeded by a champagne reception sponsored by All Romance eBooks. Here’s a photo of me and Janet Cornelow Quinn taken with author and cover artist Skylar Sinclair at the reception. Dinner was filet mignon and salmon, and the hotel kitchen outdid themselves. Catherine, w/a Caitlyn Willows, and I were both EPPIE finalists, but alas, neither of us won in our respective categories. Maybe next time.

What’s your favorite conference?

Linda Mac / Lyndi Lamont

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e-maginings: Me and My Kindle

January 24, 2008 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , ,

My primary Christmas present is an Amazon Kindle e-book reader, and I love it. In fact, my Kindle and I are pretty much inseparable these days.

Those of you who know me, know I’m an avid e-book reader, and some of you may wonder why. I like the portability of the reader. Instead of an armload of books, I can carry my Kindle, which currently has 40+ books on it, plus assorted personal files, magazine issues, blogs and MP3 files. And 30% of the memory is still unused.

E-books help to unclutter your life: Since the books are stored on the hard drive of your computer until you’re ready to read them, storage is less of a problem than with print books.

With my aging eyes, I also like the fact that you can change the font size on an e-book reader. No more squinting to read the small print.

I’ve been an avid e-book reader for some years now. I’ve read e-books on my laptop, my RCA Germstar 1100, a PDA and a Pocket PC. I’ve enjoyed most of my readers (with the notable exception of the now-defunct Franklin eBookman), but the Kindle is rapidly becoming my favorite.

I’m amazed at how lightweight it is, much less than the comparably-sized RCA Gemstar 1100. The wireless is fast, unbelievably fast, so it’s really easy to buy from the Kindle store or download updates to magazine or blog subscription. I like being able to download a sample to read before deciding to buy a book, too. That’s a very nice feature. If you leave the wireless off most of the time, the battery life is excellent, and the device charges back up very quickly.

I thought I might miss the backlighting, and at times I do, but it’s also nice to be able to read in sunlight, particularly when traveling in the car. (Not when I’m driving, of course!)

I’m glad I waited for the Kindle instead of buying the Sony Reader because, for me, the Kindle is more useful and versatile. I already had a lot of books in unprotected Mobipocket format which can be read on the Kindle without any conversion. It’s easy to transfer files from your computer to the device using the USB cable.

The only real frustration I’ve had with it so far is that, while it will play MP3 music, it won’t play my MP3 podcasts. I can’t understand what the difference is beyond the fact that the podcasts in question are so much longer, about 45 minutes. They’re all MP3 files, so what the hey? Oh, well.

A common complaint of the Kindle is that it’s easy to hit the next page or previous page buttons by accident, but I figure once I get used to the device, that won’t happen so much any more.

Is this the “killer device” the e-book community has been waiting for?

Probably not, but the wireless connectivity alone makes it a huge step forward. The real problem remains the lack plethora of formats, so that’s a software problem that can’t be solved by new hardware. Chances for real standardization range from a best case scenario of years to a worst case scenario of never.

The only other downside is the $399.00 list price and the fact that the device is only available in the US. The price may eventually come down, but probably not anytime soon, since the Kindle has been “temporarily out of stock” almost since it was released. I ordered mine at the end of November and had to wait about two weeks to get. It may take even longer now. The fact that demand appears to be steady is a good sign for the future of the Kindle and e-books. 😀

If anyone has any questions about the Kindle, I’ll try to answer them.

Linda Mac / Lyndi Lamont

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