Mood swings
On another blog, I recently talked about characters getting in the mood, and I was trying to come up with something to write about today, I realized that I’ve been doing quite a bit of mood-swinging in my writing lately.
If I may sound immodest for a moment, and feel free to disagree with me, my erotic romances are, well, romantic and hot, but there are shades of darkness in there as well. It’s not a roaring fire -- it’s a roaring fire with sunspots, if I may get overly metaphoric. That said, there are lighter moments as well. You can't have a regency-set anything without banter!
The option book proposal I turned in, is a lot darker. It’s hot, but not in the sense of discovery or exploration or sheer lust -- but hot in the sense of sharp revenge, of betrayal and playing dark games. Fortunately, it’s not like that all the time, else I’d really be in trouble, but that’s how it started out.
Since submitting it, I went off to play with some other proposals, and have returned to write another erotic romance. This one is back to my usual moods, although, personally, I find it funnier (or as funny) as ONE MORE TIME but then, my humor has always been a little off-beat.
Anyway, so the current WIP is light, fluffy, and yes, there are big black sunspots in the beginning that are soon to be fixed.
So readers -- if you buy erotic romance, does the tone matter? Do you mind hot stuff mixed with dark stuff and with lighter stuff? Does it bother you if the book is weighted more one way or the other?
And writers -- what are your books like?Hot and humorous, hot and dark, hot and something else? And does it vary from book to book?
3 comments:
What a great topic, Celia! And one I can really relate to. I write both light and sexy, and then more dark, action driven/sexy. And I've wondered if it bothered readers.
For me, if an author switches it up, as long as I like their writing, I'll usually go along for the ride!
As a reader, I love the dark stuff! I mean, I totally enjoy banter and happiness, and I still like to get some sort of a HEA, but I think the darker stuff can really lead to a lot of interesting, and very humna, conflicts. The psychological struggle and mind games are always really interesting to me. For instance, one of my favorite novels ever is Clarissa. I think the story of two people who love each other (or could have loved each other), but have almost no choice other than to destroy each other due to their inherent natures, is completely fascinating. What an erotic romance THAT story would have made. You know, without the drugged rape and martyr-like death!
My Regency erotic romances are the darkest thing I write as well, the subject matter is edgy too. My futuristics and contemporaries are much lighter in tone, I'm not sure why!
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