Sex and the Story

Hi, I'm Jackie Barbosa, and I write erotic romance.

Sounds like a confession at a 12-step meeting, doesn't
it? Except I have no intention of stopping. Because
midway through 2007, I sold an erotic historical short
story, Carnally Ever After, to Cobblestone Press and honestly, I'm
hooked! I now have a contemporary novella contracted
with Cobblestone, titled The Gospel of Love:
According to Luke, which has an anticipated
release in June of 2008.

When I started writing seriously a little less than
two years ago, I didn't set out with the intention of
writing erotic romance, historical or otherwise. You
see, at the time, I wasn't even aware that such a
thing existed. What I did know was that I liked my
romance novels a bit hotter than the ones I was
reading at the time and felt I wasn't finding those
sorts of books. In retrospect, I realize I just wasn't
looking in the right places.

So my first novel began as an attempt to write a
traditional romance, just with a little more smut. I
have since completed that manuscript and consigned it
to the Magical Mulch Pile¹ under my bed,
but I learned a lot from writing it, and one of the
things I learned was the characters can't just have
sex because the author wants them to have sex. You
see, I'd fully planned to get my hero and heroine in
the sack by no later than page sixty in that projected
400-page novel, but as it turned out, the characters
I'd created steadfastly resisted that plan. It just
didn't make sense for them to start tearing up the
sheets before about page 300, although there were
plenty of longing glances and so forth leading up to
that moment. By the time I actually got the two
characters in bed together, it made sense, but it
certainly wasn't what I'd intended when I started out.

I took a real lesson from that experience, however.
When I set out to write Carnally Ever After
(more or less on a dare from my friend Ann
Aguirre, (who has since contracted several books
with Ace), I knew I had to have a reason to get my
characters into each other's pants (or more
accurately, trousers and drawers) early and often. And
the sex couldn't just be there because I wanted it to
be it had to move the plot and, most importantly, the
romance forward in a significant and meaningful way.
Each sexual encounter had to change the story question
in some way, to affect the hero and heroine's goals
and motivations, and heighten the conflict and the
question of how they'd arrive at their happily ever
after.

A common criticism of erotic romance seems to be that
the stories contain sex for the sake of sex, and
perhaps in some cases that's true, but I certainly
don't believe it has to be so or that it ought to be.
A few weeks ago, I was responding to a question on a
loop (a common one): What's the difference between
erotic romance and sensual romance? And my first
blush response was, I cant explain it, but I know it
when I see it. Then it occurred to me that I had a
better description. I responded, In a sensual
romance, but the romance drives the sex. In an erotic
romance, the sex drives the romance.

YOUR TURN: What do you think distinguishes erotic
romance from sensual or traditional romance? I'd love
to hear your opinions!

¹The Magical Mulch Pile is a coinage of my
fellow Manuscript Maven and dear friend, Erica
Ridley. Check out her blog sometime. It's full of fabulous
stuff!