Review Excerpts

Sunday, April 6, 2014

The Slow Burn

In trying to keep up with the day job, hitting the promo trail for Second Skin, and doing the final edits before submitting The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions, I seem to have neglected this blog. Oops!

(But I haven't neglected Facebook and Twitter as much, so I hope you're following me there as well!)

(I barely know how to use Google+, but I guess I'm on there every now and then as well.)

Okay, enough with the parentheses. As I've been proofing/editing FotMS, I've come to accept that much like its predecessor, it's not really a straight romance. There's a whole lot of plot going on with little threads of the romance strung throughout. While going through the whole book, I realized that in certain aspects, this book is unlike anything I've written before.

In all my previous publications, the main couple gets together fairly quickly. Now, there's still plenty of conflict and drama to sustain the rest of the book(s), of course, but there's a pattern of me jumping right into the bedroom scenes and working my way out from there. This story is a little different.

Our lovebirds start as friends first, and there's a lot of "will they or won't they" tension before they finally give in. In a way, this was a challenge for me to write - I didn't want to rush the journey from being friends to becoming something more, but at the same time, I didn't want to drag out that plot line unnecessarily and risk losing the reader's interest. I wanted the reader to be just as relieved as the characters when they finally get together, but I didn't want a whole lot of contrivance to get in their way. As with many elements of writing, it was a tricky balance.

Time will tell if I accomplished a good mix of flirtation and satisfaction. After a big project like this one, I'm not sure which I prefer, the instant gratification or the slow burn. Each has its place in the erotic romance genre, and I suppose it really comes down to the reader's mood. 

So what's your reading preference: getting all hot and steamy right away or taking a long, agonizing trip to that one perfect moment?

1 comment:

  1. I still that title is the best thing ever. ^_^
    That said, I'm definitely a slow burn kind of girl. Not so slow nothing happens until the last three chapters! Been there. I used to read a TON of historical romance. I love all the other stuff too, but you know, there's only so long you can drag things out before I just don't care anymore. 475 pages in a 500 page book is too long. Likewise, I find 100 pages in 500 or even 300 pages too soon...but there are always exceptions, of course. ^_^