Today
I received a rejection from a publishing company because my submitted novella
“wasn’t erotic enough”. It made me smile.
I truly didn’t mind. I won’t be adding to the already explicit
descriptions, or leaving home to indulge in some physical research
sessions. I have a fairly vivid
imagination which fills in the gaps in my experience and knowledge.
I can’t write a story without a plot. Scene
after scene of erotic romping that doesn’t aid the plot, move on the progress of the story line or is simply
there for the sake of more sex, is not my style. I’m writing a story, not a
series of descriptions of a physical marathon performed in situ, with gymnastic
moves.
I
did the best I could and I now have to find a home for this less than erotic
romance. I could add some more sex scenes but I would then need to add lots of
dialogue to keep my interest alert.
Perhaps I could introduce a sub-plot that is only ever discussed during
sex? A different approach to consider but, nah, I don’t think so.
It
boils down to this: I wrote it, I like it, and I’m happy to have it molder away
in my pc’s innards than rewrite it adding lots of sex scenes. I know it’s been done in the Grey story, but
even that story had a compelling layering to it which made you read all three books
to find out why the male lead acted like he did. I don’t want my readers to be thinking as I
did by the second book - ‘another sex scene. I’ll skip those pages and get back
to the real story.’
Thinking
of this reminds me of the comment made by Elmore Leonard in No. 10 of his rules
of writing: “Try and leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”
With
that in mind I might have to remove all the sex scenes and turn it into a
murder mystery instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment