I have to applaud the organizers of the inaugural EAA Conference for not only their courage, their incredibly hard work, and the great job they did on envisioning what the structure and format of a conference for erotic writers would look like. Today I did their survey for the conference attendees and it prompted some thoughts.
One of the things that came very clear at the conference was that the erotic romance community, both publishers and authors, are in a very different position to other erotic literature spheres. They have evolved an economic model inherited from the romance publishing community. Their content selection, target audience and marketing strategies have all grown out of a very solid and time-proven model.
The problem is – it’s another world. A world that writers like me simply don’t fit in. Will never fit it. I don’t want to be a snob about this; we are simply operating in different intellectual spheres and, I suspect, in fundamentally different reader markets.
I’d like to suggest that readers who want ‘happily ever after’ or ‘happily for now’ endings on a consistent basis have a very different moral orientation to readers who don’t. I suspect that it is the HEA or HFN endings which give readers permission to indulge in the eroticism of explicit literature because it situates the sex within a socially sanctioned moral framework. Of course they can have all sorts of wild sex – they’re in love.
Readers who don’t require and even eschew HEA and HFN endings in erotic literature have fundamentally different and more morally relativistic outlooks.
Is there a crossover in the reader groups? Undoubtedly there is. But I think that when identifying concrete markets, the readers who will cross over are not the major proportion of either market.
It is this, and not my intellectual snobbery, that really leads me to believe we are looking at two separate markets. Moreover, I think it might be detrimental to both markets to try and bully either reader group into consuming the product of the other.
Meanwhile, and on the other side of the spectrum, is the crossover between erotica and porn. I have always been a very vocal member of the erotica is not porn camp. I acknowledge that many erotica writers will wear the porn badge with pride as a political and social statement. And I understand why they feel they need to stand up for forces that are sex positive, anti- shame and anti-censorship.
But again, we are back to herding all producers of explicit material into the same box. The mechanism and the objective outcomes of erotica is very different from porn. Porn is about sex. Erotica is about desire.
Every literary genre has suffered under the constraints of its own conventions. For many years, murder mystery writers had no hope of ever receiving critical literary acclaim because the genre conventions insisted that the narrative exist within a very restrictive moral framework. The victim of the murder could never be entirely innocent and the murder always had to be brought to justice. This provided a strong identity for the genre and a level of satisfied expectation for the reader, but, for the most part, it precluded the depth of character development, social commentary, and freedom for the plot to go where it might naturally go. Only when a new generation of mystery writers began to break with conventions did it become impossible for literary critics ignore the fact that, within the mystery genre, there were indeed works of literary brilliance.
Very similar things happened in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. In fact, it was only with the emergence of ‘alternative fiction’ that critics began to recognize that there were writers of staggering literary talent writing within those genres.
One of the points I tried to make on the Taboo panel at the conference was that the current practice of publishers to shy away from erotica which deals with controversial subject matter, or explores the edges of what is sexually social acceptable is the very place we have to go in order to gain literary recognition. It is the erotica equivalent of writing a murder mystery novel in which the murder is not brought to justice. It is exactly in the places where we break with convention that we have the most chance of being taken seriously as producers of important writing.
I have watched a lot of excellent erotic writers succumb to the HEA or HFN convention out of economic necessity. I can’t condemn them for it. I understand why they do it. But they do need to acknowledge that bowing to this narrative restraint is not compatible with an aspiration to critical literary recognition.
Essentially, the forgone conclusion of a happily ever after ending is an answer, not a question. Great art, great literature, great music is an exercise in asking questions, not giving answers.
This leaves us in a pretty depressing place economically. Personally, I think if you want to be an writer, then your primary business is to produce great erotic writing. Should you earn money from that, it will fund your continued efforts, but if you make the earning of money your primary aim, not only do you compromise your ability to produce really outstanding work, but you participate in keeping this genre marginalized and critically derided.
However, there are very good and hugely successful business models in which the central goal of the industry is to make excellent product as a first aim, and where economic success follows as a consequence of that primary aim. I really do believe that if erotica is to evolve and grow and blossom as a genre, this is the way we must envision our endeavors. Because that kind of business model generates almost fanatically loyal consumers, who don’t even see themselves as consumers but as integral to the existence of the product. Just talk to anyone who considers themselves a ‘Mac’ or ‘Apple’ person.
So, I have a couple of ideas for EAA conferences in the future. First, I think that it is important that its organizers recognize that it is more than just a way to bring publishers and authors together. More than just a place to find out how to market yourself as a writer. It needs to take on the responsibility for playing an important role in envisioning the future of our genre. It needs to have not only a mission, but a vision. And it needs not to be shy about stating it.
Secondly, it needs to bring readers and content producers together. Not for the whole conference, perhaps. But I think that our continued economic existence probably depends on asking our readers to be more than just passive consumers of what we produce, but vocal supporters of the artform.
It may be that my vision for the erotic genre is so entirely at odds with the majority of writers, publishers, editors and readers, that I will have to reconsider what I call the work I produce. But I hope not. I hope that I can play some small role in the evolution of erotic writing and help, if only in a tiny way, to push it into the light and towards being recognized as a fertile and unconstrained form of critically recognized literature.
I agree with many of the points you made. The HEA/HFN requirement can be problematic when it “forces” our plots out of veins they might have more naturally followed. I also agree that concentrating on the money to be made can be detrimental to creating a superior product.
However, I must disagree that the HEA/HFN stifles creativity and excludes the ability to create work of high literary quality. You can find hopeless tripe or “I’ve thrown out better writing than this” in ANY genre. Similarly, you can find gems everywhere, if you’re willing to dig a little.
I don’t know if this post is going to leave you friendless (although I would tend to think the opposite), but I hope everyone will use it as a springboard to determine where their writing is taking them. Only by judiciously examining our own work with as unbiased an eye as possible can we improve and subvert or shatter convention, thereby improving not only the quality of the genre, but of our own work.
Great post!
Either you have misinterpreted my point, or I have explained myself badly. Many a story and pairing might resolve itself in a happy ending. But when this is an artificially imposed condition of acceptance in the genre, it becomes a device used to accommodate readers who find it hard to relax into the sex without the morally sanctioned norm that HEA provides. That’s not a plot decision that naturally evolves as a consequence of the plot and the characters – that’s an artificial interference with the narrative.
I find myself in the same boat, RG. I seem to be incapable of writing the sort of light and frothy erotic romance that is SO popular . . . in fact, after a few particularly scathing reviews by readers who expected something completely different and much less dark (apparently they didn’t read the description) I now refer to my writing as dark homoerotic literary fiction and make sure to stress it is NOT romance! Frustrating, yes, economically satisfying, no, not at all . . . but then I remember that I started writing in the first place because I couldn’t find stories I wanted to read. There is an audience, albeit a small and infinitely twisted one, and we are quite happy with the way things are.
I think you are going to fine that small publishers are emerging who are going to specialize in this to differentiate themselves from the huge e-book erotica sites that focus almost exclusively on erotic romance.
I can and have written HFN endings, because that is what I felt the natural outcome of the plot demanded. But not because it was a convention requirement.
I’ll have to do my own blog post after I’ve absorbed what you’ve written here to fully do my thoughts justice, but I appreciate the thoughts quite a bit.
I’m not so much trying to create great literature as trying to examine questions I consider interesting or important. Sex is Big. I think it’s even bigger than desire or the sex itself. So when I write about a character struggling with issues around sexuality, am I writing Erotica (about desire per your definition) or Porn (because it has explicit sex, but it’s not about the sex itself). I can certainly put a romance spin on it, but it’s not even about the romance either, usually.
For example, I recently wrote a poignant story about a mentally dim narrator who thinks he has a real relationship with a stripper. It’s not arousing. It’s doesn’t have a happy ending. But it’s damn explicit and has to be to convey the emotional core. So where does it fit in the genre?
Anyway, like I said, I need to let your post simmer a bit. Good questions and thoughts.
Hehehe… I’d be very happy to produce one piece of just GOOD literature. I aspire to great, but I don’t think I’ll get there in my lifetime.
I don’t know where you got the idea of my definition of porn as having explicit sex. I wholeheartedly disagree with that. Porn IS about the sex itself. Which is why it’s got no character development, no inner examination, no plot. It doesn’t have to. That’s not what people who consume porn are looking for. Personally, I want the creampie shot. I don’t give a toss what the inner emotional turmoil of the characters led to its being there!
AS one of your hard core fans, some of your musing writings and thoughts a very good. As long as one person thinks this you have made it to that level now go for the next
Well said. Profound thoughts from a true visionary.
RG
I agree with you on every point.
Erotica romance is not erotica, and neither side should have to apologize for what it is. (I don’t feel that you’re asking for an apology) Erotica has to be more vocal, more visible, and stand up for itself more. We have to state our case that erotica isn’t erotic romance, that it has literary merit, and we have to get it out to the reading public. I’m open to any ideas on how to reach this goal. You know that I like my edges cutting. And trangression is my favorite flavor.
KB
Well, you made it sound like erotic romance was erotica with HEA or HFN forced on it for commercial reasons. In reality it’s romance first and foremost. In romance sex is optional, but there is a sizable reader base that like to be aroused while they read their romance.
Pitting erotica and erotic romance against each other is an artificially generated conflict. They are two different genres with a large overlap. Nobody is forcing you to slap HEA or HFN on your stories. Readers will be disappointed of their lack if they expect romance, and that means that you reached the wrong audience. The reasons may be varied, including mislabeling your work as romance.
If “erotic writers succumb to the HEA or HFN convention out of economic necessity” that’s perhaps because erotic romance genre is more popular. That is a choice the author makes for him or herself. With the rise of electronic publishing you can publish pretty much anything.
I’m sure many “publishers to shy away from erotica which deals with controversial subject matter, or explores the edges of what is sexually social acceptable,” but it’s not a surprise if such content is not in their scope, and it’s not what their readership wants. The solution is to publish it with publishers specializing such content – it also makes it easier for its audience to find it.
Your article makes it sound like erotic romance writers are sellouts bowing to “narrative restraint” (HEA/HFN). The narrative restraint of mystery has never been the guilt of the victim or even the murderer being brought to justice, but that the mystery must be solved by the end of the book. As you said, erotica is about desire. Romance is about emotional desire. Just as erotica must be about sex (narrative restraint) romance has to be about love. While you can certainly write erotica where the sexual act is never completed, and may even make it a still satisfying read, by and large your readership expects a climax – in all meanings of the word. By the same token, while there are romance novels without HEA/HFN, and some publishers openly look for such stories, on the whole romance readers expect a peak experience delivered. As someone at the conference said (I think it might have been M. Christian), “the money shot of romance is the ‘I love you’.”
While I agree that there is a difference in moral framework between erotica and (erotic) romance readers, the statement that erotic romance “give readers permission to indulge in the eroticism of explicit literature because it situates the sex within a socially sanctioned moral framework” has a subtly insulting overtone to entire readership of the genre. It implies that those readers are opposed to sex, or think of it as something dirty. It’s more like that erotic romance readers tend to equate sex with love, and consequently are equally unforgiving toward sexual and emotional betrayal.
Here is my chart of genres:
Romance – Erotic Romance – Erotica – Porn
“the statement that erotic romance “give readers permission to indulge in the eroticism of explicit literature because it situates the sex within a socially sanctioned moral framework” has a subtly insulting overtone to entire readership of the genre”
Does it? Oh well.
So, basically you’re saying “my genre is better than your genre?”
absolutely :p Otherwise, I’d write in your genre. Hehe
I don’t think it’s necessarily true that someone who prefers HFNs or HEAs likes them only because the sex happens within a loving, committed relationship and is therefore morally okay. I prefer to read about them because by pairing the couple together at close of the book, it ends on a high note. Could it be possible to end on a high note without an HEA? Yes, but that’s not usually what I see. I either see a bland break up, which implies that what was had was not meaningful. Or it’s a nasty, dirty or just all out depressing break up. Maybe that break up is for the best, but I’d rather not read about it, and in particular, I’d rather a book not end that way, leaving that the last feeling I have of it.
Counterexamples of this would be Owning Wednesday by Annabel Joseph. The heroine has sex with another guy, which I’m perfectly okay with, even thinking that it was a non-loving relationship. Another, probably better, example would be Comfort Food by Kitty Thomas. I’ve heard some argue that it was love, but to me it wasn’t, at least not at first, or maybe anywhere during the book. Maybe at some point in the future, I might hope. But I did love Comfort Food, but it hardly demonstrates sex within a socially sanctioned moral framework.
Amber,
How you feel on an individual basis about any given novel is absolutely up to you.
However, I do challenge your assertion that a pairing that does not end well is not meaningful as highly subjective. Further more, your description of stories that don’t end in HEA – nasty, dirty, depressing – belie the fact that you DO make a moral judgement about sex that does not include love and does not end with a HEA. So, you’ve kind of proved my point.
I didn’t say any breakup rendered the relationship meaningless, but that a “bland” break up does. What I meant by that was that if the relationship was meaningful, then the breakup is not going to emotionless or painless. It’s certainly possible that this is not true, but I’ve never seen one, not in real life or in fiction.
And I also didn’t say that every break up was dirty, nasty, etc, but just that when I’ve read them in fiction (particularly at the endings) they are specifically described that way. I can think of a couple of quasi-exceptions out of hundreds of books I’ve read. When the heroine is plainly pictured post-break-up as acting depressed or disillusioned, I don’t think it’s my moral prejudices breaking through.
“…we are simply operating in different intellectual spheres and, I suspect, in fundamentally different reader markets. I’d like to suggest that readers who want ‘happily ever after’ or ‘happily for now’ endings on a consistent basis have a very different moral orientation to readers who don’t.”
I wonder if this is true. It’s very hard to tell, I think. You do say that there are crossover individuals, but you seem to think that *most* readers of one genre or another would not. Having no data at hand, all I can go by are my own feelings, and I’m one of those crossover readers. I read very light airy fairy books, and depressing dark ones. It’s not a 50-50 balance, but what I read reflects my mood, and that changes day to day as well as year to year and decade to decade. I also like to *read* things that are not at all like what I like to *write*. (Is that normal??)
There’s also no data to hand–or not to my hand–that can really predict the future of publishing. But if I felt like extrapolating, I’d say that self-publishing and smaller presses and completely ebook presses (are they still “presses,” then, if they’re not “pressing” anything?) are only going to increase, and that’s going to take away some of the power of large publishing houses to decree that this genre must follow these conventions.
There are all kinds of trends in erotica and erotic romance that don’t particularly speak to me (M/M and paranormal, to name just two), that I couldn’t write for money if I tried. I’m just not that good. But if I were going to an erotica conference, I’d want them there. I’d want the HEA authors there, and the UEA (is “unhappily ever after” a term?) authors there, and those who do both. I am occasionally an envelope-pusher with my reading; I have never been one with my writing. Would that ever change? Who knows. But it’s more likely to change if I’m hob-nobbing with others who already write very differently from how I do. Plus I think it’s healthy for unashamedly sell-out authors and adamant non-sell-out authors to talk it over. Now that would be a good bar conversation. Or a panel.
Hmm. I not infrequently complain about the constraints imposed by writing erotic romance (even as I keep doing it). However, I strongly disagree with your assertion that romance readers consider that HEA/HFN somehow sanitizes explicit sex and thus allows romance readers to indulge in erotic content without feeling guilty or “dirty”. Based on my conversations with my readers, this is just not what’s going on. Not at all.
Romance readers want to feel loved, cherished and wildly desired – not just during a single encounter but for the longer term. They want the characters with whom they can identify, so that they can vicariously enjoy the experience of both sensual satisfaction and emotional fulfillment. I don’t think the notion that sexual activity becomes “permissible” because it ends with a kind of commitment is a very strong influence, at least not for most readers.
Romance readers don’t seem to like casual sex, and certainly that rules out a significant amount of what we’d call “erotica”. However, their objection is emotional, not moral.
“Is there a crossover in the reader groups? Undoubtedly there is. But I think that when identifying concrete markets, the readers who will cross over are not the major proportion of either market.”
I’ve read Danielle Steel. I’ve read Marquis de Sade. I don’t live in any one reader group and never have. That’s not the majority. Agreed.
At further consideration, it seems to me that the issue is genre confusion. Sure it’s aggravating to be judged by the standards of erotic romance when you write erotica. However that’s not the fault of the genre of erotic romance, just as the perceived limitation of that genre are irrelevant when talking about erotica. They are different genres. The problem is that there lots of confusion among readers, writers, and publishers about the difference of genres. The result is that when reader read one thinking of it to be the other, they get frustrated, and thus come the scathing reviews.
It’s not just a problem between these two genres; in my experience most people can’t tell the difference between m/m and gay fiction either. Some publishers that work with multiple genres are good separating them on their own web sites, but most are not. Authors often mislabel themselves, or go with the wrong publisher. If your dark tale of emotional and physical torture is put out by a publisher that identifies itself as purveyor of YA romance, you’re setting yourself up for trouble. And then there are the resellers, most of all Amazon, that just lump things together into nonsensical categories.
So we could talk about that. However, arguments extolling the virtues of one genre versus another will lead to unproductive trench warfare.
Oh, I thought I was just being patronizing and insulting. But if this is trench warfare, I’ll drag out my gas mask 😛
God, I love reading your stuff. So often you’ve written exactly what I’ve been thinking but unable to form into coherent words/ideas.
All I really have to say is that I think the importance of staying clear of anything that could interfere with the quality of writing in any genre – but particularly erotic genres – is so important. While HEA/HFN endings do work for plenty of pieces – I’ve even written some – it is a constraint that can too easily disturb the quality and art of an author’s writing, and that is something that needs to be addressed.
Oh, I think that was about as coherent as it comes.
Haha, only after reading your thoughts… but thanks anyway!
er.. no, dear.
Personally my big issue with HFN/HEA is that I just don’t really like it 9 times out of 10. It’s not really what moves me as a reader so I don’t want to write it. Consequently the market for what I do write (erotica of course) has shrunk considerably.
At this point I’ve had to do some letting go. I realized that a lot of what -I- think is romantic and loving is not what is viewed as romantic and loving in the romance market. For a few years I was really upset about that and bitter. I felt that the vastness of the romance market has edged me out and left me talking to myself so to speak.
These days I don’t really care anymore. I realized that the economics of my situation writing wise aren’t that important in that I don’ make my living from writing. The state of the market forced me to just write in a way that I wasn’t when my taste was more popular in the market. In that way I feel like the change in the market has made me more honest in my writing which is important to me.
This market has made me face myself and my aesthetics, examine them and in the end stick to them rather than trying to write things I have no interest in.
I think I lost my actual point somewhere in there. So I’ll stop yammering.
I think that when you place a mandatory HEA/HFN ending on a story, you end up truncating that story’s potential. It’s like planting a seed in a very small pot; the lack of space limits the ability of the roots to spread out, and the growth of the plant is curtailed. There’s lots of room in the world for stories about sex that are interesting, revealing, deep, and—yes—full of love, that don’t end happily, and are every bit as authentic and satisfying to readers as the ones that do.
However, when growing your seed-story in a very small pot becomes a requirement for admission to the market, you end up with a shelf full of plants that are all more or less the same size. The market homogenizes.
Whether anyone likes it or not, there’s a whole population of readers who judge the overall genre of erotica by what they’ve seen in the erotic romance subgenre. And I’ll be honest: I don’t find the erotic romance genre particularly interesting as a reader, and I find it downright boring as a writer.
Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the little bonsai-like plants or wherever this random plant metaphor is going. People like them and that’s fine.
The issue here is the market.
I don’t know if I’m the only person hanging out in these comments who is also a publisher. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not.
My solution to the homogenization of the market was to found a small press, and then to look into starting up a lit mag. As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of publishers in the world: the ones who are all about the money, and the ones that are all about the love. I don’t know why someone out there hasn’t found a way to combine the two; using a profitable imprint to support a nonprofit mag, or a less profitable imprint, is a solution that immediately comes to mind, but then there’s the challenge of finding quality labor that is willing to work for less, or on a volunteer basis. Or for quality labor that even has the time, since so many of us are students and/or have other jobs.
There have been so many well reasoned, well expressed reactions to this post that I’m going to blog about it instead of answering them.
I write for Logical-Lust, a small press that publishes quality erotica (not erotic romance.) Their latest anthology is “Too Much Bogie” edited by Cole Riley, aka, Robert Fleming. I don’t know what Robert’s royalty checks are like, but I am more than happy with what I have received so far for the anthologies I have with Logical-Lust. Part of that has to do with the way I promote. A big publisher will give you a nice royalty check, but chances are you won’t sell enough books to earn out that royalty checks if you don’t promote. (Big publishers don’t give a rat’s ass about promoting you unless you’re a big name.) If Logical-Lust weren’t there, and I couldn’t find what I wanted for literary erotica, I’d start my own press. I refuse to be play “victim” in this publishing world.
I’m really glad to hear it, Jolie.
Update to my latest message – I meant to say a big publisher will give you a nice ADVANCE. That’s different than a royalty check. But it’s your job to sell enough books to get a royalty check after you’ve blown your advance.