Genre question

[vividlyyours]

My stories so far have all featured frequent and robust hardcore sex, but my latest one seems to be developing in another direction. The first chapter was 5,000 words and included three sex scenes, but the chapter I''m currently working on with the same characters has only one in its (so far) 6,500 words. I'm about to write another hardcore sex scene into it. The whole story seems to be turning into more of a romance novel than serial porn.

My question is this: Should I continue with this more romantic story, or go back and insert more hardcore into it? I've mostly developed the characters in this chapter and honed my skills at character development and dialog, and subsequent chapters will feature more hardcore. Is there enough demand for romance, or do most readers want it as hot, heavy, and frequent as possible?

 

[PennLady]

There's demand for everything, and you'll drive yourself nuts trying to find the common denominator of it all, because there isn't one.

If you feel your story needs more sex, by all means, add more sex. If not, don't.

Romance is a slightly different critter when it comes to sex, I will say. There are plenty of romance stories out there that do not feature sex in every chapter, or even every other. Some of that is because those stories have the relationship between the characters developing before the sex. But others have sex right off, because all the stories are different. I think in my last long romance, which was twelve chapters, there was no sex until chapter five or so. But that was just my story.

There are plenty of romances out there with almost no sex at all (I know that DG Hear and woodmanone do this sometimes).

There is no one right answer here because there is no one reader. People read here for all kinds of things, including the sex. So my advice is to write your story the way you want to write it, with the amount of sex you think it needs, and not worry about whether it's the "right" amount.

 

[robertreams]

The primary sex organ, as i am fond of saying, is the brain. People read romance novels becuse they cause that tingling in the brain and down below. In one of my stories, the romance is so intense that it leads right into the sex (I hope). For me,intense romance has always led to intense sex, in real life and in literature. Have you sen the movie "Ghost"? So romantic that I had a hard on most of the time, even though one of the protagonists was dead.

 

[PennLady]

The primary sex organ, as i am fond of saying, is the brain. People read romance novels becuse they cause that tingling in the brain and down below. In one of my stories, the romance is so intense that it leads right into the sex (I hope). For me,intense romance has always led to intense sex, in real life and in literature. Have you sen the movie "Ghost"? So romantic that I had a hard on most of the time, even though one of the protagonists was dead.

And, see, I didn't really like "Ghost." So you can't appeal to everyone.

 

[vividlyyours]

OK, I think I'm getting it, and thanks. Honestly, I'm having a lot more fun letting it develop romantically. I plan to include more sex, but focusing on the romance and subsequent conflicts and conflict resolution allows for far more character development and dialog. As Robertreams points out, I want to cause the tingling in the brain that causes the tinkling down below.