Add some more heat!

When writing for Ellora’s Cave there is a certain heat level required. The stories are sexy and full of explicit language—which I’m not going to elaborate on in this blog but you can use your imagination :).

This doesn’t mean pages and pages of thrusting—that gets boring pretty quickly. What I’ve learned is that for every action in those scenes there is a reaction both physical and sometimes emotional. A touch, a kiss, a taste, a gasp, a sigh...all have to reveal a little bit more about character. If the sex scene can be skipped over, it’s missing something and shouldn’t be there.

I used to worry about who would read those scenes (OMG my sister…eh, she reads all my stories anyway and tell me which bits suck) er, the guys at work—yep that’s happened. I think they were more embarrassed than me. My husband, we have a rule that he’s allowed to help with research but not read over my shoulder while I’m working. 

Somewhere along my writing journey I stopped worrying about what my friends and family or even co-workers would think about my writing. If I want to write super sexy stuff, I will because it’s fun. Just don’t let what other people might say put you off. Quite often we are are own harshest critic. 

I dare you to add a dash more heat. Let the heroine rip of the hero’s shirt and have her way with him. After all, you can always hit delete and pretend it never happened…unless of course you develop a taste for stories on the spicier side.