What Does “Graphic” Mean?

I’ve been part of a discussion on a list I belong to about “graphic” scenes in romance novels. Where’s the line between sensual and graphic? How hot is too hot? I’m still not completely sure I understand what people mean when they talk about graphic scenes in romance, so I decided to throw out the question here and see what I learn.

When I write romances, I don’t cut away from the sex scenes. The main characters very definitely and very blatantly engage in sexual activity in the contexts of their relationships, and I use pretty frank language, as I think I blogged about here a while back.

However, I recently received a very complimentary review in which the reviewer praised my not being graphic in the sex scenes between my hero and heroine.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled about the review, and I don’t dispute anything said in it. (Honestly, it’s one of the best reviews I’ve ever received for my romance stuff.) The love scenes–because they are love scenes, not *just* sex–are some of my best, in my own admittedly biased opinion. But I used language that I would consider graphic, and I described what the hero and heroine are doing in bed.

So in your opinion as a reader or writer, what makes a scene graphic as opposed to sensual? Is there content that you, as a reader, would consider too much in a sex scene (assuming that none of the big publisher no-nos are broken)? Does explicit language and complete descriptions count as a graphic scene, or just an explicit one (or is there a difference between graphic and explicit)?

As you can see, I have a lot of questions now. My mind and curiosity are racing, which they do periodically anyway. Apparently I needed something to help me procrastinate from my current work-in-progress (the dance story I blogged about a couple weeks ago), so this is it. LOL Let me know what you think!

Catching up

I know I’ve been away much too long. I won’t be out of the loop from now on, but as they say, ‘life happens.’ I’ll do my best to give you a brief snapshot of where I’ve been during my time away from the blog. I’m only really starting to recover from all the excitement. Great thing is, there’s much more ahead.
Last month passed in a blurr. I was getting ready for my first-ever RWA National conference, (which was absolutely amazing). I caught up with members from The Greater Detroit chapter – my local chapter. I met some wonderful people, my fellow GIAMers, some fellow conference newbees, and Harlequin Romance Senior Editor, Kimberly Young in my hotel elevator. Ms. Young wasn’t wearing her nametag, but I recognized her voice from the podcasts on the Eharlequin website. By the way, those podcasts are chalked full of great stuff! If you’re a writer, and targeting Harlequin, definitely check them out.
While at conference, I spent time with chaptermate Renee Alexis and my roommate and pal, Jodi Redford I wish I had photos of the three of us at Animal Kingdom. If you haven’t yet been to Disney, IMO, you need to experience its allure and fantasy-like ambience firsthand. It really is a magical place. You don’t have to be a kid to have a good time. I’m sorry though, that I wasn’t able to check out the Magical Kingdom and meet some of Disney’s finest.
As for the conference,
RWA did a fabulous job coordinating all the workshops. The presenters of the many workshops I attended during the course of the conference provided me with a plethora of new material to add to my creative and business arsenals. I’ll mention two here, because it’s over two weeks later, and I still remember them. *g* Margie Lawson and the Carina Press spotlight with Angela James who did an excellent job giving the audience a clear picture of Carina and its mission. As a side note: I’ve just finished up Angela’s editing course with Savvy Authors If you haven’t yet taken it, you need to hurry up and get your spot for her next available class! She presents her lessons with no fuss, no frills added but with plenty examples to get her point across. And I loved that! Go ahead. I’ll wait. *g* Back to conference recap.
The Wednesday night literacy book signing, alone, was very interesting. I sat with Jodi Redford who was signing. To our left was Deanna Raybourn who is so down-to-earth and so nice to chat with. I had fun making small talk with her when she wasn’t busy with her readers.
Keynote speaker, Nora Roberts and Awards Lunch-in speaker, Jayne Ann Krentz are wonderful presenters who impressed me with their incredible amount of knowledge and sound advice, while making me laugh along the way.
The Golden Heart and Rita ceremony left me on the edge of my seat. I can’t imagine how anxious the nominees must’ve been. It was an emotional evening at times for me. I found myself tearing up when one of the winners, (any winner) would become emotional. I especially loved when Julia Quinn was inducted to the Romance Writers of America’s Hall of Fame after winning her third Rita in the category of best Regency Historical Romance with What Happens In London. And my fellow blogger, G. Jillian Stone not only won a Golden Heart, she also snagged an agent. Go Jillian!
Since I’ joined RWA in 2006, I learned quickly that the Rita and GH ceremony along with the literacy book signing are infamous with members. Each year, up until now, I’d read others accounts of the conference and events there, and I’d wonder what it would be like to attend and experience them for myself. They were both pretty awesome! After attending this conference, I’ve gained an even greater appreciation for the romance genre, and writing in general. I’ve sharpened my own focus, expanding my dreams while narrowing my goals to the more practical few that I can control.
After returning home from Orlando, , I dove right into my family reunion, the MacInnis family reunion. My relatives from all over Canada flew in for the four-day event. I met second and third cousins, and wives/husbands/children of those cousins it made my head spin. But I had a lot of fun doing it. I heard the Harlequin party was a blast, but trust me, no one can party like my family. *g*
Next up for me, in September, is the year-long mentorship class with Lori Wilde I’m extatic for this course to start. This course looks like it’ll be a blast.
Well, there’s my not-to-concise recap. I hope those of you who attended conference had a fun time just as I did.

When Good Stories Go Bad

I’ve spent the past few weeks working on a novella that I’d been planning for a while now. Two dance instructors who work together teaching a West Coast Swing class fall in love. I started writing it planning to have it submitted to one of my publishers by the end of August.

The idea was pretty good, I thought. Romantic. My husband, who is a former West Coast Swing instructor and competitor himself (hence my choice of that dance style for the story) is fond of the quote “Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire”, and that and the Toby Keith song “You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This,” which is about dancing, at least in part, served as my inspiration for the story.

Except those apparently weren’t enough inspiration, and in my quest for an actual plot beyond “Two dance instructors fall in love” I went off on a tangent that’s kept me working on the thing a full week after I planned to have the first draft finished.

Unfortunately, that isn’t because the tangent led to the story being longer than expected. It’s because it led to a story that I really, really don’t like.

The heroine went from being strong and confident to being completely neurotic and breaking down in tears over the loss, a year earlier, of the friend who introduced her to West Coast Swing and partnered her in competitions. The hero went from being sexy and sensitive to springing on the heroine that he wanted her to partner him in a charity dance event–only five days before the event! And the heroine’s male roommate, a ballet dancer, went from being a strong, understanding friend to swiping the heroine’s phone so he could call the hero and tell him to “be good to her.”

Um, yeah… that’s a whole lot of WTFness…

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me with a story. When I was writing the first draft of my novella Deep Down, I got so sick and tired of Courtney whining about being homesick and Tanner being an idiot about Courtney that I scrapped 90 manuscript pages (originally, it would have ended up novel-length instead of novella) and started from scratch. And ended up with a decent story that Siren Publishing liked enough to publish.

My dance story can be fixed. I need to take a closer look at the characters and the plot, and change some things around. I even have a pretty good idea of how to change it into a better story. It’s going to take time, and I may not make the deadline I’d planned for it, but I’d rather miss a deadline than submit a bad story.

And since it’s a novella, I won’t have to delete 90 pages… because I haven’t written that many.

Orlando Update: What if there really is a Magic Kingdom?

First, some of you may or may not know that THE YARD MAN won the Golden Heart RS category––but what you don’t know is the whirlwind of other things that happened last week, before and after the awards banquet.

All I can say is, when it happens, it happens fast and I don’t care how long you have waited, YOU ARE NOT PREPARED.

A little over ten days ago, I was sitting in the Dallas airport waiting for my connecting flight to Orlando. I was hoping to meet another GH finalist there, as we both were both on the same flight, so I checked my cell phone. There was a message with a 212 area code. NYC. My heart raced a little. I returned the call and to make a long story short, when I got off the phone I had an offer on my newest manuscript, a historical paranormal, THE SEDUCTION OF PHAETON BLACK. (Based on a contest final, for those of you who enter RWA chapter contests.)

Great. I had an offer and no agent.

When I arrived at the hotel my crit partner, a.c. Mason, was already in the room. I sat her down and told her what had happened. After the screaming died down, she and I set about e-mailing messages to every reputable agent we could think of (I had all their addresses stored in my iPhone as I had been querying for months) I sent a very brief message stating that I had received a three book offer and would they be interested in representing me? Well, you may or may not believe the response, but I was overwhelmed by sudden interest, and from HUGE agents.

Needless to say, the next events might read like a fairy story, but, let’s face it, we write them, why can’t they come true? While stalking Steven Axelrod around the Dolphin fountain in the lobby, I managed to run into another agent, Richard Curtis.

That afternoon Mr. Curtis bought me a diet coke and we talked. In the hotel bar, après the Golden Heart Rita Awards, Richard, my crit partner and I celebrated with a glass of champagne. Several days later, after reading both manuscripts, he proposed representation and I am thrilled to announce that I have signed with Richard Curtis Associates. Since the GH win, several publishers have also expressed interest in the THE YARD MAN. Last week, Richard and I worked on series proposals for both books and I hope to be able to report more good news in the weeks to come.

Here are my best insights for those of us who write and are as yet, unpublished (which still includes me). Never give up. Take BOLD RISKS with your writing and SHOOT HIGH, especially when it comes to agents and publishers.

So, what do you think? Was it the Tinkerbell pixie dust that did it?

G. Jillian Stone

There are fields in time that burn with desire. Meet me there.

Jillian is a 2010 Golden Heart winner for THE YARD MAN, the first story in The Yard Men Series. Set in late Victorian London, Scotland Yard detectives have never been as wickedly sexy or as brilliantly clever. To read more about her latest work in progress, THE SEDUCTION OF PHAETON BLACK, please drop by her website: gjillianstone.com

True Love

That’s what most of us, as romance authors, write about. True, head over heels, deep in the heart, forever love. If we didn’t write that, our stories wouldn’t be considered romance. Some romance stories don’t have “forever” endings, but we at least leave the characters knowing they’re happy together and will be for a while.

Come to think of it, in real life romances don’t always have “forever” endings either. Just look at the divorce rate.

Or, actually, don’t, because that would be depressing, especially for those of us who’ve been divorced.

Anyway…now that I have most of my pre-caffeine rambling out of the way (and now that I’ve remembered how to spell “rambling”), the point is that romance and real life don’t always match up. Then again, sometimes they do.

My own marriage is a real-life romance story, and I sometimes call my husband my real-life romance hero. We “met” in an online chat room, and to be honest I didn’t think much of him online. He flirted constantly, particularly with the women who “cammed,” so I figured he was just another guy on the make. Ten days after he joined that site, though, we met in person at a barbecue hosted by a friend of mine from the chat room. When I introduced myself to him, his face lit up and he said he’d been hoping for a chance to meet me. I felt an instant connection with him. I have a picture taken half an hour after that introduction. We were dancing together and looking into each other’s eyes with a look that can only be described as love. Within two days, he drove two hours–after working a 10-hour shift–to see me again. After a month, he said he loved me, and before long we were talking about moving in together. He’s kind, patient, helps me when I’m struggling. Everything a romance hero should be. My daughters, who he considers his children even though there’s no biological connection, and I moved in with him after a year of him driving two hours each way to visit us, and he and I were married a few months ago.

I was talking to a guy I work with a week or so ago. Hubby also works there, but wasn’t working that day. The guy and I talked about how we’d met our spouses, and his story, too, sounds like a romance. He met his wife while he was running a tour boat in Hawaii. She was in grad school, spending a semester studying on the island. After one date, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. When she returned home to Massachusetts, they talked every night for hours. After she graduated, she moved to the island to be with him. Now that they’re considering children, they’ve moved back to MA to be near her family.

Sounds pretty romantic to me.

My in-laws met on a double date. However, they were not each other’s dates. But something connected between them, and since her date hadn’t been anything serious and he hadn’t been getting along with his girlfriend, they started seeing each other. After one week, he asked her to marry him.

Yep, definitely romantic.

Some people’s “how we got together” stories aren’t very romantic as stories go. They’re genuine love, and strong relationships, just the stories aren’t all that interesting. On the other hand, a good storyteller or writer can make anything interesting.

And then there are stories like the ones above.

So what’s your true love story?

Coming Soon: The Orlando Scoop.

If I can borrow a laptop, I will try to write a live-from-Orlando update with a few brief highlights from the conference. If all you get on August 2, are these lousy lines of copy, that means I am having too much fun and have no time for blogging and you will just have to wait until next week.

Cheers!

G. Jillian Stone

There are fields in time that burn with desire. Meet me there.

Jillian is a recent Golden Heart finalist for THE YARD MAN, the first story in The Yard Men Series. Set in late Victorian London, Scotland Yard detectives have never been as wickedly sexy or as brilliantly clever. To read more about her latest work in progress, THE SEDUCTION OF PHAETON BLACK, please drop by her website: www.gjillianstone.com jillstone@mac.com