I'm Carol. I'm Mia. I'm Carol. I'm Mia. I'm Carol AND I'm Mia. Shades of Chinatown aside, I am Carol and Mia. Carol writes category romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue. These stories are breathless, seat-of-your-pants rides with plenty of danger and more than a few dead bodies piling up. The suspense shares equal billing with the romance, and more often than not, the danger increases the sexual tension between the hero and the heroine. While the romance can be hot, the hero and heroine usually don't have a lot of time to spend between the sheets with each other. One good, juicy love scene, maybe two is about what you're going to find in an Intrigue. Have to make sure there's plenty of time for the bullets to fly.
But as Mia, I write erotic romance where the hero and heroine spend most of their time between the sheets, and they don't refer to each other's body parts with euphemistic language either! Even in one story I wrote, Hot on Her Heels (Secrets Vol. 24, coming in July '08), which is a romantic suspense, the feel and pacing of the story is much different from the Intrigues because it's an erotic romance (and you won't find an Intrigue hero shaking his stuff in a leopard-print g-string working undercover at a strip club either!).
Although the genres are different, I can't really claim that I do anything different to get into the moods of the stories. No Al Green or Barry White music for writing erotica; no hard-driving Green Day for writing Intrigues. I don't wear black, high-heeled boots and jeans for writing Intrigues or thigh-high stockings and bustiers for writing erotica (much to my husband's great lament). I guess I just get into the stories. I can even work on one type of story one day and a different one the next or even during the same day if I'm doing revisions.
I have to admit I do get a little carried away with the love scenes in the Intrigues sometimes, and have to pull back, and I do enjoy writing erotic romances that have a little intrigue in them. So I suppose there's a little melding that goes on between the two genres.
I'd be curious to know from those of you who write different genres if you do anything to get into the particular mood of that genre. Thanks for dropping by. I'm off to work on another erotic romance. Better find those thigh-high stockings....
2 comments:
Fantastic post, Carol/Mia!! I also write various subgenres of romance. Historical, paranormal, contemporary, with varying degrees of erotic and suspense thrown in for fun. I read a wide variety so this is why I like to write variety. I have been known to have a certain music soundtrack for a certain manuscript as I'm writing it, but not always. For a story with a dark mood, I might listen to dark music. For a story with a light humorous mood I would listen to totally different music. But sometimes I prefer silence. I wear the same clothes no matter the subgenre but, boy would it be fun to dress up in historical costume, though not terribly comfortable. LOL
I write whatever story appeals to me. I've done non-erotic romances in paranormal, contemporary, and historical (two of those were funny books). I've done erotic romances in fantasy, historical, paranormal, and contemporary.
Currently, I'm putting the finishing touches on an erotic romance that's set in an alternate universe modern day Oakland, California.
In the back of my mind, I've become obsessed with a historical, English story I'd love to write.
I've even written a straight fantasy with a strong romantic thread but no sex whatsoever. Again, it was a story that came to me and possessed me until I had to write it.
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