Erotic Romance -- The Tease Factor

June 4, 2007 9:52 PM
Posted by -- Laurie Sanders
Editor Black Velvet Seductions

Richard mentioned in his post yesterday that there exists a tease factor in both romance and in art. I do not know as much about art as Richard does (though I would recommend his website.) I do however know quite a lot about romance novels so I thought I would pick up his lead and talk some about the tease factor and the role it plays in romance novels.

There is certainly a tease factor in romance books, and there is an even greater one in the best erotic romances. Richard mentioned in his post that the tease factor in art is expressed as almost seeing something. He also said that in romance the tease is in wondering if the characters will or won’t do something.

In some types of romance novels the tease factor is almost a requirement. If you think of marriage of convenience stories and stories in which the hero and heroine are forced to marry (or cohabitate) the early part of the book is almost always filled with a sense of wondering whether the couple will become intimate. As readers we know that they will become sexual at some point within the story. The big questions are how will it come about? When? Will their coupling help their relationship or intensify the conflicts within their relationship?

It is these questions…the will they…won’t they….how will they… that provides a foundation for sexual tension and the tease that Richard mentioned.

In some erotic romances (hopefully only in those published by other publishers) the sense of tease is lost. The sense of wondering if, when, and how is lost because the hero and heroine become sexual within the first few pages of the book. Sometimes this can work, but more often than not the tease is lost and the reader (at least this reader) feels at least a tad disappointed at the loss of tease so early in the book.

Black Velvet Seductions takes a different approach. We don’t want stories that are JUST erotic. We want stories that are emotional and romantic as well as erotic so our authors focus on maintaining the erotic tease in the early part of the book and then pull out all the sexual stops when the hero and heroine do become sexual. Our approach allows us to publish books that push all the emotional and romantic buttons that traditional romance novels pushed while adding a level and depth of eroticism that would never have been allowed in traditional romance novels.

We don’t believe that readers should ever have to choose between eroticism and emotional stories. We think the best books combine eroticism, romance, and emotion and that's what we strive to publish.

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