Why I Love JR Ward

JR Ward and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, are on my favorite author list for much the same reason (please note that SEP is adult contemporary romance, which I do not represent). They have what I call "The Psychological Screw You" factor. Not so much "screw you" as in the reader, but in terms of character development and plot. If you've ever read a SEP novel, while laughing out loud every other scene, you'll realize that she's great at creating this amazing characters then throwing them down a cliff. The joy of reading about these characters comes when you watch them try to climb back up the cliff. She throws everything into it, too: family drama, past loves, financial ruin, reputation, jobs. Throughout the journey, you become close with the characters. Plus there is a lot of tension and frustration (and the sex scenes aren't there for the sake of being there; they are a result of the characters--not plot devices).

Now, JR Ward does similar things to her characters as well. Each character is so psychologically twisted that they have a hard time being in civilized company. Part of this is a result from the character's self--by that I mean a product of them being vampire (or a mix: vampire/celestial offspring, vampire/demon sucker, vampire/beast). All of them are dealing with scars from their past. Again, as I mentioned above with SEP's novels, the sex in Ward's novels are not plot devices or included for the sake of inclusion. Each scene is a product of the characters and sometimes act as a therapy tool.

(One of the main reasons I mention sex, is that it's one of the biggest mistakes a new writer can make in their ms, and one of the biggest reasons I'll reject a paranormal romance. If I see anything throbbing in the first two pages, it's usually a red flag. It must be done well and, as I said above, as a result of character development.)

Have you noticed that I haven't really talked about plot? It's all about character development. So whoever says that literary novels are all about character development, and commercial novels are only about plot, are dead wrong.

The point of this post, besides paying homage to two fantastic authors and their creations, is to show what I'm looking for when it comes to Paranormal Romance. If anything is going to be throbbing, there better be a good reason for it.

Happy reading!

YA: Sex

To include or not to include.  Is that really the question?

Well, it depends doesn't it?  A big reason books are banned is for sexual content.  But teens want to read about something relevant to their lives.  What is more relevant than sex?  Having it, not having it, it occupies a good space of brain time in your average teenager.  And if they aren't having it, don't want to have it, won't have it in their teen years, they are, at the very least, confronted with it every day by peers, ads, TV, magazines, etc.

Take Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (discount the fourth, though that can be a discussion all on its own), and Rampant by Diana Peterfreund.  In these books, the main character wants to have sex, and has to deal with the repercussions of having or not having sex.  In the first case, it means possibly getting attacked by her vampire lover in the moment of passion.  In the second, it means losing her powers as a unicorn slayer.

So these aren't necessarily real life situations.  If a teen has sex, she has to deal with the possibilities of STDs, pregnancy, or personal or social humiliation.  So what's the point of including sexual situations in fantasy novels?  A teen doesn't need a "How to Survive Having Sex with a Vampire" handbook.

What's the point?  It gets the teen thinking.  It gets the teen out of her own head for a moment.  It allows the teen to project.  And it allows the teen to sympathize with the main character in her own plight.  She will recognize in the main character her own emotions, confusion, and dilemmas.

Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher are two contemporary YA that both deal, at least in part, with sex and the consequences.  I won't get into them much here, but know that I loved both of these books.  They handle the dilemma of teen sex so well, both in vastly different ways, that, had they landed on my desk, I would have scooped them up (not for the sex dilemma alone, but the incorporation was very well done).

So, the question isn't really to include of not to include.  It's more about the appropriateness to your story.  Don't include sex for the sake of having it in there.  If there is no point, no lesson, no conclusion to draw from the scene, then it isn't helping.  It might be harming your novel.

The following links talk more in depth about sex and romance in YA novels--probably better than I could.

Romance from Justine Dell.
Edgy YA from Query Tracker.

And the book I'm looking forward to reading with this topic in mind is The Duff by Kody Keplinger.  (Click for a great review.)

So the questions you might want to ask yourself are:
How much is too much?  How can the author gage what will be acceptable for teens to read?  How does the author decide what the teen can identify with?  When is it worth taking the risk of adding sexual material, and just leaving it out in favor of something else?  Is it allowable to be explicit in YA, or is it common courtesy to gloss over the details?

So, dear readers, your turn.  Enlighten me to your thoughts.  Happy writing.