To say or not to say.

Warning-potentially adult words.

There seems to be an ongoing discussion these days about language in romances and what should be said or not said. The F___ word seems to be high in contention. First, I wonder if some of the objections come from the older writers/readers who are really not into graphic language. Next would be the born-again generation.

To me, a love scene/sex scene that is rife with words like dick, penis, pussy get boring and take away some of the romance. I want to know what they are feeling, sensual stuff not an anatomical description. There are ways to write a love scene that are lovely, not pornographic. Having said that, hot sex is a turn on for some and seen more and more in romance genre's'.

Next, I go along with Rinda Elliott here. If you have a kick-ass heroine fighting a demon who's blood will burn flesh, and she is splashed with said blood, what do you think she will say--"leapin' lizards?," "Oh poopy?" The language has to fit the scene and she is more likely to scream "oh fuck" than something more mild.

At the same time, for language to be effective, it needs to be used sparingly. If your characters use the f___ word in every sentence, or every other word, they become ineffectual, boring and sound as if their vocabulary went on hold at age ten-or younger. Use your skills as a writer to convey what you want your characters to say with more imagination than say a series on Showtime. Of course, some of the series on Showtime are excellent, but you know what I mean and have seen those reality show where the people become unintelligible because every other word has to be bleeped out.

Trends change-romances have evolved from bodice rippers where the girl falls in love with the man who kidnaps and rapes them (must have been a male fantasy.) Language evolves. As writers we have to decide what's effective for our characters and our readers.

Struggling, on and off the page.

If you go to Rachel Vincent's blog, http://urbanfantasy.blogspot.com, you will find a great description of how to write a fight scene and incorporate all the elements. I've only written a couple of fight scenes. They've been received well, they're the ones in FAIRY DUST. (You know you want to run out and download it right now.) But it's still difficult. Jim Butcher, in any of his Dresden Files books, has great fighting demons, or were wolves or vampire, or evil fairy scenes. He can drag the fight out for pages without ever making it feel that way. I'm not that good. He's my hero.

I do want the fights to be integral to the plot and not just thrown in. Same thing with sex scenes. Those are really hard for me and mine are very low key compared to what I see out there. I have a difficult time throwing in a love scene just because it's time for one. There has to be more reason than that for my people to get together. Plus, I like the sensual scene rather than the graphic scene, more about emotion, sensation, less about anatomically correct body parts or (my pet peeve) "throbbing members" of any kind. (If they weren't members of the club, would they be throbbing?")

Right this second I have Tali on a date with her new squeeze, Aiden. No spoilers here so let us just say their attraction is unusually strong. Should be fun to write. I've kept up with my word counts this week and the number and percentages are right even if the graph doesn't appear to be moving.