Writing a Gay Romance question

scorpiodragon · May 30, 2007

I didn't see a thread for this so I thought I'd start one.

I was inspired recently and have started outlining/writing scenes for a gay romance novel featuring two men. My genre of choice has generally been fantasy and horror ,combined with different elements like romance or comedy. I've never written a full on romance before but I use to devour them regularly and have read some interesting books on writting in the genre.

I've been reading gay romances to see if my idea would have an audience and to learn more about the genre. It does appear that my story would have an audience. Right now I'm more focused on getting it down on paper.

My question is are their any other writers here who have written or acurrently writing in this sub-genre? And if so is their anything that you've encountered as far as plot and characterization that you feel is a genre specific challege?

veinglory · May 30, 2007

Hi there. There are a good few gay romance writers here and I can direct you to more. The first thing to think about is what kind of gay romance and for what kind of audience. This basic scenario divides into many more or less distinct categories including literary, humorous, sweet romance, erotic romance, anime-style, for gay men vs. more for women (MM) etc.

scorpiodragon · May 30, 2007

veinglory said:
Hi there. There are a good few gay romance writers here and I can direct you to more. The first thing to think about is what kind of gay romance and for what kind of audience. This basic scenario divides into many more or less distinct categories including literary, humorous, sweet romance, erotic romance, anime-style, for gay men vs. more for women (MM) etc.

I was thinking sweet with potential erotica tones (it really depends on what the characters tell me they want). The gay romances I've read I'm assuming have been geared toward women.

JanDarby · May 30, 2007

The gay romances I've read I'm assuming have been geared toward women.

That seems to be where the strongest market is at the moment.

I remember reading, maybe a year or two ago, about a guy who was writing and marketing gay romances to men. As I recall, he was aiming for category-length, not-sweet, but not-erotic stories.

JD

scorpiodragon · May 30, 2007

That seems to be where the strongest market is at the moment.

I remember reading, maybe a year or two ago, about a guy who was writing and marketing gay romances to men. As I recall, he was aiming for category-length, not-sweet, but not-erotic stories.

JD

There's a romance line out called called the Ro-men-tics that's written by a gay couple, could that be what you're thinking of?

veinglory · May 30, 2007

I would mention that the sweet end of the gay-for-girls [

] market is not as strong as the MM erotic end (by a long chalk). My own stuff is at the sex-lite end of that spectrum but still has a few full sex scenes at least and so gets into the erotic romance category. Without that a lot of the MM-publishing e-POD presses are ruled out.

If you are writing sweeter is it probably worth looking at some of the more crossover print or e/POD markets. I know we have MJ Pearson and erastes around here somewhere who both went small press print, rather than epress or e/POD. There are a bunch of us who write mm mainly in ebook form. If you are looking at any publishers I am familiar with (Loose Id, Torquere, Samhain etc) feel free to PM or email.

(Jan, are you thinking of Romentics? I think they are still going but didn't find their stuff all that interesting, personally.) [cross post]

My only comment on specific challenges would be to know the readership be they slash, yaoi or trad romance based which have their own conventions, be aware of male anatomy and to some extent culture and how it works--then write the characters like any others.

WackAMole · May 30, 2007

scorpiodragon said:
I didn't see a thread for this so I thought I'd start one.

I was inspired recently and have started outlining/writing scenes for a gay romance novel featuring two men. My genre of choice has generally been fantasy and horror ,combined with different elements like romance or comedy. I've never written a full on romance before but I use to devour them regularly and have read some interesting books on writting in the genre.

I've been reading gay romances to see if my idea would have an audience and to learn more about the genre. It does appear that my story would have an audience. Right now I'm more focused on getting it down on paper.

My question is are their any other writers here who have written or acurrently writing in this sub-genre? And if so is their anything that you've encountered as far as plot and characterization that you feel is a genre specific challege?

I am currently working on my first lesbian romance. I started doing this because I'm a lesbian and I got frustrated at the lack of a lot of choices for reading material.

I dont particularly feel I need to READ books with lesbian characters, but every now and then it's nice to find them and I have been pretty disappointed with the ones i've read so far. (with exception of sarah waters)

I personally have found that there are FAR MORE books out there for Gay Males than there are for Gay females

sunandshadow · May 30, 2007

I've written gay romance, but not published any. I agree that the erotica audience is bigger, unless you're doing pure comedy and aiming for a general audience rather than a romance audience. I would not consider gay romance to really be a genre, more like a casting choice which can result in thematic differences but doesn't have to. So no I can't say I've noticed any genre-specific problems, other than the confusion of all the pronouns being he. My solution to that is to give each character a few eptihets to use in addition to the character's first name: the blond man, the taller man, captain lastname, the captain, otherchar's new lover, etc.

veinglory · May 30, 2007

I tend to just use a name every time I swap who is being talked about. The same thing comes up whenever a same sex group in described but has to be watched pretty closely with detailed interactions like erotic scenes (or combat LOL)

scorpiodragon · May 30, 2007

veinglory said:
I would mention that the sweet end of the gay-for-girls [ ] market is not as strong as the MM erotic end (by a long chalk). My own stuff is at the sex-lite end of that spectrum but still has a few full sex scenes at least and so gets into the erotic romance category. Without that a lot of the MM-publishing e-POD presses are ruled out.

If you are writing sweeter is it probably worth looking at some of the more crossover print or e/POD markets. I know we have MJ Pearson and erastes around here somewhere who both went small press print, rather than epress or e/POD. There are a bunch of us who write mm mainly in ebook form. If you are looking at any publishers I am familiar with (Loose Id, Torquere, Samhain etc) feel free to PM or email.

(Jan, are you thinking of Romentics? I think they are still going but didn't find their stuff all that interesting, personally.) [cross post]

My only comment on specific challenges would be to know the readership be they slash, yaoi or trad romance based which have their own conventions, be aware of male anatomy and to some extent culture and how it works--then write the characters like any others.

I'm interested in an erotic element. I main goal is to have a well-plotted story with a few really good sex scenes. I feel like I'm on the right track but wanted to ask questions in case there were things I hadn't thought of.

WackAMole · May 30, 2007

I've also been thinking about checking out Bellabooks (sp?).
I dont know anything about them yet, still writing and havent had time to check, but I know they publish quite a few lesbian titles. Not sure about titles for men or erotica though :/

Might be worth a look

veinglory · May 30, 2007

In the small print presses there are plenty of lesbian (Bella, Alyson, Cavalier) and gay (STARbooks, 7th window, PD) options. It's more a matter of deciding which is your niche.

BarbaraSheridan · May 30, 2007

Anne and I have 5 stories out now spread over three big e-publishers. We don't have sales figures for the latest yet but judging from the others it seems the m/m audience we've gotten prefers their stories sexy and with a strong romance thread running through them.

I keep hearing that lesbian stories aren't that popular in e-books. I imagine with the print publishers mentioned here already it's different

veinglory · May 30, 2007

I think lesbian is more of a print market, my Borders has as many lesbian titles as gay.

WackAMole · May 30, 2007

veinglory said:
I think lesbian is more of a print market, my Borders has as many lesbian titles as gay.

My Borders has more Gay titles than lesbian, could just be a demand issue related to what sells most in my area. I think the thing that bothers me is, there are many titles, but some pretty crappy reads out there overall:/

It feels as if you have to sacfrifice good plots and good writing to publish a lesbian book. I've read a lot and so far, Sarah Waters is my fav. Of course, it could just be that I have wierd taste in whats good and whats not.

veinglory · May 30, 2007

I am not overly fond of the 'tone' currently popular in the lesbian small press. But it is dominated by a relatively small number of authors so hopefully there is a readership for a wider range out there. You also have to look around to find all of it, e.g. Laurinda Brown is in the African American section not the gay and lesbian section.

Unimportant · May 30, 2007

I agree, Veinglory; most of the lesbian small presses seem to be focusing on f/f category romance, perhaps because that's where the money is. And the quality of writing is often not very good. You have to sift through a lot of dross to find the good stuff. But there is some really enjoyable, more literary-ish lesbian fiction out there, and also some well-written genre lesbian fiction.

Whackamole, if you like Sarah Waters, you might want to try Lee Lynch's "Sweet Creek", Susan Stinson's "Venus of Chalk", and Lori Lake's "Snow Moon Rising". If you like magic realism, Susan Smith writes quite well; if you like fantasy, check out Jane Fletcher's and L-J Baker's work.

Sandy J · May 31, 2007

A member of my local chapter has been published with gay historical romance. Here's her website:
http://marlyspearson.com/
Hope that helps!!

JulesJones · May 31, 2007

M/m with a romance plotline and at least some sex sells quite well in the small press, she says looking at her latest royalty statement.

I mostly write speculative fiction (both science fiction and fantasy) with a romance plot, and it's sold by a romance epublisher. About all I can say is write it well, and consider the genre conventions of romance if you want to sell subsequent books to the romance market. I will note that the book of mine which has sold least well is the one in first person -- I didn't know when I wrote it that a lot of romance readers won't touch first person. If you write cross-genre, you need to get both genres right.

Overuse of epithets like "the little thief", "the burly rebel", etc caused me to hurl fanfiction zines at the wall, and will doubtless cause me to do same if I find them in profic. Don't. There are better ways to deal with the Great Pronoun Problem. Use the characters' names. It's like using "he said" -- it's actually a lot less noticeable to the reader than trying to come up with ways to avoid repeating yourself.

Writing a Gay Romance question

scorpiodragon

Black belt in awesome

veinglory

volitare nequeo

scorpiodragon

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JanDarby

scorpiodragon

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veinglory

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WackAMole

WTF?!?!

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

veinglory

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scorpiodragon

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WackAMole

WTF?!?!

veinglory

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BarbaraSheridan

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veinglory

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WackAMole

WTF?!?!

veinglory

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Unimportant

doggone

Sandy J

In a state of denial...

JulesJones

Writing a Gay Romance question

Black belt in awesome

volitare nequeo

Black belt in awesome

Black belt in awesome

volitare nequeo

WTF?!?!

Impractical Fantasy Animal

volitare nequeo

Black belt in awesome

WTF?!?!

volitare nequeo

*insert catchy phrase here*

volitare nequeo

WTF?!?!

volitare nequeo

doggone

In a state of denial...

insert catchy phrase here