Do you feel awkward?

Oh, I remember that feeling well! I didn't tell my family I'd written a romance until I finished the first draft. Then I asked my mom and sister to read it, because my whole family are readers and I wanted to confirm that I'd created a real story with a beginning, middle, and end. There were two or three explicit scenes, but we've all read widely enough that I didn't feel more than mild embarrassment at the thought of them seeing them.

What I didn't expect was that my older brother would also want to read it. For some reason, it was a lot harder knowing he would read the love scenes. I dragged my feet about sending him a copy until he called me up and asked if I needed money for photocopying or what. I finally confessed that little sister was mortified about big brother reading the sex scenes. He laughed and reminded me of some parody porn he and his best friend had gotten in trouble for writing and distributing around school in 7th or 8th grade--nothing that came out of my imagination could possibly be filthier than that. And mine was actually in the context of a story. So I sent the ms. to him as well, and he was incredibly supportive.

I wouldn't expect totally unbiased responses, but you can still get valuable feedback. My mom was always my first reader (she died early this year), and while she was always enthusiastic, she could comment critically on some aspects, and was a kickass proofreader. But the most helpful feedback is probably going to come from other writers (see: SYW and the beta reader forum), and eventually from your agent and the editor who ultimately buys the manuscript.

I don't write romance but there is sexual content in my fantasy novels and I had the same pull back feeling when my parents wanted to read my story. It's been my personal experience that while my parents are supportive, they don't actually get around to reading the pages they ask for. Don't get me wrong, if I get it published they'll probably get on it, but not everyone that offers and even presses to read the MS actually do it. Be prepared for that. It's super exciting when you do give someone your work to read but a number of those people flake or aren't really interested. That is not a critic in and of itself.

As far as legit feedback, you're going to want to find beta readers that read your genre. You said your best friend reads a lot of romance, if she's willing to give you honest feedback (and you know that you can handle that from her) she could be a really good beta for you. You have to be honest with yourself too here and know what kind of feedback you're ready to take and from who. Sometimes it's easier to get feedback from strangers than from close friends. Do a couple rounds of editing before you toss it to a beta reader, that way you've already cleared out the grammar issues.

Feedback is really useful but not everything a beta tells you means you have to turn around and make a change to your book. Which is why having multiple readers can be incredibly helpful. My spouse is the first to read my stories. All of them. If he doesn't read it no one does. He's a writer as well but not the same genre. His feedback is usually about sentences he really likes and his thoughts on the characters BUT knowing him, I know that his opinions of the characters are not going to be the general opinion. My second reader is my sister-in-law who is an avid reader of all things. I've given her the okay to give me full feedback and she does, as does my third.

It's not always easy at first, but you do get used to taking critique and it is worth it. But you have to find the right beta readers for you work and for you.

I think it's always a little uncertain-feeling when fam and friends want to read something you've written. I always feel, "What if they think it's lame? If I could've done better? If something in my characters' story squicks them out? Worse, if they think romance is basically insipid crap and they're only reading it 'cause me?"

It's difficult to launch a story. It's not the same as seeing your five-year-old off to Kindergarten that first day. Our books aren't our babies, despite what people say. But it takes courage to do it.

Your book, your way -- but do your love scenes embarrass you, thinking about fam and friends reading them? You might've written beyond your own comfort level. Take a second look at those scenes and ask yourself if you'd continue to feel weird about people reading them once it's published. If you decide you would, maybe those scenes could be racheted back a bit. Just a suggestion, of course YMMV.

No one in my family has read more than tiny snippets of my novel. I gave an earlier draft to an avid romance-reading friend to beta and she said, "it was good." That was the end of me having friends/family. I'm looking for actual writer-level betaing so that sort of generic feedback wasn't helpful.

I have uncomfortable feelings about people in my family reading my sex scenes. It's not discomfort in a general sense (I haven't minded sharing any of my work--including erotic romance--with betas and critique partners and I definitely won't mind if I sell something), it's that having people I'm sitting at Thanksgiving dinner with contemplating how much of ME is in the scenes is awkward. And my family members WOULD contemplate it. And probably ask about it. At dinner. Oy.

Carrie Lyn said:

Have you had your close friends and family read your novels or do you prefer that they dont?

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I would have been delighted if my mom had wanted to read any of my romances (two are dedicated to her), but she was 1. not a reader 2. devoutly religious, so she would have been saddened and ashamed that I was writing stories where unmarried people had sex. I say "would have" because she died before I could publish anything, which probably saved her the embarrassment.

The rest of my family is also very religious and doesn't approve of my Westernized self, so I didn't even bother mentioning the books to them. As for my very close friends, none of them enjoy romance. They'd be supportive, because they're all wonderful people, but they wouldn't read my books.

So I think it's lovely that your mom and your friend are encouraging you and want to read your work. Treasure them.

Many of my family and family friends are somewhat conservative in regards to sex, gender, and LGBT issues, so I can't show them my stories most of which has LGBT content of some sort (even if it's very mild/tame). My family aren't readers, either. It's why kind it's hard for me to be motivated to finish something that's not going to appeal to many of my family and friends....

My mom has read some of my published works. I write mainly erotic romance. She reads erotic romance on occasion anyway so it wasn't shocking for her. My sister knows what I write, but I am not sure if she had read anything I have written or not and yup, she also reads erotic romance on a regular basis

I think it is common to be a little embarrassed to have close family read sex scenes you've written. I am dreading having to look at my father if he ever reads what I write. Maybe some families are different, some more open, but not so much down here in the south. Yeah, I got the safe sex lecture but never the throw your leg over his shoulder for deeper penetration lecture. There are something you just don't talk about with parents.

My friends - male and female- have read my work and I don't even feel awkward about discussing it with them. Just something about my parents makes me... maybe I'll just rip those pages out of their copies

I've felt awkward about my writing for as long as I can remember. lol

And those feelings were only reinforced during my journalism/newspaper days, like my work isn't ready for public consumption until it's been bruised and bloodied by a teacher's or editor's pen. Once it's graded/printed/published and out there in the world for everyone to see, I'm cool with it and I'm proud of my work. Until then, I don't share.

My writing friend and another friend of ours who is an avid reader were the only people to read my complete manuscript before I began querying. I let my sister-in-law read it only a few weeks ago after my husband opened his big mouth about the fact I have an agent and she begged me to read it. lol

My mother, who is an avid reader, has not read it, nor has she asked to read it. That's because my mom knows it's difficult for me to share any of my writing no matter the content. My husband has read snippets here and there when I've accidentally left the window maximized on the desktop because he, like my mom, knows I'm not comfortable sharing an unfinished product.

But I do know there will be some family members who won't be too happy about the content. And just to make it more interesting, I'm not using a pen name. lol

I told my mom I'm writing a novel. I didn't tell her the genre. She can read it, if it gets published.

Congrats on starting your first novel!

I write erotica and erotic romance and my mom has read a lot of my work. She wasn't a big fan of either until I started writing in those genres, but now she's constantly asking to borrow from my library, and when my next WIP will be ready. We're close and she's open-minded, so it isn't awkward. I have a handful of friends who beta for me, a couple of whom are also writers. One thing I've found is the betas that don't regularly read romance tend to make comments about certain tropes and staple features (HEA/HFN, introducing the H/h to each other early on, etc) that the romance readers either expect or aren't phased by. You're going to want to keep your betas' preferred genres in mind when deciding whether to accept or reject their feedback.

Like you, one of my close friends is an avid reader whose opinion I value highly, so I was really nervous about showing her my work. Turns out, she loves it, so now she's one of my most trusted betas. I tell everyone who betas for me that I want their honest feedback and as far as I know, that's what I'm getting. I've improved a lot of short stories and novels based on their feedback.

Chances are, if you're working with people who love, care for, and support you, they aren't going to be brutal in their honesty. That's fine, as long as they still feel they can get their point across. It's all in how you accept their feedback: listening to what they have to say, not being defensive, saying "thank you" even if you disagree, etc. If they feel they can be honest, then they probably will be.

Showing someone your work for the first time is nerve-racking, but it's all part of the process. Maybe you could find a book with a heat level similar to yours and ask your mom to read it. If she tells you she's uncomfortable with the sexual content, then she might not be the best beta for this project. Your romance reading friend on the other hand could be a really great person to have in your corner. Try seeing this as just one of the necessary hurdles on the pathway to publishing, like querying or proofreading.

Good luck!

Hi. I don't think I've ever posted in the Romance/Women's Fiction board before, but I saw this topic come up and thought I'd give my two cents simply because I can relate to this topic to a certain extent.

I'd hardly call myself a romance writer, but my Sleeping Beauty retelling has been taking a decidedly romantic tone and my other WIPs which I hope to get published someday all have some romantic elements in them, though they are fantasy, not romance. I also have a decidedly romantic short story I've been writing simply for the sake of figuring some of the backstory for two of my characters from one of the aforementioned WIPs. There's nothing erotic or even particularly sexual, beyond kissing, in any of these stories. However, with the exception of my mother, I do sometimes feel a little awkward about the thought of my dad and maybe other family reading my work.

I'm super close to my mom, she's super supportive of everything I do, and we have very similar tastes in books. She's also the only person in my family (unless she's told someone else and didn't tell me she told) who knows I'm trying to be a writer. The main reason I haven't told my dad I'm a writer is because...with all due respect and love...he can be a bit over-helpful (which results in not being helpful at all, but you can't tell him that because he'll get his feelings hurt), and nosy at times. And I'll just leave that at that.

I know because of our similar tastes that I'll never write anything romantically based that I'd be worried about my mom reading. Like I said, there are romantic elements in all of my WIPs but nothing sexual or erotic, and I'm not one to ever write sexual/erotic material anyway. I'm more of a "suggest IT happened" or "fade-to-black" kind of person and so is my mom. If and when I finish a draft of any of my stories, she'll probably be the first person to read it.

BUT, I still feel awkward about my dad ever potentially reading my stuff because he's one of those really overprotective, my-daughter-will-always-be-my-baby-girl/get-the-shotgun-out-if-a-guy-even-looks-at-her-even-though-she's-now-in-her-twenties types of fathers, and I worry about how he would react to finding out that I think about romantic things, much less think about them enough to write about them. (sometimes I've wondered if he thinks that I still think boys have cooties )

On one hand, I figure I probably worry for no reason because he's gotten so that he barely reads books at all, and those he does read are almost strictly historical fact and/or biographies. In fact, except for when I was little and he'd read to me, I don't think I've ever seen him pick up a fantasy book for himself. On the other hand, again, I am his precious daughter and if I was to write a whole book and get published, he might be so proud, he'd make an exception and read it. Then again, he's also a major procrastinator and wouldn't want to hurt my feelings if he read it and didn't like it...Sooo, I guess that's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.

As far as the rest of the family, I'm closest to my aunt/uncle/grandma on my dad's side and close, but not as close to my mom's side of the family. All of them live in a different state, however, and so I'm not close enough to them to know if they'd be surprised by any romantically-inclined things that I write or not. Therefore, awkwardness. I'm pretty sure my aunt on my dad's side would be perfectly fine, though.

But, like I said, it's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it. I will point out, though, that my awkward feelings when I think about my family reading my work stems more from not knowing how they'll react, more than any embarrassment/discomfort about what I've written. I, myself, am completely comfortable with what I've written, romantic or otherwise, and I have no qualms about the general public reading it.

Totally felt awkward the first time I handed over an ms. What made it a thousand times worse was making a gross gaffe in the character dialog. My male protagonist said something which to me was perfectly innocent wording but turned out to be a lewd sex act I'd never heard of. It wasn't even a sex scene!
It now occurs to me to wonder how my sister knew of it...

Yeah, it's awkward.

I do it anyway. I figure if you can endure the critiques of the people you most care about, you can endure the critiques of strangers. I've had a number of family and family friends read the first 1/3 of my novel, and my husband's father and cousin have read the whole draft. I was pretty freaked out about his Dad reading it because there are some really, really explicit BDSM sex scenes toward the end. I was thinking of dialing those scenes back anyway, so after he read the first part I told him to wait until I'd reworked the ending before he read the rest. But he went ahead and read the rest, erotica and all.

My father in law brought it up yesterday while we were stuffing envelopes for party invites. It wasn't quite as horrible as I thought it would be. He said the sex scenes were well done and suggested I write in more explicit sex scenes toward the beginning of the novel so readers would know what they were getting into. That made me question whether that level of explicitness even belonged in the book in the first place. He also gave me some feedback about the end of my book that will be useful in reworking it.

I say, share it with people you think are going to provide the most useful feedback. Even if it's embarrassing. There's no easy way to do this sharing your work thing. It's like ripping off a bandaid. Just gotta do it.

I don't ask friends or family to read anything of mine. I don't want critiques from people close to me. They can feel free to read my published work if they want.