What is "the right amount" of sex in a crime novel?

Erato

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So, last year I had set out to write kind of a smutty romance novel, thinking I'd submit to Harlequin or someone like that. The resulting story came out a bit different from what I had intended, and it finally struck me it might work better marketed as a crime novel with a love story in it, rather than as primarily a romance (since my research is suggesting that the romance crowd might be too repulsed by the amount of violence in the story; and submitting to publishers so far only got Nos.)

Thing is I still have all these smutty sex scenes, and actually they are fairly vital to the plot (I hate scenes of any type that don't move the plot forward, sex scenes included.) But when going for the crime novel angle, it seems like they might be a bit too much -- especially since they're told in first person by one of the characters and she doesn't have a very discreet vocabulary. Now, the first book I ever read that had detailed sex scenes in it was a Dean Koontz crime novel, so I know it's done in the genre; but also I recall those scenes were told in omnipotent viewpoint, used terms like "the sex" to refer to the genitals, etc.

So I am trying to figure out what is "the right amount" of sex/smut for a story like this. I'm wondering if I maybe ought to just trim the scenes down for length to the most minimal possible versions so that they just kind of rocket by?
 

lizmonster

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This is an interesting question. Because I'd argue that genre has nothing to do with how much sex is in the book, but rather the focus of the story.

Is your main couple's romantic journey--meeting, conflict, setbacks, reconciliation, HEA/HFN--the main focus of the story? Or is the main focus the crime arc? Is the main story focused on the sexual encounters themselves?

Depending on the answers, you could be looking at romance, or mystery, or crime thriller, or erotica. There are some fuzzy edges on all of these genres, of course (romance is probably the most crisply defined), but none of them, strictly speaking, is defined by the amount of sex.

Regardless--in your shoes, I'd think less about how much sex is in the book, and what the purpose of it is. If you wrote a lot of sex scenes because you felt like it, but they don't propel the story forward, you can probably cut some (or even all) of them. If each scene evolves the relationship between your characters, or sheds light in new ways on other aspects of the plot, then you need them. The truth may lie something in between.

TL;DR: Every scene in the book should have a plot-advancing purpose, including the sex scenes. Purpose is more important than frequency or level of heat.
 

StoryofWoe

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Lizmonster makes excellent points. Figure out the focus of your novel and you should have an easier time distinguishing the correct (sub)genre.

Have you done any research into erotic thrillers currently on the market? I recently read The Girl in 6E by A.R. Torre, which has plenty of sex (the MC is a professional cam girl with homicidal urges; a perfect example of a thriller where the sex propels the story). Maestra by L.S. Hilton also comes to mind.
 

blacbird

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There is no "right amount" of anything in any genre of fiction writing. Everything is dependent on the individual story, and the skill and sensibility of the writer. "Not enough" may be wrong, and "too much" is almost certainly wrong, but it's up to you, dear writer, to make those determinations.

caw
 

CatherineDunn

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You say the sex scenes are fairly vital to the plot, so I'm thinking they probably need to stay in, in some form. But do the readers only have to know that the characters had sex? I suppose you could think about the exact function of each scene and trim it down to the minimum necessary. If they just need to know that 'Character A had sex with Character B', you could get rid of most or all of the actual details of the act. If there's some kind of essential character reveal - Character A is unexpectedly dominant/submissive in bed; Character B has nurse fantasies; whatever - there must be a way of showing enough but cutting down the rest of the scene or just rewording to make it less explicit. The only way it could be a slight problem is if the POV character's 'not-very-discreet vocabulary' when it comes to sex is one of those points you need to reveal, maybe because it shows the reader something important about her. But that could be solved by writing just the first sex scene involving her in that way, and cutting down the others or changing the language.
 

WeaselFire

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Gotta say, I wrote a single romance novel ages ago that had a little criminal intrigue, a reasonable amount of sexual content (think early 1980's sex, not Fifty Shades...) and the satisfying conclusion of the love story. Agent loved it, new publishing line was starting up and the plot, and writing, were perfect - For a young adult romance.

Yanked the sex, added more intrigue and danger, some anticipatory touching and a first kiss on the last page. It became a pretty good book, publisher accepted it, got a $400 or so advance after agent cut (I was making $98 a week gross full time so it's not horrible) and...

The new book line got cut due to politics in the publishing house. :(

Agent re-shopped it but it didn't get much in the way of serious offers (everybody was looking for Hotel New Hampshire by then...) and it basically died as I moved on to non-fiction and journalism.

Moral of the tale? It's a story. How it's told depends on the audience.

I wonder if I still have a copy of that manuscript hiding in a box somewhere...?

Jeff