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A Book Review by Karen Sweeny-Justice
When romance novelist and RWA member Alison Kent placed an ad in Romance Writers Report for an on-line class she was teaching on writing erotic romance, I checked out the site that was listed for more information. A web designer in addition to being a writer, Kent can be found at www.accessromance.com. It was there that I found out about her book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance. I got lucky, too, as I entered one of Kent’s contests and won a copy of the book!
Like the many other titles in the Idiot’s Guide series, Kent’s how-to is broken down into logical chapter headings with plenty of side-bar attention grabbing snippets of information nicknamed ‘slip of the tongue’ and ‘scorchers’. The sub-sections of each chapter are clearly defined, and Kent writes in a casual style that is easy to read and understand. The appendixes provide additional information, including a question and answer session on erotic romance discussed by eighteen authors published in the field.
Six parts break Kent’s topic down into sections beginning with the basics of what constitutes a romance and follows through with the external, emotional and physical journey of the hero and heroine, writing explicitly, and meeting reader’s expectations.
Although she’s targeting writers of a specific sub-genre within romance, Kent’s book provides the basics that every fiction writer needs to know in order to complete a manuscript. There’s information not only from Kent, but from numerous other erotic writers including Jaid Black and Lydia Joyce. This book has many answers that writers are looking for. From ways to get the heroine and her hero together in the first place to descriptions of body parts, there’s something for every author who wants to explore romance. And yes, even those writing sweet romances can get something from this book; they just have to be selective in their reading!
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