Sally Quilford's Blog

© John Siebert | Dreamstime Stock Photos The language of love in romance novels is important in order to set the scene. It has also changed much over the years. Gone are the flowery purple passages of Barbara Cartland novels, where heroines swooned and ‘touched the stars’, or whatever other euphemism Barbara used to describe an orgasm. Love scenes now use more realistic language, sometimes explicit, sometimes not, depending on the market and intended readership. But I’m struck by how some authors get it completely wrong. A  Facebook friend recently pointed out the blurb of a novel which describes the heroine’s ‘sexy snort’. Even in the film Miss Congeniality , Sandra Bullock’s snort is shown to be an unattractive aspect of her behaviour. Though with Sandra Bullock being so beautiful, I think most men would probably forgive that! But such a snort cannot be described as sexy. At least not with a straight face… I have also read novels where the designated hero ‘leers’ at the

I've been looking back through my old files again, to share some articles that my visitors have enjoyed before. This article, about writing love scenes, originally appeared in The New Writer magazine. The First of a Million Kisses As a writer of romantic novellas, one thing I always have a problem with is getting my hero and heroine to kiss. In my thirty thousand word western romance, Bella’s Vineyard (My Weekly Pocket Novels, issue 1735) it took thirteen thousand of those words to get my loved up twosome into a position where they kissed. After all, the first kiss in any romance has to be something special. It has to be momentous. It has to convince the reader that this is going to be the first of a million kisses between the couple. So it probably can't take place in the back seat of a Ford Escort. Not in 1880s America at least. In a modern romance, your hero and heroine can probably kiss much quicker. On the first night they meet perhaps. Depending on the marke