For me, juiciness in a book is about the sort of events that, if they happened in real life to someone you know, you can bet the local gossip would be talking about it.
I can't stand gossip in real life because it's altered truth, and that always hurts someone. But in my books, bring it on!
For some people juiciness is merely the presence of sexytimes in a novel, the more graphic the better. Not so for me. In fact, being an old married woman, I get rather bored with sex scenes and will often skip them. The characters have sex? Okay. *Skip a few pages*.
I can have a novel free of sex and still call it juicy. Juiciness is when drama happens to the characters. Let things go snafu. Let the Hero and Heroine have misunderstandings. Let scandal run rife. As long as there is an HEA in the end, let all sorts of melodramatic stuff happen. I love it when good sense is half-way out the door in a storyline. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for an awful lot, as long as it's coherently put together.
Question: How much drama do you like in your stories?
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Another reason Her Grace loves her escapist fiction: it allows her to indulge in drama and farce. In real life, she works really hard against drama and farce. She's got an idealistic view in life and believes in working towards a good and peaceful life. Quite the opposite of juiciness.
2 comments:
I am part of that old school where conflict is story so yes, please bring the tension. I actually prefer books where there is either no sex scenes or any actual sex is implied (couple produces baby - you can guess what happened in the back of that red ragtop). Leave a bit to the imagination. It builds longing in the reader, especially if you can make your reader want your characters together and events keep making it difficult for them to be together. Anyhow, that's my two cents which is probably not worth a brass farthing.
I like drama too, as long as it's believable. And I agree with E.M. about leaving a bit to the imagination.
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