Hi guys! Ashlyn Kane here guest-blogging for my gracious host, EM Lynley. Happy Cocktoberfest, everybody! Have a sausage!

[Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win an e-book version of Bethany Brown & Ashlyn Kane's new novel Wild Angels]

I’m sort of new to this whole “getting paid to write about hot men having sex with each other” thing, but it’s pretty much the coolest job in the world. Well, getting paid to watch would actually be pretty awesome too, but anyway. I love my job, but sometimes—don’t tell anyone—I have problems writing The Sex.

As pretentious as it is to say it, as authors, we’ve got a duty to the story that we’re telling to tell it right, not to sugarcoat it, to give the characters a fair shake (tee hee). But as writers of erotic romance, well, let’s just say we’ve got a responsibility to the readers, as well, and readers like a steamy sex scene. At least, that’s my experience as a reader!

That’s where the conflict comes in. On the one hand, my duty to the story and characters says I gotta tell it like it is. On the other hand, as a reader and people-pleaser (pun fully intended), I want to write marathon sex scenes, dagnabbit! So when the characters are nervous, or inexperienced, or tired, or lazy, or, say, a little over-stimulated, what’s a girl to do?

It’s my job to satisfy the reader, not the characters’. Of course, that leads to a different problem—as they say, diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks. I know that for myself, as a reader, while I do love the fantasy sex—going for hours, unlimited erections, Tyrannosaurus Pricks and liters of bodily fluids (ok, maybe not that last one)—there’s a point where I take a step back and say, ‘Really? It was that big? Yeah, right.’ Not to mention that I’ve read more than a few titles that I felt were more about the sex than about the characters, and as much as I love me some hot man-on-man action, I do actually usually read for the plot! So what the readers want isn’t always different from what the characters need.

But where is the line? Is there even one? How can I weigh artistic integrity against my implicit promise to get the reader off? It should be no contest, right? The author’s first duty—which totally trumps ‘job’ on the obligation scale—is to the story. Of course, we can’t be authors if people don’t like our work, and everyone knows we’re feedback whores.

So speaking of—I gotta know. What’s too much fantasy for you guys to swallow?

Ashlyn Kane is a geeky 24-year-old with a sweet tooth and a sharp tongue. You can buy her work, including Wild Angels, the newest collaboration with Bethany Brown, from Dreamspinner Press here.

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