I am working on what I thought was science fiction and fantasy with some sex scenes. I have read on other forums that it would go straight into Erotica - is this true. Another forum said as long as the sex scenes didn't take over the plot (Which they don't) it would fall into Urban fantasy. Basically the book is about vampires, one of them is bi-sexual and she likes to "play" with her victims before feeding on them - any bright sparks out there know for sure?
A few sex scenes isn't enough to make it erotica IMO. But I guess it depends on how detailed the sex scenes are and how many of them there are. I wouldn't worry too much about genre. I believe the publisher is the one who decides what genre a particular book falls under.
Genres are a marketing shtick. Write the story first, then see which pigeonhole someone else will try to sell it from.
Yes and no. You don't need to define genre when you write the story, but you do need to know what genre(s) it can fit within when selecting publishers to submit to.
Depends how much detail you go into. George R.R Martin describe sexual acts, often in detail, but I doubt many would classify his novels as erotica though. What you need to ask yourself is this: Is your sex scenes helping with the plot? Is it important to understand your character? Does it help explain the setting of the universe? If the answer to all of these is no, and you dont want to have the erotica-label on your story, then you should keep the details to a minimum. And as said before, the genre is not important. Tell your story, worry about genres later.
When I posed a question along those lines to a highly respected agent several years ago, he asked me, "What's the main focus of the story?" Then added, "THAT's where your genre is." He then went on to say that almost every story, regardless of genre, is going to have some element of a love story of sorts in it. And in many of those 'love stories', there is going to be at least some degree of a sexual relationship. He laughingly finished with the bon mot, "If every story with a sex scene was erotica, almost ALL fiction would be erotica and I would be out of business." (At that time, erotica made up only a small percentage of his client list.) So, to borrow the line, "What's the main focus of your story? THAT's where your genre is." And, to borrow another, oft-quoted line, "The rest is just details."
wordsmith is exactly right. There's plenty of literary and genre fic that contain some pretty steamy scenes.
