Everybody’s talking about romance: Romance/fantasy books fly off shelves, huge networks of BookTok influencers focus mainly on romance, romance is getting people to read who haven’t picked up a book since high school.

Long before TikTok, romance has always been a rich genre full of talented authors, but this current surge of romance books is an especially great opportunity for indie authors—romance writers are among those who do best as independents, with readers who follow them personally as opposed to their publisher. 

So whether you’re a traditionally published author or an indie writer, branching out into romance is a tempting idea. Especially because it blends so well with pretty much any other genre. 

But when things get hot between your characters, can you pull off a steamy sequence or is that when you get writer’s block? 

Do What Makes You Comfortable

Unlike so much of life, this is one area where you should stay in your comfort zone. 

If writing an explicit, intense, intimate scene makes you squeamish, then don’t force yourself into something that doesn’t feel true to you. 

There are so many levels to romance scenes. This is what you might have seen some influencers talk about as “spice levels,” with less spicy books leaving, well, more to the imagination. 

Don’t feel like you’re missing out on anything if you don’t write more intense erotic scenes. Just like there are some writers who don’t feel comfortable writing explicit scenes but still want to write romance, there are multitudes of readers who feel the same way. A romance book is a story that focuses on the romantic storyline, and it’s totally fine for those scenes to tastefully fade to black as the bedroom door closes. 

However, if you are interested in writing more explicit content, then you probably already know that there are a lot of readers who want to read what you’re writing. That being said, you might not be comfortable with your friends, family members, or coworkers knowing about your literary life. In that case, you can always use a pseudonym and be in good company with a lot of other romance writers. 

Get Technical

No matter what degree of spice you want to go, you’ll need to work on your technical action scene skills. 

Just like a thriller describing an intense fistfight between two spies, a good romance writer needs to pay close attention to where their characters are in the space. 

If your hero just scooped up your heroine to carry her across the threshold, he doesn’t have a hand free to tuck her hair behind her ear. If they’re having a romantic dinner in front of a roaring fire, there won’t be enough of a chill in the room to justify someone giving their date their jacket for warmth, even if that is a romantic gesture that might make sense in another context. 

No matter what kind of romance reader you are, the scenes where characters actually get romantic are the most important, and if they fall flat, you probably aren’t giving that author another chance. “The love scenes were confusing” is one of the most significant pieces of criticism a romance author can get, so any aspiring one needs to pay extra attention to these delicate scenes. 

As usual, reading is the best way to learn. Do you notice yourself getting confused during these scenes while reading? If so, when and why? Does it seem like the author actually has a clear idea of what they’re writing? 

This is a point that is especially important for writers who aren’t totally explicit because if you aren’t being specific about everything that’s happening, you’ll need to be extra careful to bridge the gaps so a reader doesn’t get lost. 

Pace Yourself

Once you know what kind of romance scenes you want to include and you’re set on writing them out clearly and logically, you’ll need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. How often are these scenes happening? 

This is a blend that is harder than you might think to get right. It might seem obvious that putting in as many love scenes as possible is the way to go because isn’t that the whole point? But books are long, and writing an effective story has a lot of elements; the spicy scenes are just one piece of a larger picture. 

What makes Pride and Prejudice’s relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy so effective is that it takes a long time to build up to them actually expressing their love for each other. There is rising tension and changes in what they think about each other throughout so readers feel such immense satisfaction at the end. 

But, of course, part of why Pride and Prejudice has been redone by modern romance authors so many times is so there can be steamier scenes than what Jane Austen was publishing. So if your romance book barely has any romance, that’s not satisfying either. 

Make a plot timeline so you can get a clear idea of how often your love scenes are coming up and decide whether or not that balance works well for your story. 

Trends Are Opportunities, Not Mandates

It’s a great time to be writing if you love to write romance. But if you don’t? Then don’t force yourself. 

Chasing trends is no way to build an artistic career. If you have a genuine interest in riding the wave and trying something that’s actually interesting to you, then you should absolutely give romance writing a shot. But especially for a kind of writing that can be so sensitive and personal, “everyone else is doing it” is not a good enough reason. 

The smartest thing you can do as a writer is to write what you want to write, and the readers will follow. 

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog. When not writing or reading, she is a fiber and textile artist who sews, knits, crochets, weaves, and spins.