I suffer terrible from indecision... perhaps it's the fact I'm a Taurus, I don't know, but I can't make a decision to save my life.

So while I was writing Given to the Warrior, I had some tough choices to make in terms of how much sexybusiness was going to happen and how far to take the story in what I wanted to do with it.

I'm not adverse to writing smut - I have a secret alter ego who writes my smutty stuff so that I never have to run the risk of sitting around the dinnertable having awkward eye contact with friends or family who have read the filthy things I've written.

The truth is, I also suffer greatly from an EXTREME lack of confidence and fear of rejection in pretty much everything in life, and my writing is no exception.  Giving people I know further reason to judge me by my sex scenes fills me with absolute dread.

I avoided it with my first two novels, having those be closed door, but I couldn't (well, didn't want to) do that with GTTW.  The story I wanted to tell was heavily centered around the old fashioned romance trope of a shy virgin heroine discovering an awakening of desire at the hands of a large sexy warrior.  The intimacy (and initial fear of it) is a large part of the story, so to close the hut door would have been unsatisfying!

Without wanting to shy away from sex or go too spicy, that left a middle ground which I found incredibly difficult to write.  You see, it's easier (to me at least) to write anonymous filth without fear of anyone you know judging you for it, than it is to work out where that line is where something becomes uncomfortable for your mother-in-law to read.... or your own offspring.

The main issue is what do you call all the parts?...  That falls under "you can't please everyone", because while one reader might prefer a liberal use of ... male-chicken... there are others who won't like that and find it too explicit.  The more old-fashioned terms like "manhood" will often get you laughed at, and some people prefer a detective portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson (if you're old enough to get that reference).  Not to mention ladyparts!  For all those who love a good feline or 'see-you-next-tuesday' and abhor flower references or "folds", there are others who feel the exact opposite.  

That's why to me it's far easier to write something explicit - you know your readers are there for smut and aren't going to be alarmed when the chickens and felines come out.

Even something as innocuous as a character grabbing someone's bum becomes a problem.... is it an ass? or is that too crude? If you're writing historical romance then you can get away with "derriere" (is it just me or is that a fun word we don't hear enough!?), but I've been reading a book and come to a screaming halt at finding a "bottom" in the middle of an otherwise very explicitly written scene and wondered how on earth that word got there.  I've seen readers say they will DNF just because the writer used the term "belly" instead of "stomach" (arguing it's infantile and thus gross), and others who argue that the "stomach" is inside, so they will DNF if that term is used!

There's also cultural and regional differences in what's acceptable or not.  I'm Australian and a "fanny" is a very different thing here to what it is in America! (not that you see fanny being used in romance books).  But also terms that are perfectly acceptable in the US (like "panties") aren't always as welcome here  ("panties" to an Australian can be as icky as some people find the word "moist" - and now I have to apologise for using both terms in the same sentence!!!).  For some Australian readers the feline term can be seen as more smutty than it seems like it is to a US reader.

Many writers try to avoid the body parts issue by focusing instead on the feelings of the scene rather than the mechanics of 'insert tab A into slot B' (as it were)... which is the advice I ultimately tried to take.

It's all too hard!
( lol )

After some extensive research (RIP my search history - athough given what I had to search up to do with hunting and fighting, and whether an arrow can kill someone instantly or if it would take some time - I'm probably now on some sort of watch list...), finding resources like this, and LOTS of discussion on what's the most preferred terms are for readers, in the end I rather luckily avoided the issue by being able to write around the use of terms and being able to use my made-up language!

A male-chicken may be too explicit, but a cadgü solves that problem!

Then there's the question of what is too spicy for those who prefer to read something fairly clean?  Self pleasure... is that a step too far?  How about people going down?  Which again is case where you can't please everyone (except hopefully the characters engaging in it).  There are readers who will want ALLLL the smut, and readers who just want a clean story, and I wanted to write something in between.

I also wanted to include the threat of sexual violence - partly because it's a very real concern for many women and I felt it was realistic for the situations I used it, and it allowed for Qiiraa to have more reason to be fearful of intimacy.  However I know that can be a very triggering topic for some readers, and it's not necessary for telling the story.  So I wrestled with the pros and cons of including it or not.

Also my (adult) kid wanted to read my book and to save us from needing therapy afterwards, both of us were like.... can you just not with the sex scenes, please... for the love of all that is holy redact all that stuff out PLEASE.... all of it... ALLLLLLLL.

(The version they got had anything more than a kiss removed and a giant "REDACTED" image in its place 😀 )

My solution (or so I thought), was to have 2 versions of the book.  One, the original unfiltered story how I wanted to tell it in a way I could still look my friends in the eye.  The other being a version with the sexual violence and the intimate scenes toned down to make it something I could live with my mother-in-law reading.

However when I submitted both versions to publish, I discovered that they wouldn't accept 2 versions of the same book (unless they are 20% different).  So the "low spice" version was blocked by my distributor.

The full version of Given to the Warrior is scheduled for release on 1st November, and I presume that's the one the majority of readers would want anyway, but I'm still working out what I can do to offer the "low spice" version as well - since that can't be sold through the regular places.  It may end up being something I only sell from my own website.