Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

It’s the hardest thing, I think, for a writer to wiggle her way out of - what do you do when your character is caught between desiring two different people?

If you write erotica, it’s Ménage à Trois time, baby! But if not, what do you do, knowing that a good portion of your readership might be rooting for the other person once your character makes a choice? I used to read this series of YA novels - Sunfire! That’s what they were called. Thanks Google! - in middle school, the ones where the title was the chick’s name and they were all set against some event of historical significance - the one I remember best was set against the Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania, which, if you haven’t heard about it, is about the most awful train wreck of an event to hit a town ever. The heroine of these books was almost always caught between two men, but the authors would set up the plot such that you knew the heroine would choose the one who wanted her to be true to herself as opposed to the one who wanted her to conform to existing societal expectations.

But what about triangles that are hard to break? Here are a handful of existing triangles and what I think (and what Candy thinks of the ones she knows about). Feel free to add and offer your opinion!

More madlibs! More fun! This title was inspired by an e-mail E.D'trix sent me. So you can place the blame for this mess squarely on her. Copy and paste your results in the comments. Share in the Mad Libs love.

Jam together some nonsense syllables (capitalize the first letter):
Animal that lives in the desert or the prairie:
Body part:
Body part:
Pretend you've been hired to create a new retarded-kid-with-speech-impediment character for South Park. What would this kid's trademark phrase be?:
Your dog is making the most fucked-up noises after eating a whole bag of gumballs. What sounds does he make?
Heavenly body:
Adverb:
Ah, what the hell, mash your keyboard randomly for about 10 seconds, just hit the spacebar every now and then and make sure only letters are used (no numbers or punctation):
Body part:
Adjective:
Noun:
Verb, present tense:
Domesticated Animal:
Name of flower:
Noun:
Body part:
Verb, past tense:
Verb, past tense:
Noun:

I noticed that our comment threads often reference fanfic and slashfic in terms of discussing writing, technique, and plot points such as overt and even subtle sexual tension - which is fascinating for me because while I love shows with well-documented cases of unresolved sexual tension, I’ve never read that much fanfic on my own.

So I want to ask: in a romance novel, or a fanfic/slashfic piece, what’s the best method you’ve read yet for establishing unresolved sexual tension? And then resolving it without jumping the shark?

I’m also curious about what factors or plot setups create effective (L) UST: forbidden love like guardian/ward, working partners, or family feud scenarios? Friendship that’s turned into some serious lustful thoughts on one or both sides, but thus risks ruining a very unique relationship?

There are so many examples of “They Did It” just killing the entire reason for watching the show, from Moonlighting to that show with Jamie Lee Curtis, Anything But Love. And then there’s movies based on relationships and unresolved tension, like When Harry Met Sally.

But books? What’s your favorite UST build up?

Here’s a snippet of an e-mail conversation that started out about the weird periodic outages Smart Bitches has been experiencing on the West Coast. It quickly degenerated into… well, you’ll see.

Sarah: I will email Esosoft and ask about the outages. I know I was online yesterday at about 7.40 EDT, which would correspond to 4.40 PDT, and didn’t have a problem, but I wouldn’t bet the farm that the times coincided exactly. Anyway, I’ll email them. Weird, I tell you.

Candy: Heh, I wonder why it’d be OK on the East Coast but not on the West? I’d think it was due to fuckery on my company’s end, except it’s happened to me at home, too, and other Esosoft sites aren’t down.

In other gross news: I just put on my jacket ‘cause the office is motherfucking COLD, y’all. And I think Eric drooled all over it last night because I smell cat spit.

Let me repeat that: I’m at work, and I smell like cat spit.

Sarah: You smell like cat spit? I smell like Oliver love rubbing drool, too, because he rubbed his face all over my sweater and now it smells like him - and has a looooot of orange hairs on it in places I can’t reach. GAH.

Cat spit. Very sexy. I bet Hermes stocks it in eau de parfum.

Candy: Yeah--cat spit is one of the most potent aphrodisiacs in the world. Casanova used liberal applications of it together with oysters and the like to seduce women.

Sarah: I seriously think, to delve into the off-color for a moment, that you need to market yourself with the married woman-cat spit combo. The musk of the illicit with your marital status, coupled with the unmistakable allure of cat spit, and you’ll have to beat the men away from yourself with a stick. A big one.

Candy: To make your off-color comment even more off-color: What kind of a stick? Is it fleshy and throbbing?

Sarah: Hee! Well, it depends on the individual you’re trying to beat off. He might come with his own stick, though!

Candy: Mmmmm, duelling throbbing sticks… Like duelling banjos, only with less creepy, inbred hillbilly idiot savants!

Or so I’d hope, anyway.

Oh boy. Those of you who like the snarking we dish out every week on our Covers Gone Wild feature will looooove this site: It’s Not Porn, Really!

Books, judged solely by their covers. I love it.

Bam’s other blog, It’s Not Chick Porn! is also a hoot.

Bam is now my favorite romance-reading sociopathic bisexual girl.