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

Franziska rules. Well, all our readers rule--in fact, if I may say so, our readers are teh awesome. But Franziska is a special flavor of ruling-ness today because she correctly guessed the answer for today’s personal ad contest.

So please bend over kneel, Franziska, and receive your title, for thou art now styled:

You should know by now. And if you don’t, you’ll figure out it out fast enough:

Title of book + Author + Hero’s Name (no hero’s name, no prize) = A prize consisting of a title of much awesomeness and dubious taste from us Smarty Bitchypoos.

Ready? Here it comes:

Widowed white male, accused serial murderer (how do you think I became a widower, eh?), looking for shy, neurotic daughter of a dead true crime fiction author to seducerate. C’mon, baby--the sex is always better when you do it with someone who may or may not have slaughtered his pregnant wife and kids.

If you’re like me, you’ve noticed a huge surge in the amount of nonsense subject line spam appearing in your inbox. Here at the Smart Bitch Headquarters, I started getting some slighty risque subject lines, such as “smell some telepathic pouch” and “buy go charter worker.” After I picked myself up off the floor laughing at the idea of telepathic pouch, I realized, what a gold mine it was for any burgeoning writers in the Bitchery - specifically, those lusty souls who write back cover copy!

We all know the back cover copy - you skim it quickly because you know the writer of the book itself had nothing to do with it, and you hope to glean at least a clue as to what the actual book is about, knowing that the back cover copy and the content could in fact be less related than Candy and I.

And much like we have learned not to judge a book by its cover, which I call the Danelle Harmon Rule, we have learned not to judge a book by its cover copy either.

So we hereby challenge our erudite and creative Bitchery to craft us some back cover copy, using the random and odd spam subject lines that have appeared in my inbox in the last few weeks as inspiration. We give you the phrase, you come up with a florid, cover-copy-esque synopsis of what the book is about. Feel free to end with a rhetorical question as so many Zebras are wont to do (e.g. Will his hanging erudition come between them, or will love conquer all?)

The Rules

1. You must craft a back cover copy of no more than 250 words that includes the specific words of or is clearly inspired by one of the Spam Subject Lines in the list.

2. You may title your mythical book whatever you please, but you must make sure to tell us which Spam Subject Line inspired your creativity.

3. Please, respect the word limit. 250 words.

4. You must email your entry to Sarah and Candy by Wednesday, December 21. Bitchery Voting will take place for one week, and winners shall be announced the following week.

The Prize!

The writer whose entry receives the most votes will win
- a Smart Bitche Title!
- a snazzy Amazon gift certificate, for purchasing your own books, complete with inane cover copy
- a choice of CHEAPE VIA-GRA or CI_AL_IS. Just kidding!

And without further ado, here is the list of Spam Subject Lines!

During the discussion on our Lexicon of Eeeeeeevil, some of our readers pointed out quite rightly that outlawing all of the suggested words from sex scenes would create some problems, namely: what kind of language and what words do you use when you’re writing a historical romance, and the scene is from the perspective of a charming naif who is so protected, so innocent, so pure, that she barely even knows she has legs, much less the existence of the heavenly portal nestled between said legs like a shy, furry woodland creature--one of the cute ones without claws or antlers, please. Also, no fleas or intestinal parasites, because damn, talk about a mood-killer.

Ooops, sorry, this is supposed to provide an instructional guide on how to do things right, instead of poking merciless fun at the way things can go horribly awry.

So first things first: For sex scene guidance in general, I can’t recommend Sara Donati’s series of posts on the subject highly enough.

But we’re talking about a more specific problem, to wit: how to refer to assorted twiddly bits without resorting to oft-ridiculed words like “nubbin” (rhymes with rubbin’!) and “pleasure center” when the heroine has never been taught the proper lexicon?

I have some thoughts on this. OF COURSE I do. But keep in mind I’m no kind of professional writer, just a reader and a hack who occasionally writes some fiction for fun and who really, really, really, really, really, really, really enjoys thinking about sex in her free time. Which means my opinion is definitive and 100% correct, and anyone who disagrees is immediately a LOSAR--but then y’all knew that already, right?

My take on it, is to use describe what the heroine discovers and feels in plain language. It might help to think back to the days when you yourself Discovered New Terrain (though I realize some of us do it at a much younger age than others) but didn’t know any of the terminology.

For example, when I first found it, I thought of my clitoris as a very odd bump. Almost like a beesting, but not painful to the touch. Later, when I read formal descriptions in textbooks that described it as a pea-sized bit of flesh, a lightbulb went off it in my head.

Bumps and beestings aren’t particularly sexy, but they’re honest reactions, and c’mon, y’all are professional writers; I’m sure you can cobble up something even better. Just avoid verbose, flowery language. Unless the girl is excessively romantic and pretentious, I doubt she’d describe any part of herself as the portal to anything, much less a weeping one to paradise.

Some other thoughts that popped in my head as I wrote my first sex scene featuring a virgin who had no idea which bits existed, much less that Tab A went into Slot B:

- Is she wet? Would she accept this with equanimity, or would she be alarmed, pleased, concerned, curious? If the hero is with her, would she be bold enough to ask him questions about it, or would she worry about him finding the wetness, or is she so turned on that she doesn’t care?

- If she’s the one who discovers the clitoris (unlikely, since masturbation scenes are uncommon in historicals, much less historicals featuring virgin heroines): what would it feel like to her fingers? What kinds of words come to mind? A few off the top of my head include knot, lump, bump, firmness, sensitivity, pleasure, shock, peak, nub (yes, yes, I know). Again, I personally value honesty and emotional impact over flowery language and comparisons that try too hard to be clever.

- If the hero is the one who touches her clitoris for the first time (MUCH more likely for a conventional historical): what did it feel like to have that part touched? I mean, if nothing else, she’d be able to tell that it was part of her body that was, well, raised from the surrounding area.

- There’s no shame in having the extra-virginal heroine refer to her bits in very vague terms, such as “it” or “there” or “that place.” If nothing else, it sounds and feels honest and convincing.

So there you have it--a complete amateur’s take on a very specific aspect of writing love scenes. All of you who do this for a living, feel free to pile on in the comments and give more advice, refine on the points I’ve made, or point out how retarded I am.

I bought a king-size candy bar today (a Milky Way, to be precise, which is known as the Mars Bar in pretty much the rest of the world and God, what is WITH THAT anyway? So confusing when I first moved here, because I don’t want no steeeenking almonds in my candy bar) but ANYWAY, as I grabbed it out of the bag to bring up to the office, I noticed that it was, well, kind of disturbingly cock-like in length and girth. Then I thought about it further and realized, damn, I’ve actually been with guys who were smaller than this candy bar.

(insert joke about eating something out)

I can’t decide if this means I need to get laid more often, or less.

And yes, I needed to share this with the readership. Because I’m hoping somebody else will let me know that they’re as easily-amused as me, just so I don’t feel like as much of a freak.