Many writers moan about the shady lines between genres, and how its sometimes hard to distinguish between them. But if you really get down to it, it isn't all that difficult. You just have to find the central theme, and that's what the main genre is. The problem often times is the fact that so many novels now are written with attached subgenres. I'm not complaining, I like it, but it does make things a little harder to seperate.
While on a message board the other day, I came across a group of ladies trying to make yet another important distinction, and not being able to come up with any answers.
What is the difference between Romantica, and Erotica?
It's a question I've been asked before, so I gave these ladies my take on the subject as already formed by those previous inqueries:
Romantica is erotica with all the elements of a romance story as its core. Sounds simple, right? You're all going 'pshaw, I could have told you that, so what's the difference between that and erotica?'
Well, think of it as the difference between romance, and say to use any example, a horror story. Horror stories certainly may have relationships in them. They may have serious love issues in them, but their main story line is the horror aspect, not the romance. Same thing with erotica and romantica.
Erotica may, and considering it's nature often does have relationship issues in it, but that isn't really the main core of the story. Something else, be it suspense, horror, whatever, is the main pulse of the story that also includes lots of sex.
In romantica, the main focus of the story is the romance... with lots of sex. There may be other elements in it, as most writing now days has sub-genres attached to it, but those elements do not fuel the main plot of the story, the relationship does... so it's a romance novel, with no closed doors.
And that's it in a nutshell. The same way you decide with non-erotic genres is the way you can figure it out in erotic genres.
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