On Spice in Books
I have nothing against smut. That feels like an odd statement to lead with, but I promise I just want to cover my bases first before I start swinging a bat. I have nothing against smut, as a reader or as a writer. I may have some reservations about calling it “spicy” (I’m sorry, it sounds incredibly silly and juvenile…if your book has a lot of mature content, just say that), but I don’t have anything against what people would call “spicy” in publishing. I have read “spicy” novels. I own Katee Robert’s entire Deal With A Demon series on Kindle. It is phenomenal. The character chemistry alone knocks me on my ass every time.
So I have no false sense of superiority over anyone who loves erotic content.
I do, however, have an issue when people constantly ask the question “is it spicy?” about any and every book, regardless of the genre or age group. I write YA horror. My protagonists are fifteen or sixteen at most. I don’t want to be asked “is it spicy?” for the simple reason that nothing about that age group is remotely sexy. Maybe people have watched Teen Wolf too many times and deluded themselves into thinking that that’s what teenagers look like but teenagers do NOT look like that!
And yet, it seems like everywhere I turn, I am either asked if my books are spicy or if I’ll ever consider writing something spicy. Do I have any ideas for books that could be spicy? Could I just age up the characters, force barely interesting romantic tension and call it a day? (The answer: No, because that will literally change the story into an unrecognizable mess and I only want to put my name on things I’m proud of.)
I know that publishing is a business first and foremost. I understand that publishers want to make their money back (and earn more) at the speed of light and because so many people seem to be buying a lot of “spicy” books, that’s where they are sinking a lot of their time and effort. I have no problem with that.
But if someone asks “does it have spice” in response to me pitching a novel about, I don’t know, aliens dissecting humans the way we do to animals, I will have questions.
Perhaps I am beating a dead horse. Perhaps this issue isn’t even unique. I remember being in high school around the time Twilight got popular, and everything else on the shelves after that was some version of a paranormal romance. I have no idea what it was like being an author around that time but I wonder if what authors were experiencing then are similar to what I’m experiencing now. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.
I just want people to stop asking me about the level of “spice” in my novels. If they have any amount of mature content, I would tell you. When my first novel Burn Down, Rise Up was published, I told many parents, teachers and librarians that they should be aware that it does have a lot of cursing. (My second book, We Don’t Swim Here, has very little to no cursing.) I am not in the business of marketing my novels as anything other than what they actually are, nor do I want to fill my books with other topics just to appeal to a broader audience. There’s a phrase I often hear in marketing: if you’re speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to no one. Not everyone will like the same content and trying to appeal to absolutely everyone’s taste is a recipe for disaster.
Furthermore, I’m a horror author. Not dark romance or gothic romance. I like to write straight horror stories. Why is anyone at all expecting me to write “spicy” books? Could you imagine if Shirley Jackson tried to put “spice” in The Haunting of Hill House? Could Clay McLeod Chaplain turn Ghosteaters into some sort of sexy romp through a grieving woman’s addiction to pills that would allow you to see ghosts? If he was able to, more power to him, but I loved Ghosteaters just the way it was. Which is to say: actual horror.
Maybe it’s the YA part that makes people want to ask whether or not there’s spice in my books. I’d been told that other novels with adult content have been marketed as YA because it happens to have a lot of teen readers! And while I understand the logic behind that, that should not still be happening. A YA book is a YA book because the protagonists are between the ages of 12-18. Not because the readership is between those ages! It’s perfectly okay if teens want to read adult books but we have to agree that those are adult books. Either genres mean something or they don’t. And if they suddenly don’t, then technically Burn Down, Rise Up is a romance novel and can be shelved accordingly. Do you see what I mean?
A lot of people–both readers and authors alike–blame BookTok. Many feel the oversaturation of enemies-to-lovers novels in the book market. Some are fatigued by it. I have even seen arguments about how each new “spicy” book reads worse than the last and while I have not read any of those books (and thus have no opinion on them), I have a feeling what the root of the issue is.
People do not think that novels are intentional. They no longer think writers are writing because they have something they want to say or they want to share an interest. They don’t think writers are putting their heart into it. I get that being an author is a blessed position to be in, but even so, that doesn’t mean that all of us treat it like a grift. Personally, I don’t write anything I’m not interested in. I literally couldn’t—I would be so bored out of my mind, I’d have to call my agent and tell her I’m switching careers to become a sheep herder or something, I don’t know.
All I know is, it feels like no one considers writing an art form anymore. They don’t have to! They have A.I. now to churn out whatever stories they’re interested in. That means instant gratification. That means that authors have to now keep up with the trends, change with the market. That means endless “does it have spice?”
Call it an effect of late-stage capitalism, call it enshittification, whatever it is, many authors (like me) are asked to consider writing things that do not move us for the sake of a publisher’s bottom line.
And we have to do it all while enduring book bans and the likes of Moms for Liberty. For fuck’s sake.