Romantasy Authors Break Down How Spicy Sex Scenes Lead to a Book’s ‘Climax’

Shyla Watson, Rachel RaposasTue, April 21, 2026 at 7:44 PM UTC

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Victoria Aveyard, Rachel Gillig, Carissa Broadbent, & Scarlett St. Clair BookCon '26 full panelCredit: Popverse/YouTube -

Fantasy romance authors discussed crafting strong female leads and balancing world-building, danger and romance at BookCon's panel

Writers shared how they approach sex scenes, comparing them to fight scenes or emphasizing emotional intimacy over explicit detail

The romantasy genre faces challenges with audience expectations and defining its spectrum of content and themes

Things were heating up at BookCon!

On April 19, during the "Heroines of Romantasy: Crafting Strong Female Leads, Finding Love and Facing Danger" panel at the highly anticipated New York literary festival, fantasy romance authors Victoria Aveyard, Rachel Gillig, Carissa Broadbent and Scarlett St. Clair discussed common aspects of the genre, including world-building, danger, morally gray characters and level of sexiness — known in the genre as "spice."

"Everybody's spice tolerance is different in life and in books," Gilling said on the latter.

"I don't write thinking that it will be palatable to everybody," the One Dark Window author added. "I write, and it does end up being adult because I just think that serves the story, and serves the characters... I just do what I think serves the story and serves the pacing, so far, it's worked for me."

Broadbent, who authored the War of Lost Hearts trilogy, approaches "writing sex scenes the same way I approach writing fight scenes."

"I think both of them can be very boring, if done incorrectly, because it's like they're very physical, high-octane activities that can be kind of boring to read about on a page," the Daughter of No Worlds author said.

"So there's always an arc, you know?" she continued. "There's something happening there, like a climax, if you will, like a rising and falling action. There's a lot happening on the page. And I realized, like, how much you can do with that."

Victoria Aveyard, Rachel Gillig, Carissa Broadbent, & Scarlett St. Clair BookCon '26 full panelCredit: Popverse/YouTube

St. Clair, on the other hand, approaches her spicy scenes differently.

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When the A Touch of Darkness author was publishing independently, she "could do whatever I wanted, and I did," including writing "ridiculous sex scenes" and "a whole sex montage" in her books. However, she admitted her approach to those elements has "changed over time."

"I find that the ones that I feel like have the most emotional intimacy are the shorter, brief, less descriptive ones," she noted, "and the ones that are just like, you know, 'We're going to f--- for the fun of it' are the more detailed ones."

Broadbent noted that the genre, known as romantasy, used to be incorrectly shelved under young adult fiction, which made it challenging to write adult content that her stories may have needed.

"My last eight books were YA, and so the demands of the genre and the demands of the story were totally different," Aveyard agreed. "The intentions are totally different. But the story tells you what it means to be."

The Red Queen author added that "one of our great challenges is setting the expectations of the audience correctly. I struggle so much with the pepper scale and the romantasy genre label because it is such a spectrum. It is so hard to nail down a real definition."

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"I never want to give the reader the wrong expectation because we never want you to be disappointed. We don't want you to pick up a book and think you're gonna get something you're not gonna get and be disappointed in the experience," Aveyard continued. "So it's hard to find a common language, so I can set your expectations properly."

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”