Writing romance: What are heat levels?

Spend any time in the romance writing community, or just in the romance book space online, and you’ll soon stumble across the term “heat levels”. It’s also known as how “spicy” a book is. That term has gained a lot of popularity on social media recently.

What does this all mean? Well, when it comes to romance, there is so much variety to choose from in terms of the intensity of the romantic and sexual content on the page. Heat levels (or spice levels) are there to help readers understand what they’ll be getting from a book – and to help them find the stories that align with their preferences. Heat levels can allow you, as a writer, to set up expectations and market your work appropriately.

Some romance-only publishers categorise their different imprints based on heat level, too! Entangled Publishing has different offshoots, many of which are based around heat level.

What are the different heat levels in romance?

Let’s get some caveats out of the way before we begin:

There’s no set definition or industry-standard guide for heat/spice levels currently.

This can be frustrating in a lot of ways, because it means that all authors – and all readers – define their heat/spice levels differently.

Heat levels are typically represented using either chilli peppers (🌶️) or flames (🔥), with the highest amount of chillis/flames referring to the most explicit content. You’ll see this type of scale a lot on social media and in book reviews. Here’s an example heat level/spice guide using flames, from the website romance.io:

The less chilli peppers or flames, the less explicit content you’re likely to get.

Some readers and authors refer to things as “mild”, “medium”, or “hot” rather than using a flame or chilli-pepper scale. Numbers are another option for a heat-level scale.

Romance heat levels by category

There’s also some terminology in romance to help authors and readers categorise a romance, depending on its heat level and its content. Again, the definitions of these vary depending on who you ask – and are often heavily debated – but I’m aiming to give a general overview here!

Clean or wholesome romance

Many writers and readers dislike the term “clean” for implying that sex is somehow “dirty” or wrong and promoting purity culture. Putting those debates aside, I’ve included it here for the sake of covering all angles, since there are authors and readers who continue to use this term for specific types of stories. Sometimes, “wholesome” is used in its place.

A “clean” romance leaves out all the spice and heat – there’s no sex or arousal at all. Other physical activities like kissing might also be very limited, but there will still be plenty of romantic and emotional connection and tension. A “clean” romance sometimes avoids swearing as well.

Sweet romance

The term sweet is used to emphasise a romance storyline that places feelings and emotional connection over physicality and sexual content. But that doesn’t mean the characters aren’t appreciating each other physically and admiring each other’s looks! The stories in sweet romances are usually quite light-hearted and heart-warming – nothing explicit here! Most YA romances fall into this category. Think a PG-rated movie, or maybe you’re a Kdrama fan like me, in which case you’ve probably experienced lots of sweet romances!

A sweet romance might, or might not, include implied sex or other activities, but this is kept behind closed doors (the reader isn’t there to see it happen). The focus is kept on the characters’ emotions.

Sensual romance

A sensual romance is one that takes the heat up a notch: we’ll get much more physical in these romances, and the focus shifts to lust and titillation. Sex scenes may happen on the page, but the language is usually more flowery and mild, or euphemistic, rather than being sexually explicit.

As with some of the other categories here, there’s a broad spectrum, with some stories having very low sensuality, others high. Harlequin has a great article delving into the different levels of sensuality in romance that’s worth a read if you’re interested in writing sensual romances.

Steamy romance

“Steamy” is tricky to define since – as with heat levels more broadly – there is no set definition. What’s steamy for one reader might not be steamy for another. If you’re usually a sweet romance reader, a slightly sensual romance might even come across as “steamy”!

But generally speaking, in a steamier romance, we’re getting much more explicit and intense. There will be descriptions of physical intimacy, including sex, usually driven by the characters’ physical needs. There’s a big focus on desire and sexual needs. But we’re not necessarily veering into anything too X-rated here, or describing genitals in blunter, more specific terms.

Erotic romance

Erotic romance is where we enter explicit territory, both in terms of writing style and what we’ll see and experience on the page. The plot still contains a love story between our main couple but the focus is more on them experiencing one another sexually. It’s the highest level of heat/spice you can get.

“Erotic romance” and “erotica” are often defined differently, with the former being a love story with a heavy sexual emphasis, and the latter focusing more on general sexual exploits, but not necessarily with the hallmarks of a traditional love story. There’s a great exploration of this over on HuffPost.

Levels within levels…

Some authors assign heat levels within some of these heat levels to get even more specific and further define these categories. Michelle over at The Writing Gals, for example, created this three-level scale for clean and wholesome romances to show the type of variation that can exist, and where the line is drawn:

As you can see, there’s definitely no industry-wide scale that everyone follows – and there might never be one, since what’s classed as steamy or tame is so different depending on the individual.

As I mentioned before, heat levels can help writers to signal to readers what they’re going to get from a book and to set up expectations. This doesn’t mean heat levels are always mentioned alongside a romance novel, though – lots of books are marketed, in particular by publishers, without this being mentioned at all. There can be problems with this, though, depending on how the book is marketed overall: if the reader picks up the book expecting a sweet, low-spice romance and ends up with erotica, they won’t be happy. And likewise, if a reader picks up a book thinking it’s very steamy/spicy and that’s what they’re looking for, and the romance is more wholesome, that can cause disappointment too.

For writers, knowing where your work falls on the spectrum, even loosely, is worth it, as it’ll help you to market your work so you can find the right readers.

You might also like…

• 4 ways to outline a romance novel
• 10 of the best books for writers
• How I got my book deal (after seven years)

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