The place of humour in erotic fiction

I don't write what I'd call comic erotic fiction (though in a sense, since we have a happy ending, all my erotic fictions are comedies). But there is a definite place for humour, I think.

For instance: where does horseplay turn into something else? You might be tumbling around with your best friend, pushing and shoving - and you suddenly realise you've got turned on. That could be uncomfortable - but it could also be a marvellously funny episode if it enlightens feelings you've had for each other but never articulated.

I've just written a wrestling match that turns into something else - and I hope it is funny.

Sometimes, humour is a way of fencing - little sabre thrusts of witticisms intended to keep your social opponent on their guard. It can be a way of deflecting attention you don't feel happy with - or even keeping your own feelings under control. Shakespeare's comic heroines are particularly good at verbal fencing - Katharine in The Taming of the Shrew for instance gives every bit as good as she gets, deflating Petruchio with her wicked puns - wordplay as swordplay.

That kind of humour can give an otherwise unmemorable character a real zest and animation - like putting sparkle on a Christmas card.

Then I also like to hide 'easter eggs' for my readers. For those of you who don't play computer games, an easter egg is a little bonus - a hidden level, an image or message - that you have to be quite smart to access. You can play the game without ever knowing it's there.

So I occasionally put in a little historical reference, or name one of my characters after a fictional character from another book (I'm hoping to have a minor Jane Austen character show up some time in a Regency novel), or borrow a couple of lines from a poem of the period. You don't have to get the joke to enjoy the novel - but if you do happen to know, it adds a little spice.