Spice Level
One of the other important things to consider when crafting your love story is how far you intend to go on the tame to explicit scale with your story’s content. Romance usually calls this the Spice Level, and I’ve included it below with TV and age ratings for comparison.
Spice level
Spiciness level
TV rating | Age rating
Sweet
PG 9+
Suitable for anyone over the age of 9 and much like in the animated feature films the characters kiss a few times at most.
Example: Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (Dash & Lily)
(This example is a little close to Zesty but I think it still counts as Sweet)
Zesty
TV14 Teen 14+
Kissing, touching, romantic and sexual language, are all commonplace. If there is a sex scene it’s handled behind closed doors, “fade to black”, or in a very romantic way where only the character’s emotional state is described. However, as a point of reference, Vampire Diaries was TV14 and so is most anime that isn’t intended for very young children, so Zesty covers a wide range of Romance stories.
Example: Heartstopper (later volumes start to lean toward spicy)
Spicy
TV16 Older Teen 16+
The bedroom door may be open during those spicy romance scenes but the language tends to focus more on the character’s emotional and romantic feelings than their physical ones. Also, scenes will still cut away or fade out at various points. Most books by Sarah J. Maas fall into this category.
Example: Predestined
Ghost Pepper
MA Adult 18+
You don’t just open that closed bedroom door, you pat the bed beside the characters and give us a front-row seat to all the hot smexy action. Basically, if you’re writing erotica or anything that’s one step adjacent to it, you’ll probably find yourself here. This one usually comes with that “Mature”, “Explicit” or “Parental Advisory” warning. And if it were a manga or light novel it would probably be packaged in plastic wrap too.
Example: Therapy Game