I’m posting
this one a bit early because... well, hopefully you’ve all got other plans for
tomorrow. I know I do. Alita: Battle
Angel is finally out. And also some
book about zombies on the moon...
Oh, yeah, and it’s Valentine’s
Day tomorrow. With all the fun
activities we associate with said holiday.
And that’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about...
Look,
you’re getting to that certain point in your writing career. Your voice is developing. Your body is changing. Your facial hair is growing out nice and
thick, which is probably a big change for most of you women.
Anyway, I
figured it’s time we sat down and talk about... well...
Writing sex
scenes.
Yeah, this
is going to be a little awkward for all of us.
Like sex
itself, a lot of this is going to come down to our own personal preferences,
comfort zones, and what works in a given situation. As such, it’s going to be really tough to
offer any specific advice about when and where and how these moments should
happen in your book. I’ve tossed out
some general suggestions in the past if you really want them.
What I
wanted to talk about here is more of the act itself, so to speak. Writing sex scenes is a tricky skill to
master. It’s a constant balancing act of
too much and too little, exciting the reader or maybe horrifying them, and it’s
ridiculously easy to make people roll their eyes (not in the good way).
So here are three big things I think should be in mind when writing a sex scene.
So here are three big things I think should be in mind when writing a sex scene.
First
is that we don’t always need to show sex happening in order for sex to have
happened. Subtlety and nuance are a huge part of sexiness—on the page and in real life. If we know Wakko and Phoebe sneak off to the
supply closet for half an hour during the office party, we can make an educated
guess what they’re probably doing in there.
Especially with the appropriate context around them sneaking off and
how they sound/look/act when they come back.
So
depending on the overall tone of my story, maybe I don’t actually need to write
out my sex scene—I can just let my reader fill in the blanks themselves. And again, like so many well-done subtle things, this can end up being much, much sexier than actually showing
stuff. As an artist friend of mine once
pointed out, “nudity isn’t sexy. It’s
what you don’t see that gets you turned on.”
There is
one small pitfall to doing things this way.
If I’m too subtle, people might not get what I’m implying. Their assumptions may go much too far, not
far enough, or maybe end up on that awkward balancing point where they try
to figure out what just happened. Or if
anything happened. I don’t want to knock
my readers out of the story with a confusing “did they or didn’t they”—unless
that was the whole point of my fade to black.
Second,
if I’m definitely going to show my sex scene, I need to remember that sex is...
well, action. I don’t mean it needs to
be wildly enthusiastic, just that this is a case of actual, physical things
happening. And any sort of action can
get boring fast if it’s written poorly.
I'm a big
believer that most action shouldn't take longer to read then it would
take to happen, especially when we're in the moment. A punch shouldn’t take
three paragraphs to describe. A car
crash probably shouldn’t take two pages unless it’s some massive, seventeen-car
pileup
Likewise,
if I’m telling you these two people are ripping each others clothes off, but
it's over six pages of description... you’re probably going to start skimming.
And that’s never good. I don’t
want to slow down action—any kind of action—by stretching it out with too much description.
And talking
about describing all that action...
Third,
if we’re going to be writing things out, brings us back to personal taste. I think the catch with explicit sex scenes is
they essentially become porn. Porn, as a friend from work once pointed out, is when we see everything. And after a certain point, that’s pretty much
exactly what we’re talking about with any written-out sex scene.
And some
people like porn, some don't. No judgment
either way. That’s just a simple truth.
But there’s
more to it than that. Even the people
who do like porn don't all like the same kind of porn. This particular act really turns me on, but
you find it kind of quaint and almost routine.
That might weird me out, this might be a complete non-starter for you,
and that... okay, that seriously disturbs both of us on a number
of levels. So it’s a pretty safe bet
that the more explicit/niche my sex scene becomes, the less people it’s going to appeal to. And the more people it’s going to repulse.
Y’see
Timmy, this is where empathy is going to be really important,
and also a very clear, honest sense of who my audience is. The people who pick up a thriller aren’t expecting
the same kind of sex scenes as the folks who buy romance novels, and I’m
thinking neither of them are expecting five pages of hardcore, strap-on orgy action.
And if that
last sentence made you a bit squeamish... you get my point.
So go forth
and write your sexy moments. But think
about if you really need them. And how
they’re paced. And who you’re writing
them for.
Hey, speaking of
sexy things, I’ve got a new book out tomorrow, exclusively through
Audible. Have I mentioned that
recently? Dead Moon is a
fun little zombie story set... well, you can guess where. And it’s also set in the Threshold universe,
so there may be some other things in there that appeal to a few of you. Please check it out so I can keep buying cat
food and rum.
Next
time...
Well, okay,
look. I’m in the last few weeks of
finishing up another Threshold book, so I don’t have a lot of time. Truth is, I’m probably going to take the next
week or two off to focus on that. If you
want to use this time to toss out a few suggestions for thing you’d like me to
rant about, that’d be fantastic (thanks in advance).
And one way
or another sometime very soon, I’ll be revisiting the whole outlining thing.
Until then,
go write.
Happy
Valentine’s Day.
That GIF reminds me of one of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, in which the duo meet enticing young ladies -- bare-naked ladies, in fact -- who have invisible flesh ... but visible bones. Making intimate contact a very different experience, depending on whether or not the lights are on.
ReplyDeleteOccurs to me, I haven't written any explicit sex scenes outside of erotica pieces, which aren't really my field. My characters tend to have sex lives, or at least sexuality, but so far it's all been implied or referred to without being shown explicitly in its ass-slapping glory; seemed more important to communicate how they feel about it, more than what specifically happens. Your advice all makes sense.