Writing Tips: Let's Talk About Sex

Happy belated new year everyone!

Sorry to take so long between posts, I had a ton of posts I was going to write, one about preparing for Christmas, one about new years, one about my current writing project, one about fantasy football (I won two of my leagues!), I had other ones about football, about the Huskers, the Minnesota Vikings, but it all ended up being put to the side because of the holidays and familial obligations. I will say my current novel is going really well when I find time to write. But let’s get onto the main topic: SEX

In particular I am talking about sex scenes. Scenes where your characters get intimate can be really hard to write, but sometimes they need to be written. I decided to do some research to figure out the best way to write them, and I am pretty happy with my results. Here are six rules I have garnered in my research into the subject.

1.       Know your audience/know your genre. Treat it like you do other aspects of writing for your audience. This goes back to being well read in your genre. What are other bestselling authors doing? For example I have yet to read an epic fantasy that talks about “throbbing members”. When you finally get published your editor will probably weigh in on the matter. Remember they are the expert in what sells in your genre, and give their suggestions a try.

2.       Write what you are comfortable with. If writing this kind of stuff makes you totally uncomfortable then it will show in your writing, and do your best to avoid it.

3.       Avoid crude terms whenever possible. Try to use metaphors, flowery terms, etc. to describe what is going on. Consider these two lines “he stuck his dong in her va-jay-jay” or “he entered her womanhood”. Neither is a great example but which is going to be less distracting?

4.       Use the same rules you would for a fight scene. This one may sound weird but I have a few rules that I use when I am writing a fight scene that transition to love scenes pretty well. First do not give a play by play. This will get boring and tedious to read after awhile, plus with a love scene it will start to sound a little silly. “He felt his passion building…” can replace an entire paragraph of the love scene play by play. The second fight scene rule I have is that the fight should be more than just a fight. It should develop the characters and/or advance the plot and/or resolve a conflict and/or add a whole new conflict to the story. This is important for love scenes too. Don’t just have sex in the book to have it in the book. Make sure it advances the story. Your readers are pretty smart people and they will be able to tell if you just add a love scene in to spice things up.

5.       Make sure the scene reflects your character. The Joker from Batman is not going to have the same love scene as Romeo from Romeo and Juliet.  

6.        Heterosexual  characters who have anal sex are villains. This one kind of surprised me but apparently it is pretty standard. Like the good guys wearing white hats in westerns. I have heard this from a number of romance novel readers. Which makes me thinks those romance novels might be more interesting than I ever gave them credit for.

The way this works out, at least for me (and remember I am writing epic fantasy intended for an adult audience) is that I write the begining of the scene, a little kissing, touching, etc. and then break away. I do this for a few reasons: Fantasy, at least what I read, tends to avoid explicit love scenes, in fact most of the books I read break away a little earlier than I do. I stick with it a little longer than other authors because I want to make sure the readers get a feel for what is happening, is it angry, is it loving, is it exciting, is it funny, sex can be all of those things in real life and I feel that a reader should know the mood of the scene, but getting really explicit will not advance the story in better than what I am writing. If you have any tips for love scenes leave them in the comments below. Please try to keep it PG-13 or cleaner.

 

Recharging Your Battery

I was trying to come up with some writing tip to share with you all, this being a blog about writing I thought it would be nice if I did more than give you constant updates on my own projects(just finished chapter 1 of my new project last night). Anyway I was trying come up with something and, as usual when I can’t figure out what to write, I started surfing the net. There are a lot of blogs I need to catch up on so I have plenty of stuff to help me procrastinate.

Anyway, I was reading through the blogs and read this post on D Nathan Hilliard’s Dark and Stormy Blog. In it he talks about how he just finished a project, and how his productivity level seems to have dropped this month. The blog reminded me of something I was talking with some other authors a few months ago, namely recharging your battery. NOTE: I am not saying this is what is happening with Nate, his post just reminded me of it

Every author I know has had this problem at one point or another. They fly through a novel, some short stories, heck maybe even more than one novel. Then they sit down to write and…nothing. There isn’t anything there. They are drained creatively.

They need to recharge their battery. It is different for every writer, but they need to stop their “must write everyday” mentality and take a few days, a few weeks, or even a month off. They need to read a book or two (because sadly writing usually cuts into reading time) they need to watch a movie, or see a play. There might be a few people who don’t need to do this, but all of my friends and I find it impossible to be creative in a vacuum. You have to let the creations of others plant seeds in your mind that will grow into new and wonderful things in and of themselves.

Personally I am trying to work out a schedule where I write and recharge my battery at the same time. Which will pretty much amount to less writing and more time spent enjoying the world around me and the imaginative creations of others, though with two three month olds I am not sure how much of either is going to get done. I mean last night I had an idea for a story about a baby who is a hard nosed detective in a baby land, “sometimes you suck the binky, and sometimes the binky sucks you”. Hmmm…maybe not the best idea I have ever had.

A Book Recommendation, Some Writing Tips, and Mother-in-Laws

Sorry about the last post, I thought about deleting it but then left there as a reminder not to write a blog post during a lupus flare up, no matter how mild, nothing like a sudden onset of severe arthritis pain to make you feel old. But I am back to my generally happy, pain-free self. My mother in law has been visiting so there is very little getting done on the writing front. She came out for my wife's baby shower. I get along pretty well with my in laws but I will be glad to have the house back to normal, company, no matter how pleasant, can be exhausting.

I did get most of Brandon Sanderson’s Alloy of Law read this week, and I have to tell you it is really great. It is set in his Mistborn series but hundreds of years after the last book. Unlike other fantasy series the passage of time has meant an advance in technology. They use guns and the book reads pretty much like a western, but a really cool one.

Also, if you are into writing fantasy here is a this week’s Writing Excuses Podcast. Brandon Sanderson talks about his new epic fantasy, The Way of Kings. He goes in depth into some of the edits he made to the manuscript, and why he chose to have the POV characters he did. It is a really great glimpse into the writing process of a NY times bestselling author.