Who among us doesn't find writing sex monotonous once in awhile? Especially when you've written a lot of it. But the following advice can apply to any kind of scene - action, the climax, etc. Always making sure your scene is unique to your characters is key.
Via Charlene Teglia's blog...
"The thing with writing good sex scenes, as the thing with writing everything else, is this: telling detail, man. Not a chair: this chair. Not a cat: this cat. Not a sex scene, idealized or farcical, but this sex scene, right here, right now, with these two characters having this sex. When you get the off-beat, perfect detail just right, and it makes the scene concrete and real, that’s called fabulous reality. If you have that, you can do no wrong." - Elizabeth Bear
Also, please stop by Word Wenches, the blog I share with my lovely CP, Tara Leigh Coons, and share with us why YOU write. It's amazing how different the answers have been so far, yet they're also so similar.
9 comments:
That's some powerful spot-on insight. Thanks for sharing, Cari. =)
Jaime
Wow! That is some great advice! I'm an Elizabeth Bear fan. : )
Great post!
~Lynne
I'm not sure I finding writing sex scenes monotonous ;) but when you read them and they sound 'instructional' you know you have some work to do. Who really cares where his hands are at all times (OK, I do I admit)? The quote really resonated because it's the characters pushing the story forward regardless of what they're doing that makes it special.
Very true and very wise. Love it.
And we aren't even discussing music. Tee Hee.
Hugs.
I've said it before and I'll say it again -- writing sex is hard! There's so much more to it than inserting tab A into slot B. Elizabeth is right on target. A writer needs to become her characters so it's not just sex, it's them making love as only those two unique people can.
Totally agree - it's all in the detail, and comes from those unique characters. And I find writing sex very hard indeed!!!
This is great advice. Some days writing any scene is plain hard work. The thing I like about writing is that the first version of a scene doesn't have to sing. That's what revisions are for!
Such good advice, Cari and from Charlene. Thanks.
Writing sex is hard. And I've been learning from those who do it so well-- including Shelley, Helen and Christina!
I struggle with that. I need to expand on "the cat". For instance, one of my cats right now has a hurt tail and so has one of those pet collars around her head and we have to keep her quarantined so the other cats won't lick her injury. We're also finding out she's nimble enough to lick her back - not only her tail - with the thing on. We just gave her her pain meds and she's acting tipsy. So yeah, we can and should add a lot more detail. It makes the character come alive.
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