How to write great sex
It's the most natural thing in the world. We like to have as
much of it as possible and while sometimes disappointing when it's good it's
the most amazing experience imaginable. Everybody is talking about it - so why
is writing about it so hard and why are there so many bad sex scenes written?
Writer Fear
You can never really know someone until you sleep with them.
Sometimes not even then. Writing anything can be a pretty exposing experience
and getting over that fear is one of the first hurdles a writer must deal with.
Some writers never do. Even if we invent characters a million miles from
ourselves in story-lines we could never hope (or want) to experience, our sense
of self imbues our characters and our stories. Our world views and
sensibilities pervade even our least autobiographical work. Perhaps only we can
tell, and perhaps we don't like to admit it, but we always give a little of
ourselves away whenever we write anything.
So how can we write about something that the whole world may
read when we struggle to discuss it with the people we feel closest to? How can
we write about a character's deepest desires when we can't even talk about our
own. And what if mum reads it?
Write what you know
If you can't stand it, are not very good at it, or have
never done it then the chances are you're not going to be very good at writing
about it. This more than anything else. I've never been hang gliding but I'm
fairly sure with some online research and a little imagination I could write
convincingly about it. Not sure I could do the same about sex if I'd never had
it (and I have - honest).
This is because sex
is such a deeply personal and intimate experience - it can be tied up with
powerful and contrary emotions: love and jealousy, confidence and shame; both
empowering and belittling - and sexual desire can take us to places within
ourselves we didn't even know existed, and make us do things we wouldn't
normally dream of doing.
We give our characters authenticity by lending a piece of
ourselves to them. We think 'what would I do if I was this character in this
situation?' We look for empathic emotions and feelings within ourselves to
project into our characters, and curiously, it's that look inside ourselves
that creates universality in our characters
– that 'I feel that too and am not alone' response from our readers. It's that
personal projection into another character's sexual psyche that makes literary
sex hard to write – but only if we're scared.
Keep it real
Once you get over fear, prudishness and self-consciousness
writing a sex scene should be like writing any other scene – you must ask
yourself what the purpose of the scene is. Is it to reveal character? Is the
scene there to progress story? Have the lovers finally come together after a novel's
worth of prevarication? Are they the right or wrong pair? For these kind of
scenes explicitness is not always required. Ask yourself if the reader just
needs to know it happened, or if they also need to know how it was when it
happened. Was it the best sex in the world? Was it a disaster? Who had the most
fun? If the story demands those kind of answers then you'll need to take it
into the bedroom.
You also need to know what response you want from your
reader. Satisfaction? Frustration? Laughter? Titillation? You have to know what
it is you are trying to achieve if you ever hope to. There are enough literary
sex scenes that are so bad Literary Review magazine can have an annual 'Bad Sex in Fiction Award'. Most of the winning passages use horrendously distancing
language which only demonstrates that the otherwise accomplished writer is
afraid to engage with his subject matter. There's also the other kind of
authorly distancing – clichéd language
that produces decidedly cheesy sex scenes – calloused hands traversing
creamy-white thighs etc. If you keep your distance like that you're going to
keep your readers at a distance and you might end up winning the wrong kind of
award. If you want to write a convincing (and sexy) sex scene, then you're
going to have to do what you should be doing for all your scenes, asking
yourself how your characters would really feel and desire in that situation –
and the best way of knowing that is to project yourself into those characters.
You might learn something about yourself too. You'll certainly write better
sex.
And of course you'll need to do frequent, in-depth and
physical research...
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