Steaming Up Your Love Scenes
by
Emma Holly
(for romance writers and others)
Note: Any
book highlighted in GOLD can be ordered
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Just click on the underlined text.
It's been brought
to my attention that men visit my site, too! This workshop was originally
presented to a female audience. If you are male, welcome, and please interpret
the language accordingly.
Writing the erotic scene is both easy and difficult. It is easy because the reader wants the erotic scene, more than any other to succeed. The reader invests his cooperation, his personal energy, and his furthest extremes of credulity. Not to put too fine a point on it, the reader is likely to have an urgent, palpable stake in the matter at hand and to hope feverishly for a satisfactory outcome.
The erotic scene is difficult because the writer wants, or ought to want, to make the scene as good as possible for the reader.
—from Elements of Arousal by Lars Eighner
In this workshop, I’m going to try to tell you something you haven’t heard before. I’m not going to talk about creating sexual tension—though it’s important. Instead, I’m going to focus on full-fledged love scenes, where you take your hero and heroine from the first whimper of arousal to the final sighs of satiation.
The first thing you need to know in order to steam up your love scenes is how to overcome your inhibitions. The second is what makes good love scenes work. The answer to both those questions is highly individual. I can’t pretend to be the final word on this topic. I can only speak from my experience and taste. So take what you can use and leave the rest.
What keeps us from expressing our erotic creativity?
Many romance writers have become apologists for the sexual content of their books. They try to pretend that sex doesn’t sell them - even though its obvious to any child past the age of puberty that it does. Sex is not the only reason romance sells, but for a large number of authors and fans, it’s a big one. If you’re engaging in this sort of denial, your biggest barrier to writing steamy scenes may be guilt.
Barrier |
Possible Antidote |
|---|---|
| GUILT Sometimes we feel guilty because we don’t think the arousal of our readers is a legitimate function for a book. We don’t honestly believe in our heart of hearts that sex is a healthy and important human activity, one worth celebrating in our writing. |
Attitude Readjustment First off, ask yourself why you feel this way. Do you really believe that sexual enjoyment is wrong? And if you don’t, why are you behaving as though it were when you sit down to write? In Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight Swain says: “...life without feeling is a sort of death. Most of us know this. So, we long wistfully for speeded heartbeat, sharpened senses, brighter colors. This search for feeling is what turns your reader to fiction.” People read to feel more alive. For many readers that means feeling more alive sexually as well. Yes, it’s possible for graphic sexual material to be abused, but the people with a tendency to abuse it are not likely to be tipped over the edge by a romance novel. In most instances, you’ll be providing your readers a benefit by enriching their fantasy life and keeping their libidos well-oiled. |
| FEAR/EMBARRASSMENT Any time you write something intense and emotional - like a romance novel - you’re baring parts of your soul. When you write a sex scene, you’re baring the most secret parts of your soul. You’re exposing your fantasies and kinks to other people and opening them to judgement, and this is scary. |
Writing Past Your Comfort Zone Keep a private, for your eyes only, unexpurgated fantasy journal. Promise yourself these scenes will not end up in one of your books or be shared with your partner. They are just for you. Use words and images that make you uncomfortable. Then when you back off and do the edited, public version of your fantasy (more about that later) you’ll be desensitized. Distance When you write for public consumption, maintain a certain distance from the characters. Yes, you inject parts of your personality to breathe life into them, but let them have their own sexual natures, separate from yours. Then you won’t be so embarrassed about exposing "their" secrets. |
| IGNORANCE If we don’t have much sexual experience, or a particularly varied experience, we’re often afraid we’ll ‘give ourselves away.’ |
Research Take it from me, with a modicum of research, you can bluff your way through most love scenes. I haven’t done most of the things I write about it my books, but because I’ve taken care to get my facts straight and because I try to get the emotions and psychology right, I’ve been complimented on how convincing they are. |
| YOU’RE JUST NOT IN THE MOOD TO WRITE A STEAMY SCENE |
Setting the Mood. Some people do this with sexy clothes, music, a glass of wine, inspirational literature (see reading list). Health Issues. Are you getting enough sleep? Exercise? Are you eating right? For instance: dark green leafy vegetables, non-citrus fruits and legumes all contain boron, which encourages estrogen production in women.1 Do you have de-stressing activities built into your schedule? Obviously, if you’re worn to a frazzle, you’re not going to be any more interested in writing about sex than you are in having it. Turn to the same advice you’d use to enhance any sexual relationship. When All Else Fails. Sit your butt in the chair and do it anyway. When what you write starts to put you in the mood, you’ll know you’re on the right track. |
What adds punch to any erotic scene, whether graphic or tame?
Context
The erotic scene is not a time out from the rest of your story. Ideally, you use it either to further your plot or to dramatize each consecutive stage in the development of the relationship. Your publisher may, of course, disagree, but as far as I’m concerned there aren’t any particular acts you need to relegate to either the beginning or the end of the book. You can have the heroine performing oral sex on page one if you want. The important thing to remember is that the way the characters respond to those acts will change according to the level of intimacy they’ve achieved.
Character
If you’ve got the talent to create a love scene that’s arousing all by itself, with no context and no characterization, my hat goes off to you. But even if you can do that, you’ll find that creating engaging, three-dimensional characters will make the reader care a heck of a lot more about whose doing what to whom. Otherwise its just mechanics. Tab A fits slot B. Some male readers may be satisfied with that, but very few female readers will. They want to know what each character has at stake during the love scene. Which brings me to
Conflict: Emotional
Sex scenes are an ideal arena to exercise show don’t tell. They’re high intensity situations that strip away your characters’ masks. You can give your characters sexual profiles the same way you invent their childhoods or pick their favorite color or take personality tests for them. Does one character always want to be on top? Does another enjoy being subdued? Is one afraid of expressing himself fully during sex? What do these traits say about your characters as people? How does this fit in with the rest of the profile you’ve created for them? Most importantly, how can you threaten their deep-seated needs during the sex scene? Because by putting these needs at risk, you create conflict. You make the scene more suspenseful, more gripping to the reader.
Plus, if you give your characters interesting kinks, you’ll have a great opportunity to foreshadow future scenes. Maybe your heroine has a fetish for yellow convertibles. If your readers know about it and your hero later drives up in one, you’ll have already built up their anticipation. They’ll be expecting something exciting to happen.
(There is a good example of this in Judy Cuevas’ Dance. Sebastien, the stodgy hero, is something of a control freak. Because we know this about him, the scene in which he ties up the heroine really packs a punch. Even though the bondage is mild, we know how exciting it must be for him and this makes the scene more exciting for us.)
In the interest of self-promotion, I’m including a brief excerpt from my erotic novel Menage. Kate, my heroine, has started up a menage a trois with her two male boarders. Sean is the alpha male and Joe is the beta. Both are bisexual, but Sean likes men better than women. He agrees to the triangle as a way of continuing his relationship with Joe after Joe gets a crush on Kate. As you can see, there’s a lot of emotional conflict built in to the situation. In this scene, Sean and Kate are alone for the first time.
“I haven’t kissed you yet,” Sean said. “Joe has, but I haven’t.”
I stroked the side of his face. He wasn’t more than an inch taller than me—5'6" maybe. “Don’t kiss me because Joe has. Kiss me because you want to. If you want to.”
“If I want to—”
He captured my hand and dragged it down his black T-shirt. His body felt warm, too warm. My fingers snagged on his waistband, then settled over the impressive swell behind his button fly. He covered my hand and pressed hard. His erection barely gave. My pulse shifted into high gear. Maybe Joe wasn’t the only one who wanted to get me alone.
“Now, does that feel like I don’t want to kiss you?”
“If you’re trying to prove something—”
He cut me off with an impatient tut. “I don’t have to prove anything. I sleep with people I like, people who impress me. I admit they’re usually men but, hell, sometimes lightning strikes in funny places.” He squeezed my hand over his cock again. “I’m not arguing with ol’ Willy here. He knows what he likes and he never lies.”
“That’s very flattering but—”
“Be quiet,” he said, and yanked my head to his for a kiss.
Conflict: Physical
Many writers ignore this as a source of tension. Once they get the characters into bed, they figure—hey—give them what they want as soon as they want it. But by doing this they neglect an opportunity to crank up the suspense. Will your heroine get what she wants the way she wants it? Can she successfully perform an unfamiliar task? Will she discover something about her own responses that she didn’t know before? Will the hero put his own needs on the back burner while he sees to the heroine’s needs? Of course, romance writers know he’ll try, but can he last, or will he be overwhelmed by excitement? All these questions increase the reader’s involvement in the scene. It’s also perfectly acceptable to cut the action off short of climax. I wouldn’t advise having all of your love scenes end in coitus interruptus, but it can add spice. And, of course, some readers like being tormented.
Alternate between action, introspection and (if possible) dialogue
Some people err by making the love scene all action. It’s a plus if you can fully choreograph the scene. But you don’t want to get caught up in: they did this, and then they did that, and then they did the first thing again upside down. No matter how well and clearly you describe the action, after a while this gets monotonous. Remember what Dwight Swain says about organizing sentences and scenes into motivation-reaction units. You want to alternate between action and introspection. Female readers want to know how the participants feel, both emotionally and physically. (Warning: it’s very easy to overuse the word ‘felt’ during a love scene. If you see it popping up a lot, question whether you truly need it in every instance.) Dialogue is also popular with female readers. Men, in general, don’t want to talk during sex, but most women like to listen. They like to hear how beautiful they are, how strongly the man is affected by what is going on, or perhaps what he is planning to do to them next. You can strike your own compromise here because, after all, it is a fantasy.
Try to be a method writer
If the scene you’re writing doesn’t turn you on, how can you expect it to turn your reader on?
As Lars Eighner puts it: “Sincerity covers a multitude of sins. A new writer is well advised to stick close to scenes that he himself finds irresistibly arousing. Even if that scene is a bit out of the ordinary, or not to a particular reader’s taste, the writer’s excitement will communicate itself as surely as a college boy gets horny when his roommate jerks off.” (Elements of Arousal)
If you succeed in becoming a good method writer, you’ll want to
Expand your fantasy base
Why it’s a good idea
If you’re like most people you probably have a repertoire of three or four reliable fantasies that you return to over and over whenever you want to give yourself a charge. They may change or evolve over time, but basically you’ve got a few. You may love that fantasy where you’re standing in front of the sink washing dishes and you’re husband comes up and kind of irons himself over your back. If that’s the only fantasy you’ve got, however, you won’t be able to sustain more than a good short story. Ideally, you’ll have a large and infinitely expandable pool of turn-ons.
How you might increase your repertoire of fantasies
1) Make time for fantasizing. Don’t just give yourself permission. Make it your business to make time. Maybe you want to take a walk every day. Maybe you want to set some time aside before you go to sleep every night—separate from whatever you do with you’re significant other—and use that time to explore your own imagination. Don’t censor yourself. Like the fantasy journal, this is private and it’s just for you.
2) Read, read, read. Use other writer’s fantasies as a jumping off point for your own. Read fiction. Read true life fantasies. Read sex manuals. Watch hot movies. Anything that can spark your erotic imagination. Read things you’re not sure will arouse you. You don’t have to want to do the thing in real life. You (and your reader) only have to get a charge out of thinking about it. Remember, anything that broadens your fantasy base is one more source of raw material for your writing.
Which brings me to:
How to turn a raw fantasy into an accessible scene
If you’ve read Nancy Friday’s Women on Top, which is a collection of real women’s fantasies, you’ll realize immediately that these scenes could not be transferred to a romance novel without some serious rewriting. A raw fantasy is not necessarily a sharable fantasy. On the other hand, you don’t want to cut yourself off from your erotic inspiration by excluding them from your book. What you need to do is translate your raw fantasies into a readable format. You do this by:
Disguising taboos - What is the older man/younger heroine romance except an expression of an Electra complex? The older man is a father figure. Or another example: The hero and heroine are turned on by watching a horse put to stud. Clearly, the author and reader find the animal’s sexuality arousing. But is the author going to have the heroine do it with a horse? Of course not. When the taboo is disguised, however, it adds a powerful erotic edge to the scene—without offending the reader.
The ‘ick’ factor - A small amount of icky-sticky, ‘realistic’ detail can make the scene more convincing, but don’t go overboard. Consider hygiene. Anne Rice’s Beauty series exemplifies the way in which cleanliness can make strange acts more palatable. Having your characters practice safer sex may also reassure your reader. Well, some of your readers. Others will roll their eyes in disgust at the mere mention of a condom. “Don’t spoil the fantasy,” they say. So this is your call.
Vocabulary - Investigate the market to discover what’s acceptable (to you and to the publishers). Be consistent. If you drop a hard word into a soft style, it will be more jarring. Ditto for a euphemistic word and a frank style.
Consensuality/FUN - Mere consensuality isn’t always enough. You don’t just want your characters to say: ‘Okay, go ahead.” You want them to say: “OKAY—go aHEAD!” If you make it clear that your characters are thoroughly enjoying the unusual act (whether it be spanking or dress-up) your readers will have an easier time accepting it.
Mixing the strange with the familiar - If you mix your strange fantasy with more common female fantasies, your personal kink will become more accessible. And if you have any doubt as to what common female fantasies are, just read any bestselling romance author.
The devil is in the details
I’m going to discuss two different kinds of detail, the non-sexual and the sexual.
Non-sexual detail
You’re writing a fantasy, but you want to help your reader suspend disbelief by including vivid, instantly imageable specifics—many of which are not obviously sexual. Ask yourself what ordinary, everyday detail do you find sexy? Is it the sight of your lover loosening his tie? The shape of his hands? The way he drapes his elbow out the window of the car? Does the sound of the change jingling in his pockets make you want to rip his trousers down? You’ll probably come to the conclusion that these ordinary sights and sounds become sexy through their association with an erotic memory. The most important reason to include them is not because they’re inherently erotic, but because they enhance the believability of your fantastical scene.
Inside, [the Village Green Apartments] were carpeted, papered and silent. Padding along with Brian at her shoulder, Theresa found herself unable to keep from watching his bare toes curl into each step as he walked. There was something undeniably intimate about being with a barefoot man. Brian’s feet were medium sized, shadowed with hair on his big toes, and it struck her how much more angular a man’s foot was than a woman’s. His legs were muscular and sprinkled with a modicum of hair on all but the fronts and backs of his knees. He stopped before number 122, unlocked the door and stepped back.
(from Sweet Memories by LaVyrle Spencer, Worldwide Library, 1984)
Sexual detail
Using sexual detail is akin to grabbing your reader by the throat and yanking her into your scene. You use all five senses to bring her up close and personal: sight, smell, touch, hearing and, of course, taste. How much detail you include depends on your and your editor’s preference. Don’t be afraid to include some sexual detail, however, because sometimes a single apt turn of phrase can guarantee a reader never forgets your book.
This next excerpt was a teaser in the back of one of Linda Howard’s books. I remember reading it and immediately wanting to buy it. I was practically haunting the book store until it came out. Within the scene, she gives a brief, one-line description of the hero’s penis. She makes it sound not just like a real penis, but like this particular hero’s penis. For me, this was so much more effective than the generic throbbing manhood because I could really picture it.
He stepped under the waterfall and let the water splash over him while he tilted his head back and shook his hair. Sunlight dappled the flexing muscles of that marvelously strong body, and the water droplets spraying through the air glittered like diamonds. His penis and testicles hung heavily between his thighs, and he was so perfectly, utterly male that her chest constricted, making it difficult for her to breathe.
Then he looked straight at her, the blue of his eyes so intense that she could see it even across the forty feet that separated them. He stepped forward a little, so that the main force of the water was hitting his back; he was right on the edge of the rock shelf above the pool of water. He was totally exposed to her, without the stream of water to blur the powerful lines of his body. As he stared at her, his shaft began to stir, to grow thick and long, to rise fiercely toward his belly.
[...]
Her eyes went irresistibly to his erection and she felt herself literally grow weak. Her mouth began to water, and she swallowed convulsively. That thing was impressive, the shaft thicker than the bulbous head. She almost moaned aloud.
(from Heart of Fire by Linda Howard, Pocket Star Books, 1993)
A BREAKDOWN OF A SEX SCENE - inspired by Lars Eighner’s Elements of Arousal
I have one warning before I go on. You need to remember that in a romance not every love scene has to, or should, follow the pattern I’m about to describe. It would be exhausting, like a movie with nothing but chase scenes. When you get to the climactic scene of the book, however, this is not a bad guide to follow. (And if you’re writing a hot romance, you’ll probably want to use it for more than one scene.)
Sexual tension/mental foreplay
Just as in real-life foreplay, you need to warm your reader up. I’m sure you already know this, but in case you’ve forgotten, sexual tension can, and really should, be built up before the start of the scene. It can, of course, also continue on into it. Mr. Eighner says: “To reach its greatest peak in the erotic scene, as it should, erotic tension must start at a very low level and be built up with increasing steepness.”
The conflict
Mr. Eighner says: “A good story also erects other lines of tension. These may be played against the erotic to explore the eroticism more fully. They keep the story from collapsing before the erotic tension can be fully developed.” You can use external or internal conflicts to add oomph to the erotic scene. External conflicts are supplied by forces or individuals outside the main characters which drive them apart. Internal conflict comes into play when the main characters' deepest desires seem to be mutually exclusive.
To develop your own conflict, try giving each character a goal for the sex scene. Then put it at risk. (For more on this, see Chapter 4: “Conflict and How to Build It” in Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer.)
Once you’ve established sexual tension and conflict, you’ll want to consider:
The three-minute warning
(Or let’s admit it, sometimes your love scene will be someone’s masturbation aid.) The three-minute warning can be as simple as a character saying: ‘I’m going to come.’ Or you can describe the physical manifestations of someone losing control. Mr. Eighner recommends a typewritten page and a-half for lead time.Your mileage may vary.
The climax
Pick your payoff, the character whose orgasm signals the climax of the scene. This doesn’t mean it’s the only orgasm in the scene, only that it represents the dramatic peak. The others will, in essence, be throwaways. Let the reader know early in the scene which character’s orgasm will be the payoff. Do this by:
a) focusing on the character (possibly by making him or her the POV character);
b) making the reader care how and whether the character comes (because they like or are fascinated by the character, or because they have empathy for the character’s goal); and c) warn the reader (see “three-minute warning” above)