Tags
Hello again. I have a dilemma.
I have a short story I want to submit for a deadline at the beginning of August. It’s been most of the way written since the end of January. The sticking point is the final, or possibly penultimate, scene. It’s a sex scene, an explicit one. I’m struggling because it’s something I’m a little (OK, a lot) uncomfortable with. There’s no question it has to be included, however. It’s an essential part of how my characters reconnect after their relationship nearly founders. One of the things that was wrong was that they weren’t making love any more, just having (infrequent and perfunctory) sex. So they’re going to have to talk. Of course they are. They’d lost touch with each other along the way. But they also have to make love.
On. The. Page.
After four or five months allowing myself to be distracted with the new shiny that was the editing and production process for Working it Out, I really need to get back to it. I have to just buckle down and write it as a clunky laundry list and then start moulding that into something more like what I need. It’s just that I have this perfectionist streak that makes me want to write it right the first time. I do know that’s not possible. But. I can’t help thinking wistfully that I ought to be able to.
Working It Out—available for pre-order now
Better get on with it.
See you later
Kristen
xx
kristenslater 
Yes, I want to avoid it being all about the mechanics. I’m trying to do the difficult thing of linking it very firmly to their emotional reconnection after one of them nearly wrecks the relationship. So it’s got to be all about how it makes them feel about each other. I’m getting there!
LikeLike
Oooh, been there, did that. Sex scenes can be really difficult when you start writing them (I ran into a fanfiction author who solved this problem by having them all be the same – if you only read one of her stories, it really worked).
I think there’s two things you can focus on when writing one: what goes where and the inner world of the character. You might want to go with the latter since it seems to suit your story better… and it can be easier on the details. You can get away with saying things like “When x undressed, y felt elated to discover that every bit of him was as attractive as it had been the first time he’d seen the man naked. He wasn’t perfect, but he was his, his to enjoy and caress and cherish.”
Technically we don’t ‘see’ the nakedness, but do we notice? Nah. We imagine it as readers anyway.
LikeLike