How to write a sex scene
Since Valentine’s day is around the corner it’s fair we get into the right mood. Sex Scenes are difficult to write for me, it is the hardest (no pun intended) to write. Sex is a personal feeling and putting it on paper can be tricky as it can embarrassing, or weird. You feel judged or judged by your reader. This is what I learned about writing sex scenes.
Is the sex scenes suitable for your genre?
Before, you write that sex scene ask yourself is this suitable for the genre? How I do that you ask?
If you are writing romance and erotica than descriptive sex scenes are in order. Same goes for Erotic thrillers.
If you are writing a thriller and the character is in love than it is acceptable. Almost every thriller/mystery book I’ve read so far had a sex scene in it. Sometimes the author will use limited descriptions and focus what I call the 50/50. 50% is showing what the characters are doing and the other 50% is expressing the emotion.
Ask yourself why you want to write this sex scene.
Is it important to the plot? Does your character want to achieve something? Will they discover something new about themselves? Are they in love? Are they going to use sex for power? Is your character having an affair? If you cut the scene out of your MS will it make a difference?
There are also other things to consider when writing a sex scene remember your reader will learn something new about your characters. Are they practicing safe sex? Is your female character on the pill? There are many points to consider in how to write a sex scene
Be careful with your wording.
Another tip on how to write a sex scene. As I said before sex is hard to write you have all those emotions going on and you don’t know how to put it into words. Do not compare your characters to animals or machines it’s unsexy and calls for bad taste. Don’t write “he drilled her like a jackhammer” just don’t.
Look up these links for more. Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award and Sex Scenes in books
One of my favorite sex scenes in the thrillerKilling me Softly by Nicci French. I’ve read this book for the first when I was 16. Maybe I was a little too young to read a book of this sort but it is still one of my favorite books.
“Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. Sex had never been like this. There had been indifferent sex, embarrassing sex, nasty sex, good sex, great sex. This was more like obliterating sex. We crashed together, trying to get past the barrier of skin and flesh. We held each other as if we were drowning. We tasted each other as if we were starving. And all the time he looked at me. He looked at me as if I were the loveliest thing he had ever seen, and as I lay on the hard dusty floor I felt lovely, shameless, quite done for.”
But I don’t feel comfortable writing a sex scene but it is necessary for my plot!
If you don’t feel comfortable writing a sex scene but you find it is necessary to the story than you can say “and then they had sex” or something between those lines. The reader knows what sex entails. Or you can write that your characters were lying on the bed, carpet (or whatever place you want them to get laid =D) with clothes tossed on the floor that will send the message loud and clear what your characters were up too 😉
Practice and read.
The last tip on how to write a sex scene. Practice makes perfect so the only way to be good at writing a love scene is to jolt it down on paper. Reading can also help (keep your genre in mind) but you will learn how other authors do it and you’ll get a good idea of how it’s done. A tip an author gave me was to watch a sex scene of a particular movie and you write down what they are doing. I tried this trick and yes, I did get giggly and embarrassed but it worked!
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4 Comments
Marsha Law
What great timing for this post! I’ve been trying to write a sex scene, but I’ve rejected draft after draft. Thanks for the tips.
Michelle
Good tips! I was just trying to explain to someone recently that writing sex scenes is much harder than it sounds. They’d heard that writing erotic ebooks was a great way to get rich quick…but had never actually written any fiction.
Daima Hussain
I know, right. One always thinks something is easy when you see other people doing it.
Daima Hussain
Good advice, many times i have found that sex scenes are cringy rather than intriguing, in fact in some of the best I have read the main point isn’t even the sex.