Alright, post-V Day. Last week, we talked romance; this week, it’s time for between the sheets.
I’m not a smut writer. I’m not even a romance writer. But I have written sex scenes. I’ve written PWP (plot, what plot?) and I’ve written sex scenes in multi-chaptered, multi-genre novels.
Sex scenes can be as poetically vague and as explicitly nasty as you want and the narrative tone dictates, too. Some sex scenes are so pretty you hardly realize there is sex at all. And, of course, there are plenty of smutty scenes out there to make even the most hardened fanfic reader blush. This is a spectrum for you to explore and find out what you’re comfortable with.
If your story is aimed toward adults—I will not get into the puritanical what about the children wank of YA policing—then I don’t see anything wrong with including a sex scene or two. Readers will enjoy them if they like the characters. It can be a wonderful narrative break from tension or action. And, yeah, we’re all suckers for sappy turned steamy reunions.
I’ll personally be perfectly happy if I never write another sex scene. I find them arduous and taxing to write. But through difficulty comes experience.
In some ways, sex scenes can be written like action scenes. You have to keep an eye on whose body is doing what—I cannot recall how many sex scenes I’ve been like “wait, his leg is doing what?” as I realized the characters were not doing what I’d imagined they were doing—and you should probably have a brief choreography in mind.
Physical things can change the sex scene a lot. Sex toys, yes, but are they on a bed? Sofa? Kitchen counter, outside against a tree, in a limo? Navigating a space together is important.
And on that perfect segue—sex isn’t perfect. Yes, you can write perfect, flawless sex. But I think some of the best smut is the realistic, messy stuff. Does someone bump their head on the car ceiling, or fall off the bed, or get their hair stuck in a bush? Are they sweaty, flushed, awkward, fumbling, or clumsy? If your characters can’t laugh together during sex, then what good are they?
Please, think about things like lubricant, too. No matter your characters’ bodies or what’s going in who, lube is usually needed (yes, even for ladies!). Lube is good for lube, yes, but spit works, and some types of lotion, depending on what it’s for. Please, please, just don’t use some of the worse things. Yes, it’s unsexy to think about this stuff, but if you can, you should. Do the backend work so your readers don’t have to be aghast at going in dry.
Onto possibly the second most important part of writing a sex scene (only behind the characters): word choice.
There have been many heated debates about vocabulary usage in smut. There is a Bad Sex in Fiction Award, which is horrifying, hilarious, and sobering, and many of those have egregious word usage. There’s a Men Write Women twitter which is chock full of examples that’ll make your skin crawl.
Don’t fall into the pit of purple prose, unless your entire story is written in that. (Why?) Don’t fixate on anything your narrative perspective wouldn’t.
There have been many discussions over what word(s) to use to describe genitals, especially in sex scenes. No one wants the overly clinical, scientific terms, but neither does one want to read things like “DNA rocket” or “baloney pony”. Basic is probably your best bet, and hey, you’re writing smut. You’re allowed to get a little crass.
Sex scenes can have so many moods or tones; think about what sort you want before you tackle the scene. (That said it can definitely change once you get into it.) There’s happy sex, tearful sex, grateful you’re alive sex, reunion sex, hate fucking, make-up sex, sex you laugh during, drunk sex, farewell sex—arguably about any mood, tone, or genre could translate into a different type of sex scene. I’d only say experiment with them if you want to see what you’re capable of, or if you want to start making that sweet ebook romance novella money.
Yes, it’s a very different type of beast to write, no matter what genre you’re used to. But it doesn’t have to be that scary if you just think it through like any other (vaguely physical) scene. Hypothetically.
