8 Dos & Don’ts of How to Write Sex Scenes That Work
Author Beth Miller shares why to write sex scenes in fiction and eight dos and don’ts of how to write sex scenes that work.
I love reading—and writing—a good sex scene. A reader described the sex scenes in one of my novels as ‘delightfully filthy,’ a review I cherish. Before I was a writer I worked in sexual health education in schools, which knocked any embarrassment out of me.
Why should we write about sex? Reason 1
Sex is part of the common human experience, and we should write about those, shouldn’t we? I’m always struck by how authors are blithely happy to write shocking scenes of violence or murder (which rarely happens to most of us), yet hesitate when it comes to writing about sex.
Why should we write about sex? Reason 2
Sex can reveal so much about your characters. Being intimate with someone can make a character very vulnerable, and show a real, perhaps even different side to their personality. If your main character is precise and orderly, for example, are they the same when it comes to sex? Or do they see that as a rare chance to be wild and messy? Who are they, both as a character and as a sexual being?
8 Dos and Don’ts of Writing Sex Scenes in Fiction
Do: Make sure the scene has a purpose
Does the sex scene tell us more about the characters and/or move the story on? Does it deepen the stakes? Will the story be as enjoyable without it? If not, then it’s gratuitous. Unnecessary sex scenes are like any other pointless scene—a waste of words.
Don’t: Feel that all sex scenes have to be sexy
Sometimes we want a sex scene to be so sexy that our reader needs a cold shower. But other times we might want the scene to be romantic, or funny, or show how awkward our characters are together. What will the audience feel reading the scene? And is that what you want them to feel? (Sometimes I write a sex scene I think is very hot, only for readers to tell me it made them laugh.)
Don’t: Think it has to be wildly explicit
(Though it can be!) A sex scene can be very explicit, but leave a lot to the imagination; or, it can be subtle in terms of vocabulary, but very descriptive. It can tell us exactly who’s doing what to whom, or it can be more about sensations and feelings. Alternatively, if you feel that fading to black would be more natural for your voice or story, you can write a sex scene without writing any actual sex, by focusing on all the elements surrounding sex: the sultry looks beforehand, the clothes on the floor, the dreamy haze afterward. The reader will eagerly fill in any gaps.
Do: Consider your genre
Each genre has different, usually unwritten, conventions when it comes to sex. Reading round your genre will give you a good idea of how much sex is usual in similar books, what sort of language is used, and how explicit the scenes are.
Don’t: Let embarrassment win
Dance like no-one’s watching, and write your sex scene as if no-one is going to read it.
Yes, eventually your mother, aunt, and dentist might all read your book. If you’ve done a good job of writing it, they’ll be lost in the story and won’t even remember that you wrote it while reading. However, don’t write a scene that makes you uncomfortable. You need to be true to your style, voice, and story.
Do: Try to avoid being nominated for the Bad Sex Award
Even award-winning authors can lose their minds when writing sex scenes. The much-missed annual ‘Bad Sex Award’ that celebrated bad writing in published novels is testament to this. The awards generally go to terrible metaphors (such as comparing nipples to cherries/raspberries/choose your own fruit); corny old clichés (throbbing manhoods, snowy-white virginal breasts); and a sudden outburst of thesaurus-sourced words large enough for the writer to hide their embarrassment behind.
It's not that hard to avoid bad sex writing: Try to use a similar style and vocabulary as the rest of your book. To avoid cliché, reflect on how the sensations feel, what the emotions are like. Just think—as for any scene—what the experience is like for your characters.
Do: Put other things into the scene
Sex isn’t usually silent. Well, it can be. But it can also include other interesting things. Characters talk during sex, and they also think—sometimes about quite surprising things.
Do: Remember that it’s a scene like any other
A sex scene is just the same as any other scene. It has a rise and a fall, it shares the same tone and tension of the story, it’s about character and not plot, and yet something must also happen. Writing a good sex scene requires thought about plot, dialogue, pacing, description, and characterization: the same elements that are needed for any scene.
Check out Beth Miller's The Friendship List here:
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