sex scenes

Quick Link: How to Write Superior Sex Scenes: Ignite Your Readers & Burn Them to Ash

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

So not to share TMI but Mr. Paula and I have a lovely marriage so when I have encountered some hot scenes in books lately and found myself skipping over them, well I thought it was just me. Turns out  posting at Kristen Lamb‘s site nailed it. The scenes I passed by weren’t bad necessarily but felt out of place in the story. Check out Cait’s post on how to do sex scenes right!

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How to Write Superior Sex Scenes: Ignite Your Readers & Burn Them to Ash

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Hey Guys, Cait Reynolds, my co-author/partner in crime/therapist/evil half is here to talk about the birds and the bees and maybe bees tying up other bees. The “How To” of writing superior sex scenes is vital, just uncomfortable for me. Sorry. I blame my upbringing.

I’m a Texan with a Lutheran mom and Baptist father. I grew up in the buckle of the Bible Belt, and have had far too much vacation bible camp to be much help. In fact, legally, I cannot write a sex scene until every member of my family dies…and likely not even then.

If you need help with plotting a fight scene or murder? I’m your gal.

All this said, roughly 80% of publishing is powered by the romance genre. This is a FACT.

I read a LOT of romance, myself. Sadly, however, there are “romances” so over-processed and crammed with filler they need a foil tray instead of a book cover.

TV Dinner sex scenes.

Tired, overdone, dry, uncreative and no one looks forward to consuming this stuff (unless starving and desperate).

Read the full post on Kristen Lamb!

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Sex Scenes In Novels: Autobiographical or Imagined?

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This article by Jon Stock originally appeared on The Telegraph on 3/5/13.

Authors risk the ridicule of friends whenever they write about sex, even if it’s pure fiction, says spy writer Jon Stock.

Authors are often urged to write about what they know, but does this apply to sex scenes? Should they be based on personal experience – cue sniggering from friends, family and fellow authors – or drawn from the realms of pure fantasy?

The novelist Julian Barnes claims in an article today that modern writers feel a commercial obligation to include sex scenes and then struggle to write them. Chief amongst their many fears is the assumption that readers will conclude they are in some way autobiographical.

According to Barnes: “Writing about sex contains an additional anxiety on top of all the usual ones that the writer might be giving him- or herself away, that readers may conclude, when you describe a sexual act, that it must already have happened to you in pretty much the manner described.”

I noticed that people began to look at me in a very different way after the publication of my 2009 espionage thriller, Dead Spy Running. The genre has certain requirements: exotic locations, gritty hero, labyrinthine plotting and, of course, sex.

 

Read the full post on The Telegraph.