S-E-X Scenes 101

image courtesy of artix on stock xchg

I just entered a "Five Sexy Scenes" contest, and the instructions contained a line I felt really made a point. It said, "sexy isn't necessarily the act of intercourse. It's a feeling, an emotion provoked by a skilled storyteller, something that gives me a tiny, or not so tiny, rush and makes my eyes widen, my breath catch, my heart race..."

Especially when crafting encounters for more erotic tales, it's easy to slip into The Act without truly giving ones' self over to the sexual experience. I'm talking the full 3-D, Dolby Digital Surround Sound ultra-sensory experience; the ones in fiction that make our mouths water and pulses pound long before hero and heroine (or however you slice it!) hit the sheets.

So what is it that allows a combination of words to pass through the eyes and knot directly in our libidos? I find it's a one-two punch of Torturous Buildup and Sensory Layering.

1. Turturous Buildup

Anticipationnn, it's makin' me wait... Even an erotic tale that opens with a sex scene can possess delicious anticipatory torment, if the author engages in literary foreplay. Let's take the opener to my upcoming Suite Seduction, for example. The first line reads,

The blindfold was a bit over the top, perhaps, considering the room was already pitch black as Julietta lay naked and waiting under the sheets.

Pretty obvious she ain't at the church quilter's meeting. But there's built-in anticipation by having her naked and WAITING under the sheets, further enhanced by her visual deprivation. I could have mentioned the blindfold and gotten right to it, but I extend the torture by making the character (and reader) wait for the reward.

Another technique I love to be teased with during Torturous Buildup is the Push-Me-Pull-You factor. That Come Here, No Wait tap dance that characters engage in because of their conflicting desires. In my first novel, VISIONS, there's a moment where the heroine has just been thrust into a limousine with an unsettlingly desirable film star:

As large as the limousine appeared from the outside, the interior closed around Glory, sending a quiver through her stomach. Though she’d scooted across the seat and glued herself to the far window, she felt pressed to Trenton’s side as if some giant magnet drew them inexorably together. The dim lighting, provided by a string of tiny white bulbs concealed behind strips of plastic along the upper edge of the compartment, only added to the air of forced intimacy.


I use conflicting cues, like Glory gluing herself to the far door while feeling magnetized, and combining opposing ideas of "forced" and "intimacy" to accentuate her battling desire. Makes the Big Payoff that much sweeter when one or both characters have been resisting it...and as a reader keeps me page-turning to get to that Surrender!

2. Sensory Layering

It's not hard to fall into a rote Insert Tab A In Slot B description when writing physical interactions. To avoid having these scenes read more like a chilly clinical manual than a hot interlude, pile on the layers. Include smells, sounds, and taste in addition to the common sight-and-feel depictions in many sex scenes. Even the bed or setting itself can become a character that lends dimensionality to the moment.

My couple's first (full) sexual encounter in ISLAND SEDUCTION starts here:

Pulling the door open with a grunt, he shoved her into the darkened room and closed the door. With a tug and a profanity—not necessarily in that order—she freed her arm and tried to glare Steve down in the darkness. She blinked hard, part against the inky black and part in shock at finding herself half-naked in a closet—with a man who was also half-naked.

"Are you insane?"

I might be, but nonetheless the characters are about to release pent-up Push-Me-Pull-You in a hotel housekeeping closet. The room and situation itself becomes a key player in helping me ratchet up tension and the urgency of their need.

What titillates YOUR literary libido? The setting? Slick descriptions of the hot Alpha Hunk in action? Paranormal situations? The Kiss-and-Make-Up scenario? Which techniques make your reading glasses melt? And as a writer, how do you turn up the heat until that keyboard sizzles?

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Today's Favorite Line Written:“He did something to me that night.” To Dorianne's raised brow Justine blushed, her hand slipping to her belly. “I mean besides the obvious. He cast a spell on me while we were...in the act.”

Her mentor's cautious gaze now glittered with interest. “A spell? What kind of spell?” --From The Wiccaning

How Do YOU Like It?

Excerpts. For readers, that crucial Deciding Factor on whether to purchase a book. For writers, The Final Frontier. You've voyaged through plotting, dialogue, and characterization, plundered the lands of submissions and publication, and are now facing the dazzling supernova of promotion. Now, you are faced with the five W's of excerpts:

1. Who? Do you focus on one character? A meeting between hero and heroine? Plucky side characters? Or a juicy moment with the creepy love-to-hate antagonist?

2. What? A subtle interlude? Dire action sequence? Sizzling-hot bedroom scene?

3. When?...do you stop? A brief snippet? A tickler ending with a profoud ". . ." cliffhanger moment? An entire chapter? What length works best without giving away the farm?

4. Where? Do you post your excerpts? Your website? In a regular blog feature? Author Chats? What places bring the most attention to excerpts? Where as a reader do you look first for excerpts?

5. Why? Do you choose the excerpts you do? Do you always use the same ones for every author chat and on your website? Or do you swap them out from time to time?

Also, there's HOW many, meaning do you like to see a variety of excerpts on a single title--say, ranging from Rated G to Rated X, perhaps--or is that Too Much Information to read? Authors, do you offer multiples on your titles, or just stick with one Uber Excerpt?

These are questions I've explored a lot lately, as I've been examining my website and my "author chat" goody bag of tricks. I'd love to hear from readers, writers, and editors as to How YOU Like It (and Do It)!

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Today's Favorite Line Written: “Love? Check the dictionary. I don't think you'll find 'lying, trickery, and manipulating spiritual free will' under the definition.”--from The Wiccaning

Anatomy of a Love Writer

As a matter of fact yes, I was an anatomy major in college...though I bet my professors couldn't have guessed what my biological education ended up being used for.

With National November Novel Writing Month just around the corner, I've been doing some thinking about what makes us "love writers" tick. Is it that we just love a good story with a happy ending? Or perhaps we just can't get enough of rubbing elbows (and other parts) with those sexy alpha hunks. Maybe we're simply addicted to the thrill of new love--that pivotal moment where boy meets girl with enough heat to place any nearby fireworks factory in serious jeopardy. Or perhaps it's a combination of all these things.

Any way you slice it, I was a good college student on the fast track to a nursing degree, one of the top students in my class. Invited by the college to study advanced microbiology. Awarded scholarships in the field. And encouraged by teachers with pats on the back that were no more than thinly disguised pushes toward the door of Registered Nursing 101.

Then somewhere along that path, I detoured into the steaming jungle of romantic and erotic studies...and I've never looked back. The romance bug had bitten, and it proved to be an illness which no nursing education could ever hope to cure me of. So I never saw what was behind the door to Nursing 101, but I've visited many strange and exotic lands.

One of the things that brings me back to romance is the surprise element--a statement that knits the brows of many. "What surprise?" they say. "Romance is always the same: they meet, they fall, they fight, they get back together." Perhaps the traditional arc hits these markers, yes, but it's the wiggly path that drags the characters--often most unwillingly--from A to Z that keeps me turning those pages. The surprise of love finding people in the most unlikely of circumstances, and forging them together. And nowadays when I write, I find that I want to experience just as much suprise during the process as if I were reading a brand new book.

It's for that reason I decided to write this year's book for national novel month with no starting plot or characters--and to let readers suggest the alpha hunk that will get the ball rolling. In this way I will be introduced to him with no preconceived notion of who he is or what he is supposed to do--he will surprise me when he crosses my path just as much as the heroine he is fated to find love with. With just one difference--I know someone special is coming, someone to steal my breath and speed my pulse. Anticipation is a sweet thing, and waiting for the November 1 kickoff to meet this latest hero has my toes and points north tingling. Wish me luck!

Back in the Saddle & Crackin' the Whip!

Image courtesy of Stock Exchange

After a summer-long break, September blew into a dark, mischievous part of my mind and the writing has again begun. Not just any writing, either. Last night I tapped keys until first light to draft the first in my upcoming series of erotic betime video tales, under the tutelage of a most intriguing and sensual character.

Andre is a vampire unlike any who have paid my muse a call, arriving only partly bidden in my mind as I sat at a very not-busy work yesterday. Into my ear he whispered, explaining in complex layers why a vampire sits alone in a darkened theater and how he can sense, attract, and forge an immortal, sexual union with a woman completely undetected and at her own bidding. Relentless was this dark creature, revealing himself until I couldn't wait to get home and let his tale unfold.

And ah, unfold it did. For those readers who have ever had a fantasy involving a movie theater or a seductive vampire, Immortal Wine has it all and more. After revision and voice acting is complete, this piece will be "immortalized" for a true bedtime delight. Stay tuned!

My Character's "Tail" Wags this Dog

**Warning: Today's Blurb Contains Adult Themes**

Okay, it took a sound smack to the head--or rather, my rearmost--by one of my characters in order for this message to truly leave an...impression, but that it has.

In deference to the genius of my character, Mak, I am required to issue the following statement:

::ahem::

My Characters are Wise. My Characters are Always Right. My Characters Are KING.

Last week I posted about Makoto Chinen, the secretive Asian patron of lust who refused to bare his soul (though he readily bares other wonders) so I could add his POV to my current book, Kata Sutra. After what amounted to turning me over his knee in the dojo where he dominates, I had to rethink my strategy. Granted, my post asking how other writers got their clammed-up characters to spill DID garner some interesting and provocative suggestions--everthing from threatening to withhold sex scenes to getting out the whip myself. Yes, many tips were thrust into my writer's hands by sympathetic blog readers. But something was missing.

I knew that somehow, the lesson I was meant to learn from my "schooling" in the dojo was not that I needed to take a firmer hold of Mak's...reins, but rather not to be afraid--or frustrated--when a particularly strong character wishes to take hold of ME and ride the story harder. Mak is powerful and cocksure and ready to take on a challenge--and his latest was convincing this author that Daddy Knows Best. And so he has.

Mak wasn't trying to pose a battle of wills and prove me under-equipped; he was trying to tell me the story itself. I wasn't meant to sit offsides, scratching my head and wondering what his motivations are and where he goes when he's finished getting all hot and sweaty in the dojo--and oh yeah, training martial arts, too. His love interest is meant to do so--on stage.

With a nod and sly wink of agreement, Mak backed off and let me tell the tale his way--with his secret life woven in as essential to his plot line. Let his reporter-slash-bombshell lover drive herself insane with curiosity over what her guy's deal is when they aren't bound up in a tangle of limbs. Better her than me...for everyone concerned.

Thanks, Mak. Feel free to take me in hand anytime. :)

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Today's Favorite Line Written: His tongue probed hers as he pushed her against the hallway wall, hands running over damp, cooling flesh until she melted against him with a moan and he felt her skin reignite.
Then he pulled away, and after dressing at triple speed bid the duo a nod of farewell and slipped into the night...alone.

Spanked Hard...by My Character!

photo courtesy of Stock Exchange

Well, HERE'S a fine mess I've gotten myself into! My odyssey into the mysteries of POV spurred dozens of comments, here on the blog and various loops I post to. I was most grateful for the insight, and the message was rapid and profound: Multiple POV is where it's at.

That settled, I waggled my fingers and set out to add the third POV "leg" to Kata Sutra's menage/triangle, Asian karate virtuoso Makoto Chinen. Mak is rocked and charming, a bit of a bad boy with discipline in martial arts and a ninth degree black belt in erotic ones...and a complete, utter mystery outside the dojo where he trains and indulges after-hours sexual sparring.

I stared at the story for days, willing this Japanese god to open up to the writer. No go. I pulled all my tricks out of the writer's hat and a few from others. All good, but none effective. Took a break for several days, then returned. Nothing. In the dojo he's all out, right in the fray, open to scene after scene of powerful fighting and dangerous loving. But once he saunters out of the studio in snakeskin boots and tight-fitting jeans, he rides off on his motorcycle and leaves me in the dust. Granted, my characters don't reveal their deep darks right at the off...but I can't even glimpse his house, job, nothing. Whatever his secrets are, they weigh heavily...and just outside the Dakota Dragon dojo where he rules as top student.

This morning I tried an all-out visualization...a direct meeting of the minds. We sat Lotus-style, face to face in the dojo where he readily appears, and there I made my appeal.

I learned two valuable lessons.

1.Add Ya Laters really aren't keen on being such.
2.Venturing alone into a dojo where the quarry is an almost black belt and you never passed orange leaves one at something of a disadvantage.

By the time we parted, a sly grin on his sultry lips, I'd been laid bare and spanked soundly for my crimes--in various interpretations I'll leave to your imagination. Bottom line...he has my number, but I still don't have his.

Now that I've been left red, er, faced and empty-handed, I ponder my next move. I've always believed characters tell the story, not me, but Mak is taking the "Who's Your Master?" approach to a whole new level. I could walk away again, let things cool. But I admit he's got me right where he wants me...hopelessly entranced and dying to know more. He's got me, well, acting like an enthralled reader who is stuck at a crucial moment...with her hands cuffed behind her so she can't turn the page. Touche, Mak. Now let's dance!

Have YOU ever faced off with a character who simply wouldn't reveal themselves? Challenged you at every turn? Punished you for crimes real and imagined? Hell, answered, "No Comment" to simple matters like "Smoking or non?" "Paper or plastic?" "Dress right or left?" What did you do to lure him or her out of hiding?

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Recent Favorite Line Written...Evan half knelt over Mak, cocking back a fist in a show of setting up a finishing blow. “And maybe a young man like you has a few things to learn before earning his black belt...here or in Desiree's bed.”