Aftermath....

LOL, SuzyB... I'm following you around from thread to thread, all about scenes. Laughs out loud. Everything you're asking, I'll say again.. spend the $12 on Raymond Obstfeld's "Novelist's Essential Guide to Crafting Scenes". I promise you, you will definitely not regret it!

Endings of scenes are so important because they hint at or provide a link to some future scene. My gut feeling (a bit difficult without specifics) is that if the dialogue is simply "glowing in the aftermath of hot sex" it might be flat. If it somehow suggests that something quite compelling is around the corner, then good. I mean that's so simplistic, because there are so many ways to close a scene, and it depends what the desired effect is (e.g. suspense?).

SuzyB said:

Well, the dialogue doesn't exactly tell you what will happen in another scene...just the fact my two main characters just had amazing sex, and the dialogue could stand for their "future" together.

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Ta dah! See, a personal opinion... I think I should be able to define what the purpose is of everything I write within a scene. I think in your post you've answered your own questions. They're fighting all the time, but then make love. So presumably something's now different? So the dialog is presumably to convey what they now feel and hint at what it might mean in the bigger picture? Which is a pretty good reason for having it there.

SuzyB said:

Well...........................as good as the dialogue seems and makes sense, it doesn't fit with the scene.

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Smile. I had an example of having to kill a darling a day or two ago. Something I wrote, a sentence or two, seemed so good, but later I just couldn't work out what it contributed to the scene. I'm in the habit now of keeping such snippets in a document for possible later use.