So...I've been bored. After years and years and years of reading and writing non-fiction and straight-up journalism, I decided to try my hand at writing fiction. Not the publishable kind of fiction either. Fan-fiction. It just seemed easier to write about characters I knew already and whose characterizations and motivations were already established.
Something I've picked up on rather quickly is there is a lot of sexy stuff going on in the majority of fan-fic I've read. Some of it is good, a lot of it is bad, and other times it seems like its only in there because there is an expectation that sooner or later (and it's always sooner) that the character(s) are gonna get down n' dirty. Sometimes really dirty.
So, I tried to write a love scene which would morph into a genuine, authentic, realistic and hopefully erotic and not simply explicit and graphic and phony sex scene.
Face.
Plant.
I sought advice. I read essays on how to write a sex scene. I consorted with loose women of dubious moral character. I gargled bourbon and smoked herb like a chimney. I plugged in to Pornhub for a reminder of how eroticism and pornography are distant cousins not on speaking terms. None of it helped.
Then I thought about what some of the great minds of the Absolute Write might have to say about how not to write about making sexytime. And I read some fanfic where the semi-obligatory bodies slapping together scene actually resonated and it seemed authentic and earned. Because the saying about sex being a lot like pizza; even when its bad it's still pretty good is garbage. Bad sex is worse than no sex.
Hate sex is worse than bad sex and I hated writing a sex scene. And the readers hated reading it, so there is that.
So should I skip the sex and get back to the story instead of forcing it in where it doesn't fit? What's worse? Two characters who should be bumping uglies but don't because of---reasons or getting them horizontal (or vertical if that's how you get down to bizness) or two characters who do get busy and it's a special sort of awfulness.
Because as Dorothy Parker might have said if she had read this swill, “This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."
Suggestions appreciated.
Something I've picked up on rather quickly is there is a lot of sexy stuff going on in the majority of fan-fic I've read. Some of it is good, a lot of it is bad, and other times it seems like its only in there because there is an expectation that sooner or later (and it's always sooner) that the character(s) are gonna get down n' dirty. Sometimes really dirty.
So, I tried to write a love scene which would morph into a genuine, authentic, realistic and hopefully erotic and not simply explicit and graphic and phony sex scene.
Face.
Plant.I sought advice. I read essays on how to write a sex scene. I consorted with loose women of dubious moral character. I gargled bourbon and smoked herb like a chimney. I plugged in to Pornhub for a reminder of how eroticism and pornography are distant cousins not on speaking terms. None of it helped.
Then I thought about what some of the great minds of the Absolute Write might have to say about how not to write about making sexytime. And I read some fanfic where the semi-obligatory bodies slapping together scene actually resonated and it seemed authentic and earned. Because the saying about sex being a lot like pizza; even when its bad it's still pretty good is garbage. Bad sex is worse than no sex.
Hate sex is worse than bad sex and I hated writing a sex scene. And the readers hated reading it, so there is that.
So should I skip the sex and get back to the story instead of forcing it in where it doesn't fit? What's worse? Two characters who should be bumping uglies but don't because of---reasons or getting them horizontal (or vertical if that's how you get down to bizness) or two characters who do get busy and it's a special sort of awfulness.
Because as Dorothy Parker might have said if she had read this swill, “This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."
Suggestions appreciated.
But you need to use words to describe for your readers what's happening.
Too true! 
