Sex as a Literary Challenge
In her recent post Pam talked about writing a seduction scene. Which got me to thinking about writing love scenes. Or to be more accurate, sex scenes, as there are certainly love scenes that don’t involve sex, except as subtext. Sex scenes are perhaps a particular challenge for the historical novelist because, as Pam said, of the need to carry "with it the feeling of its historically understood world, quite as fully as any other scene in the novel." Which includes everything from the mores of the time to contraception or the lack of it to details of clothing as it is removed (with which last issue Kalen is a wonderful resource).
When I first began co-writing Regency romances with my mom, under the name Anthea Malcolm, my friends teased me that our books started very chaste and slowly got more explicit. In our first book, The Widow’s Gambit, the characters barely embraced. In the second, The Courting of Philippa, there were more detailed kisses. (There was also a description of birth control methods when the radical reformer hero took the Silver Fork novelist heroine to a meeting put on by another reformer). In the third, Frivolous Pretence, which focused on an estranged married couple, there was an actual sex scene, though it faded to black. Our fifth book, A Touch of Scandal, had ex-lovers who resumed an illicit affair. Sex scenes were part of the story. I told my mom she had to write them. Our sixth book, An Improper Proposal, was a marriage of convenience story. My mom said, “You have to write one of the sex scenes this time.” I wrote my first draft of the scene on a day when my mom was out shopping. And (this is true, though it sounds so funny now), I turned down the screen on my computer, so I couldn’t look at the words as I typed them. When my mom got home that night, I said, “Okay, I wrote the scene. Go look at it and tell me what you think. But I don’t want to be there when you read it.”
Oddly enough, after that first scene I stopped being embarrassed about writing sex scenes. I got to find them quite a fun challenge, especially trying to make each one true to those particular characters and that stage in their relationship (my favorite, I think, is the one in Shadows of the Heart, which takes place in the crypt of a church after the hero and heroine have narrowly escaped being killed). But when I wrote Secrets of a Lady, it was quite obvious to me that after the opening interrupted sex scene, Charles and Mélanie were too focused on finding the Carevalo Ring and getting their son back to stop to have sex. On top of the fact that their relationship is so strained that Charles finds it difficult even to look Mel in the face let alone make love to her. In fact one of the reasons I had Mélanie be attacked fairly early in the story was to break through some of the distance between them so that Charles at least touches her. If you examine the book, their physical contact slowly increases through their desperate adventures in search of the ring and Colin.
In Beneath a Silent Moon, (which thematically is in many ways all about sex), Charles and Mélanie do make love fairly early in the story. When I wrote the scene, I automatically faded to black without thinking about it. I did the same with a later sex scene in the book. Despite the fact that what happens between them in the second scene is important to their relationship. They both think about the scene later. Charles even apologizes to Mélanie for it being "without thought." But I rather like the fact that it's left up to the reader's imagination to fill in precisely what did happen, why it disturbs Charles, why Mel is much more matter-of-fact about it. I’ve come full circle, in a way, from from being embarrassed to write sex scenes to enjoying writing them to liking the mystery of not showing everything. Of hinting at exactly who does what and how and what it means to them but leaving a great deal up to the reader’s imagination.
When I blogged about this topic on my own website, our own Mary Blayney said "I love writing sex scenes, but I find the longer I spend creating them the less effective they are. I think it has everything to do with my understanding of the characters sexuality which I have to admit I do not always know as well as I know other aspects of their lives."
I had thought about it in quite those terms before, but I think understanding a character's sexuality may be one of the more elusive pieces of developing a character. One can know a person very well without knowing about the intimate aspects of their life. And the historical novelist has to think her or himself into the head of someone whose sexuality is influenced by the societal pressures of another era. Depending on the era about which one is writing, one sometimes has to tease attitudes toward sexuality out of subtext in letters and journals and literature of the era (while in other eras the historical record is much more frank and explicit).
In the discussion on my website, Cate commented on sex scenes that are less explicitly detailed. "One of my favourites is Laurie R King’s Russell, who writes throwaway lines like: 'And then my husband came in looking very handsome in his suit and one thing led to another and we never got around to talking about X until morning.' (Forgive my paraphrasing, I don’t have my books handy.) It so wonderfully suits the characters of Russell and Holmes.
"I find lines like that almost more entertaining than fully-described scenes. Just so delightfully understated — and I can imagine as much or as little as I wish to on my own. I tend to write scenes like this for my own characters, but not always."
I too love the way Laurie King handles handles these moments. The throwaway lines can either be witty as in the example Cate quoted or quite emotionally powerful (as in a later scene from The Moor where Russell is upset–understandably–after having just viewed a dead body and Holmes comes in (reappearing unexpectedly after an absence) and holds her (”Holmes was always very satisfactory at determining, with a minimum of clues, what in a given situation was the required course of action.”). I also love that if you read King closely you can often figure out the physicality of a scene (say how Russell and Holmes are lying in bed) without her overtly describing it.
How do you feel about sex scenes? What makes them work or not? How detailed do you like them to be? Writers, how do you approach writing sex scenes? Do you enjoy writing them or find them a chore? How much detail do you go into? Has your approach to them changed through the years or with the type of books you write?
When I first began co-writing Regency romances with my mom, under the name Anthea Malcolm, my friends teased me that our books started very chaste and slowly got more explicit. In our first book, The Widow’s Gambit, the characters barely embraced. In the second, The Courting of Philippa, there were more detailed kisses. (There was also a description of birth control methods when the radical reformer hero took the Silver Fork novelist heroine to a meeting put on by another reformer). In the third, Frivolous Pretence, which focused on an estranged married couple, there was an actual sex scene, though it faded to black. Our fifth book, A Touch of Scandal, had ex-lovers who resumed an illicit affair. Sex scenes were part of the story. I told my mom she had to write them. Our sixth book, An Improper Proposal, was a marriage of convenience story. My mom said, “You have to write one of the sex scenes this time.” I wrote my first draft of the scene on a day when my mom was out shopping. And (this is true, though it sounds so funny now), I turned down the screen on my computer, so I couldn’t look at the words as I typed them. When my mom got home that night, I said, “Okay, I wrote the scene. Go look at it and tell me what you think. But I don’t want to be there when you read it.”
Oddly enough, after that first scene I stopped being embarrassed about writing sex scenes. I got to find them quite a fun challenge, especially trying to make each one true to those particular characters and that stage in their relationship (my favorite, I think, is the one in Shadows of the Heart, which takes place in the crypt of a church after the hero and heroine have narrowly escaped being killed). But when I wrote Secrets of a Lady, it was quite obvious to me that after the opening interrupted sex scene, Charles and Mélanie were too focused on finding the Carevalo Ring and getting their son back to stop to have sex. On top of the fact that their relationship is so strained that Charles finds it difficult even to look Mel in the face let alone make love to her. In fact one of the reasons I had Mélanie be attacked fairly early in the story was to break through some of the distance between them so that Charles at least touches her. If you examine the book, their physical contact slowly increases through their desperate adventures in search of the ring and Colin.
In Beneath a Silent Moon, (which thematically is in many ways all about sex), Charles and Mélanie do make love fairly early in the story. When I wrote the scene, I automatically faded to black without thinking about it. I did the same with a later sex scene in the book. Despite the fact that what happens between them in the second scene is important to their relationship. They both think about the scene later. Charles even apologizes to Mélanie for it being "without thought." But I rather like the fact that it's left up to the reader's imagination to fill in precisely what did happen, why it disturbs Charles, why Mel is much more matter-of-fact about it. I’ve come full circle, in a way, from from being embarrassed to write sex scenes to enjoying writing them to liking the mystery of not showing everything. Of hinting at exactly who does what and how and what it means to them but leaving a great deal up to the reader’s imagination.
When I blogged about this topic on my own website, our own Mary Blayney said "I love writing sex scenes, but I find the longer I spend creating them the less effective they are. I think it has everything to do with my understanding of the characters sexuality which I have to admit I do not always know as well as I know other aspects of their lives."
I had thought about it in quite those terms before, but I think understanding a character's sexuality may be one of the more elusive pieces of developing a character. One can know a person very well without knowing about the intimate aspects of their life. And the historical novelist has to think her or himself into the head of someone whose sexuality is influenced by the societal pressures of another era. Depending on the era about which one is writing, one sometimes has to tease attitudes toward sexuality out of subtext in letters and journals and literature of the era (while in other eras the historical record is much more frank and explicit).
In the discussion on my website, Cate commented on sex scenes that are less explicitly detailed. "One of my favourites is Laurie R King’s Russell, who writes throwaway lines like: 'And then my husband came in looking very handsome in his suit and one thing led to another and we never got around to talking about X until morning.' (Forgive my paraphrasing, I don’t have my books handy.) It so wonderfully suits the characters of Russell and Holmes.
"I find lines like that almost more entertaining than fully-described scenes. Just so delightfully understated — and I can imagine as much or as little as I wish to on my own. I tend to write scenes like this for my own characters, but not always."
I too love the way Laurie King handles handles these moments. The throwaway lines can either be witty as in the example Cate quoted or quite emotionally powerful (as in a later scene from The Moor where Russell is upset–understandably–after having just viewed a dead body and Holmes comes in (reappearing unexpectedly after an absence) and holds her (”Holmes was always very satisfactory at determining, with a minimum of clues, what in a given situation was the required course of action.”). I also love that if you read King closely you can often figure out the physicality of a scene (say how Russell and Holmes are lying in bed) without her overtly describing it.
How do you feel about sex scenes? What makes them work or not? How detailed do you like them to be? Writers, how do you approach writing sex scenes? Do you enjoy writing them or find them a chore? How much detail do you go into? Has your approach to them changed through the years or with the type of books you write?
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