After pages and pages and pages of building chemistry and sexual tension between my hero and heroine, they’ve come to the point in the story where they can no longer avoid each other’s charms and for some damned reason…I’m sitting at the computer, tap, tapping away each night, working on everything but the smexy bits.
Every time I try to bend my mind to the particulars of this first love scene between the characters…it shies away, squirming like a squeamish school girl faced with frog dissection in Biology class. Remember the rubbery texture of the frog and the smell of formaldehyde? Yeah, my mind does too, and for some reason it would rather think of that grossness then concentrate on this particular love scene.
Not good, right?
I’ve written sexy scenes before. I’m no stranger to the language and the mechanics, but it seems with this particular scene, my mind needs to take some Viagra.
Maybe it’s because the mechanics in themselves are really very simple; girl locks lips with boy and then their souls collide. See? Simple. Maybe too simple. Maybe I’ve not given myself enough to work with. There’s not a lot of physical touching at this point in the story, given the circumstances, so the usual hands sliding over skin and groping of body parts doesn’t really apply. The process of showing (remember, kids, show don’t tell) the desire is primarily internal, and that’s throwing me for a bit of a loop. I’ve got to find different words and different ways to describe the emotional interaction and eroticism and it’s taking time and lots of thought and reading to give my mind a refreshing break (though that last one might just be gratuitous procrastination J).
All good things come to those who wait, but… I’d really like this story to get finished sooner than in ten years’ time, so if anyone has advice on how I can jump this hurdle, break through this writing block, and dissect this metaphorical frog without puking, I’d greatly appreciate your wisdom.
Anyone, anyone?
Bueller?
Thanks,
~Kate
Couple different ways you can deal with this. A)circumvent. I've edited quite a few books with amazing sexual tension where the author gives the reader just a sentence or two about the sex itself and maybe ends the chapter/scene with a sweet line about how euphoric the POV character feels afterward.
ReplyDeleteOr you could B)postpone. Insert just a line or so for your own benefit basically saying they got it on (maybe something like you'd use above) and then keep writing the rest of the book. Come back to this when/IF your muse is suddenly struck with sexy deets.
I KNOW you can write hot sex. So maybe now is just not the time for you to do this scene. ;)
Thanks, Piper. You're advice makes a lot of sense. I guess I'm too close to the matter to see it clearly right now. You're right. It'll all come together in time as long as I keep working on some part of the story. I do prefer to write scenes in order, but maybe that's not going to work right now. Thanks for stopping by and helping clear my head! xo
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