2014 Sex Scene Championships: Round Nine and Round Ten (adult content warnings, duh)

Advancing along the championship roster, Round Nine features authors Laura Kaye and Ann Kane squaring off in two M/F excerpts. Snippet 1: love sneaks in during raw pleasure. Snippet 2: a wild reunion and bittersweet plans.

Round Ten has Renee Luke’s sizzling M/F sexual power plays against Scarlet Day’s M/F/M menage, in which having an audience changes everything for a sub learning her power.

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An aside, not about this tournament specifically: writing challenges this big are great resources for writers and readers, as I mentioned yesterday. We readers not only get to browse parts of a book that might not be in the regular online vendor listings, we get to see what the authors can do within the very broad categories of sex scenes. Spicy? Searing? Funny? Tender? Three-ring-circus? All of the above?

Since this is my blog, I’m going to add: we writers can use contests and group-theme features like this to scope out publishers and other authors, too. Does the sample show great editing and formatting? Did the story need developmental editing before it was released into the wild? How about the cover? If this is a self-published author, did they do a professional job on it? Is the story – and the sex – fresh and exciting, or formulaic and confusing? Is this a writer we’d love to collaborate with in the future, or are we better off staying solo in this case?

As a recreational reader, I either like the story or I don’t. I’m only going to analyze my reaction if the story is just good enough to merit it. Otherwise I won’t finish reading, or I’ll forget about it minutes after reading the last page. When I’m in writing or beta-reading mode, I can’t avoid making those judgments, heartbreaking as they may be. Nearly everyone’s writing comes out of serious effort – that still doesn’t make all of it a worthy read, or even wank material.

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Now back to our regularly scheduled smut.