I received an email a couple of days ago from a reader who just finished Moro’s Price, loved it, wanted to know when and if there will be a sequel (working onnit, eh), and why I cite fan fiction as a major help in writing my original erotic romance.
The same day I encountered yet another post in yet another speculative fiction forum, to the effect that ‘Sex in sci-fi and fantasy is Yecch! There should never be porn in real spec fic books!’
There are all kinds of readers in our wide world, and that’s good. Some readers are asexual, some anti-sexual, most have tolerances that fall anywhere along the wide scale of experiences. I’ll go so far as to say that, yes, there should not be sex in some books. Just like a fight scene or a monologue, if a sex scene doesn’t advance a primarily non-sexual story in some way, it probably should not be there just for titillation.
Fan writers write for many reasons, some of which include exploring characters and universes beyond the limits given by the original creator(s), trying out writing styles or plot devices, developing their own writing ‘voices’, or enjoying some creative anonymity (yes, pro writers also write fan fiction). Some amateur fan writers go into it with the idea that they may eventually try publishing original fiction. Others wouldn’t dream of publishing their own work, and have no interest in writing it.
Fan writing also happily exploits the human response toward arousal: we generally like it. Some fan writing is more weighted toward the ‘pointless porn’ or PlotWhatPlot? type, while other stories embrace much deeper concepts along with swooning or scorching action.
As I’ve said before, I abandoned my original fiction and most of my fan writing for the better part of a decade. I had too much else to do, in fields that offered me more immediate validation and support.
But when June of 2009 rolled around, and I suddenly felt ready to write again, I knew that some of my biggest stumbling blocks would be sex scenes.
I’d proved I could write them reasonably well in fan fiction, where I had existing character templates as crutches. I still doubted myself in original fiction. When I’d set aside those original stories, I hadn’t been writing for long, and it showed. Dreadfully so, in my sex scenes. Really. I keep those old manuscripts around for their cringe-value. Also, to remove their worth as extortion tools, by those few associates who may still have some of my original pieces from 1987 – 1994. (I’m serious. You Know Who You Are. If you try to roll on me, understand that I have no shame and I will post my first ever Eroica/Klaus scene, Vawn’s fumbling attempts at romancing Varah, and Arry’s woeful anti-seduction of Jaetan. I can point and laugh at myself from decades later. Can you do the same for your old stuff?)
In 2009, for various reasons, I knew that physical research was only going to take me so far.
But the world is a wide and varied place, and lots of people have written about writing about sex. Here are two of the resources that helped ease my path, and still do.
A fabulous fan writer called Resonant has this article about how and why fan fiction writers tackle sex scenes. It’s written toward fan writers specifically, but the information is solid for original fiction as well.
Pro writer Stacia Kane has an amazing article series called ‘Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet’, available in her blog archives or in handy book-form at Amazon and other distributors. I’ve given this book as a present for new writers who want to get into romance and erotic romance writing.
Life has sex in it. So does fiction. As writers, we honor our craft and our readers by at least trying to write about sex with whatever grace, dignity, humor, or insane joy each scene merits.