Writing Sex (and how it can change your life)

7am – 1pm: Sex
2pm: Emails and admin.

There’ve been a number of days when my diary has looked like this. Let nobody tell you writers don’t have a tough life.

If some future archaeologist excavates my diaries, he’ll write: “The ancients were an insatiable people …”

Actually it’s not because I have a more interesting life than anyone else. But in the past couple of years, I’ve been involved in designing these courses on romance (and sex), and a short course devoted to sex.

Because writing requires you to imagine it, you could say our courses teach you to fantasise – about good sex that doesn’t make you cringe or giggle.

If you’re self-conscious in real life, you’ll be so on the page. Likewise over-confident.

Martin drew his index finger across her epidermis, eliciting one-syllable sounds of pleasure …

That’s the over-confident, who charge at the task and batter it with clinical description, while the self-conscious hide coyly behind the frills of metaphor:
Lithe as a dolphin, he leapt free and swam into the undersea cave, to discover the dark knowledge of the deep.

Which brings me to another point. Learning to write sex can teach you a lot about having it. No, really.

Just take my first lesson. Every scene, even a sex scene, should take the story forward and develop your characters.  So, the lesson declares:“Before your characters have sex, ask yourself why.”

Sound familiar? Probably because it sounds like your mother: “Before you leap into bed, dear, ask yourself why on earth ...”

Our lives are stories. Or let’s look at it this way. Stories are a rehearsal for life. Each day is a drama and you are the heroine who stars in it.
So in future, remember that sex always develops your character in some way, even if you think it won’t change you. 

“Sex scenes up the intensity,” says our lesson on romance. “Women characters feel more emotionally involved, which makes them more vulnerable to conflict with the hero…”
And if you break down after three days and phone him, well … it also moved the plot forward, didn’t it? It advanced the story of your life.

Writers don’t always use sex to turn readers on. Sex can show insecurities and neuroses, the gaping holes in relationships … Sound like life?

And characters don’t always have loving sex. They can have sex to get them things, or to prove their “conquering manhood”.

But the lessons I like best are from romance. Before your characters have sex, they are already falling in love. The hero is never muttering: “…not ready for this level of relationship…” 

Writing it, you concentrate on the emotion, rather than the clinical detail. You write about what they’re feeling and focus on all the senses.

Most importantly, the foreplay is more crucial then the sex. In a love story, your readers have been waiting for this scene. They want to wallow in it. You can afford to take your time.

How’s that for hot advice for fabulous sex? Well, heroine, all I can say is, enjoy starring in the love story of your life. 
For more information on writing about sex, see our online writing courses.