Personal Disclaimer: I present only those parts of the resources cited that I felt would fit best into my presentation on the topic of writing a love scene in a romance novel.

Prologue
The difference between writing about sex and writing pornography is that in pornography the sex is always good but all the reader remembers is the intensity of the orgasm and that the sex was good. Other sex scenes thrive on the elements of good fiction: tension, dramatics conflict, character development, insights, metaphors and surprises.

The love scene should always connect to the larger concerns of the story.

The needs, impulses and histories of the character should drive the love scene.

The relationship your characters have to one another should exert influence on how you write their encounter.

Quality, not quantity.

“…the swoon, the delicious palpitations of one’s heart is the real eroticism.” ---John Casey

Chapter One

The use of metonymy (having one thing stand for another) can be a highly effective way of creating sexual tension. For example, “the look of Emma’s tongue licking the bottom of a glass of liqueur”, by Flaubert, conveys powerful sexuality without physical contact.

A sex scene should be specific and deepen the reader’s understanding of the character(s).

The hazard of writing with insufficient control or with cliché and generality is having the reader’s response be automatic and blinding, thus obscuring your story. For example, the words “dead mother” convey a different emotional response for everybody.

A Sex Scene is Not a Sex Manual

10 Basic Principals

1. A sex scene is not a sex manual
2. A good sex scene does not have to be about good sex
3. It’s OK – really- to be aroused by your own writing
4. Your fear is your best friend
5. Sex is nice but character is destiny
6. Only your character know for sure what to call “it”.
7. Take your cues from your characters
8. Your characters must want, and want intensely
9. A good sex scene is always about sex AND something else
10. Who your character are to each other is key

The reader needs to care about your character(s) to care whether or not they get together.

Surprise Me / Beyond Basic Rules

Narrate from inside your character’s mind(s) and bodies

Show the physical surrounding. What the character sees is as important as what they feel and remember. Surroundings create a mood and reveal information about who they are.

Your characters don’t have to speak to each other – but don’t forget that they can.

Important Functions of Dialogue in a Sex Scene

1. Reveal information about the character(s)
2. Create conflict between the characters or clue the reader in on the conflict between them and / or the outside world
3. Explore and resolve conflict or realize that they can’t resolve the conflict
4. Reveal their attitudes towards sex and sexuality.

You need not be explicit, but you must be specific.

Surprise the reader with action, speech, distraction, insight, language, or any combination of these.

Losing Your Cherry

There can be more than one kind of “first time”. For instance, the first time it matters or the first time you understand why this is such a big deal.

Given Circumstances of a First Time

1. The real first time for a woman will hurt
2. The first time is a right of passage
3. Due to the expectations people have, they will be in a state of heightened awareness
4. One or both will be young, timid, anxious or shy
5. The setting isn’t often a place of one’s own i.e. a hotel room
6. It is likely the characters won’t know each other well
7. Customs and expectations vary with age, gender, religion and cultural background

Beware of cliches. If you use them, give them an unusual twist. For example, “the golden moon shown just above the plastic pink shower curtain.”

When you allow your characters to reject sexual mores of their culture, sparks can fly.

Intimacy can be conveyed in very small packages – a monosyllable word that has significance to the lovers. For example, “Ditto” from Ghost.

Sexual power is transitory – so are the emotions and feeling that come with it.

General

Stay with your character’s internal and external struggles in the love scene. Don’t only focus on their physical urges.

Set up conflicts, obstacles and surprises for your character that spring up from who they are and circumstances of the time or culture.

Integrate some or all of the given circumstances into the specific moment or create a universe in which expectation are so different that the usual given circumstances don’t apply.

If a sex scene feels obligatory or gratuitous, LEAVE IT OUT.

Forbidden Sex

Love that takes hold and thrives in a hostile environment is a rich, complex source of material for a writer, full of built in sexual tensions and possibilities for political, legal and psychic repercussions. This will really fuel the plot.

Given Circumstances of Forbidden Sex

1. The sex is preheated
2. Lovers typically meet in secret. There is a danger of being discovered.
3. Because of the danger, lovers have a heightened sense of awareness
4. Characters have secret lives
5. Characters try to conceal evidence of their liaisons
6. Guilt may accompany feelings of exhilaration, liberation, rebellion or relief of no longer having to hide
7. Contest is everything. The writer must paint a vivid picture of the reason, society / culture that forbids them to dramatize how much is at stake for the characters who violate it
8. The sex scene often will include reference of the outside forces that attempt to keep the lovers apart

When writing about sex in a police state or under surveillance, the presence of other eyes or ears creates a sense of voyeurism or fantasy.

Use ALL five of the senses, but don’t overuse them. Don’t forget the use of light. For example, is the candlelight flickering on his face or do the fluorescent bulbs of the conference room make her skin look blue?

Follow the characters into the bedroom, but don’t judge or interrupt them. Don’t put your own tastes, distastes or inhibitions on them.

Let the characters stay true to themselves. A lumberjack will not start spouting poetry unless you’ve already shown the reader he would be likely to do that.

No purple prose. No throbbing manhoods or silk covered steel shafts.

The initial reason that prevents the characters from having sex needs to resolve itself when they make love. (The resolution is the reason they are ready to make love.) This reason will not exist at the end of the book.

To keep sexual tension going after the first love scene, have them hold something back. The tape gave an example of a woman who would not do it in the missionary position because her husband would only do it that way. This is the most intimate position and became a symbol of love and commitment in the author’s book. It was not until the heroine was ready to admit her love for the hero that she was ready to make love in this position. Another good example is Julia Roberts character’s unwillingness to kiss Richard Gere.

The modern female is not naïve, even if she is a virgin. She sees, hears and reads about sex all around her. It is impossible to avoid. However, she can be innocent of the emotional impact sex has on a woman. An experienced woman in a contemporary should, however, be wise to the emotional consequences of having sex and realize that she may be head over heels in love before the hero is ready to discuss letting her keep a toothbrush at his house.

In modern romance settings, the characters should practice safe sex. You do not need to dwell on or preach about the issue. (That may distract the reader.) A few words may be enough.