writing the sex scene

You're writing a romance or at least a book with romantic encounters. At some point the question of how physical will it get becomes an issue. It can be sweet and cozy or hot and torrid. Some writers choose to lead up to the big moment and then close the door on the reader. As a writer of a love story, what to do? How far to take it? Love scenes can be a total turnoff to some readers while others are disappointed if there aren't enough of them in the story.

For readers who are opposed to any detail at all, any sexuality would seem prurient, but to me it's not. Two people coming together in a physical way serves a very real purpose, but it can be challenging to write especially if the writer wants to avoid repeating her/himself. I mean let's face it, there is a de rigueur approach to it all and getting away from that to something unique takes some er uh research... soul searching... okay where it comes to me, being honest-- imagination.

I loved something I read some time back that one writer said her mother asked her, regarding her books, did she know about all the sex from experience? The writer said-- yes, and the time travel too. It's the perfect answer because reality is you don't have to shoot someone to be able to imagine what it would be like to then describe the act and emotional impact.

Once I know a sexual encounter will be there, as a writer, I consider it a serious concern that I present it in a good, healthy, vital way. I don't write about casual hook-ups mainly because the kind of characters I prefer don't do that. Generally speaking no romances do that. If you want casual hook-ups, head for chick lit.

When I write about a physical joining, I personally like to put in something about responsibility which means not only safe sex but understanding there is an emotional impact to such joinings. Nobody rapes anybody in my books and then calls it a romantic happening. My heroines don't say no when they mean yes. Mature sexual relationships should not be about playing power games. Sure there is a lot of immature sex out there. I don't need to have it in my books.

Once it is determined there is going to be a sex scene, then the question is how to write it in a way that won't bore readers with repetition and will make them feel good about what happened. For everything that happens in a book, it starts with the characters. What are their previous experiences? Their expectations? A good writer builds up the tension between these two as they come to know what they want but always there are reasons to delay it.

When I write such scenes, and most of my books have had them, I want the happening to seem inevitable to the reader by the time they get to it. I try to give the lovers a good experience as I think how might this really go down (pun intended). I don't like all the silly euphemisms that used to be the norm for romance books; so I stick to mostly descriptive phrases, but I also don't use pornographic terms because they don't make me comfortable even if in reality two lovers might say such things to each other.

So to write the scene, I put on some romantic music (something like Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini). I want these characters, who I always love in any of my books, to have a wonderful experience. Save the dysfunctional sex for therapy books or a novel of pain. Romances are about good coming together through all the obstacles. I also don't imply sex solves everything. It's part of a relationship but not all of it.

Writing it, I use just enough description to make clear what happens but not to the extent of going on and on. I've bought books by others where it might take twenty pages to describe one encounter. Reading such books, I skip the blow by blow (pun intended) but have counted how many pages. In one book, by a well-known author, if you had taken out those many detailed descriptions, you had a short story.

Some prefer no sex in a book that they read, but I like it. I like my characters to get a full experience of loving in all its aspects and part of that is learning how to please each other sexually. It often involves loosening up and becoming more open to their own bodies and emotional needs. Sometimes their coming together can be a lot of fun. It is a release for them, but, for me, it never comes easy to write. I want it to say all that is needed but not one word too many. I don't want to write anything I would have to apologize to anybody for having in that book.

I recently wrote a paranormal novella which I plan to bring out in February. And in it, although the couple did it, I didn't describe it because it seemed it'd get in the way of the main theme of the book. Each writer decides that for themselves. But one thing for readers who don't like the sex, they can skip it and come back for the pillow talk. Now that's where a lot of important things can get resolved... or not :)

when we talk about love

When we talk about love--

finding and loving someone

Sometimes I think romance, two people ever finding each other in this big world, is an almost mystical thing. How do we explain something like this:

Chloe Mayo paints man, finds man, marries man

Some say reality is different than fantasy-- sure it is-- until you listen to people talk about how they met and then you see the hand of fate so often.

Of course, romance isn't the end of the game. We fall in love and then life happens, we get busy, involved with the business of surviving in the world.

When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

That's the essence to find that romance which goes beyond. Romance novels aren't all that unrealistic. They end though before the real work begins :)

The creek is lush with green. The wood ducks have raised their ducklings, whether the raccoons and beaver have done likewise, we don't know-- can't have a wildlife cam everywhere. It is a wonderful time though these weeks before the Solstice.

Outlaw Pleasures

Although over the last 50 some odd years, settings for my books have always gone between historic and contemporary periods, the books on Kindle up until now have all been contemporary. It seemed a good idea to submit books that fit a category. Now it's time to open a new category with ePublishing my historical romances.

When I wrote it, Outlaw's Lady had a different title, Outlaw Pleasures, which I still like very much but given the popularity of erotica these days and the fact that this book is not, I felt compelled to change the title to something a little more western. I didn't want to disappoint readers seeking erotica nor did I want to lose potential readers who might avoid erotica but are open to healthy sex.

As a title, outlaw pleasures suited what this story was really about which is that a culture can turn simple joys into forbidden fruits. My heroine was born into a time where women's options, even to how they dressed, were limited by the expectations of their social strata. If women enjoyed sex or even their own bodies, they were of the 'other' sort. Men were often as much stifled by the rules as the women. The story is about jumping over those boundaries and finding one's own way.

Given the realities of the publishing eBooks, what readers expect, it not only needed a different title but also a different cover. Below is the original digital painting for it and still my favorite. Alas, I am not trying to please me but the readers who might buy the book.

I also had to give up the mustache as if you aren't painting something digitally, putting a mustache on a stock photo is difficult. Models with mustaches on the sites where I look are rare to say the least.  (I personally LOVE mustaches on men-- on boys it's a bit more iffy).

So here is the only place the original cover will ever be seen. I like the new one too. This was, however, my first love, and you know how you feel about first loves...

Outlaw's Lady is the story of Abigail Spenser, trapped in her comfortable, but limited world until an opportunity comes along to escape. Once she leaves behind the rules, she begins to learn about life and that nothing is without cost. She learns of simple life pleasures she'd never experienced and tastes of the forbidden fruit.

It's also the story of Sam Ryker who had never found life easy and then along came a chance to change it all, to have what he'd thought was beyond him-- a 'good' woman. He'd had the reckless freedom but now what about living with the expectations of another person, of finding a life inside the rules? There's more to it than just getting 'the' woman, you have to then keep her.

What these two learn is there will always be expectations, can they put theirs together and make a relationship work?

I put together a video with images that inspired the book both from my time in Arizona and my imagination. The link to it will only be available to those who have read the book because it gives away too much of the plot which means best appreciated afterward as a way to savor it in a different way. In it, I wrote a prologue about how I see outlaw pleasures-- even today.

Outlaw Pleasures 
Take responsibility for your life
Dress as you want
Follow your own strong life code
Live in tune with the land
Love hard and honestly
Live your life to the hilt.
Step out and make your own way
even if others don't much like it.
Don't break laws--
unless those laws go against nature
and true wisdom.

If all goes well, Outlaw's Lady will be available on Kindle October 7th. It will have a marketing trailer on YouTube, but I'll be writing more about all of that in the days leading up to its availability. This is actually the first time I'll have done much in the way of 'promotions' leading to a new book, but I feel it's more essential since this is the first of something new-- my historical romances.

Incidentally, I now have my books on Good Reads. I am still not sure how to put an app here that leads readers to my site there. Navigating GoodReads hasn't proven easy for me, but it would be rewarding if I ever figure it out as it has many readers-- or so it says. It is a place to list the books we have read, are reading and our ratings for them; so it's fun even when it's not involving my own books.

Luck of the Draw

is about one week at Oregon's Pendleton Roundup in 1974. A man and woman meet at a time not convenient for either of them. It's about the kind of love that takes the person by storm and carries them in directions they never imagined. It's about the world of rodeo in the days before champion bull rider Lane Frost was killed in 1989. It was a time rodeo was going through a transition from the wild and woolly days to one of more professional athletes.

When bronc and bull rider, Billy Stempleton meets Sara Connors, it impacts both their lives. Billy knows what he wants from his life and rodeo. He has a plan and it does not include finding the woman of his dreams just yet.

Despite knowing it's pure foolishness, he pursues Sara, a woman who would've been everything he'd have wanted in ten years but could mean nothing but trouble to his plans when he's just working his way up the rankings. He tells her up front he'll only be there a week.

Twenty-one year old Sara has the opposite problem from Billy. She has no idea what she wants and has been taking the path of least resistance right up until she let this cowboy into her heart. Sara wants security in life. The danger in his life both draws and repels her. There is nothing secure about falling in love with a rodeo cowboy, but at the same time he inspires her to figure out her own dream, to take risks with the things she might want, and not let her goals be defined by anybody else-- not even him.

The world of rodeo is fast moving, dangerous. The people she meets, the experiences she goes through in that one week, challenge Sara to reach into herself for strengths she never knew she had while Billy has to make some decisions regarding his own direction.

While they both know logic says this week can't change their lives, that's easier said than done. Whether it leads to something more permanent or is only for the week, it won't leave either of them the same when the week ends.

Luck of the Draw comes out this week for Kindle. When I have the date, I'll post it here and a bit more about it.

Sky Daughter

A lot of my books had never been sent to a publishing house but Sky Daughter had been not long after I had written it. There was a new line looking for metaphysical manuscripts. They accepted mine from a query. The editor wrote back that she liked the book, but there was too much romance for that line. She told me she sent it to one of their lines oriented toward romance where that editor saw the supernatural aspect as unbelievable. This was before Harry Potter.

So after its rejection, I let it set. I wanted plenty of time to think about the paranormal aspects.  Was what happened believable even if nothing I had personally experienced. When I had written it, I did a lot of research on real people's experiences with the unexpected, the unexplainable, the paranormal. I knew what they said had happened. I read about the places these events occur more frequently than elsewhere.

I still had to decide if I would go supernatural in Sky Daughter. What happened could have been an illusion. There was a lot to this book beyond the supernatural. With the militia movement and romance, it still was a full manuscript. I felt though that this story had more to say.

It is about a valley in the mountains of Idaho, a small town, and most specifically one family. It asks the question of what went wrong up there and why? For the couple who fall in love, where will this lead?

In the family is mysticism of the ancient Celtic sort, but the heroine had been raised elsewhere and had no knowledge of it. When her parents had been killed, she came to live on a mountain near her grandfather and just outside a fictional Idaho town. Here she learns the secrets of her family-- as well as...

Watch the trailer.

Sky Daughter comes out as in an eBook sometime later this week.

Mysticism and Fiction

Is there anything more mystical than the attraction between two people which often goes against every expectation they ever might've had. Chemistry. Phrenomes. Physical attraction. On you go but explanations never really explain it. There is a connection that  is mystical where two people do become one in a way that goes beyond the physical. Words don't really explain it; and if you have felt it, you don't need me to explain it. If you haven't felt it, you think I am nuts.

That kind of connection is mystical but it isn't the one that determines if those two can build a life together-- that's when they leave behind the mystical, quit using just pathos reasoning and head into ethos and logos territory.

Well that is not what I am going to write regarding the mystical and fiction but that particular photo was purchased from stock to be part of the cover and in a trailer for the only book that I have really written where the mystical is a big part of the story.

Although Sky Daughter does have two adults falling in love (and you know where that goes), there is something more as it looks at another kind of spirituality where you take A, add in B and empower something new-- C. In the case of Sky Daughter the chemistry leads to an example of how this can be a bad thing, can empower something threatening. Sometimes that can happen in ways people never imagined-- but they better figure it out if they want to put an end to it.

Although this is the first book I have written with a paranormal element, I have had 'mystery' in other stories. Most of my books discuss at least briefly spiritual beliefs. I have had major characters who believe and those who do not. I always know what they think about it because I write more character driven than plot driven stories.

I do not have major characters who are into a religion in any major sense because it's not how I think or believe is healthy-- and my stories are always what I believe is healthy. As a writer there is a responsibility to write truth as much as the writer knows it, which obviously the reader may see differently.

In a plot driven story the reader might not know the spiritual beliefs of the main character. It may not come up in the rush around the adventure. In a character driven story, even if the emphasis is not on the spiritual, the writer does know that character's take on god, morality, religion, and how those beliefs impact their lives. The writer will know how they got to where they are spiritually even if they don't end up making it a big part of the story.

To be continued next blog.

Sexuality and Fiction

Recently I had an articulate reader comment on my books in the Amazon Forums. She said she had not bought any, even though they looked interesting, because of her dislike of sexuality in books. She felt my covers indicated they might have that sort of thing inside (she was right). She thought a rating for sexuality would be helpful in my product descriptions.

I wrote back that I'd have a problem deciding how I could rate mine even if I could think of a rating system. One of my books got a review in a book review blog. I only stumbled across it by doing a name search to see what was out there in mine. She gave that book a 2 star in passion. Since a 5 star is tops where it comes to rating a book, I am guessing she was saying that while there was some passion, it wasn't that much. I am not sure if that was her meaning-- other than if someone wants zero sex, they don't want my books. On the other hand, if they are looking for erotica, they don't either.

If I used the ratings like for films, it wouldn't get much easier. I would definitely not say my books are PG but then would they be PG-13? When my granddaughter asked if she would be able to read them, I said not for some years. It wasn't just about the sex though. It's about grown-up attitudes toward romance. I don't really want her thinking soul-mates at her age.

When I think about an R rating, I am not sure my books are sexy enough for an R. I have read a lot of romance books where a sexual encounter can go on for pages, sometimes 20 or more. Mine are more about the leading up than the actual doing as I am not into reading or writing blow by blow descriptions. But on the other hand, they don't fade out before the big event either (and there will be at least one big event somewhere along the way). 

I am still thinking how sexuality can be handled in the blurbs for the books. I am comfortable with the level I use in the actual books-- and I did think about it. My belief is that healthy sexuality is good for adults. I think it's fun to write and seems rewarding for the characters and me. And I am about a full experience for those characters as well as the person who will pick up the book.

In my own reading, I don't mind sex in a book, but I wouldn't buy one for it either. One writer I've read over the years used the term blush for the level of sex in her books. Well I agree she has sex and it's described, sometimes step by step, but blushing? I don't know what it would take to get me to blush regarding sex in a book.

If a writer puts in more sex than interests me (and for me it's not about offensive, it's about boring), I skip over it. In some books I have read, that can mean I get a short story rather than a full novel.

IF I make a mistake and get a book with what I feel is a perversion of sex, I throw that one out rather than trade it back in. I wouldn't put a nasty review on that author's page, but I sure wouldn't buy another book by them either. The only kind of sexuality I am interested in reading or writing is healthy relationships between two people.

In my case that means male and female, not because I consider the other unhealthy but because I don't know much about it. I try to stick to what I do know something about from my own experiences. I have had gay characters, but they are always secondary-- i.e. friend of hero or heroine.

An idea for a book has rolled around in my head for awhile. It came to me in a set of two of my movie type dreams that came a couple of weeks apart. In the first dream the hero has been in a long time relationship with another man-- basically his life mate. He and the heroine are forced to go on the run from a criminal element and in spending so much time together, they fall in love.

In the dream, he might have known he was bisexual before this, but she was totally surprised as she may have been attracted to him but didn't let herself imagine it could be anything. In the first of the dreams, they didn't pursue it once they escaped from whatever they were trying to flee. Although it appeared that his partner was sick and when he died, maybe as much as five years later, they would seek each other out.

In the second dream about these same people, his primary relationship turned out to be with a crime boss-- meaning he had been betrayed by his long-time partner thereby not only proving dangerous, but also giving him a legitimate reason to go to her. If I had ever tried to fully develop this idea, I would not have written about his same sex experiences but only the new one with the woman. (The dream didn't reveal either as I have to admit here, I don't dream about sex. I am more of a dream right up to it and fade to black kind of dreamer.)

Usually when you do see a movie or read a book about three people in this kind of triangle, it's from the other end where the man and woman have been in a long time relationship and then one of them recognizes their true sexuality is to be gay.

 I haven't tried to develop this idea not because I think readers would not go for it (who knows on that).  I don't write based on whether I think an idea would be popular with readers. Instead my hesitation was because I thought it might be offensive to gay people where I have read that many don't think there is such a thing as bi-sexuality. Gays are fighting for respect on so many levels now that I would hate to write something offensive or implying people can change their gender at will. I don't believe that but what I do think is some are gay, some are straight, and some can go between, but what do I know about it. Hence it has seemed wiser to leave this idea on the discard pile where a lot of other ideas for books end up.

Well, that was kind of a distraction to my main topic which was to try and figure out some kind of sexuality rating for my own books that alerts readers to avoid them if they are opposed to sex in a book-- married/committed or not. I know one thing-- they aren't sweet and they aren't Christian. But what they aren't doesn't say what they are.

Fairy tale or reality driven love stories

When I speak of the word fairy tale, I don't necessarily mean fantasy as such although certainly all fiction is to some degree a fantasy. Some is a fantasy aimed at being made as realistic as possible to fool the reader into thinking it might actually happen or a fantasy that the reader knows couldn't but is happy to go along for the ride.

When I watch movies, I see some of this same difference. Even the best of them depend on some meaningful coincidences to keep them interesting. If they really were just like most people's every day, who would watch them? We like going along for a ride and with a book, the ride lasts a little longer than with a film.

I've written before about how I consider a really good romance to be like a roller coaster with ups and downs, some whoosh out of the lungs to some quiet moments before it all starts again.  There is an element always of suspending reality. Nobody thinks a roller coaster is reality but it's a nice ride to build up our own energy before we get back on the ground and go on with life as it is.

My stories are always set in realistic settings but then things happen that do stretch the imagination. The kind of love that a romance is based upon can require some of that suspension of belief. Although it's a very real sensation and most people have experienced it in the beginning of their own love story. It just doesn't last. A romance takes the reader there again and adds a little adventure possibly that they not only didn't experience but certainly don't want to experience.

Even fairly reality driven romances like Pride and Prejudice have a place where as a reader you must suspend judgement. Darcy is so dramatic and perfect as a hero and yet he starts out rejecting our heroine. Then he does everything he can to get her to become his wife. He's not an average guy doing this but the richest, most handsome man in the realm. Life certainly didn't work that well for Jane Austen.

What I think makes a love story work is to set it in a very realistic environment and then go for the roller coaster, have some fun, and get the reader to suspend their demand for realism in every event which is what the fairy tale driven love story will do.

Now a reality driven love story won't have beautiful people, won't have things always work out tidily. You might get a happy ending but it's the kind people are more likely to find in real life than in a fairy tale. No handsome prince to carry away the heroine to a life of plenty. The reality driven is as apt to end in a boring marriage or even eventual tragedy as it is with a happy ending.

In thinking about a reality driven romance, Bridges of Madison County comes to mind. Now that story is exactly how an affair can and does happen. It has the same complications that reality does bring to love. There is no happily ever after, just a lifetime of thinking of that moment which could be healthy and okay as it gives the energy to stick to a life that doesn't have much romance in it on a daily basis.

In such a reality driven love story, you still have an element of coincidence as that photographer didn't have to stop and ask for directions from the one woman with whom he could fall in love and have an affair. You do not need a happy ending because reality doesn't necessarily hand those out as do fairy tales.

I suppose I could write reality driven love stories. I actually do have one of mine, not yet published, but will be, where the ending is not guaranteeing a happily ever after. They are together but with no certainty that they will find a happily ever after. The story though is full of fairy tale moments; so it still is under the fairy tale type of love story at least in my judgment.

In the end, a writer probably chooses what they want to write based on what most satisfies them, what they most want to read, and what they are willing to spend months or years buried within.

Thursday-- free contemporary western love story

Usually when I do an Amazon Kindle free day, it's when the book has been out awhile. In this case, I am trying something different to see how that works for a book that was only published Monday.

I am still debating the value of these free days. There is one huge plus-- they do get the books out there. The first one I did over two days got 1250 takers; the second one, as a one day, 1100. There is a satisfaction in that at least someone might be reading them-- although when something is free, who knows for sure if they do get read.

The concern I have about it is-- might it get to a point where readers only want free days and they wait for them? Still, where I am an unknown writer, haven't been publishing very long-- as in just since the middle of December-- my best hope is to get people to see the books and find they like a form of story they hadn't tried.  If they do, with eventually ten of these contemporaries, I have a lot more to offer.

This one is Evening Star and for February 16th, a free download for your Kindle or computer with a free Kindle app. Click on the link above or the one alongside this blog and be sure the price is correct ($.00) before hitting purchase. Amazon has been good at this but always check the price just in case something didn't go through properly.

There are now six on Amazon with four to go which I plan will be one a month as I look at more ways to help readers find them.

Evening Star

All of my books are love stories, but some are more clearly that than others. I chose to get Evening Star out just before Valentine's Day because it is one of the latter.  Except for deadly danger, it's a story about love, the complexities, the rewards, and the risks.

It is a good example of the kind of book where you have one almost mythic character connecting with a more or less average person. In this case, Randy is the mythic hero as cowboy and cop. Marla is the stand-in for the rest of us as she falls in love with such a person and tries to find a way to get past her own fears to be worthy of that love. We see their story totally through her eyes.

Generally in a romance you switch points of view between hero and heroine to give the reader the full experience of both. This one had to show everything Randy felt through Marla's eyes. Lucky she was a lawyer and observative of everybody-- except herself, of course.

There was one exception to points of view and that was to give the reader also the villain's perspective now and then. I sometimes really like to write through a villain's eyes, and Gus Torrintino was one such example. Villains can be fun especially those who ruthlessly break all of mankind's laws with no second thoughts.

The last thing Marla Jamison wants is a risk taking, handsome as sin, younger than her, police officer to love. Sometimes the last thing we want is the one thing we need.

Marla, a deputy prosecutor in Portland's DA's office has been a woman without a star but a very satisfactory and sensible path. When the unexpected lands on that path, it diverts her and challenges all of her expectations.

Randy O’Brian has come to Portland to be part of the thin blue line but carrying a secret with him. Raised on a ranch, he’s as much cowboy as cop. For Randy, when you want something, you go after it, and he wants Marla.

Their story is one of love between very different people. It is set in Oregon moving between two worlds—the big city to the ranching community. It involves the investigation and apprehension of a dangerous crime boss.

Marla must discover if Randy is who she wants to believe he is, her own evening star, or the most dangerous distraction of her life.

Evening Star