THE SEX TALK FOR WRITERS
Play • 26 min

Eight Sexy Ways to Write Sexy

Carrie’s been editing a lot of erotica lately and despite her uptight New England ways, we thought it was time to give you all a few hints about writing sex scenes.

Gasp!

I know! I know! Here we go…

Hint #1

It needs to make sense.

We’ve all seen really un-sexy writing, right? You’re reading the passage and they are in a kitchen in a house in Wyoming and doing it on the counter and then—poof—they are in four-some on some beach in Belize.

And you’re reading this and you go, “What the what?”

The sexy parts doesn’t matter because the rest doesn’t make any sense.

Hint #2

Don’t make it vanilla.

Most readers aren’t reading because they want to hear about the same old missionary sex that they’ve been doing with their own partners for the last thirty-two years.

We read books to experience new things.

We read books to live out fantasies we might never have in our own life.

We read books to feel like characters who aren’t us, to empathize, learn, and discover.

We read books to get what we can’t always get in real life.

So make it hot.

Hint #3

Make your character interesting and not just um… someone who is having sex, rutting in various places.

Hint #4

Be into it.

No matter what your personal feelings are about sex, you want to write about it like you’re really into it. You want those endorphins to be out there on the page. You can be male, female, agender, gender nonconforming, gay, straight or pan to write sex. You can be any race or religion or ethnicity or social class to write sex.

Sex is pretty much a thing that a lot of adults do. That’s why we have babies and the species hasn’t died off.

Anyone who tells you that one demographic is better than the other at it? They’re being a bigoted punk. Don’t be a bigoted punk.

Hint #5

Show It. Don’t Tell It.

It’s all about the details. Fornicating is the point in erotic fiction, right? But it’s all in the details.

You read, “Two people have sex” and you think, “Yeah. Okay? Whatever.”

That’s telling, right? And it has no details and it’s super boring—so boring!

We want our characters to have dimension, to be human or vampire or zombie, but detailed. We want to root for them or cry for them or cheer for them when they scream, “Boo-yah!” into the bedroom when they’re done.

Hint #6

Dialogue is your friend.

Teasing, the promise, the verbal foreplay? It makes the actual act way more worth it.

You can be silly. You can be creative. You can be naughty. You can use a double entendre (say one thing, mean sex) and have fun.

Hint #7

Have fun. Just like in real life. Fornication can be funny. Use that.

Shaun’s Hint #8

If there’s any doubt, try it out.

WRITING TIP OF THE POD

All the hints.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

Do your research. Pound the streets. Watch other species. Know what you’re writing about.

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.

LET’S HANG OUT!

JUST CLICK ON THIS LINK AND FIND OUT HOW WE CAN.

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