Making Sex Sing (It's All About Language, Baby)

There is a wonderful BBC version too!

Are you looking for sex scene or erotic writing tips?  Here's a post that I wrote a while back for the Grub Street Daily:

Whenever I talk to a non-writer about crafting erotica, I always mention the importance of rhythm and flow—or as we writerly types call it, sentencing and meter.  People tend to look puzzled.  “But why?” they say.  Perhaps some of them want to believe that hot sex scenes are all about C- and F-words or brazen visuals, but while these aspects can add to a sex scene, they’re not usually key.  No, to get to the heart of powerful sex—or indeed sexual desire—we must express its rhythms and flow.  Of course, it can be powerful to show such rhythms rather than tell them—and a great way of doing this is to “feel them onto the page.”  Like poets, we can create this flow via meter and sentencing.  (In fact, poets often make fabulous erotic writers because they are skilled at expressing feeling via meter).

Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite writers, Sarah Waters, whose sexy novel, Tipping the Velvet, caused quite a stir in the UK when it was released.  Nan, our narrator, who is a Victorian music hall actress, has fallen in love with her co-star Kitty Butler—the more famous of the two.  They are both in their late teens, and Nan has never had sex with a woman before:

“May I really – touch you?” I whispered.   She gave again a nervous laugh, and tilted her face against her pillow.
 “Oh Nan,” she said, “I think I shall die if you don’t!”
 Tentatively, then, I raised my hand, and dipped my fingers into her hair.  I touched her face – her brow, that curved; her cheek, that was freckled; her lip, her chin, her throat, her collar-bone, her shoulder…  Here, shy again, I let my hand linger – until, with her face still tilted from my own and her eyes hard shut, she took my wrist and gently led my fingers to her breasts.  When I touched her here, she sighed and turned; and after a minute or two she seized my wrist again, and moved it lower.

Even by listing the places where Nan touches Kitty (“her brow, that curved; her cheek, that was freckled; her lip, her chin…” and soforth) Waters builds Nan’s growing passion via meter and flow.  And what long, gliding sentences we have in this paragraph.  These bring a sense of longing and wonder, allowing us to share in Nan’s experience.  We are shown the primal music of her feelings, without being told of it.

As a Senior Editor at Go Deeper Press, I am reading many erotic submissions at the moment.  When I find myself thinking, "I'm not engaged in this sex scene," It's often due to a lack of rhythm...

Read the rest of the post at the Grub Street Daily.  And find out more about my writing coaching here.