Writing Smut

A friend of mine, Stephanie Barr, mentioned me in a recent blog post, Diving into the uncomfortable. In that post she talked about learning about characters in “Smut”. More specifically, homosexual romance stories.

It turns out this is a great time for me to write about that as well. I'm struggling in a novel that revolves around the chemical changes in the brain that are released during sex.

I've read a few homosexual romances and what I really like about them is the characters stay the same in bedroom as well as outside the bedroom. In a lot of hetro sex scenes when the characters enter the bedroom you wouldn't know they are the same people you've been reading about for the rest of the book.

No one does a worse job at this than Ewe Boll. If you want to see how not to insert a sex scene watch Alone in the Dark. Practically mid-sentence, with no lead up, Tara Reid and Christian Slater hop in bed and next scene its as if nothing happened.

While every writer I've read handles a sex scene better than that, very few use the opportunity for the reader to learn more about the characters.

When I wrote “Mind Thief” I purposely made the two main characters very sexual. Being a main part of their characters their reactions to each other in the bedroom showed a lot about their characters.

The interesting part, for me anyway, was putting conflict into the sex scene without making it rape. Howie is an 18 year old male with hyper-testosterone and Vivian is a bipolar with aspergers syndrome. As a male Howie is very visually stimulated. Having aspergers Vivian never cared about other people before and to her sex isn't intimate, but kissing and getting naked are. It leads to an interesting dynamic as they both have to compromise to have sex without either one being submissive. It set the tone for the rest of their relationship as Howie has huge abandonment issues and doesn't trust anyone, and Vivian has never let anyone get close to her. Then they find they can't stand to be apart.

Writing the sex scenes wasn't hard, the hard part of sex scenes is in the editing. It took awhile to edit the hardcore XXX scenes into a more R rated version and keep the character's motivations clear. But that is part of writing.

The really hard part was getting feedback. Getting characters interactions and relationships outside the bedroom it's easy to find sources to draw from, watching how friends interact. Reading about others and so on. For sex (outside the actual act) it's not so easy.

People in real life know I'm a writer and are cool with the fact that something they say or do might make it into one of my books. But sneaking into their bedrooms and observing them during sex leads to them screaming things like, “Cops” and “Restraining Orders”. Pornos don't really capture the real people as it's more about the posing than the feeling.

So I drew from my own experiences. It's strange having people give you feedback on your sex performance.

The biggest negative I got was the set-ups and dialog weren't realistic. Really strange since I know if the girls the scenes are based on read them they'll be a little embarrassed. The scenes are close enough to real life that they'll recognize themselves. (I tried to make sure no one else will.)

The other odd comments were about the after effects of sex.

In my experience, before and a few years into marriage, the morning after good sex is like the morning after running a marathon and having a hangover at the same time. It's tough to stand, muscles you've forgotten about are complaining, and it's hard to concentrate. The girls I've been with complained/complimented that they couldn't sit down.

I had people say that taking sex that far wasn't realistic and unless there is an “oops” girls don't have a problem with sitting the next day. (No “oops” was intended in the scene.)

It's also strange being called sadistic for me, I mean my character, to be proud of putting a girl in that condition. I always thought of it more like a sport where the aching muscles and friction burns you feel the next morning are trophies that remind you of the fun you had. And talking about them with your partner was a way of complimenting them.

Besides finding out a little more about myself than I wanted to know, I've also found out why sex scenes that give insight into the characters are hard. In erotica you expect the sex scenes to be unrealistic. When you start putting in realism and exposing your characters as real people during sex you are showing an aspect of being human that isn't seen in everyday life.

In all other aspects of life we can enjoy exploring the thoughts of people who think differently than ourselves. But during sex we look at it through our own experiences and if the character has a different view of sex than ourselves we tend to think the worst of that character.

That could be why homosexual romance writers can keep their characters being the same characters that entered the bedroom, while hetro writers have trouble. When it comes to sex, homosexuals are used to some people thinking their normal activities are “Perverted”. With hetro writers it is strange that even if the characters do nothing the reader hasn't done, how they look at sex can be considered “Perverted”.