CONTENTMENT COTTAGE

WELCOME! In the midst of each life's chaos exists a place of calm and sunshine. I call mine Contentment Cottage. It is the place where I write my stories and find the peace of God. I've posted my "Ice Pick" reviews and will continue to add some of what I call my "Ice Crystals": poems, articles, essays, fillers, and recipes.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

THE ICE PICK

The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers, by Elizabeth Benedict. Cincinnati, Ohio : Story Press, 1996. $16.99. ISBN 1-884910-21-1.

This book "is not a primer for writing pornography" or "a collection of tips for writing hot sex scenes." Nor is there anything in it about rape, which is an act of violence not sex. But if you want to write a romantic scene and leave the rest to your readers’ imaginations or follow your human or alien characters into the bedroom, this book will show you how to get the most out of the scenes you choreograph. Too many writers (not you, of course) throw in a sex scene simply to spice things up, wasting a valuable tool for characterization or plotting.

There should always be at least "two things happening at once [in] a sex scene. . . . Sex needs a purpose in your story beyond the momentary frisson it brings to your characters. It needs to reveal something about them, act as a metaphor, a symbol, or an illustration of an aspect of your theme, your plot, and/or your characters’ desires and dilemmas." Benedict helps us see the differences in female and male expectations and experiences and tells why you must know what your characters want from the encounter. She discusses the difficulties in writing sex scenes and explains how to keep them exciting and original. Yes, original. Your sex scenes "should hinge on the freshness of your characters, dialogue, mood, and plot and not on the sexual mechanisms," lest they all sound alike.

As she says, "a good sex scene does not have to be about good sex," but "a well-written sex scene engages on many levels: erotic, aesthetic, psychological, metaphorical, even philosophical." And it should fit with the setting and tone of your overall story, not just be tacked on there to shock your mom or get people to read your stuff.

In separate chapters, Benedict discusses how to handle writing adulterous, first-time, illicit, married, recreational, and solo sex, as well as the impact of AIDS. She quotes writers from different genres and analyzes the juicy parts of their works. (Warning: After reading this book, you may never read a sex scene in quite the same way again.)

"Sex scenes should be approached with the same attention to craft and to function in the larger work . . . [as] every other scene."

If you write romantic or sex scenes, you should read this book.

{Published in GPIC: the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Jan. 1998. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Mar. 1999.}

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice Blog. It will be nice to have a source to go to when looking for help on a specific way to write books.

This review is helpful. I haven't written sex scenes yet, but I know with the stories I'm getting into I will eventually.

Thanks for pointing it out!

Chris
~~~~~

6:28 AM  

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