Let’s Talk About Sex . . . Scenes

Elle E. Ire

VICIOUS CIRCLE was my first published novel, first in 2015 from Torquere Press, and then rereleased in January 2020, from Dreamspinner Publications. It was a first for me in many other ways as well. For one thing, it was my first ever attempt at writing female/female romance. Although the main plotline is a science fiction space opera, the subplot is definitely romance, and as such, I felt it required a sex scene or two . . . except I’d never written one of those, either. Needless to say, I was a little hesitant and nervous about it.

Up until VICIOUS CIRCLE, my novels had been all action all the time. No romance. Definitely no sex. I didn’t read a lot of romance, either, though I’d read a few in college and enjoyed them. I had to be crazy to think I could do a good job with this, but I wanted to give it a try. To my utter and complete surprise, I discovered that not only was I not terrible at writing them, I also really, really enjoyed the process.

Now, to be clear, VICIOUS CIRCLE is fairly light in the sex scene department. The romance is secondary to the main plot. But the couple of sexy moments in the book, so I’ve been told, are pretty hot, and somehow, since the release of the novel, I’ve become the go-to panelist and general speaker on the topic of sex scenes at a number of local writing conferences. Writers who are a lot more afraid of writing them than I was are always asking me how to write them, so I thought I’d put my thoughts on the topic here.

Number one, I choose an external stressor. Writing science fiction space opera makes this one easy. There’s always lots of action going on, lots of dangerous, heart-pounding, emotional moments that drive the two characters together and force them to depend on one another to get through the numerous perils. These also provide plenty of interrupters, so the “tease” sex scenes, the ones that begin but never quite come to fruition, are also easier to write in an action-oriented novel.

The internal stressor, my second challenge, takes more thought. I’m a big fan of female protagonists who are hard as steel on the outside and a hot mess on the inside. They fight, they kill, they do things they suffer for, they experience numerous traumas that affect how they would view any kind of connection with another person. In VICIOUS CIRCLE, the protagonist is an assassin, and while her contracts always serve the greater good, she still suffers from guilt for her actions. One can imagine just how hard it would be for her to trust others and to put herself in the very vulnerable position of having sex with the person she wants to trust.

Last, I choose location. This is especially fun for me because I always like to mix things up. I never want my characters to have their romantic moments in the same place twice. And the chosen location, along with the other above factors, will drive how the sex scene will take shape. Oh, and my characters virtually never have sex in a normal place like, say, a bed on a planet. If they do, there’s something else really major going on that shakes things up, often literally.

Then I tie it all together, and not too neatly. I get frustrated when I read sexual encounters that go off without a hitch, especially when it’s the couple’s first time together. Zippers stick, something tears, heads bonk, people get self-conscious, someone shifts too quickly and topples over, one is exhausted or injured or stressed-out. There’s a lot of humor in sex and a lot of warmth and love and positive emotion when the two characters involved are patient and determined to make it work and work well. When it’s all said and done, the goal is for the characters and the readers to be completely satisfied.

So, that’s my method for writing sex scenes. I hope you’ll read and enjoy VICIOUS CIRCLE, and not just for the sexy parts. And if you do like it, I absolutely get even more daring with those scenes in my next book, THREADBARE (08/2019) and its two sequels, PATCHWORK (04/2020) and WOVEN coming in the fall of 2020.

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