SPEAKER_01 0:00

Your story only needs a sex scene if sex is actually the best way to advance the plot or to show the evolution of your characters. But that being said, obviously, like reader expectations are a thing if you're writing to market, as you kind of were talking about with your client trying to add extra spice in. And so I think the other question is to ask is do other books in your genre have sex scenes? Because romance novels aren't the only ones that have them.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formally repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories. The one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, writer. Welcome back to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser. This is where we talk about the brave and vulnerable act of writing our novels so that we can do it with more clarity, more confidence, less cringe, and not feel so alone in the process. With Valentine's Day right around the corner, I decided to do a special episode all about writing sex in fiction. Yep, we're gonna go there. So if you've got little ears around, this might be a headphones on or listen later kind of episode. Today I'm joined by my good friend and book coaching colleague Jennifer Larkin. Jen is also an author accelerator certified book coach, and we both work with romance writers to navigate craft and the vulnerability of writing intimacy on the page. Jen has helped me in the past with my work and vice versa. And most recently, she looked over my short story romance, which was then picked up by a small press. So I really value her input and trust her opinion. Our aim in this episode is to help you feel less awkward about writing sex and be more intentional when it comes to putting physical intimacy on the page by answering questions like, does a sex scene belong in your story? How explicit should it be? And how can you write them in a way that deepens your character, advances your plot, and feels emotionally urned? So let me share Jen's bio, and then I will welcome her onto the show. Jennifer Larkin helps romance writers turn good ideas into epic stories and jagged drafts, into lovable novels. As an author accelerator certified fiction book coach, she works one-on-one with multi-published authors as well as those just starting out. Her clients have gone on to land an agent, score an audiobook deal, and get reviews that say, I found my next one-click author. Jennifer is also a published author herself with two books written under a pen name. When she's not helping authors write their next five-star romance novel, you can find her paddleboarding through the mangroves with her Australian Shepherd, Jax. Hi, Jen. Welcome to the Write It Scared Podcast. I'm so happy to have you.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

It's so good to see your face. Hey, Stacey. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Today we are going to talk about sex.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

And I think this is a really great topic, not only for just romance writers, but for fiction writers in general, because, yeah, it's part of life and it's a part of fiction.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, I'm I'm excited. If you would have asked me five years ago if I would be on a podcast talking about writing sex, I would think that you were lying. But I'm actually super excited to talk about this.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah, same, same. And I I still kind of cringe when I think about my family reading what I write and stuff. But I think that's a really important point to talk about first is just kind of normalizing it. So I think it's uncomfortable for a lot of writers. I was working with a writer the other day who had her manuscript come back from a developmental editor and had asked, Because my manuscript doesn't have much heat, do you think that will hurt me? And they're like, maybe in this market and where you're aiming, yes. So she's trying to go back, elevate the heat level, and it's very difficult for her. So if anybody out there who is writing a sex scene and it makes them like their cheeks pink and they feel cringy, you're you're not alone.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Or sure. Well, you you know that the books that I actually have out are like my decoy books because I didn't want my family and my coworkers to read my sex scenes. But that's that's a terrible strategy. No one should do that because my real book is still in a drawer. It needs to be edited. And so if I could go back in time, I would just work write what I want to write and like everybody else could deal with it. But but it is hard. It's it's hard to get past that mental block and like think about people you know reading those scenes.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah. I've heard this statement before that if you're a romance writer or if you're writing sex scenes, that people are gonna think that what you write is what you're into. And you know, I don't believe that because I read a lot of romance with a lot of sex scenes in it, and I don't care what they're what they're into. I just care about the experience that the story affords me. That's it. Yeah.

unknown 5:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

So you have to stay with what you are truly comfortable with. But you also get to the place where you start to write what you like and what you like to read. And so I like with my dad, like I just cringe when I think about, you know, my dad reading some of my stuff. But the fact of the matter is, is I'm not writing for him, right? And and that's what I think we have to remember as fiction writers is that fiction is our playground. We're not writing for all the people. And if we try, then who actually winds up with the short end of the stick there?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

So let's start off by by talking about how could a writer know if their story actually needs a sex scene in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

What are your thoughts? This might be a controversial stance given that a lot of readers are looking for spice, but I feel like your story only needs a sex scene if sex is actually the best way to advance the plot or to show the evolution of your characters. But that being said, obviously, like reader expectations are a thing if you're writing to market, as you kind of were talking about with your client trying to add extra spice in. And so I think the other question is to ask is do other books in your genre have sex scenes? Because romance novels aren't the only ones that have them. And also, like within romance, does your subgenre have sex scenes? What age group are you writing for? What's appropriate? And I actually think taking a look at other books that might sit alongside your book on a bookshelf in a bookstore is a good way to kind of understand what the expectations are for your scenes. But I also would say that there is a market. It's not as big necessarily sometimes, but there is a market in almost for almost every type of romance to have low heat or high heat. So if you're super uncomfortable writing it and don't want to, like I don't think you have to.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah, I love what you said. You hit the nail on the head for me about making it advance the story in one way, shape, or form. And to me, that means that it's a scene, just like any other scene, right? And scenes need to drive your story forward. And they do it by touching the external conflict and the internal conflict. So, so thinking about like what's what's the problem and how do my characters feel about it? So is the sex scene going to increase the tension in the novel? Is it going to increase, you know, the consequences? Is it going to increase the stakes of the character not getting what they want or getting what they want? Is it going to add complications? And those can be both part of the external conflict, the the plot part, the what happens and what the external goal is for the character. And it can be part of the internal transformation too. Like what is the character holding back and denying? And I also really liked what you said about thinking about genre first. And sex is not specific to romance, right? I was just reading Game of Thrones, actually. You know, one of the sex scenes in the first book is when Danny and Drogo's marriage is consummated. Right. And it's it's sort of explicit, but it's a very like sharp cut to black. But I was thinking about what it did and why it was necessary. And what it did for me was show that it changed her worldview as far as who she believed he was. Like it was actually very soft and very intimate and very caring when he had been like this warlord before and she just wanted to be raped, right? And not only did it do that, so it touched her internal conflict and her worldview, but externally it messed with her brother, right? Because he just thought he was gonna sell her off and then he was gonna go get I can't, I think go get the crown in Westeros or wherever. And instead, she becomes a more powerful political figure than he could ever be because of the fact that she falls in love with Drogo and vice versa. So that's it's not a romance. Yeah, it's a political fantasy saga. And here you have this sex scene that's very engaging and also very interesting because of how it advances both the external conflict and the internal conflict of the characters. So I love that. What are your thoughts on age categories? And the reason I ask is because a bunch of people are probably saying, what about YA? Like if you're writing new adult or adult, you know, the fields are open. But what if you write YA? What do you do about sex in YA?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

I'm curious what you think about that because I don't really write YA. And I also, I mean, I read some, and I've obviously read some that has sex on the page. And I think it just tends to be like briefer and less explicit, but I'm probably not the best person to talk about them because I don't even I don't really coach YA romance.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah, I think that YA is split into kind of two groups, right? There's there's lower YA, there's upper YA, and the age categories for upper YA is like 16 to 18, usually. And in those books, there is sex on the page, but it's not graphic. It is very much about the emotional experience in the emotional context. If a writer wants to take sex scenes and make them graphic, then I would really suggest putting them into the new adult category. And then if for lower YA, which you know you think 13 to 15, I'd stick to kissing. I know there's some books out there that don't do that, but that's that though those would be my guidelines. If you're gonna go graphic, don't do it in YA. And you know, some authors that do it really well, it's like Kathleen Glasgow, uh, who writes very intense young adult, like Girl in Pieces. I was thinking about Girl in Pieces, and that's a sex scene between a 17-year-old girl and a 27-year-old man. Right, yeah. But it's not graphic, it's all about the emotional experience. And then John Green, Fault in Our Stars, is another good example. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, how do I handle a sex scene in YA? Go read some of those books. Go read those authors. Okay. Do you have any tips or tricks like as far as like how a writer could pressure test a scene to see if it's necessary?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

I do. So part of it is just thinking about a sex scene is a scene, right? It so if you run your sex scene through, and a lot of writers, I think, kind of for some reason it's like I'm writing a sex scene, so all the writing, all the things I consider for a scene tend to go out the window. And all of a sudden we have this scene where all that happens is the characters have sex. So the things that the checklist that I run through is honestly the same checklist as what I would give to you to write an actual regular scene with maybe a couple extra things. So things like does it increase the romantic tension, which you know, you were talking about a little bit before, but like romantic tension is increased by like things that aren't necessarily net negative, right? So you can have like the stakes of the relationship are raised if as they get deeper, as they connect more emotionally. So that can be a way that you could use a sex scene to actually increase romantic tension, but it also could be something that, you know, inside the character changes or positive or negative. So when we think about scenes too, I there should be a value shift that occurs, right? So something changes in the scene is probably the biggest thing that makes it impossible for the characters to go backwards. And I think the heated rivalry TV show that I feel like if you're if you haven't seen, you might be living under a rock. Oh gosh, I know. But it is such a masterclass in this. I've actually watched it twice in like the second watch through, I was specifically watching for this, and the relationship between these two characters shifts every time they hook up on screen. There is there is a shift, and so it's like this story is being told. There's changes happening in every single one of those scenes.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

And so if you want like a crit quick crash course in like what to do, yeah, I absolutely love the show and I totally agree with you, but the book actually the prologue is we are sunk right into their sexual relationship instantly, and it's quite graphic, it's really on the page. And but what my takeaway was is we have this has been going on for years. One of them, you know, really would like it to not be happening because that's the POV that we're in, right? And wants to put a stop to it just because it's it's very emotionally confusing and can't, like literally can't, has been trying. And so we're like, how the hell did we get here? You know, from the prologue. And that is what we go forward reading to find out how did they get here? And once we, you know, catch up to this moment in the story, what's gonna happen next? Right. Yes. It's a really good example about how to manipulate your plot line to create suspense and tension and narrative drive. And it's a beautiful story, it's a beautiful book.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

It is, it is that illustrates actually another another point, which is like another thing that you can kind of run your scene through is your character should have a goal going into your scene. So, in that scene, you know, that that character sort of wants to break this off and can't. And then there should be some sort of conflict that challenges that goal. So is the challenge is this internal, I can't let go of this. I love that. So it works, it it hits those those buttons. And I think even like if you're gonna write a scene and their scene goal is to have sex, fine. But then what obstacle, internal or external, do they need to overcome to do so? You know, you can also, if you if if having sex is is the thing, like give them a scene goal to make a sandwich, and then maybe they're hangry in the next chapter, and then maybe that has repercussions. Like, yeah, make them make it. It doesn't have to be this profound goal. It just can be it has to be something they want, and there needs to be some sort of, you know, but that's such a beautiful point.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Like, if you take that scene from Heated Rivalry, it's like the I mean, he's there for a hookup, he's waiting, and he waits a while for the other character to show up, for Ilya to show up. And so his external goal is that he's gonna have a hookup, but he's so internally conflicted about it, like you can't not read on. You can't, you're just exactly invested. So that's such a good point is having the goal put pressure on the internal conflict of the character. That's external goals putting conflict on the internal processing system of your character is a really delicious thing to do. And that's one of my favorite parts of tension in romance. Yes, it's my favorite part. Yeah, I I loved your answer. And for me, how do I pressure test whether a scene is necessary is all the same things, you know, that I would with a regular scene. And also just considering like if I took it out, would it mess with the rest of my story?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, yeah. The way that I think about it is if you pulled it out and your story still works without adding anything back, it shouldn't, it's not needed. It like really shouldn't be there at all because I don't know, that's that's the stuff that readers are gonna skim.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

We'll talk about that in a minute. Excellent. Okay, so romance specific. I think a lot of writers wonder if they they can accomplish a romance story without sex. I think absolutely 100%. You absolutely can. I think of like a lot of the halal romances or the Regency romances or or things like that. They don't need on-scene sex for them to work, they need tension and longing and desire, and that stuff's catnip. So that's my thoughts. What about you?

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah, totally. I I think that you can absolutely have a successful romance novel without end story without that. I actually some of the romance novels that I've enjoyed the most maybe have like one scene at the very end, and it's the longing. It's that longing and the angst, and I I'm all about it.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Same here. And I think it's really important to remember what romance is truly about, too. For me, romance is all about. It's about intimacy, it's about emotional intimacy. And I think a long time ago in therapy, I learned, or maybe, maybe it was in a codependency class or something that I took, but it was intimacy stands for into me, I let you see. So it's like dropping all of the bullshit, dropping all of the guards, and really letting somebody see who you are, flaws and all. And so romance is about a connection between two or more people, right? That will create that that feeling between two people and allow them to grow internally because of it. At least one of the characters, I think, needs to grow internally because of being involved with this other person.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. If I look at the central sort of story question to a romance novel, people, I think mistakenly will say, Oh, it's will these characters end up together. But that's that's not true because we know that they will. Like that's the whole premise, the whole reason I'm coming to a romance novel is I know that there's this happy ending that I'm gonna get. And so the the actual question is how do these characters, against all odds, and maybe the odds are internal, maybe they're external. In the best cases, I feel like they're both, but how are they gonna, how are they gonna end up together? It's the how.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah. We often talk about what's the point of a story. Yeah, right. The point of my favorite question. Yeah, like because you know, stories are an argument for or against something in romance, you know, high level, the point is love will win, love will conquer. But it's very generalized, right? And that's fine to start with. But you have when you put it through the lens of your character, it's okay. What specifically is love conquering for this character? What specific misbelief, what specific misplaced value, what specific external obstacle will love conquer? And and that will lead you into stakes and and all of that. So bringing it back to who your character is, I think the crux of every romance novel. And you're right. We're reading to figure out how the hell, how the hell, like with he to remember these two hockey rivals are going to fall in love and and make it work in this, you know, very homophobic culture, right? Exactly. Exactly. And so let's go. What are they gonna risk? What are they gonna give up? What are they gonna admit?

unknown 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

That's what we want to see. Yep. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So by now, hopefully anyone listening will have thought about okay, well, what is a sex scene supposed to do? Do I need one in my story? And how can I tell if it's necessary or not? So let's talk about how to write it. So, how do you know how explicit to go with it? That's kind of the question that I want to answer. And my thoughts here were one, it's really good to know your options. So have an idea of the different types of sex scenes. And the other was looking at genre, specifically subgenre, to help guide you as to how explicit you need to be. And a really good example of this for me is when I look at Harlequin. Harlequin is probably one of the biggest publishers of romance out there. And it's got all these different lines, different types of romance. And they are curated for a specific reader experience. So for example, their, I can't remember what it's called, but it's their light, sweet, clean line. I think it's, I can't remember what it's called. But there's no sex on the page. Or or it might just be fade to black. I can't remember, but it's like really light. It's sweet, it's clean. Versus their dare line. And that is about as graphic as you can get, right? So kind of like finding your lane. Like where would your book, like you said earlier, not only would your shit would your book live under the romance section, but what other books are like it? And what are those sex scenes like?

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So those are my my thoughts. What about you?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yeah, I agree with everything you said. I think ultimately there's there might be a market right answer, but as a writer, when you're choosing what you want to write, I think that there is a place for whatever level and however explicit you want to make it. If you've landed on, I want my book to sit on the shelf next to these books, then you then following what they're doing makes sense, right? If you're like, I want to write a book and I I know how explicit I want to make it or inexplicit I want to make it, there will be a place for your book. So I'm all about, I'm all about the spicy scenes. I love them, but I also like I don't want people to listen to this and be like, oh my gosh, I have to write a spicy scene now if I want my romance to be successful, because I don't think that that's the case. So I mean, I think you have a lot of options. You can write, you can write closed door romance, which still does have sex scenes. They just the reader sees the lead up and then the aftermath, but they don't see the act itself. You can choose to tell the reader exactly what is going where on the very explicit end. And then you can kind of fall in the middle and and do like characters' emotions and feelings and and and also I've noticed that some books have have a combination of those. So it's like every sex scene in your book doesn't have to be the same level of explicit.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

That's a really good point. I love that. Yeah, and and I think following your characters is a really important point too. Like if your character isn't a character who sex is appropriate for or a certain time, I mean you don't force don't force anybody to do anything that you don't want to do. Yeah, that's a super good point. Right. But yeah, I love what you said. I think your point is you can write whatever you want.

unknown 24:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Write whatever you like. And please don't think you gotta do it well in the first draft. You do not don't do that. That is just let it rip and see what happens. But I love, I love what you said. There's a place for it. Whether you decide where that place is in your planning process or you find it after you write it, there's a place. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Exactly. And if you're not sure where you want to land, I think like read them, read books, figure out, look at the books that you like. What sex scenes do you enjoy? Because if you enjoy reading explicit sex scenes, you have a better chance of enjoying writing them than if you don't. Like if reading then isn't your thing, you're not gonna like writing them. And so why do it? That's gonna come through to the reader.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Yeah, yeah. And I think you're right, like a lot of commercial fiction, adult commercial fiction does mix. It's like a full sex scene, it's explicit, but it also carries that emotional connection, and we see through the character's interiority, like how this is how this experience is affecting them as a person, not just as a body, right? So I think Fourth Wing did a good job of that for me. And that's a book where you had to wait a long time in that story to to see when they would come together. So that's another way to heighten romantic tension is to prolong things. Yes. Yes. So say you're going to write a sex scene, you're gonna have maybe some explicitness to it. How do you do it and make it not cringy? How do you make it something somebody's gonna want to read?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Okay, so I have two, I have two things here. First, one of the biggest mistakes I see my clients, especially those who are newer to writing sex scenes, make is that they go straight to talking about body parts. And then that's all we give for the whole scene. Or, and this kind of happens along with it, the characters lose all of their personality. And so then you have this scene where it could literally be any guy or girl going at it. And what makes that so cringy is that is that it's missing interiority.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

What's your thoughts and the feelings? Which are the thoughts and the feelings?

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Yeah, exactly. So the feedback that I give in that scenario is listen, I want to know that it's this character doing these things. I want to know what they're thinking and what they're feeling just as much, if not more, than what they're physically doing. And I know we've told people a bunch of times already to like go read books, but the advice that I typically give for this is think about two or three books by different authors that have sex scenes that you loved. Put them on an e-reader, or you can read them, you can do this with a regular book, but I'm gonna tell you to highlight. So find the sex scene that like resonated with you, that stuck with you from each of those books and highlight all the interiority inner monologue, all the thoughts, all the feelings, all the sensations, and then go do the same thing for your scene and compare them.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

That's such a good tip. And while you do that, one of the things to pay attention to is this chain reaction that happens, which is true of any scene, but specifically when you're sitting in a sex scene, is that there is action and reaction between the characters. Like one character does something, it affects the other character, and because of that, they do something. So you want to see this, it's like micro-level cause and effect. Yeah, I just had a client people pick apart that scene for the same thing. I don't use clinical terminology. I don't want to read he put his penis in her vagina. I didn't even want to speak it, right? So yeah, so Dell uses clinical terminology. And I think for those that are a little like hesitant about using an explicit term, you don't have to. You can lean on pronouns, you can lean on euphemism, you can, I mean, don't take it too far into metaphorical land where we have nothing but purple proofs, right? But but you can do that. So I think your suggestion is to find what you like on the page and study it. Like how did they refer to each other? How did they refer to each other's bodies? That kind of thing. Study it, and that will take you a long way. Yeah. I think one thing that uh is uh important to talk about is consent. So consent on the page in sex I feel is necessary because sex without consent is rape. So and it's sexy when characters are checking in with each other and asking each other. Like so but there is, but even in to me, even in Dubcon, like when we get into situations where we have dubious consent, I still think that consent needs to be present, even if we only see it through the POV character's lens, they have to want it on some level.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yeah, that's a I mean, that's a really good point. So you can and it doesn't have to be verb. Right. Right. It can it can be physical, it could also be because we're in the character's head, we know that they want this. Like that that that works, I think. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Consent matters, and and it's actually one of the things I loved about heated rivalry, really, was how open the consent was.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

It's one of the things that I think a lot of people commented about loving about heated rivalry. Yeah. So I guess that's a good point too. If anybody listening is concerned about, you know, is this gonna make my scene awkward to add it in? It's actually something readers like. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Going back to your to your terminology, pick one term to refer to things and stick with it if you can. Like you don't need to come up with six different names for a body part and use all six in your book. It's just gonna, it's it's just gonna come across as a hodgepodge.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yeah. Or pick a couple. A couple of what and and think of it as like, what would your character think of? Exactly. What terms does your character use based on their lived experiences?

SPEAKER_01 31:09

But it and it's most likely that your character is going to think of that part as one word, though. Each character is probably gonna have one way of thinking about. Maybe not everybody, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

So let's talk about how to write a sex scene that your readers are gonna read and not skim. And we've kind of touched on some, just some some basic craft stuff earlier, you know, as far as like thinking about the type of language that you use and and how you want to wield it. But what really makes it delicious for you? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 31:46

I think it's all of the things, like, well, all right. So I've I have I have a mental way that I sort of categorize every sex scene. And and it's this if it's a scene that I will read on a plane with somebody creepy behind me that like I'm convinced is reading it over my shoulder and I don't care because it's part of the story and I need to know what happens, like that's that's the one you want to strive for. I love that. That's a good pressure test. And then there are the scenes where if I'm in the comfort of my own home, I would probably actually read it all the way through. But if I'm in public, I'll flip through it faster. And and then there are the ones where even if I'm at home, I'm skipping them. And so the the way to be at that level of I will read this on a plane is give me enough lead-in so that I am as desperate for it as the characters are. Like I kind of think about it as reader foreplay. And I'm not talking about the things that the characters do to each other to get ready to go. Like, that's part of the sex scene in my mind. But how are you introducing this idea? Like the building desire across scenes that are leading up to this one is huge in terms of getting me to like want to read the sex scene. And then it goes back to all the other stuff we were saying, where like, is is something changing in this scene? Is it a pivotal moment in the story? And if you have both of those things, I will read your sex scene on a plane.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

I love that. And my my answers are the same, you know, it's it's the longing for me is the desire, the or the denial. Yeah, or the denial of the desire. And postponing the moment where it happens on the page, that gives you so much plot thrust. You know, you just want to get there. You want to get there. Romance readers are voracious for that reason. I think we love the tension, we love the angst, and we want to get there so bad to see how these characters are are going to get there happily ever after, or they're happily for now. Yeah. So don't rush. Like, there's you don't need to rush a sex scene. I think foreplay, even if that's, and foreplay is a lot of things for a lot of different people, right? That can be that can be banter. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to always be physical. And for a lot of people, like it's not, you know, love is not a physical thing, not necessarily. So there's different ways to create emotion and intimacy on the page. It doesn't always have to be about sex. So again, that's back into considering your character's experience. But yeah, not rushing the moments. I love what you said. If you'll read it on a plane because you have to read it, because you can't not, that's great. That's great. I think it's all the things that we've already talked about, like showing the character's thoughts and feelings, prolonging the lead up, not being cringy. Not being cringy, right? No clinical terminology here. Please. So how about the when question? When in a story should a sex scene happen? I know you have an answer. I know you have thoughts. I do.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

I do have some thoughts. Okay, the like the easy answer, and it's also the real answer, is kind of any time you want, as long as it serves the story. But I actually think sex scenes have similar placement rules or guidelines to flashbacks. So it's really hard to make a long flashback work in chapter one. Not impossible, but hard. And the thing with flashbacks, right, is you got to build up to it so that the reader cares enough about what happened in the past or to take a break from story present and like they're curious enough to watch it unfold in real time. And you have to get the reader, so same thing with sex seems you have to get the reader to care about why they're having sex before you toss one in. And I think too, if your characters do hook up early, and I actually think that first chapter repeated rivalry did this. Carly Fortune's The Summer Will Be Different is also a really good example of a book that has an early sex scene that I think is done well. Those scenes tend to be a tad shorter, and maybe even a tad less like less explicit than than what you're gonna get later on in the story. And that's kind of similar to a flashback. You can include a shorter one. So because once we've got to know the characters and we're cheering for them to get it on already, you know, then then you can have that longer, more drawn-out scene. Anyways, that's that's my that's my take.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Yes, and very similar. I think it's you can do whatever you want as long as it as it serves the story, which again, generalized answer, right? But I think it also depends on how sex is being used in your story to create emotional connection. And so what I was thinking about is how sex is kind of communication. And so, in that heated rivalry example that we were talking about, we get sex first, and but we get a specific moment of of where the sex is in the story, a specific emotional state for one of the characters. So, and and then we start the story, and sorry, guys, big spoilers here, but then we start the story, and really the only time we see those two characters is when they hook up for the most part, right? When we see them together. And sex becomes their means of communication in a way. Yes. And and I think that's actually not all that uncommon. You know, some people can't have sexual attraction until they have emotional connection. And I think it can be vice versa. Yeah. So all that to say is wherever you place it, I don't think there's a wrong answer. I just think you have to look at things like, okay, is it creating a drive to read on to the next thing?

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yeah, I think you could have a lot of sex scenes that drive the story forward in a really powerful way. So it's not to say you can't have a bunch of sex scenes, you absolutely can, but I think making sure that they, like you said, push the story forward.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

All right. So we talked a lot and a lot about sex today. And hopefully, listeners are walking away with a better idea of whether or not they need to include a sex scene and how to deliver it on the page. So for me, final thoughts are write like nobody is watching because they're really not. It's okay if it's hard. And write what you like and remember that you are your first reader. So if you don't like it, it doesn't really matter. How about you, Jed? Do you have any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 38:49

I think the other thing to consider is that all of those people that tell you that they're gonna read your book that you aren't writing for probably won't actually read it anyways. Yeah, that's a great point.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

This was really fun, and I was really happy to have you. It's wonderful to see you. So would you please share where listeners can find you and your services and any offerings that you might have.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Yeah, the best place to find me is go to my website, jenniferlarkin.com. I think Stacey, you'll put that in the show notes as well. I also have a seven-step guide. There's actually three extra steps for spicy scenes in it, where I go into more detail and has a checklist on how what makes a successful romance scene. So if you've heard us say a bunch of times now, like if it serves the story and you want to dive a little deeper into that, you can also grab that in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

I will absolutely make sure to put that into the show notes. Okay. Thank you again for coming on the podcast. Thank you for listening to the Write It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.