Writing Advice: Crafting Richer Erotica
Adding depth and complexity to your sex scenes.
From my Tumblr!
Anonymous asked:
Your smut is always so good, I hope it’s okay to ask for advice, but I’ve been struggling with writing smut in that my sex scenes always end up so short — I don’t want to just pad them out for the sake of it, but when I read them back they always seem to be over so quickly and it’s bothering me, but I can’t figure out where I’m going wrong. do you have any tips for keeping up longer sex scenes?
I responded:
So there are two elements that you might want to explore in detail writing a smut scene from any particular character’s perspective, both of which will add depth and complexity — and duration — to a sex scene.
The first is the external, the second is the internal.
The external is the most obvious, right? What are they doing to one another, how are they doing it, where are they doing it?
They touch each other.
How do they touch each other? Tenderly? Roughly? With dominance in mind, or invitingly, seductively, touching their partner purely with a mind of inviting their partner to touch them back? Provocatively, perhaps, with little shoves here and there so that their partner won’t just return the favour, but put them muscle into it?
How do you touch someone tenderly?
Is your touch featherlight and delicate, almost afraid to make contact, skin-to-skin? Do you cup their jaw or the underside of their tits, do you stroke them? Deliver kisses along their skin, or mouth over their flesh with your lips parted? Do you hold them, press your bodies tight together, nuzzle against their necks, breathe in the scent of their hair?
How are you rough, if you are rough? Do you smack them, enjoy the loud sound of skin as your palm makes contact with the meat of their thigh, the impact wet when you do it over a sheen of sweat or wetness? Do you grab them, position them, pin them down with your body weight? Do you grip them around the waist, around the neck, by the shoulders, and position them where you want them, bounce them on your cock or drag them to grind against your thigh?
Is your touch rough and impersonal, clinical, reserved, removed, or is it involved and possessive, proprietary? Do you desire to leave a mark, to show your ownership, or are you so focused on your own needs that it doesn’t matter to you whether you leave a mark or not?
How do you dominant a partner? With your touch, with the shadow of your body, your personality, over theirs? With your words, talking constantly, or with a few short commands here and there, uttered in low tones?
Do you make them talk, maybe, to beg for your touch on theirs, or say how every touch makes them feel?
Do you continue your conversations you were having before you had sex? Do you laugh together, tease each other, tell jokes, keep on infodumping? Do you argue? Do you bicker and complain and kvetch about your day, or about how you told them those shoes were going to make them sore if they wore them for this long, and did they listen? Do they ever listen? Do they respond wryly with, “I listen to some things…” as they press down on the knot in your shoulder and draw a moan out of you?
What sensations are you describing, depicting, as you write people involved with one another?
Yes, touch, touch is good, the good feelings, not just skin on skin, not just the satisfaction of being filled or surrounded, sucked or bitten, but the thrum of heat that runs through them at the right touch or right word, the tingle up their spine at the right smack or well-delivered impact, the dizzying blur when they lose their breath for a moment.
Sight, too, of course — the arch of their back and the stiffening and then relaxing of their body, seeing the tendons in their wrists flex as they grip at the sheets, seeing the stretch marks and scars shift like constellations on their belly and chest and thighs as they move? Seeing their thighs and belly and arse wobble at the impact, the glorious motion of it? Seeing colour change in and under their skin, seeing the slight darkness to it at a blush, seeing the pink or red bloom underneath it as blood rushes to the area? Seeing the colours an old bruise is turning, or seeing the sheen of sweat on the skin?
Watching their hairs stand on end when you breathe on the back of their lip, or watching their lip quiver as they tell you what they want next?
What about sounds? The sounds of their noises, their moans, their gasps, the sound of flesh on flesh, the wet sound of penetration, of their kissing? The sound of the mattress springs and the headboard squeaking, of the music in the background, of one of them laughing because they hear a thump downstairs and they know it’s the cat knocking things over in protest of being locked out while they fuck?
What about the tastes, the taste of sweat on their skin, their coffee clinging to their lips, the sweetness or saltiness or bitterness of their come? The smell of come and musk and sweat, of perfume and shampoo and the new laundry powder they’ve been using?
All of that is the external, right? The sensations and the two bodies in motion.
Then is the internal — how do the characters feel?
The sensations, yes, but… Have they done this before? With whom? Do they remember, are they remembering it now? The first time they touched each other, the first time they did this particular sexual act, the first time they discovered who they were, or what they liked?
What little things bring back a rush of memory, which sights, tastes, sounds, smells?
Are they comfortable right now? Happy? Pleased? Stressed, and hoping to work it out? Are they slow and already satisfied, but happy to sate themselves further?
Are they angry? Raging? Furious, and taking it out on each other? Are they miserable and desperate to feel a bit of happiness for a moment, to feel like they aren’t alone?
How is their relationship changing through the course of the scene? Are they at the beginning of this relationship, still learning to communicate, still learning how and where to touch each other, still learning to learn each other’s sweet spots, still learning to trust one another?
Or is this old hat by now? Are they as expert in the other’s body as they are in their own, playing their partner as any virtuoso plays their favourite instrument, drawing out beautiful sounds?
Are they confident, or nervous? Are they adept, or still clumsy? Are they eager or reluctant, certain or uncertain?
How comfortable do they feel right now? Do they feel guilty? Why? What brings the guilt most into relief — a scent that reminds them of someone else? A certain word, a certain touch? Is the guilt a constant background hum, almost tuned out, or is it constant, raging, consuming their mind even as their body is focused on other things?
How do they feel at the beginning, in the middle, at the end, afterwards? Do they feel the same way about their partner throughout? Do they feel the same way about themselves? About life, about love, about sex, about everything else?
Do they even know how they’re feeling? Are they in-touch with themselves enough to realise, or is it a mystery even to themselves — do their partners have a better idea than they do?
With all that taken into account… A long and protracted sex scene isn’t necessarily better than a shorter one. Sometimes, they need to be more perfunctory, and one sex scene might be best kept short while another should be long.
It depends what the story and characters call for!
Hope this helps. :)
