Sex scene grump redux.

[mrissa]

Have I mentioned lately that I hate writing sex scenes? And that I particularly hate writing sex scenes whose contents are relevant to the plot, so I can't just shut the door behind my characters and move on with the rest of the plot because the rest of the plot is in there with the nekkid people, along with the character arcs and the worldbuilding?

I am a Scandosotan, people! "I'm afraid that's none of my business!" is our rallying cry!

What kind of brain is it, anyway, that will not just leave out major sections of human existence because it makes me skittery to write about them? Isn't this writing thing supposed to be mentally/emotionally easy and comfortable?

Oh, right. That was some other profession completely.

I am going to get these plot points jotted down in the bits of What We Did to Save the Kingdom and then close that file and go back to Zodiac House, wherein all the major characters stay clad at all times.

(Two things I think are underused in worldbuilding, though: sex scenes and musical comedies/light comic operas.)

Comments

[fmsv.livejournal.com]

Together?

[songwind.livejournal.com]

How does one use musical comedies in world building? Do the characters attend a musical comedy that somehow imports information to the reader? Or does one write up a musical comedy in script form as part of the greater work?

For that matter, what's going to happen during the sex that advances the plot? Shouldn't there be too much moaning and sweating for exposition?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So far separately, but thank you so much for giving my hindbrain that to play with.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is a very big corner. We have good chocolate here.

[rosefox]

Aren't they always?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

For that matter, what's going to happen during the sex that advances the plot? Shouldn't there be too much moaning and sweating for exposition?

The capacity for subtle miscommunications during a sex scene, and the consequences thereafter, seem to hold a great deal of plot-potential, even among well-meaning people who like each other and are not holding silly memesets, but who just see the world in slightly different ways and have not clear maps of said differences.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Musical comedies? See _How Much For Just the Planet_, John M. Ford. Particularly the "Dilithium and You" filmstrip (I wonder how well my memory has done with that?).

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Pardon my wry amusement; it's not personal, and I sympathize, it's just that you write this at a time when I'm busily ripping sex scenes OUT of stories so that someone might actually read them AS STORIES and not dismiss them out of hand.

That said, if you need sex scenes urgently I seem to have several spares lying on the cutting-room floor I could give you ....

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Seems like, if one were generally opposed to explicit sex in one's books, that sort of miscommunication could be related ex post facto.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Not always, and not nearly with the same effect. "Alice thought about what a jerk Earl had been while they had sex." Very different.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I once took a short book-editing course taught by a man who worked at a small press in San Antonio. For the class, he gave us the manuscript of a book that had been submitted to them and eventually rejected (but the author had given permission for it to be used in the class). I remember bits and pieces, but the most clear thing I retained was one bit from the sex scene where the male partner temporarily stopped the action to fold his pants and drape them over the back of the chair. (Deliberate characterization, not awkward writing.)


(Posting this comment has now become a contest of wills between me and LJ. I WILL PREVAIL!)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In the musical comedy segment, people go around humming catchy tunes they've heard recently all the time, even if you don't have the librettist or any of the performers in your book (which I do, this time).

In addition to subtle miscommunications, there are all sorts of things that can happen in bed that are important to the plot later. For example -- say you have a pair of people who were lovers for several years, ending five years ago, and they've been living in different places in the intervening time. When they get back together and, so to speak, get back together, one of them behaves very differently: either he does something that never would have been of interest before, or he adamantly turns down something that was always of intense interest before. If the author shows you this, it's for a reason. Something has changed. In real life, the change may be, "Eh, got sick of that while you were in Timbukthree," or else, "Hey, I had plenty of time for thinking over the last five years. How 'bout if we...." In the book, if it was like that, it would be Sir Not Appearing In This Book. In the book, you pay close attention: did the love interest pick up allies from a foreign land? or a foreign disease transmissible only by the elbow-on-ankle contact he used to so adore? Have his feelings changed for the worse? for the better? for the different off to the side somewhere? Is he under a spell? Is he over a spell? Is she going to overthink all of these things when none of them apply, and change their relationship thereby?

Sex goes places in people's heads that aren't really replacable with other activities. Some things you can't find out by sleeping with someone and can only find out by talking to them or cooking a meal with them or preparing a body for burial with them. Other things you can't find out by any of those other means; only sex will do.

Also: exposition is not the same thing as either plot or worldbuilding. They overlap -- sometimes all three overlap, sometimes in pairs. But they're not identical. So:

Exposition: She was using failproof birth control.

Exposition and worldbuilding: The earring she wore in her left ear was like that of every other priestess of Ap'o'strop'hes: a charm against pregnancy.

Exposition and worldbuilding and plot: The earring she wore in her left ear, a charm of Ap'o'strop'hes against pregnancy, fell out with a soft thump in the sheets just before he came.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

(I have had similar contests of will recently. Yarg.)

Yes: and while you could indicate similar parts of that man's character in other ways, they wouldn't be the same.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"I thought her name was Alice. Why is it Beth in this scene?"
"Shut up."
"And where did this other chick come from? When they went in the bedroom there was one of each."
"Shut UP."
"Does it strike you as odd that all the other chapters have random-looking titles, but the ones with sex scenes in them have titles in alphabetical order?"
"SHUT UP, I SAID!"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And I'm not opposed to it. I just don't like doing it. Sometimes it belongs there.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

hee.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't there be too much moaning and sweating for exposition?

Some people are less inhibited about what they say during sex than at other times...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"A little to the left...yes...oh baby...THE SECRET DOCUMENTS ARE IN THE BRIEFCASE! YES!"

[mkille.livejournal.com]

And that could have plausible deniability as a euphemism, too. If they're kinky, the "secret documents" could be "redacted."

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

i only like writing sex scenes. not explicit, but not fade-to-black either. in fact, almost everything i write is a leadup to a sex scene, even if i don't actually put the sex in there and it comes out looking like something else.

*damn weirdo*