To whet your appetite for the Sexy Scenes workshop, December's online weekend workshop, I've got a delicious writing skill for you, as a great way in to writing the "naughty bits" in fiction: a SEXY LETTER.
Sex scenes and sexy snippets aren't just the realm of bonk-busters, Soho bookshops, hide-from-my-history sub-reddits, and excitable fan-fic: heaps of mainstream and literary fiction includes sex, often very explicitly, for excellent reasons. Sex matters in characters' lives. It can change their lives, reshape the plot, even play a role in the revolution. Three of the most mainstream / classic / Respectable novels we'll look at in the workshop are AS Byatt's Possession, Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale (the positive consensual sex scene in that, not the awful "ceremony"), and George Orwell's 1984. They include the sex scenes because they matter. They also include the sex scenes because the authors knew that it mattered and included what was right for the story, instead of stopping where embarrassment dictated or vocabulary failed.
It's worth expanding your writing repertoire to include the sex scenes. It's also extremely fun. And here's an especially fun, freeing way to get started.
One character is writing a sexy letter to another character. A very sexy letter. The character writing may or may not intend to send the letter. They might change their mind while writing it, perhaps even several times. It can be a confessional letter in a newly blossoming relationship, or writing within an established relationship. But it is very definitely a sexy letter.
So who are the characters?
- If you have a story in progress, you can use your existing characters, if it suits them.
- If you've done any of the other writing skills, you can use the characters from those. Most recently, we've had two skills focused on romantic relationships: Deluded Diary, for exploring new love, and Prove It's You, for exploring established love.
- If you don't have any characters from your work or previous skills, you could jump into either of the two above, spend ten minutes on that to discover the characters, and then come back to this.
- If you'd rather dive straight into writing a sexy letter, you can use this quick character gen to whisk up two characters. (Feel free to adjust the ages!)
Then decide which character is writing the letter to the other, grab some pen and paper, and start writing the letter, detailing – in plenty of detail! – exactly what they're imagining, remembering, longing for, hoping, fantasising, fixating on... Remember: they might not send the letter. So they can say whatever they want. (And you don't have to show what you write to anyone. So you can have them say whatever you want.) Give yourself permission to enjoy it, to get hot under the collar, even to giggle in shock at yourself. And have fun!
This is a delightful way to approach writing sex scenes or sexy snippets, because the nature of a letter means that you're focusing on the desire, not the instruction-manual mechanics. It's the desire that makes a scene zing – which is not to say keep it abstract, desire is wonderfully specific, just trust that the form of letter-writing will take it in the right direction. Plus, it's the character writing all this, not you, so through their (eager, ardent) voice, you can find the freedom to say all sorts of things that you might hesistate to write in your own voice.
The Sexy Scenes workshop is running online, on Zoom, on the weekend of 7–8 December, 10am–12:30pm both mornings UK time, and you can join from anywhere in the world. We'll be looking at heaps of excerpts, from the very explicit to the deeply suggestive, and exploring all the words, strategies, and approaches we need to write sex scenes and sexy snippets. Read more about it, including the workshop guidelines, and book here. Just three places left, so do book fast if you'd like to join!
