storytelling

Posted by at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm rushing around getting ready for this trip to Europe and won't be able to post -- possibly until I get back at the end of the month, depending on connection possibilities. I'm also going to shut down comments while I'm gone, or I'm afraid the spammers will move in and get comfortable. Please check back now and then, but I will be here for sure as of August 31 -- the day Fire Along the Sky goes on sale. Just two weeks. Imagine that.

Posted by at 8:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Both of these novels are excellent examples of their genre. Sandford's Lucas Davenport is a tough, no-nonsense homicide detective; Simmons' Joe Kurtz was a tough private investigator until he killed the guy who raped and murdered the woman he loved -- in a very well written, very shocking scene, I might add, the very first scene of this series of books about Kurtz.

Davenport has his very dark side, but Kurtz doesn't have anything but dark, no matter how you look at him. Davenport loves women, likes to talk to them, his closest friend is a nun. Kurtz is so hard bitten and terse that it's hard to imagine him smiling. We know he likes jazz; we know he's concerned (from afar) about his daughter; that's the end of it. These scenes are so different in tone you know, even if you read nothing else, that they are not from the POV of the same character.

Rules of Prey. Copyright John Sandford.

   "You should have been a shrink, " he said, shaking his head ruefully. He cut the water off and pushed open the shower door. "Hand me that big towel. I'll dry your legs for you."

    A half-hour later, Jennifer said hoarsely, "Sometimes it gets very close to pain."
   "That's the trick," Lucas said. "Not going over the line."
   "You come so close," she said. "You must have gone over it a lot before you figured out where to stop."

Hardcase. Copyright Dan Simmons.

   They moved together hard. Kurtz made his right hand a saddle and lifted her higher against the tiles while she wrapped her legs around his hips and leaned back, her hands cusped behind his neck, her arm and thigh muscles straining.
   When she came it was with a low moan and a fluttering of eyelids, but also with a spasm that he could feel through the head of his cock, his thighs, and the splayed fingers of his supporting hand.
   "Jesus Christ," she whispered in a moment, still being held against the tile in the warm spray. Kurtz wondered just how capacious this loft's hot water tank was. After another moment, she kissed him, began moving again, and said, "I didn't feel you come. Don't you want to come?"
   "Later," said Kurtz and lifted her slightly.

Mostly this short scene is erotic because it makes the reader wonder what in the heck was going on, and draws on the reader's own imagination. "And then they had sex," does the same thing, but not like this. In this case, you have just enough information to make you understand a few things about Lucas Davenport. Interesting things.

The Hardcase scene is extremely explicit, and from a man's POV, which is interesting in its own right. I would say, though, that it's so mechanical, and Joe Kurtz's POV is so detached, that there's nothing erotic about it. The author lets us into Joe's head, where we find him wondering about hot water heaters -- and this is the first time he's had a sexual encounter after eleven and a half years in prison. Would "and then they had sex" be a suitable substitute for this scene? Nope. Especially not if you read the whole scene from the beginning, which starts with Joe's contemplation on how doing without sex in prison drives some men crazy, and how he read the Stoics to deal with it. This scene gives you a lot of information about Joe. It's not very pleasant, it's slightly disturbing, but most of all it's very intriguing, for me at least. I kept wondering if he was ever going to put down the defenses and let himself feel anything. That's why I kept reading the series, to answer that question. You'll have to read it too if you're interested.

So now I'm done; this is the last time I'll post scenes for analysis, at least for the time being. I'm going to try to gather my thoughts on what I've learned by the process and I'll post them tomorrow.

Posted by at 12:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

I'm moving the contest entry up front as there are only three days until the drawing on August 15, at which point I should have already received a few copies; if I haven't, I'll still hold the drawing and pick the winner, and the book will go into the mail as soon as I receive it.

If you've tried and failed to enter in the last week, it should work now.

The rules are simple: by entering a comment here, you have entered this contest and you acknowledge and agree to the following:

• the author (me) is not responsible for technical difficulties arising from the software or hardware running this contest, and reserves the right to cancel without awarding the signed first edition if such difficulties make continuing impossible.
• the author (me) reserves the right to delete entries that (a) are duplicates [though if you make a mistake by clicking twice, send an email and it will be fixed]; (b) contain objectionable material such as spam, advertising or anything else that the author (me) deems contrary to the spirit of the whole undertaking.
• The winning entry will be drawn out of a hat, by the author (me), the one and only judge, and notified by email. If the winning party does not respond to email notification within one week, a second drawing will be held.
• All of the author's (mine) decisions regarding this contest are final.

In your comment/contest entry you need to do the following:

1. State your first name and the first letter of your last name.

2. Provide a valid email address.

3. Reproduce this statement (you can copy and paste): I've read the rules for this contest and I agree to them.

Here's a sample entry. Here's a sample entry (click to get a bigger version you can actually read. I hope.)

5. You can add a comment if you like (for example, let me know what you would like me to discuss here on the blog, or what you like about the books). However, please be aware that while I really, really like comments, a particularly complimentary comment won't help your chances at all one way or the other and conversely, no comment at all won't hurt you, either.

One last thing: if you have difficulties with the contest or questions about it, please get those to me by email. The only comment you should post right here is your contest entry. Good luck to all.

Posted by at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (173)

If I could jump in a time machine I'd go back to see her at age twenty or so and bring her a lifetime supply of cortisone supplements -- still the only treatment for Addison's disease, which is what killed her. Imagine another five or ten books by her. Wouldn't that be worth a spin in a time machine?

At any rate. Other people love Jane as much as I do, and some of them are very ... exacting. Austen Purists do not like anyone to fuss with the Work. Purists are opposed, unilaterally, to the small industry that has sprung up around Jane's stories, particularly to the dozens of sequels that have been published. Currently the list of such works over at the Republic of Pemberley numbers 68, and it is not complete. Personally I try to judge every after-the-fact sequel on its own merits, but thus far I haven't run into one that really worked for me.

All this by way of introducing Linda Berdoll's Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife -- which works in a very limited way.

One thing I would love to ask Jane (when we're sitting in her garden and after I've explained to her the function of cortisone and why her inability to produce it is going to be fatal) is this: when we get to the most crucial scene in Pride and Prejudice, the one we've been working toward for so long, why does she step away? Darcy and Elizabeth are finally declaring mutual love and a future together, but we are no longer in scene. Very frustrating, really. I would guess she'd tell me that it was far too personal a conversation to put down on paper. I expect that's exactly what the purists say, too: if Jane didn't want it told, we should be satisfied to leave it at that. But of course, nobody is ever satisfied. Fictional characters live on and independently of their creators. Elizabeth Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy are a case in point; maybe the ultimate case in point. Linda Berdoll was not the first to sit down and write the story of what happens after they get married, and I doubt she'll be the last. What sets her apart, though, is her willingness to explore the sexual relationship between them.

There is a lot of sex in this novel, probably too much. Some of it works very well; other bits don't. Part of the problem is that Berdoll decided to try to emulate Jane's late 18th century style and tone, which she pulls off only inconsistently. What she does do well is to give us scenes between Darcy and Elizabeth that go beyond sex, the very kinds of scenes that reveal so much about the inner person and the relationship. The passage I'm quoting here is after-the-fact. They have been married a very short time; Elizabeth, of course, has come to the marriage bed with very little concrete idea of what's going to happen, but great willingness and an open mind (she is, thus far, still in character as Jane created her) -- but she is also confused and at odds and worried that she's not performing to expectations, because she doesn't know how to interpret some of Darcy's reactions and comments. That's where this begins, with her misunderstanding of something he's said having to do with her loss of virginity.

Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife. Copyright Linda Berdoll.

    Before she had found reason or even anger at fate, which would have been a truer reaction for her nature, she bitterly (and with a great deal of self-pity) announced her obvious shortcoming.
    "I am stunted," she proclaimed.
    Still in heaving contrition atop her, he raised himself upon both elbows and inquired, "You are what?"
    "I cannot accomodate you. I am obviously stunted."
    Still raised upon his elbows, breathing heavily, but blinking at her remark in non-comprehension, he could only repreat, "You are 'stunted'?"
    "Yes."
    Impatient that he did not follow her reasoning, she explained to her exceedingly satisfied husband thusly, "My body obviously cannot meet your needs. I thought it was only at first, but you see now, it is not. I am stunted and cannot perform satisfactorily as your wife."
    "Lizzy, that is absurd!"
    "'Tis not absurd! You yourself said, 'This will not do.' Indeed, last night you said again and again that I was too small."
    "I said you were small, meaning...." he searched for an explanation.
    "Paltry," she answered for him.
    "No. I meant, small -- diminutive -- petite. Lush and tight."
    At that unprecedented explictness, he well-nigh blushed.
    Then, hastily, he continued. "It was a compliment, Lizzy, not a complaint. As far as my saying 'it will not do,' I only meant it would not do for me to continue to hurt you. That is my failing, not yours. I must rein myself in, for you are not too small. I am..." He flailed about for a delicate way to put it. "...rather large."
    "Oh."
    This was an interesting turn of events. The entire conundrum was the fault of his body, not hers.
    She bid, "Do you mean too large?"
    "I mean to say, you are small, but not too small."
    "You mean to say, you are not large, but too large?"
    "I am not all that large..." he made a frustrated little half-snort, obviousy unhappy at the direction the conversation was taking, but that did not deter her curiosity.
    "How large are you?"
    "As you see."
    "Well, you must understand, sir, my frame of reference is somewhat limited. Would you not grant I have no true way to compare it?"
    He almost smiled then reclaimed it, not wanting to encourage further discussion of the meritoriousness of his member. But he was tardy by half, leaving Elizabeth feeling saucy enough to inflict a tease.
    "Are you large enough to incite gossip? Are you large enough to be put upon display in Piccadilly?"
    By then thoroughly defensive, he said, "I said I was large, not a freak of nature."
    "I am just trying to get some idea of what sort of largeness we are dealing with here..."
    "I should have said I was not small."
    "There is a very wide gap in definition betwixt 'too large' and 'not small'."
    "It will have to simply remain so, for I refuse to discuss it further."
    He shook his head slightly, then said, "I truly believed I would be whispering endearments in your ear at this moment, not discussing logistiques."
    "But the dilemma has not been solved..."
    "I promise you, Lizzy, it shall be solved," he said. "With very diligent practice."

There are many little bits like this in the novel, where we see what falling in love has done -- and continues to do -- for Darcy. They both evolve, but he especially changes and grows, and it's a delight. Those bits alone made the novel worthwhile for me; I could overlook or forgive almost every other kind of infelicity, given this window into the way the newly married are continuing to fall headlong in love.

Tomorrow I'll try to draw out some guidelines that have been rising to the surface while I looked at these various sex scenes, or, maybe, I'll do one more. If I can find the book.

Posted by at 7:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

Posted by at 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is the story of Tilda, a good woman, an artist from a family of artists and art dealers with a long history of questionable practices. A very long history. Tilda is a seething mass of worries, angers, guilts, and corresponding asthmatic symptoms. In spite of her many worries, her difficult relationship to her (now dead) father, her concern for her mother, she has managed to hang on to the things that make her likable and interesting. She doesn't get close to people outside the family because she is loyal and honest, two things that don't really go together well in her situation. Which means she is also lonely, though she doesn't see it that way.

Enter Davy Dempsey, who is also from a family known for its less than amiable relationship with the law. He's attracted to Tilda, she's attracted to him, but her fear has definitely got the upper hand. When they embark on this first sexual encounter, she's so worried about her asthma, a missing painting, and the possibility that they may lose the family business that there's really no way for her to relax, and thus things are doomed from the start.

A few notes: the references to her inner Louise have to do with her attempt to model herself on her sister, who is able to have a fulfilling sex life because she compartmentalizes successfully. When she's out on the town, she's Louise. Tilda would like to have access to an inner Louise. Steve is her dog.

Faking It. Copyright Jennifer Crusie.

She began to move with him, trying to pick up his rhythm, which was hard because she kept slipping down the couch. Oh, hell, she thought, and moved her hand to brace herself on the back of the couch and caught him across the nose. Don't have a nosebleed, she thought, please don't have a nosebleed, but he just said, "Ouch," and kept going.

Single-minded, she thought. Okay, there is no Louise, Louise is like the Easter Bunny, so just breathe heavy and get this over with and never go near this man again.

She took deep breaths, not even trying to match his because they were never going to be in sync, and once she stopped trying and started breathing, things got better. He picked up speed, and Tilda tried to imagine the tightening of her muscles and did a damn good job with those moans as the minutes passed and her pulse picked up. Then he shifted against her and hit something good, and she sucked in her breath and thought, Wait a minute, this could--but even as she had the thought, he shuddered in her arms and that was it. Just hell, she thought, and finished off with an oh-my-god-that-was-good moan-sigh combo.

So much for channeling her inner Louise. He was semi-mindless on top of her now, so she held him, patting him on the back while he caught his breath and Pippy Shannon sang "I Pretend" on the jukebox. Our song, Tilda thought.

Steve dozed on the rug beside the couch, oblivious to both of them. He had the right idea. She should have taken a nap instead.

Then Davy pushed himself up on one arm and looked in her eyes, nose to nose. "So what was that?" he said, still breathing hard, looking mad. "A fake or a forgery?"

Most women and I assume, most men can think of times when things have gone Very Wrong much like this. The scene in Welcome to Temptation starts like this -- the encounter isn't working for Sophie, but Phin takes things in hand and turns them around. Here Davy seems not to notice that Tilda is mentally absent and physically unresponsive. She's pretty sure she's fooling him, at any rate, and thus it comes as a surprise to her when he makes it clear that he was indeed paying attention, and he doesn't like what happened. The line "A fake or a forgery?" summarizes the theme of the whole novel, which is lovingly complex and carefully constructed and really worth reading.

It's very hard to write bad sex well. Scott Spencer did it by subtle revelation of David Axelrod's inner demons in his first person observations of less than erotic details. Jenny does it with humor and also with sympathy. Tilda is funny, but she's also tragic in ways that take time to make themselves clear.

I'm coming to the end of my examination of sex scenes. I may drag out one or two more, and then wind things up. In a week's time I'm off to Europe until the end of the month, but I'll see what interesting bits might be hanging around between now and then.

Posted by at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (1)

Endless Love is about David Axelrod, a teenager desperately in love with Jade Butterfield but also with Jade's family. His own intellectual and detached parents can't compete with the Butterfields, who are unconventional and demonstrative. David and Jade's relationship bothers her father (who is in some ways as volatile a character as David himself) not so much because it is sexual, but because of the degree of obsession David shows for them all. He orders Jade to stop seeing David, who then makes a desperate play to win the family's love back, and missteps badly -- more than once -- with disasterous results. Near the end of the novel he does reconnect with Jade, who allows herself to be drawn back into the relationship. This excerpt is part of the longer scene in which Jade capitulates. Part of the delay is that she is having her period, but she is drawn enough to him, and he is eager enough, that they proceed anyway. The novel is written in David's first person POV.

Endless Love. Copyright Scott Spencer.

We kissed and stroked each other for a while. Jade straddled me and I thrust up to enter her, but missed. She took hold of me and guided me in. She fell a little dry and her discharge was thick, viscous -- the result of her period, the blood mixed with her normal secretions. She winced as I entered her ---it's awful, really, how stirring men find those small signs of pain. She lifted herself up a little and I popped loose of her. She came back down until the knobby bones of our hips touched and the bow-shaped curve of my cock pressed into the cushy heart of her genitals, sinking until it hit a ridge of cartilage. I pressed her at the small of her back; her hips were locked around mine now and I felt her pubic hair brush against me, as soft as breath on my belly. I pulled her down, made her bend from the waist, and crushed our chests together.

I whispered her name and when she didn't respond I felt a moment's panic.

I held her face and kissed her mouth. Her tongue felt huge, soft, and unbearably alive in my mouth. I breathed her breath. It was the night's first real kiss. Precise, enormous.

Why these particular graphic, less than erotic, almost distasteful details? Why language calculated if not to shock, then at least to push the reader away?

The sex is a way for us to see some frightening things about David, who is, after all, an unreliable narrator. There is very little of tenderness or affection here; this act is about blood, about crushing and crashing together, about barely constrained violence. Until he remembers to talk to Jade. Until he calls her name, and another part of his mind is engaged. It isn't until this point, until he kisses her, that the scene shifts. He holds her face, he takes note of the fact that she is alive, and breathing. The adjectives here (Precise, enormous ) change the tone and the direction of what is happening between them -- for him, at least. We can't know what Jade is feeling.

It's been observed before that sex and battle scenes are great places to see what a character is made of, and this scene is both. It is shocking, disturbing, distasteful because the things that drive David, things he has been withholding from himself and from us, are disturbing. This passage is as successful as a dark sex scene can be.

Whew. I'm ready for something a little lighter and I bet you are too. Tomorrow.

Posted by at 5:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Posted by at 12:46 PM | Permalink

Elizabeth Benedict's very interesting book "The Joy of Writing Sex" suggests that the default terms for genitals should probably be whatever your viewpoint character would think (unless there's a very good reason why not).

And it occurred to me that this may be part of why phrases like "throbbing manhood" etc. can hurl the reader out of the story so violently.

It's clear that sex scenes can crash for a wide variety of reasons. Yesterday I looked at one way you end up in a ditch by the side of the road, and here's another.

Paulo Coelho is a respected Brazilian novelist. I'll say first that Eleven Minutes is the only novel of his I have read, and second: this is not a review of that novel as a whole, but an examination of a particular scene. This scene doesn't work for me for a number of reasons: I find the tone inauthentic (more on this below), the scene does nothing to move the characterization or narrative along, and there's an awkwardness to the prose. This last point may have something to do with the translation, so I will put it aside.

On the matter of tone, voice and authenticity: I've said before and I'll say again, to be very clear: I'm not arguing here, would never argue, that a male writer shouldn't attempt a female POV. There are hundreds of examples where male writers have done this very well indeed. It is harder for a man to write a woman's POV, and for a woman to write a man's, sure. That degree of separation is an additonal challenge. If we're talking about a sex scene, things are tougher still, but not impossible. I'm using this scene from Eleven Minutes to illustrate an author failing, in my estimation, to make the leap. This is written from the perspective of Maria, a Brazilian woman.

Maria is telling us about an intense sexual encounter. In the midst of multiple orgasms, Maria talks about seeing God, about an overwhelming sense of peace, about heaven and hell. In a purely detached way it has got to be clear that there's nothing peaceful about multiple orgasms. Coherant thought is pretty much out the window in such a situation, much less a contemplation of the eternal divine, theology, cosmotology. So we have to doubt Maria's veracity, her memory, and whether or not she falls within the continuum of the realistically human. Thus, we doubt the author.

What went wrong here, I think, is that Coelho was reaching beyond the physical (maybe because of the challenge presented -- even women have trouble describing orgasm) to emotional thoughts and reactions, and didn't quite succeed.

Of course, a woman writing about sex from a woman's POV is just as likely to crash and burn, but for different reasons.

Tomorrow I've got a sex scene from the male's POV written by a male which works, oddly, because it doesn't.

Posted by at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (1)

From Pam:

Isn't it a truth that where trust is required, self-knowledge and knowledge of the other is essential? So sex scenes and battle scenes - a couple of ways to tell the truth about your characters.

From email:

[my favorite quote] "Would those of you who've never had sex, PLEASE stop writing about it!" Which still makes me giggle. I read it initially in a discussion of the scary and anatomically impossible things that some fanfic writers put characters through, where it is extra-true.

From Robyn:

Part of the magic of a sex scene that does work is how it lets you see into these people, how they reveal new things to themselves and to each other as well as to the reader.

From Gerry:

It would be bad, I think, if an author got to feel obliged to be constrained on this or that - like when the Inquisition made Descartes tread very carefully.

From Jena:

Excellent suggestion re subbing "Then they had sex" to test whether the scene is generic vs. unique. I can see the same idea working for fight scenes, chase scenes, scenes about the weather, location, etc. etc.

Posted by at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you're caught up, I'll start with a theory: no matter how messed up we are as a culture when it comes to sex, no matter how obliged people may feel to disavow an interest in reading about sex, almost everybody is drawn to it. Because that's true, some authors feel obliged, and write sex scenes for the wrong reasons. Usually this ends badly.

The basic truth is this: any and every scene needs to earn its place in the narrative flow, and sex is no different. No matter how much I love a character and a story, I'm not interested in following them everwhere. The author can safely leave out bathroom visits, cutting of toenails, the phone call about the electric bill, the spilled coffee, the songs on the radio while the character drives to work. Unless something significant happens (Anna discovers a breast lump while she's in the shower; Mary spills her coffee on her wedding dress accidentally on purpose) this stuff doesn't belong in the story. In the same way, you end up with generic, boring, unnecessary sex scenes stocked with color by number orgasms unless there's a compelling reason to include the scene in the first place.

Carefully constructed, thoughtful sex scenes are one good way to show what's right or wrong in a relationship; it's in high tension situations that characters let go, and really, what else is sex about? Where else is character revealed in such a direct way? It's not the only way to do this, but it can be a very effective one.

So sex scenes go wrong because (1) the author writes such a scene for reasons that have nothing to do with characterization and story; (2) the author is personally uncomfortable with such scenes. In either case, a writer often resorts to shortcuts, and what is a shortcut in fiction? Stereotype and cliche. It's hard to come up with an interesting, non-generic sex scene that's motivated by the characters and the narrative, so some authors fall back on the tried and (supposedly) true. Then you've got a generic sex scene which is boring and (at best) poorly written or (at worst) unintentionally funny.

Which brings me to these examples. These sentences are from published novels, each of them from a different author, but you'll notice that there are some striking similarities.

He knelt between her silken thighs, his throbbing manhood poised at her entrance.

Her slender, silken thighs opened to the sweetest, tightest piece of woman he'd ever had.

Finally he was able to lodge himself within the tightest passage that had ever enclasped his throbbing manhood.

He felt a moist warmth enclose the end of his throbbing manhood, and then more than the end.

She saw the small sensual flare of his nostrils.

And with each pulse came a sensual rain that eased his way even more.

He continued his sensual movements, caressing her most private nub of flesh with his thumb.

The tip of his finger found her tiny love button, and he rubbed it.

He drew back to caress the nubbin of flesh now tight and throbbing with need.

… he could part her legs and put his tongue on the burning pearl of flesh that made her scream out.

For example, let's consider burning pearl of flesh. The thoughts that went through my head: Can a pearl burn, and if that pearl burns, she's in pain and not having a real good time just now, right? Isn't a pearl too hard a substance to serve as a metaphor here? And the color's all wrong, too. And if the pearl of flesh is really burning, he's about to get a big surprise -- and a blister on his tongue. Maybe some sensual rain would be a good idea at this juncture, eh?

The bottom line: a writer who can only be comfortable writing about sex by resorting to these kinds of suspect terms and images shouldn't be writing about sex at all.

Genitalia, erogenous zones and specific acts aren't the only place where the unmotivated, uncomfortable or lazy writer will resort to cliches. There is a list of words that have been so overused that they should be retired, maybe permanently. Silken thighs, raven tresses, sensual anything -- these phrases have been stripped of any meaning they might have once had. Now they are nothing more than placeholders, and funny placeholders, at that. When the author resorts to these terms, you really have come to the place where it would be possible -- and preferable -- to substitute "and then they had sex" for the whole extended scene.

Am I being mean? Maybe. Mostly I'm trying to be clear and take an honest look at what goes wrong. Tomorrow, a change in direction.

Posted by at 1:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (2)

Now that we're alone.

A few notes before I get started. First, if you are new to fan fiction, you probably should have a look at an earlier post (Fan Fiction: Why I like it), which will make some of the preliminaries clear. Second, this is Farscape fan fiction. If you don't know about Farscape, you must be pretty new to this blog, as I talk about it on a regular basis. So to catch up: Here's a good overview; here's one of my short essays on it, and in a few sentences (if you're really impatient to get to the fiction) here's the absolute minimum you need to know:

John Crichton is scientist who was running an aerospace experiment when he got stuck in a distant part of the galaxy; Aeryn Sun is Sebacean, a species very closely related to human. (One of my favorite tag lines: He's human. She's not. And you thought Romeo and Juliet had problems.) They spend two years becoming friends, saving each other's asses and minds in terrible situations, beating each other up (sometimes literally), and falling in love.

Fan fiction exists mostly on the internet, so I could just send you over to read Robyn's "The Well-Known Act" in its entirety. In fact, you should do that, because it's an example of an extremely well done, very adult extended sex scene. But in the spirit of the exercise I began, I'm going to quote bits of it, anyway. For those of you too shy to take the plunge, so to speak.

The consummation of this very complex, very intense relationship is a topic Robyn handled in a series of short stories which deal with the emotional development of the characters as individuals and a couple, as well as with the physical. This is from Aeryn's point of view. I'm excerpting two bits here, from the beginning of the interlude (the first line of dialogue is John) and then a bit from the middle of it when things are in full flow.

"The Well-Known Act". Copyright Robyn Bender.

"The well-known act of sexual congress. I've had some thoughts."

"You think too much."

"But I do good work."

"Granted. All right."

"We ARE different creatures. We don't know how we fit, not like that, not for sure. I need to know that you're way more than ready. I'm thinking, we start with the usual stuff. Rev you up a few times. Probably more than a few. But just keep away from my cock, okay? I'll get far enough, fast enough, touching you, seeing you. Give me a chance." The towel was gone. He was kissing her, settling in.

Might as well lie back. Put herself in his hands. She knew the man couldn't be rushed.

She was right, of course. Things happened. Time passed. He could drive her all night.

========================

bodies entwined. How much skin could they press? Embrace and roll. His lips on her throat. Her hand caught the nape of his neck, run through that short, soft hair. Come here, you. Cup his skull. Capture his mouth for a wet, deep kiss

========================

on her back, shaking. Helpless with laughter. His mouth buried down in her sex. Those gleeful blue eyes peering up, eyebrows waggling. She stretched her arms toward him. He caught at her hands. Interlaced fingers, palms pressed together. She rolled her head back and stretched their arms high. Laughed and laughed as she came.

Note that the word choice is explicit but matter-of-fact; nothing flowery, no over extended metaphors. The most direct descriptions of sexual acts (his mouth buried down in her sex) are offset by simple images of affection (interlaced fingers, palms pressed together).

Things intensify:

"That okay?" he asked softly, voice in her ear.

"You bastard!" she laughed. Could barely say it. Breathed hard through her mouth. "It'll do."

He gripped her waist. "Baby, I want you."

"You have me, I think."

"Yes, I do." He moved deliberately, microns, fractions. Slow, so slow. He is going to do me, indeed, indeed. He intended to use everything he knew, his midnight thoughts, his very best skills. She was frelled. She laughed again. Too small a word. Who had known what it meant?

Her laugh faded out. She was straining up toward him. He held the same spot. Not so fast, my dear. Can't have it all. He slid his hand down, wet with the silk. Cool, slippery stuff on her lips, her clit. "Oh, you are BAD," she gasped, as his fingers skittered around, around. Just that little bit extra. Just one thing more. He watched the flush rise on her chest before he leaned down. His lips found her nipple. She jumped, and that jump hit his cock and she rippled around it, set off again. His mouth clamped down wetly and sucked. Can I come with my breast? Apparently so. God, only one mouth. But his palm took over, rubbed that wetness, his mouth to the other one, swirling his tongue. Yes. That!

She needed more brain. Too much coming in. Her hips rocked, her pelvis, she could feel each wet curl at his root. All circuits locked open, no filter. Squeeze her eyes shut. Try to swallow the waves in her throat. Was she making that cry, that call? His mouth clamped hers. Her throat still sang.

To follow the analysis I used in the other passages, the obvious contrast is in this author's willingness to use words considered by many to be taboo: cock, clit, nipple -- without resorting to technical terms or coy euphemism. It's very possible, even likely, that if you are writing fiction in which sex scenes have a natural place in the character and plot development you will not want to take things this far. I don't, not because I'm afraid my readers wouldn't like it or my editor would object, but because I don't think I could manage the delicate balance necessary to make it work. Which for me means that you can't substitute "and then they had sex" without losing things important to the characterization and narrative flow.

I've been talking now for three days about scenes that don't work because they are generic, forced, and coy in tone. Tomorrow I'm going to look at some of those. Then I'll look at a scene that isn't badly written, but doesn't work, for me, for other reasons. I've got a list of maybe four or five sex scenes to cover in the next week.

Posted by at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

I especially like the comments people have been leaving with their entry information, sometimes very funny and always very much appreciated.

Here's the link to the post where the contest lives. Scroll all the way to the bottom to get to the screen you'll need.

PS This is the 501st post I've made since I started this blog.

Posted by at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The two main characters in this historical romance are Stuart Aysgarth, a viscount, and a woman called Emma Hotchiss. Emma has a very shady past but at this point in her life she is an utterly respectable and unremarkable woman who owns a sheep farm in Yorkshire. Stuart gives her cause to seek him out when he causes harm to her livestock, but after getting no satisfaction she takes matters into her own hands. Thus, he catches her in the act of robbing him (I'm simplifying this, please note). So he ties her to a chair to keep her from running off, but more importantly because this is an opportunity he had been hoping for. With her questionable connections and background, she can help him with a problem -- or if she prefers, he can call the sheriff.

There is a long, interesting, complex discussion between these two while she's tied to the chair, business negotiations and personal observations, all fraught with a great deal of sexual tension arising from strong mutual attraction. Emma is experienced and not easily frightened, but she is at a bit of a loss on how to handle Stuart, who tells her she must give up two minutes of her time to experience the personal trespass he has suffered over a longer period.

This initial confrontation, discussion and negotiation takes many pages, and eventually they get to kissing (another couple pages). Remember that Emma is still tied to the chair where this excerpt begins.

Untie My Heart. Copyright Judith Ivory.

Somewhere along the way his hand returned to her knee, light, dry, warm possessive. Just his hand on her knee. For balance. Still, for a second, she knew a tiny panic. He stroked it away. His thumb rubbed the inside of her knee, two soft, short strokes along the bend, the first reassuring, the second bringing such a shocking physical rush of blood to the core of Emma, she nearly lost her breath. Her legs … dear heaven, her legs. She felt all at once exposed … aware how close he was to… well, he could have put his hands, that thumb, those fingers anywhere.

Almost gentlemanly, sweetly, as if he read her mind, he broke away long enough to lean over sideways. With one hand, he yanked at the ties at her legs, ripping them in part, setting her right knee free first --oh, lovely!--coming back to kiss her again briefly--then stopping long enough to lean in the other direction. She lifted her free foot out, straightening her knee to stretch, as he undid her other one. Not that he was letting her free or up exactly, because as soon as her legs were freed, he came back to that astonishing kiss, having her rather trapped against the chair.

Then, the next thing she knew, his hands hooked under her knees, and he lifted her legs up as he moved forward and straddled the chair himself, sitting, while in the same movement lifting, running his hands under her legs down her calves to her ankles. He sat, taking her legs up over his. He still had to bend forward slightly, he was so much taller, but he was less awkward, more comfortable, she thought, sitting on the chair-until he moved forward and brought their bodies close, up against each other. She would have slapped him perhaps. Maybe. Difficult to say, since her hands were still held behind her. In any event, it was a shock at first to feel him -- his male body up against her spraddled female one.

He bent forward, kissing her harder. One moment, his hands were at the sides of her, gripping the chair posts over her head. He curved his hips hard against her, and she knew the heady thickness of him. All so oddly familiar, yet not. The next moment, one of his hands was between them, at her waist, then the back of his hand glided down her belly, almost protective. Then he took his hand away--and nothing. Absolutely, positively nothing whatsoever was between them. Unless one counted something else she hadn't felt in a very long time: a very capable, fully naked, and perfectly beautiful male erection.

He either knew or was inventing on the spot how to have sexual congress on a chair … they were about to…she was letting him ... no, she jerked on her hands, they weren't free in back….she was his prisoner…wasn't she? Was she letting him? She wet her lips to say stop. The word didn't come out. Did she want him to? Now was certainly the moment to say so. Decisions seemed to hang, demanding her attention, yet her brain couldn't seem to keep up with her body.

She felt herself swollen, lit, as the head of his penis dropped against her. It slid down the length of her in an instant acknowledgement of how ready she was. The warm movement of his hand was there, adjusting himself into position - here was certainly the moment to protest. Did she want to?

Then it was too late to protest anything. With a swift, sure movement of hips, he thrust himself deeply, thickly inside her. Her body all but pulled him into her, swallowing him up. His arms were at either side of her again, enfolding her against the chair, against him, his chest, the spicy-warm smell of him…his strong, muscular shoulders hunched toward her, one hovering at her face till the starchiness of his shirt rose into her nostrils like steam, till she tasted it in her mouth. . . his hips under her, his presence inside her, hot and substantial, driving … intrusive, amazing . . . he lifted into her with a kind of rhythmic spasm that was so satisfying she bit down on his shirt, clenching her teeth. Seconds. It lasted seconds -- perhaps three deep, solid stokes of Stuart's body into hers. While her own contracted around his the moment of entry and simply kept contracting… tighter and tighter and tighter. . . until an explosion... or implosion, things collapsing and shoving and moving inside as she couldn't remember in years, maybe ever, . . with both herself and Stuart making such noises, mutters, animal sounds, groans.

She came to her senses again like this, her heart pounding with him right there in her face, his body up against her, still inside her.

Two minutes. Had it taken two minutes? Feasible. It was entirely feasible.

The approach here is very explicit: we see what Emma sees, and feel what she feels. Every one of Stuart's actions is recounted, but in rather sober, vaguely surprised language. She registers things: the shock of his body against hers, the familiarity of a male body still after a long dry spell, and a very calm assessment of his body in a state of sexual arousal. What kind of woman, in this situation, thinks a very capable, fully naked, and perfectly beautiful male erection. Notice the juxtaposition of the sensible observation (capable) with the appreciative one (perfectly beautiful).

She debates with herself what she wants, and her role in this whole business. I've read this many times to see if I could talk myself into believing that she is being abused or raped, but I can't see it. She knows perfectly well how to stop him, considers doing that, and doesn't. She never makes a direct and conscious decision to go ahead and have sex with the man; it's more of a decision she makes by letting opportunities slip by. Once the act has actually begun, she's caught up in the physical sensations, and they are provided for us in detail: the things she smells, tastes, feels, sees.

Her final thoughts -- Two minutes? Entirely feasible are completely in character, and perfectly caught.

I've wondered too what to make of the lack of dialogue between them in these two minutes -- they certainly chatter away in the first twelve or so pages of the scene, and now complete verbal silence. This experience is for Emma a fairly solitary one; if she looks into Stuart's eyes we don't know about it; it's all about what's going on inside her own head and her own body. Has Emma changed in the course of this encounter, has the narrative shifted? That's something you'd have to decide for yourself by reading the whole novel, but I think that this is in fact a turning point for her, and for Stuart.

I think I like this and find it to be successful because it is unique and unusual and evocative. I'm curious what y'all think.

Posted by at 1:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

two hallmarks of a Generic Sex Scene: (1) You can grab a few such scenes at random from different books, juggle the names and eye colors, and be hard-pressed to tell which scene goes with which story; and, even more damning, (2) you can remove the scene entirely, substitute the sentence, "Then they had sex," and the larger narrative will not suffer.

The excerpt I've got today is from A.S. Byatt's Possession, which won the Booker Prize some years ago and is as high-brow as a novel can get. It's a hugely complex story, but at its center is a romance set in the Victorian age. A correspondence between a well established poet (Randolf Henry Ash) and a lesser known woman poet (Christabel LaMotte) begins when they meet at a breakfast given by a mutual friend. Ash is married; Christabel lives with a woman artist in a relationship that may go beyond friendship, something that is never made clear. They are intellectual equals; they fall in love, and eventually they travel to Yorkshire together, secretly.

Possession: A Romance. Copyright A.S. Byatt.

She met him with passion, fierce as his own, and knowing too, for she exacted her pleasure from him, opened herself to it, clutched for it, with short animal cries. She stroked his hair and kissed his blind eyes, but made no more specific move to pleasure him, the male -- nor did she come to that, all those nights. It was like holding Proteus, he thought at one point, as though she was liquid moving through his grasping fingers, as though she was waves of the sea rising all round him. How many, many men have had that thought, he told himself, in how many, many places, how many climates, how many rooms and cabins and caves, all supposing themselves swimmers in salt seas, with the waves rising, all supposing themselves -- no, knowing themselves unique. Here, here, here, his head beat, his life had been leading him, it was all tending to this act in this place, to this woman, white in the dark, to this moving and slippery silence, to this breathing end. "Don't fight me," he said once, and "I must," said she, intent, and he thought, "No more speech," and held her down and caressed her till she cried out. Then he did speak again. "You see, I know you," and she answered breathless, "Yes, I concede. You know."

There is a great deal of very exacting, very deep emotion in this short paragraph -- which fits, because this is not a casual sexual encounter. This is a life changing experience for a man who had reconciled himself to a loving but platonic marriage and a life of celibacy, and who has now found -- but will not be able to keep -- a woman who is his intellectual and sexual equal.

The short bit of dialogue here echoes their whole relationship: he leads past the point of her comfort, she resists and so they move beyond the language which drew them together in the first place. There is change for both characters as individuals, and the relationship has shifted, as it must in this circumstance.

I've got a passage from Judith Ivory's Untie My Heart that I want to excerpt tomorrow. I find it interesting because its tone falls somewhere between the comic playfulness of Welcome to Temptation and the intellectual lyricism of Possession. After that I'll take on Robyn Bender's "The Well Known Act" -- so brace yourself.

Posted by at 8:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

The first rule for any sex scene is that it has to contribute to the characterizations and the plot. In this case, we have two people in bed together for the first time. They've only known each other a few days but there's a lot of tension between them, sexual, personal, professional; she's got a secret he's determined to unearth because he sees her work as possibly damaging to his own. Sophie is unsure of herself in a lot of different ways, and at odds because she's wildly attracted to this guy and doesn't trust him.

This is the first full sexual encounter (although there's a very interesting assignation on a boat dock earlier), and right off Sophie's not having a good time. She's wondering how to tell him it's not working, and that maybe they should go watch television, when he figures that out for himself and takes steps -- without interrupting what he's doing. That's where this excerpt starts.

Welcome to Temptation. Copyright Jennifer Crusie.

"I think it's time we got to know each other," Phin said, laughter in his voice. "What do you think about when you masturbate?"

"Okay, I'm out of here." Sophie tried to roll out from under him, but he pressed down on her with his hips, and she stayed just to feel him hard inside her.

"What do you think about, Sophie?" he whispered in her ear, and she said loudly, "I don't think about anything."

"You are such a lousy liar." He rolled again, this time so that she was on top, his body sliding slickly under hers, and Sophie felt herself flush.

"Bondage?" he said, his voice husky as he rocked against her, his hands on her hips, and she caught her breath and said, "You come near me with a rope, and I'm history."

"Okay, later for that," he said. "Rape fantasy?"

''Tacky," she said, and he said, "Not if you do it right. You want to dominate?"

"Oh, yeah. Like you'd let me." She started to laugh, only to stop when she heard people in the kitchen downstairs. "Shhh."

"Why?" Phin stopped moving. "It's just Wes and Amy."

"Yeah." Sophie looked over her shoulder at the door.

"Did you lock it?" Phin said in her ear, and he sounded amused.

"I forgot." She tried to pull away from him, but he rolled and trapped her again, sliding deeper inside her and making her gasp. "Stop it," she said breathlessly. "I'm not even sure it's closed all the way. Let me go lock it and I'll come back."

"Bothers you, huh?" Phin started working his way down her neck again as he pulsed inside her, and Sophie felt the heat spread low as her blood pounded.

"No," she lied.

'"They could walk in anytime." He nibbled on her shoulder, and she twitched under him and felt her breath go. ''Walk right in and find us naked." He slid his band up to her sweat-dampened breast, and the heat rolled across her as she moved to his rhythm. "Find you naked. With me inside you. Nothing you could do about it."

She caught her breath and said, "Stop it." and he said, "Nope, I think we're getting somewhere."

She squirmed under him to get away, and their bodies slid together. He said, "Oh, God, yes. Do that," and she smacked him on the shoulder because he was so impossible, and arched into him at the same time because he was so hard moving inside her and he felt so good.

"Maybe I can get. . . somebody else. . . to open that door," he said in her ear, and she said, "No!" a lot louder than she meant because it was part moan. She heard Amy say, "Sophie?" downstairs, and she tensed. Phin laughed down at her, his face as damp as hers.

Beautifully moist, Sophie thought. Be careful what you wish for.

Amy called her name again, and Phin said "Excellent." He rocked higher into her and she bit her lip to keep from moaning and then moaned anyway. "Louder," he said, and she shook her head as the heat built and his rhythm began to make her mindless.

"Then it's up to me." He sounded breathless. "The guy always has to do everything."

He leaned over her to the bedside table, and she bit into his shoulder from the sheer pleasure of feeling him against her. Then he stopped, and she looked up to see him holding the alarm clock.

"I'll buy you a new one," he said, and threw it against the wall. "What are you doing?" she screamed as it crashed and went off clanging. Amy called up, "Sophie?" and Phin moved again, rocking harder, and she shuddered under him and gasped, "Stop it."

"This close? Not on your life." He was moving faster now, and she clutched at him and breathed hard as the pressure built. She said, "No... no. . . we're not... close," and he rolled across her again, making her jerk against him. He picked up the dolphin lamp, yanking the cord out with it, and she realized what he was doing and shrieked, "No!" just as he threw it against the wall.

It shattered and fell on top of the clanging alarm. "Sophie?" Amy called, and started up the stairs, and Phin said, "This is it," and moved high into her, grabbing her wrists and holding them over her head, sliding hot on top of her, rocking hard inside her, whispering in her ear that Amy'd catch them, any minute, any minute, any minute, now, now, now, and Sophie twisted under him, caught in the heat and the slide and the panic and the throb he was pounding into her, and then Amy said, "Sophie?"' and pushed open the door, and Sophie cried, ''Oh, God," and came so hard she almost passed out.

"Oh," Amy said, and shut the door.

You can go through and pick out the words that are evocative, and many of them are verbs: pound, move, clutch, pulse, rock, bite, slide, whisper, moan. That list of words taken alone says 'sexual encounter.' Sex is a matter of physical exertion (in this case, at least) and these verbs bring that home to the reader. There are quite a few indirect references to the way these two are engaged; particularly the prepositions in and into make clear what is going on. Heat is a major theme here: the room is hot (earlier it's established that there's no airconditioner, and it's high summer) and the friction is both emotional and physical.

My take on this scene is that in spite of the deft choice of verbs and visual images, it really works because of the dialogue. Dialogue is one of Jenny's strongest points, and here she really shines.

The cardinal rule of any dialogue is that it has to serve more than one purpose to earn its place on the page. In this case, we get some real information about Phin: He's got a sense of humor, tremendous presence of mind, exquisite control, imagination, and he's sexually generous and playful, all excellent things that Sophie can't resist, and neither can the reader. He's also outrageous, which really takes this scene beyond the pale. Whatever doubts Sophie had about him before this encounter, they have changed significantly by the time they are through. His suspicions about her -- the fact that she's repressed but reachable, that she will respond if approached well, are confirmed. They are on their way.

One final note on this: notice the way the rhythm of the sentences changes over the course of the scene. From fairly short and choppy in the beginning to an ending which is one long, fast, intense sentence. Which is meant to remind us of the act it's describing, and does.

Tomorrow I'm going to look at something very different, far more serious in tone, almost lyrical in approach, which works for different reasons and in different ways.

Posted by at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (1)

Each scene was chosen because it illustrates something instructive, positive or negative. I have tried to construct a list which contains a range in matters of expliciteness, tone and approach. What I'm going to do is this: tomorrow I'll start discussing these scenes one by one on the basis of short excerpts. The idea is look at the choices the author made, the underlying mechanics and process, what works, what doesn't. By the time I'm done I hope to be able to articulate clearly some basic guidelines for effective sex scenes of different types.

A quick word about my personal take on these scenes: it's just that, my take. I expect that there will be differences of opinion. Finally, because it goes against the grain to hold somebody else's work up as an example of things going wrong, I resort, in some cases, to withholding author and title.

The scenes I'm going to analyze (in no particular order) come from these novels:

Welcome to Temptation, Jenny Crusie. A first sexual encounter that isn't working out well for Sophie until Phin takes drastic measures to prove to her that she does have some fantasies, after all, and he knows just what to do about them.

Faking it, Jenny Crusie. There's a scene in this novel which is the only example of a failed first sexual encounter that I know of that works on multiple levels.

Possession: A Romance, A.S. Byatt. In the Victorian era a famous poet of considerable standing, married, and a lesser known woman poet, unmarried, travel to Yorkshire to together in the culmination of an affair conducted by letter.

"The Well Known Act" Robyn Bender. Farscape fan fiction, NC-17. How to go to extremes, and still keep successful control of the story and the characters. The readers are on their own, however.

Endless Love, Scott Spencer. In a scene toward the end of this novel of obsessive young love the author takes some big chances.

Eleven Minutes: A Novel, Paulo Coelho. Maria, a young woman from a small Brazilian village, sets off on a journey of sexual discovery and ends up a prostitute. This is told from Maria's POV, which is... well, you'll see.

The Indiscretion. Judith Ivory. A historical romance which pulls off a number of risky manouevers.

[titles withheld]. Bad, bad word choices and the damage done.

Posted by at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (1)

Over the years I have worked out a few tricks. The first is that when I'm writing a scene that involves a lot of minor characters, I put the names in brackets [Moses] and leave them that way until I'm finished. Then with the notated character list in front of me, I search through the document for every set of brackets so that I can check them. More than once I have saved myself from fictional disaster doing this. Before I ever start, though, I make a little map for myself of which individuals and families were active in the last novel, and figure out (1) how old they now are (2) where they live and work (3) if I can do without them realistically, and if so, where I'm sending them. Off to Johnstown to work in a smithy, for example.

Of course, there's still the basic problem of naming so many characters, and then handling the names. It's harder than it sounds, and also, for me at least, one of the things I enjoy doing the most, researching names. I have lots of old newspapers and reproduction documents from the time periods I work in, and I'm always scanning them. Some of the best I have ever found came out of official notes of various council meetings in New York City in the early 1800s. That really as a treasure trove, but one I had no way to use without adding dozens of characters who would then mill around with nothing to do. You can't name a character Mangel Minthorn -- even if there was such a person running around Manhattan in 1802 -- and just let him ... moulder. The solution came when Elizabeth was sitting with Selah Voyager during her labor. What better place for a discussion of names, after all, and thus my treasure trove got put to work.

It's true that I have a weakness for odd names but I also like strong, simple names for main characters. Thomas Hardy, one of my favorite authors, had a genius for names. I borrowed his Gabriel Oak for one of my own characters, as a tribute to Hardy and Gabriel (the hero of Far from the Madding Crowd) both.

The other side of the problem is even more tricky. Once you're deep into the story, the issue becomes how often to use a character's name, and what to use instead of that name when issues of rhythm and tone demand alternates. Gabriel Oak could be called Gabriel by some, Gabe by others, Mr. Oak, Brother Oak, or (not in my novel or Hardy's, but this is an example) Buddy, and of course there are the standard pronouns: he, him. But this starts to feel like juggling, doesn't it? Isn't there a simple way to handle this?

I am not a huge fan of H.W. Fowler's rather rigid rules on writing -- most especially not when it comes to fiction -- but in this case I think the Chapter called Airs and Graces is useful, specifically his term 'elegant variation' which you can read in its entirely here. I reproduce his two guiding principles:

(1) Variation [in names, for example] should take place only when there is some awkwardness, such as ambiguity or noticeable monotony, in the word avoided. (2) The substitute should be of a purely pronominal character, a substitute and nothing more; there should be no killing of two birds with one stone. Even when these two requirements are satisfied, the variation is often worse, because more noticeable, than the monotony it is designed to avoid.

Later this month I'll be going to Europe for two weeks to visit family, but between now and then I thought I'd write about one of those topics few seem willing to tackle directly: sex scenes. If anybody's interested in sex, that is. If I used emoticons, I'd put one here.

Posted by at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So I'm going outside to do things, and then maybe I'll write some more today. Tomorrow I'll probably be back to my four or five pages, and that's fine. I will also try to post something about backstory, as I left that topic in mid-stream.

Posted by at 9:38 AM | Permalink