Hello to the Willamette Writers who came to my workshop.

On Saturday, August 4th, we all met in Portland and shared an amazing forty-five minutes together. I am so bummed we ran out of time.

As promised, here are my notes from the craft section of From Arousal to Zipper. Let's begin!

Now, how do we take your observations, your ideas, and your passion and put it into clear, gorgeous language?  Through craft.  In fact, I would say that craft matters the most in a sensual scene because the stakes are so high. Everything is heightened when arousal is on the line.

III.            Craft, craft, craft. Sexy writing doesn’t mean lazy writing. You still have to pay attention.

a.      Spelling, punctuation, verb tense.  This part kind of goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway. Like an accidental knee to a tender part, messing up here can really spoil the mood. Just saying.

b.     Point of View (POV)

                                                    i.     Quick recap: First person (I), Second Person (You), Third Person (He/She/They)/ Omniscient and Limited. The POV character is the one whose eyes the audience sees through. Make this person the one with the most to lose.

Valerie pinched the bridge of her nose. “You shouldn’t trust me.”

“I do lots of things I shouldn’t, darling. Do not fear.” He held up the forgotten bag of croissants. “If you put out, I’ll give you your sugar.”

Valerie snorted laughter against her sleeve. Clever man. 

“We can try, at least,” John continued. “Do you feel nothing for me?” 

She knew herself to be brave. What price would this choice demand? Did she have the courage to embrace everything this love had to offer as well?

She sucked in air, giving herself a rush from the oxygen.

Screw fear.

“I feel much for you,” Valerie answered and held out her hand.

                                                  ii.     Head hopping Going from one person’s POV to another back and forth can be really confusing. Don’t use it to avoid going into a character’s heart. Try to do it as little as possible. Use an extra return to mark different POVs.

                                                iii.     Using POV: The POV leads to how you use dialogue and monologue. Characters are rarely silent. What do their inner and outer conversations reveal during sex? Love scenes are about being cut open and vulnerable emotionally. The through line of confession emotions pushes and draws the plot along. This is how you integrate the emotions into sex.

c.      Emotions: Emotions lead to the body language and blocking. Action will logically follow how they feel. If she is feeling shy, she will look away and blush. If he is uncertain, he will rub the back of his neck. The blocking carries you to who will take the lead and what the subtext is to the scene.

                                                    i.      Feelings are more important than the action. When you write, ask the important questions: Did he make her feel good? Does she like him? Why did he lick his partner – because he wanted to? Or because of some internal quid pro quo?

                                                  ii.     Emotions lead to body language. Excite your readers’ emotions with details on how someone loosens their tie, licks their lips, or how they draw attention to their bodies. This is really makes your writing pop. For example: Bryan was turned on. Versus: Bryan’s cock pressed against his trousers. Desperate for relief, he faced the wall and shoved his hand under his waistband.

Extra note: Check out The Emotion Thesaurus by Ackerman and Puglisi 

                                                iii.     Double check your blocking. Use a pillow or a big stuffed animal and act it out to get all the limbs, tentacles, or fins in place. Make sure your positions are compatible with your characters’ physiology.

d.     Embody the sensations as much as possible – tight lungs, heat between the legs. WHERE do you feel arousal, where do your characters feel arousal? Ignore sexual stereotypes of “Men” and “Women” and figure out this individual character.

e.      Language: Also, the emotions will lead to variation in your writing – not just sexual variations like in a chair or on a horse (!) – but how long your sentences will be and how the language gets used (will he start off prim and then get more raunchy?). You have to know your characters and what language they would use for intimacy. Some people are demure. Would they use penis or thingy? Some people are blunter. Would your character be very clinical and use words like pudenda or phallus? Are they dirty and nasty to say cock and cunt? Perhaps they are more playful, like va-jay-jay and peen. Think about your character’s age, where they were raised, their family, the geography of their life. What brings them to this point in time where they want to have sex with the other characters?  For example, Julia Child, a chef, said, on taking something from the oven, “That’s as hot as a hard cock!”

f.      Geography. What happens at a rubber event in London is going to be very different than a young, inexperienced couple in rural Iran.

g.     Read it out loud.

h.     “Chekov’s Underpants”. "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."  Anton Chekov stated the importance of not wasting your time on inessentials. If you mention the color or state of someone’s underpants in one section, you’d better be sure to mention them coming off. If one character admires another’s lips, those lips better show up somewhere doing something hot.

I really hope this helps. If you have any questions, please leave a message or email me at LindaMercuryRomance @ gmail.com (no spaces, natch).