• Café Life is the Colony's main hangout, watering hole and meeting point.

    This is a place where you'll meet and make writing friends, and indulge in stratospherically-elevated wit or barometrically low humour.

    Some Colonists pop in religiously every day before or after work. Others we see here less regularly, but all are equally welcome. Two important grounds rules…

    • Don't give offence
    • Don't take offence

    We now allow political discussion, but strongly suggest it takes place in the Steam Room, which is a private sub-forum within Café Life. It’s only accessible to Full Members.

    You can dismiss this notice by clicking the "x" box

I saw this and it resonated

Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
Writing a sex scene for a romance, so as an essential plot point, is incredbily brave. I've written them to amuse and to point out a character flaw, but what you're talking about is a different level.
 
It's so creepy on so many levels. At least when there's a vagina involved, I can be a bit relieved, because thank Christ they know this could never have been my experiences, fantasies, or my Tuesday. When there's not a vagina involved, I'm like, Welp, here we go. Did he have the tattoo over his left pec or the right? Lemme think.
 
The TV pilot that got me the most meetings I'd ever gotten was from me deciding to just write whatever (the f) I wanted. Like no one would read it. Sex, sexual stuff, some a bit weird, all wrapped up in a telepathic bloodline kinda spec fic story. Honestly, I had SO much fun writing it. But when it came time to give it to my lit manager, I was so nervous. What would he think of me? To my shock (and a little bit of horror) it was incredible well received. The producer who picked it up said not to change a thing. Even the stuff I found really questionable.

NOW... let's be clear, it wasn't a traditional sexy-sex romance. The scenes were intended for TV, not porn. lol But it was a stretch for me to write sex scenes at all!

Point being, I learned from that not to be afraid of my imagination and not to fear judgement. Do what works for the story, what works for the characters, and let the imagination rip, baby!

This story is actually the one I'm going to adapt after I'm finished the one I'm working on now. I'm excited. Is that weird?
 
Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
100%, not weird, Lyse, and this why we adore you. Frankly, when I stopped trying to do closed-door and "be tasteful" then people were like THIS IS REALLY GOOD because they had been with the couple (or throuple) for so much that they wanted to see the spice on. the. fucking. page. Literally. And, frankly, after you've written a certain number of them you're like, this is where we are.
 
It's our version of "dance like no one is watching."
--- Write like no one will read it.

Tasteful is for sissies. :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:
I agree, for us writers, but for our readers? They may be less jaded. For instance, in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, a world of ambisexual humans struggles to deal with the issues of our world while jumping from neuter to female or to male every month. In our world that we consider real, since it occupies our imaginations in that way, and we interpret gender identity and fluidity as political issues, we all struggle.

Dance like no one is watching, but hire a PR pro, wear body armor, and carry a gun.
 
Once upon a time I wrote erotica. One story involved a boil on a 19th century character's buttock that needed to be lanced but they couldnt find anyone to do it. Until they did. The most successful story I wrote for that publication.
Erotica and lancing a boil? Right up my alley :D
 
Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.

Latest Articles By Litopians

  • Advertising and Social Media
    There has been much discussion in writing circles about how much a writer has to self-promote these ...
  • Future Abstract: Fights at Night
    SATIRE ALERT: The following abstract is entirely fictional and does not represent actual events or s ...
  • Great Novel Openings Quiz
    As writers, we all know how important it is to grip the reader from the very start. Intriguing, surp ...
  • In The Summertime
    In the early seventies, I had a semi-Afro hairstyle and a shaggy beard. . I thought I looked like th ...
  • Working with a Literary Agent
    The Querying In a previous post I mentioned that I was back in the query trenches. To recap, my earl ...
  • Danger! Danger!
    What is perhaps the most feared creature of the Borneo rainforest, I hear you ask? Who is the King o ...
  • The World Has Missed You
         May 2021… COVID lockdown restrictions had eased, so Mrs Treaclechops and I headed to the I ...
Back
Top