I've never attempted a sex scene before, and bearing in mind that my target audience is Young Adult, I was a little reluctant to go ahead with this. My first attempt was so cringingly awful that I had to scrap all the details completely and write my way around it.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

'Standing David

Cheers,

Colin M

Colin,

There was a long thread discussing this very issue a while back and some of us were even interested in starting a group for that purpose! It is such a difficult thing to tackle. I can't for the life of me find the thread, though. Does anyone else remember?

It is also something I'm going to have to deal with in my young adult novel pretty soon too.

I'll take a look at your attempt later, though.

Cath

I remember we discussed starting a group for erotic writing. Is that the one you mean. Do a search on 'erotic' and you'll find it.

Dee

I loved this. The characters were extremely well drawn and it wasn't difficult to imagine the scene.

I'm not the best person to ask about the boundries of YA, but I agree it is difficult to write sex without embarrassing oneself. My book has several intense sex scenes, and I dread what people will make of them. I wanted to play them down, but my publisher insisted they should stay as they were.

Overall though, the theme of your story is hardly pornographic - just honest. I'm sure YA will appreciate that. It's good writing. I liked your website too -some great art on there! (Though you shouldn't be so self-deprecating about your writing!)

JB

Cheers James. I showed my wife the original draft and felt so awful that someone else was reading it that I had to redraft anyway, but she pointed out, with tact, that it was pretty rubbish. It just isn't something I can do. So, I asked myself the simple question: how important is sex to the story. Well, it isn't. That Ashleigh is in control is important, but not the details of the act.

I'm playing with character development at the moment. I'm particularly interested in how readers make judgements, and how they refine, rather than redraft their judgements. Ashleigh is having sex, she's in control, but there is a reason for control: they are robbing him blind. She uses her age to scare him - ah, but it isn't her age, it's her appearance, she obviously looks younger than she is - and so on. I'm doing the same with the empty vodka bottle - the reader assumes the bottle was drunk in one night, but will later find that the mother isn't an alcoholic, but was need a drink that night.

I'd like to plan this into a novel, but right now I'm just doing these exercises, building muscles. It's fun.

Cheers for looking at the site.

Colin M

Cheers James. I showed my wife the original draft and felt so awful that someone else was reading it that I had to redraft anyway, but she pointed out, with tact, that it was pretty rubbish. It just isn't something I can do. So, I asked myself the simple question: how important is sex to the story. Well, it isn't. That Ashleigh is in control is important, but not the details of the act.

I'm playing with character development at the moment. I'm particularly interested in how readers make judgements, and how they refine, rather than redraft their judgements. Ashleigh is having sex, she's in control, but there is a reason for control: they are robbing him blind. She uses her age to scare him - ah, but it isn't her age, it's her appearance, she obviously looks younger than she is - and so on. I'm doing the same with the empty vodka bottle - the reader assumes the bottle was drunk in one night, but will later find that the mother isn't an alcoholic, but was need a drink that night.

I'd like to plan this into a novel, but right now I'm just doing these exercises, building muscles. It's fun.

Cheers for looking at the site.

Colin M

oops

oops

Ok Colin, I heard you the first time!

I would disagree with your wife though -it isn't rubbish, and I thought it was quite sensitively done. Remember sex sells! Lol. Seriously though, I don't think the sparse detail harms the story.

No, you got me wrong. The first version, with kissing, sucking, squeezing and lots of "fuck me, fuck me" - I wrote it with the delicacy of someone drilling the road. It was awful.

Was it a little something like this?:

http://www.writewords.org.uk/archive/7985.asp

The first time I tried to write a sex scene, some years ago now, it was dreadful. So dreadful it put me off even tryin to write sex for a very long time. I've recently managed to write something that was pretty much faded to black, but that was alll the story needed.

I did however, find the discussion in this blog extremely useful. There are ten articles discussing how different pieces of literature succeed (or fail)at this type of scene. Very accessible.

Cas

Dee, I did searches under 'erotic' and 'sex' and couldn't find that old thread!

Was this it?

http://www.writewords.org.uk/forum/44_1916.asp

Oh ok Colin. I can see your point. It is difficult to write sex without making it seem silly, or OTT. I've tried to get around this problem in my book by making the scenes strangely poetic, and very drug-drenched. Still, some of them make me squirm a little.

Let's just hope I'm never asked to do a recital!