(Author’s note: Once a month, I offer writing tips to my Hyperromantic Authors on Patreon. I wanted to share a smidge of this month’s offering on a topic near-and-dear to my heart with all of you. For $5/month, you can sign up to read the entire article AND receive writing articles and sexy short stories from me every month!)
“Lopez …makes a profound statement about being an American amid absolutely mind-blowing sex scenes. It’s her ability to balance these lascivious passages with pointed, meaningful storytelling that sets her work apart and makes her a writer worth returning to again and again.”
--Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly
I like sex scenes. Before I began writing, sex scenes were my favorite part of the book. They were what I would read over and over again, as you can tell by the bends in my paperbacks. It’s easy to dismiss this as horny inclinations, but that would too easily dismiss the value and distinctiveness of the romance novel genre.
In mysteries, we love the unwinding of the whodunnit. In horror novels, we love the slow creep down the hall to the terrifying reveal. These books create a feeling that readers sign up for when they buy them.
A great romance novel captures the visceral sensation of falling in love. It is a sensation that has launched a thousand ships and sent people into murder and madness. It is not to be trivialized. Many authors, myself included, consider physical chemistry and lust part and parcel to falling in love. Great sex scenes aren’t just about inserting tab A into slot B. Great sex scenes capture all the mystery and majesty of touching the person you will spend the rest of your life with for the very first time. Done well, all the high emotion and relinquishing of self and terror and hope and stumbling and flying of falling in love can happen in a sex scene.
No pressure, right?
Because I value and respect sex scenes, I’ve worked hard to make them powerful, compelling, and emotionally resonating in my books. Although I do not write erotica, you can’t skip a sex scene of mine without missing something integral to the plot, characters, and novel. Here are some tips to how I go about writing effective sex scenes.
Make characters’ sexual selves as distinctive as the rest of them.
You know your characters’ eye colors, jobs, thoughts about themselves, thoughts about their world, religion, favorite foods, etc. Their thoughts about sex, about themselves as sexual creatures, and how they approach the act is as distinctive as the rest of them. We do such a disservice to our characters and to our readers when we make every hero a growly alpha and every heroine an inexperienced virgin who effortlessly orgasms. Think through how their lives and upbringings inform their sexual selves, and how it repels and compliments the partner you’ve created for them.
In my debut book Lush Money, my billionaire businesswoman and the prince she tries to buy are powerful, epically attractive, sexually experienced, and overwhelmingly confident. When they first have sex, it’s like a clash of the titans, with both of them warring for the upper hand. However, they’re both good people with deep wounds who crave to be loved, and this vulnerability and tenderness toward each other comes into play in the bedroom way before they’re willing to let it show in real life.