The Formula for Writing Sex Scenes
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Formula for Writing Sex Scenes |
| Creator: | cupidsbow |
| Date(s): | February 22, 2006 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Writing sex scenes in fanfiction |
| External Links: | page 1 Archived version, page 2 Archived version, page 3 Archived version, page 4 Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Formula for Writing Sex Scenes is a 2006 meta essay by cupidsbow on the craft of writing sex scenes in fanfiction. It outlined a formula cupidsbow used for sex writing—essentially, maintaining a ratio of one part action to two parts context/reaction—which was illustrated using excerpts from cupidsbow's SGA fics Windfall and Forbidden Fruit.
The essay was posted to cupidsbow's LiveJournal, where it has received over 100 comments, and cross-posted to the comm sg_workshop.
Some Topics Discussed
- Sex scenes as action scenes
- Ratios of action to context
- Show, Don't Tell
- Building tension in a story
Excerpts
When I sit down to write a sex scene, I conceptualise it as an action scene, because the techniques for writing sex effectively are exactly the same as those for writing gripping action. This is because the goal is the same: evoking a physical response in the reader.
The action formula can be broken down into three parts: a) the action/context ratio, b) show, don't tell, and c) negative/positive build.
A. The Action/Context RatioThis is by far the most important thing to master when writing action. Effective action scenes follow this one simple rule; all the rest is icing. The rule is:
- 1 Action: 2 Description
What this means in practical terms is that for every action you have a character perform, you should give two corresponding pieces of context. Context is the description of how characters react to the action; what they think, feel, taste.
Still scratching your head? Let's consider some examples.
Action without context reads a lot like a shopping list: it's just one thing happening after another. You can see what I mean in this version of Windfall's "first touch" scene, which has all the context taken out:
Before Rodney could say anything else, John reached out and pressed his hand to the front of Rodney's pants, cupping the semi-hard jut of his cock.
Rodney made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, and John was about to drop to his knees and blow him when Rodney beat him to it. Gripping John's waist hard for support, he landed on the floor with a dull thump. John curled his hands around Rodney's head and jutted his hips forward.Now with the context:
Before Rodney could say anything else, [Action:] John reached out and pressed his hand to the front of Rodney's pants, cupping the semi-hard jut of his cock. [1st Context:] It felt so good to finally be able to touch Rodney the way he wanted to; [2nd Context:] no pretence, no holding back.
[Action:] Rodney made a strangled sound in the back of his throat that [1st Context:] went straight to John's dick, and [2nd Context:] he was about to drop to his knees and give Rodney the blow-job of his life when [This one is mixed together. 1st Context:] Rodney beat him to it, [Action:] gripping John's waist hard, [2nd Context:] using him for support as his knees gave way. [Action:] He landed on the floor with a dull thump. And, okay. [Another reversed one. 1st Context:] John could go with that. A good plan always had some built-in flexibility, and [2nd Context:] John was nothing if not flexible; so [Action:] he curled his hands around Rodney's head--[To give a feeling of things happening all at once, this action/context set collides with the next one. 1st Context:] enjoying the soft crinkle of hair beneath his thumbs, [2nd Context:] the blood-heat curl of Rodney's ears in the hollows of his palms--[Action:] and jutted his hips forward [1st Context:] to give Rodney better access to his zip.
B. Show, Don't TellThis is a standard practice of good writing, but it's particularly important for action scenes, because you want them to be immediate, detailed and visceral.
It's really easy to make the mistake of telling rather than showing. In fact, I made it in Windfall, with the first draft of the "kiss" scene. Have a look and you'll see what I mean:
... Rodney hadn't done this a lot, but clearly he'd done it enough to have learnt the no kissing rule. Just as clearly, he wanted to kiss John.
Even doped to the eyeballs on afterglow, John knew this was one of those key moments. In the past, he'd always been pretty happy with the no kissing rule, but then, he hadn't wanted to actually spend any quality time with those guys, and he hadn't wanted to touch them any more than necessary in order to get off. They were just disposable fucks. But the whole point of the current plan was that he wanted Rodney to stick around, and that meant making Rodney happy, and right now it looked like breaking the no kissing rule would make Rodney happy. All up, there was maybe a nano-second between Rodney's gaze landing on John's mouth, and the moment John consigned the no kissing rule to his mental trash can.After writing that, I sat around blocked for two days trying to work out what was wrong and why I couldn't go on and finish the story. Doh! I was telling the reader about John, rather than letting his experience of the moment and his actions speak for themselves. This is how I fixed it:
It's so much more immediate now that the prose is describing how John is reacting to Rodney. The other version dumped the reader out of the physical experience that John was having, because exposition is read as thought not lived experience. The re-written version gives the reader pretty much the same information, but does it by showing John's reaction; it lets us feel the moment inside our skins as he feels it inside his.... Rodney hadn't done this a lot, but clearly he'd done it enough to have learnt the no-kissing rule. Just as clearly, he wanted break the rule, wanted to kiss John.
Even doped to the eyeballs on afterglow, John was aware of something deep inside his head hitching, changing tracks, going with it; because this wasn't what he'd expected... this was so much more than he'd expected... this was Rodney's too-honest face full of yearning as he looked down at John, and Rodney's body thrumming with tension everywhere they touched, telling John everything he needed to know about just how much Rodney wanted him, and God, this was like winning the fucking jackpot without even buying a ticket!
C. Negative/Positive BuildThe final technique that makes a major contribution to action is negative/positive build. Again, this is a technique that's commonly used in all fiction, as it adds an extra emotional wallop to the narrative. In its simplest form, negative/positive build flips the emotional content of a scene from one end of the spectrum to the other. So, for example, from happy to sad. It's called "build" because you use each "flip" as a building block, in order to create a more and more charged emotional payoff. So, for instance, you could have the following sequence of scenes:
- Happy to Nervous (Positive to Negative)
- Nervous to Frightened (Negative to More Negative)
- Frightened to Grieving (Negative to More Negative)
and then the next scene is:
- Grieving to Ecstatic (Negative to Positive)
which means the reader gets a much bigger bang for their buck, because they will have been lulled into expecting the downward pattern, and than--WHAMMO!--it reverses on them. You know the type: John is believed dead and everyone grieves, and then, BAM! Rodney realises he missed something and John isn't dead at all.
You can, of course, use other combinations of negative/positive build. Windfall is just one long scene, rather than a true three-part story, but even so, I broke it down into parts so that I could use negative/positive build in this very simple pattern:
- 1st Flip [Positive to Negative]
- John gets to his quarters: John=Happy
- Rodney doesn't turn up: John=Nervous
- 2nd Flip [Negative to Positive]
- Rodney still doesn't turn up: John=Freaked-Out
- Rodney turns up: John=Relieved
- 3rd Flip [Positive to More Positive]
- Rodney is inexperienced: John=Turned-On
- Rodney wants to kiss: John=Ecstatic