by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I think the best way to write a spicy sexxy scene is to be tipsy, which is often the best way to have sex in the real world. Today, I was day drinking and began to flesh out a “shower play” scene.
Now, the only reason why I even write any sort of sex scene is it’s kind of expected — especially in a modern day thriller. I don’t really know how much of a “thriller” this first novel is at the moment, but I do know that I fucking don’t want to accidently write a YA novel (nothing against YA) and, as such, I have have a few sex scenes to meet the expectations of modern genre readers.
There is some complication because I’m writing this spicy scene as a woman using third person intimate. But, like I said, I got lit and just write something that was spicy and yet that wasn’t really the point of the scene. The point of the scene, which should be the point of every scene, is to progress the overall plot.
The trick is, at least in my opinion, to interweave the titillation with the grist of the information you need to convey in the scene. It’s when you start to wallow in graphic, gratuitous depictions of sex acts that you start to get into trouble.
I continue to feel pretty stoked about this first novel in general. I keep thinking about how graphic (in more ways than one) both Stieg Larsson and Gillian Flynn are in their novels and if I’m going to have any hope of competing against them in the mindspace of novels of their ilk — I’m going to have not just more sexxy time in my novels, but brutal violence.
The only thing is — people already think I’m bonkers as it is and it’s difficult to talk about writing either a sexxy scene or violent scene without people looking askance at you.
