Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Lesson #2

We’re in week #2 of our free workshop. In this one, we’ll be exploring just how you can use your own experiences to enhance any love scene. And since I told you last week to use visual stimulation, I thought I would add a little with some pictures I downloaded from istockphoto or canstockphoto.

Use your own experiences

I’m sure at this moment, you are wondering just what am I talking about. Your own personal experiences can’t be what people want to really see. Well, I’m here to tell you that they do. People must relate to your characters; they must find some common ground or your characters will be meaningless to them.

Have you ever caught yourself while reading a book saying some thing to the effect of, ‘I can see myself doing that’ and know you mean it?

And I don’t mean using the experiences literally…you all remember that blush first being in love…use it, use it to your best advantage because people like to read about other people. How many of you are sick of the heroine or hero always being perfect? I know that I am. Why? Because people are flawed, even the really great people have flaws. They put their pants on the same way we do. They wear underwear, they shower, they go to the bathroom and for heaven sakes’ most of them fart too.

But the point is that you know and can relate to all those things. Use what you know. There is an old saying ‘Write what you know’ and the reason is that if you write about what you are good at, it comes more naturally.

If you are writing romance, there are some things that only women know. Most women remember their ‘first time,’ so use it. You can remember what it was like seeing your spouse for the first time. I do. I thought he was crazy because it was freezing and he was wearing shorts. I also remembering me thinking he wasn’t bad looking and maybe I should get to know him. I’ve used different version of this again and again.

Another one, most women remember the first ‘real’ date they were on, so use it. My husband and I didn’t date at first, we gang dated meaning we went out with a group of people. And we always seemed to pair up differently. Sometimes I look at my husband and don’t know how I ended up married to him. But I do know I worked my butt off to get him. This is something I can use.

The same can be said for men. When I decided to write from a man’s point of view, I realized I was out of my depth. I don’t know what a man feels during sex. But I do know my husband and trust his judgment. When I’m writing from the male point of view, he reads everything. He tells me things like ‘a guy wouldn’t think that emotionally about this’ or ‘no way would a guy do that.’ To be accurate, you have to have resources you can fall back on.

You can use anything you have experienced to make your writing richer and fuller. Everything you do in this mode just makes it so a reader can more readily identify with your characters. If the reader can’t identify with your characters, they won’t finish the book or maybe they won’t even pick it up.

Exercise

1. List ten experiences that you can use in a novel, be it romance, erotic romance, sensual romance or just a regular book.
2. Take one of those experiences and write me a whole paragraph about one of your characters doing the same thing.
3. What did you get out of the experience? Can you apply this to your writing.
4. List one outside resource you can use when you need it. It can be a person, a book, a library or even a place on the internet. The point here is to get you thinking about how you can find out the information you really need.

You can post it here for everyone to see, or you can send it to me privately at lynncrain@cox.net. Please leave me a comment so I know you’ve been to visit. And have fun!

Until next week…

Lynn

From Blush Queen to Erotic Romance Writer

When reading Sara’s great story about her blush meter, I got a good laugh as when I was growing up, I was known as the blush queen. It wouldn’t take me much to get me to a number 10 on her ‘Blush-O-Meter’ scale when I was younger. LOL! I think I’m the only high school senior in my state to be photographed with the then President Gerald Ford who could compete with the sun. It has it good and bad points.

Her story also reminded me of some other times in my life when the ‘Blush-O-Meter’ would have been a fun thing to have. Or NOT! LOL!

The first one was when I was asked to bring my very first completed book to a college gang party. These were the people I had learned to become an adult with and I had a lot of apprehension. These people had embarrassed me and held me when I cried or when I was sick. There were a lot of good and bad memories with these folks.

I told the DH, Gordon, and he convinced me it was all good. But as we got closer to the party, the more trepidation I was feeling.

Once there, the manuscript was being handed around and then I started getting comments like, 'great job' and 'I've never know anyone who completed a whole book before' and then I saw one of my old college boyfriends reading it.

He walked up to me and stated, "You know if you'd did that to me, maybe we'd still be together."

I could feel my face turning warm and I had to be very careful here. If I said the wrong thing, he’d think I still liked him or something. "Maybe I would have if you deserved that type of treatment."

"Gordon must be a very lucky man." He walked away as the DH walked up.

"What's wrong with him?" DH asks.

"He got to the love scene."

"Oh."

"He said you were a lucky guy."

"He did." DH puffs up and says, "I think I'll go talk to the guys."

The college girl friends came up. "What's up with the guys? And how about you…you’re blushing!"

"They're all talking about the love scene.”

“No wonder they’re blushing!"

I looked at them and arched a brow. “Maybe I should remind all of your husbands we all went to college together. After all I didn’t win a knockwurst contest like some of you have.” Every other woman at the party had a face redder than mine as they remembered that particular time in our lives. LOL! Revenge is soooo sweet!

The next big time that I can remember me really, really blushing was when I wrote my first BDSM story about five years ago. It was also the last time that I can remember me having that particular affliction. I had to do a lot of what I considered covert research as I prepared to write this story of a woman's darkest fantasies. Finally, I got the courage to just sit down and get it done. The whole day, I would write a sentence and get up to pace, wondering what I was doing since I knew nothing of that world. Still, I plugged away at it until I eventually got it right. It was the first thing I sold to eXtasy books. I was really surprised.

But half way into the process my husband shocked me by showing up in my office. My face went from zero to RED in the span of less than 10 seconds.

“Something wrong?”

“No, why are you asking?”

He gives me his quirky smile and says, “There are only a few times I’ve ever seen you blush in twenty years.”

I sat still. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s when I caught you doing something you shouldn’t and when you’re thinking about sex.”

I gasped. “What makes you think I’m doing something I shouldn’t? I’m an adult.”

“With an antiquated idea about sex sometimes. If you’re going to really be an erotic romance writer, you have some changing to do.” He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m sure that practice will help!”

I roll my eyes and tell him nothing is going to happen until I finish this story.

That very day, my whole attitude changed. I wasn’t ashamed of my writing at all. It was just that I was brought up in the Bible belt and as anyone who has grown up there knows, the fear of God and sex can be pounded into one from the moment you walk. And lordy, the brimstone…LOL! There is absolutely nothing wrong with sex. It’s a natural thing and we have such a backward sexual outlook in America that it took some retraining on my part to not let it worry me at all. Now, I barely bat an eye. There's a private me and a writer me.

I advertise my very sexy books all the time and I do write to every heat level as the story dictates. I am passionate about all my books as every author should be. If you’re embarrassed about it, you don’t need to be writing it at all. I write what I love and nothing compromises that position. Sometimes my characters want the full monty and others, they want it very sweet.

Now it’s my DH’s turn to blush every time he drives my car. My license plate says ERWRTER and he’s been asked many times what it means. I'll show you all a picture sometime. He tells them the truth…it means…Erotic Romance Writer. The moment he tells the women, they get a gleam in their eye and say ‘Ah’ while the men just shake their heads and walk away, knowing they wouldn't be caught dead in my car.

Lynn