Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Lesson #5

This week we’re talking about the details that every love scene needs to have to be great. All the senses need to be put into play as well as having a good setting. This is where we start putting it all together. Enjoy!

Details are everything.

If a character is fantasying about a certain body part, can you imagine what happens when they actually get that body part? Let your imagination run wild! If your heroine is fantasizing about touch the hero on the penis, make sure that you record every detail: the texture of his skin, the temperature of the room, is his hot or cold, or is he warm and inviting. There is nothing more exciting than when the characters are exploring each other for the first time. Here’s an example from my short story, Shopping Spree, and this is when she first touches him:

He didn’t have to wait long for ‘this’ as she crossed the short distance between them, the silk fluttering from the movement as she pushed them out of the dressing room.

“I saw you when I came in and decided that I just had to have you. But a girl has certain criteria, you know?” Running her hands up his chest, she reached his neck and pulled him forward.

“Really? Hey,” Jonas started to protest but was drowned out by her lips. She ran her tongue along his mouth and nipped at his lips before covering them with her own. Her tongue snaked out and began to war with his in a dance as ancient as time.

“You taste good,” she murmured, looking up at him. Pulling him to her yet again, her limber tongue caressed the inside of his mouth making him wonder what it would feel like on his cock. Reaching down, she ran her fingers along his bulge, grabbing him and pressing into him, making him yearn for so much more.

“You feel good down there too,” she said and pushed against him even more, making an already strained situation even more painful.

If he weren’t careful, he would lose his load before he even began.

“Ah, you might want to slow it down a little…I don’t even…” He groaned as she pulled his shirt from his pants and snaked her hands up his bare chest to tweak his nipples. God, this feels so good! he thought as he arched into her hands, allowing them to continue their play.

Leisurely, as if it were an erotic dance, she began to unbutton his shirt, placing light kisses along the way. At his nipples, she stopped and sucked until they were hot, tight peaks before continuing on down his body. Laving his belly button, she got on her knees and looked up at him, going even further, gently biting the front of his crotch.

And now, he first touches her:

Lying on his side next to her, he gasped as she continued to deep throat as much of him as she could. Realizing he wasn’t yet fulfilling his end of the bargain, Jonas urged her knee up and ran his fingers over her slick slit, looking at her very pink and pretty cunt. Gently, he spread her lower lips and gazed at the small nub he found there. Holding her apart, he leaned over and laved her top to bottom, careful to avoid her clit.

“Dammit…I want to be touched…there,” she whispered, and wiggled her crotch in his face. “I know you know where there is.”

“All’s fair in love and …teasing,” he answered, smiling against her, certain she could feel the movement.

“Arghhhh…not fair.”

Once again, he licked her and avoided the area of her hottest desire, making her moan loudly. Sliding two fingers in her, he took his thumb and firmly pressed against her clit in order to make her pleasure even more profound. Slowly, he began flicking his tongue over her pussy, paying special attention to her hard nub. Soon, she was bucking against his probing tongue as he moved it in and out of her.

“Deeper. Harder.”

“I’ve got just the thing.” He rose in one fluid motion and pulled her with him not even noticing he still had his clothes half on and half off.

“Hey…” she began. “I didn’t say to stop.”

“Don’t worry. It will be worth it.” He moved her to the bench next to the wall. “Sit down and scoot your ass to the edge.”

“Well…what about you?” she asked, confusion plainly written on her face.

“Right now, baby, it’s all about you. It’ll be about me soon enough.”

He could see her swallow hard as if contemplating whether this was exactly what she wanted or not. Suddenly, the control was in his hands and not hers.

“Sure…but if I don’t like it…I’ll tell you.”

“You’ll like it alright.” He smiled at her and forced her backside down on the bench. “Let’s turn up the heat a few notches.”

Notice that I give you a lot of detail. I give you every lick, nip and breath taken while these two are on their sexual journey. I use all the senses of touch, smell, sight, hearing, and tasting when doing a love scene. No detail is to be left untouched. If you want to see the whole story, just email me privately at lynncrain@cox.net and I will send you a free copy of this story because you’re attending this workshop.

Here are just some of the details that you shouldn’t forget.
1. Know the temperature of their skin – hot, cold, clammy or warm and inviting.
2. Know how the characters should look when making love – pink cheeks, rosy lips, closed eyes, opened eyes.
3. Know the texture of their skin – rough, smooth, slick
4. Know if their eyes darken when sexually aroused
5. Know how their breathing is effected when making love – do they seem as if they’ve run a marathon
6. Know the details of where they are making love – is it inside or outside, in the shower or in the bed

One big thing to avoid in any love scene is what is known as wandering body parts. Now these are easy to spot: her eyes fell out of their head, her legs jumped for joy, his mouth fell to the floor. If her eyes fell out of her head, how could they see that his eyes were blue? If her legs jumped for joy, what was happening to the rest of her body? If his mouth fell to the floor, how could he kiss her? Body parts need to stay in the correct positions at all times.

Exercise

1. Take three of the five senses and write a sentence using that sense.
2. Show me the room where your characters will make love for the first time.
3. Write me a love scene from her point of view. Now reverse it and make it from his.

Remember, you can post your exercise 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 here to visit. And have fun!

Until next week…

Lynn

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Lesson #4

One cannot write a good story without some good research or some first hand knowledge. This week we go over some books that a writer needs in their bookshelf for writing great love scenes.

Get some good research material.

It is always important for a writer to know where to get good research material. And the best place to start doing your research today would be the internet. It is an invaluable resource that you can use from the privacy of your own home. I can tell you that I would have been mortified at first when I started doing research for erotic romance. But being able to look for books on line was a different matter.

The first thing to do is to know what you are trying to research. Once you have honed in on a subject the next thing would be to compile a list of websites and from those websites a list of books.

Good research books are invaluable.

There are certain books that a writer must always keep on hand. Find yourself a good English rule book. I personally use Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference. She also has an electronic version. She continually updates the book and makes it better each time it comes out. I have a very old version.

Another book to have is The Chicago Manual of Style. While this many be more geared toward the college student, one can always find something of interest in this books. What the first book doesn’t have, this one will.

If you are writing for a specific genre, there will be a ton of genre related books on the subject. Writer’s Digest books have some of the best known genre books out there and their Writer’s Basic Bookshelf is a must for any beginner.

Another two books I have on my shelves are The Romance Writer’s Phrase Book and The Millennium Phase Book. These books are great when you are stuck and can’t think of a term you need. They also help when you need a little push in the right direction but just can’t put the words together.

Now for writing love scenes, there are some very special books to look for which will help add steam to your scenes. One would such book is the Sexicon. It is the end all book on sexual terms. It has everything you’ve ever thought of and many of those things you haven’t.

For writing tamer scenes, The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Your Romance Published and Writing Romance are the best two I’ve read in recent years. I don’t know if any of you have ever purchased the Idiot books and I have to admit at first I was reluctant, after all who wants to be viewed as an idiot? BUT I found some new information in there and was really surprised when I got this book.

Now one thing I think important on any sensuality level are picture books. The three books I have on my desk, and yes they are in plain sight, are the Kama Sutra, Ultimate Sex and The Better Sex Guide. These will help you visualize if a position is even possible and they will help overcome any fear you have about writing physical contact scenes. First, I didn’t know that there is a name for every sexual position and I’ll bet you didn’t either. The rest of the world does not view sex the same way we do in America. Part of what we have to do is to get over any of our inhibitions regarding the sexual act. These books will help you do that because these are not porn books but are books where the sex act is brought to life in a positive, loving way. If an author feels that sex is dirty, it will show in their writing. Sex always, no matter at what level, needs to be portrayed in a positive manner.

All these books are easily found on Amazon by just typing the name in their search engine.

Exercise

1. Pick a research topic and give five website references concerning that topic.
2. Give me a list of ten research books. Pick five and tell me why they would be good research books in your opinion.

You can post your exercise 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 here to visit. And have fun!

Until next week…

Lynn

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

The Many Levels of Intimacy

Over the years, I have written to various levels of sensuality. Each story requires something different but in general, the levels of intimacy remain the same. You will find many articles written on this subject with good reason. For us, the romance writer be it erotic or sweet or sensual, the stages are all the same.

Everyone is in agreement that these steps need no verbal que but all lead from the first advance to intimate contact. It’s all in the body language, folks and body language doesn’t lie. If you need some lessons in body language, watch the new Fox show, Lie To Me and you’ll learn everything you ever wanted about body language. They do it right.

But getting back to us writing love scenes, it is imperative that you have these steps. Sometimes, you can skip a step if the story calls for it BUT for the most part, these steps need to happen for your reader to really get into your story. And the love scenes can make or break a novel.

Eye to body – This is commonly known as the once over. And it is usually very subtle. The gaze will drop from the upper face, meaning the eye and nose area, to the lower face then on down to the upper parts of the body. Sometimes, the person will step back to get a better, more full look at you. If that happens their whole posture will change as they glance at you up and down to see how your face matches your body.

Eye to eye – Intimacy increases the moment two people have eye contact. The more eye contact, the more soulful the looks. The looks will become more and more meaningful as more are exchanged. If a person refuses to gain contact in this sensual charged moment will send a message one is not interested.

Hand to hand – Contact is usually lingering but light. It can be disguised as being accidental or occurring in a social setting which is considered acceptable. This would be like one putting a hand under and elbow to guide someone, two people reaching for the door handle at the same time or a handshake that slowly ends. Look at the way the Victorians or those of the Regency period acted toward each other and you will see this step every where.

Hand to shoulder – This behavior can again be hidden within what is considered socially acceptable behavior. Until this point, either person can withdrawl gratiously without any real hurtful feelings. But once this boundry has been crossed, there is no going back without one’s pride being severely injured. This is just a touch to the shoulder for a variety of reasons, like getting ones attention. This is also a form of claiming ones territory and can be used to ward others off.

Arm around waist – This is the signal that one wants greater intimacy. This is the time to get out if one does not desire this relationship. Feelings will be hurt if one doesn’t respond positively to this gesture.

Mouth to mouth – No, we don’t mean the rescuitation kind. LOL! This is the actual act of kissing where chemical information is passed from one person to another. The kiss adds another sense to intimate contact and that is taste. The first sense, encountered way back in step one, is smell and pheromones are a very powerful odor. Taste can tell one all sorts of information about people like body temperature , hygiene level and a variety of other things. If the people are really involved in the kiss, their temperature will go up since the stimulation will cause sexual excitement. When people are emotional cold, they are usually physically cold as well which means they are not that interested in continuing the encounter. The more passionate a person gets, the more their temperature increases.

Hand to head – This is a trust issue. The more one person trusts another, the more likely they will allow their head being touched. Women tend to do this way before men. Caressing ones head indicates an increasing trust between the two people involved. Our heads are extremely vulnerable and only someone we trust are ever allowed to touch us there with a negative reaction.

Hand to body – This fondling can happen through clothes or under them. Some people will close their eyes as they are unconsciously gathering more information about the person they are with. However, keeping ones eyes open while maintaining total eye contact is a more powerful gesture. There one uses even more senses, touch, sound, taste and sight as well as smell. During the physical portion of our encounter, our sense of smell is very powerful as it will help us to become more in tune with our sexual partner, making us more sensitive to their unique smell. Odors are a powerful aphrodisiac which helps to prepare us for a pleasureable experience and to etch our partner in our memory. The best source are natural smells, so keep the perfumes to a minimum.

Mouth to body – This can be very stimulating and a real turn on for both parties. Breasts and necks are very sensitive for both sexes as are the lower abdominal region. Fellatio and cunnlingus can be very rewarding as long as both partners are into oral sex.

Hand to genitals – Gentle caresses are always best in this stage. If you have gotten this far, intercourse is usually immenent. One can heighten the sexual tension in the story by making the characters get this far without fulfillment. Once one gets to this step, each partner trusts each other explicitly in a normal relationship. There are some other types of relationships where trust is never achieved.

Genital to genital – This is the final act in lovemaking. Everyone is different and the emotions as well as all the senses need to be utilized when writing a great love scene. Vaginas and penises are utterly boring when none of the stimulus is present.

Now, not all of these steps need to be present in your novel. Just remember, each step is a sensual journey. Recently, I had been in the blah stage of writing a love scene. Then I saw last week’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy and they reminded me of just how sensual stolen looks and accidental caresses could be. Suddenly, I was all hot and bothered again to get back to my characters.

Hope that this little journey can help you all create great love scenes.

Until next week…

Lynn