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 #3

Hi everyone! I sure do hope you’re enjoying this free workshop on adding steam to your love scenes. Last week we talked about using your own experiences and how you can weave what you’ve done into your stories.

This week, we’re adding another layer on what we’ve already gone over. And yes, I'm adding another sexy picture to get us started.

Remember, this workshop is not only about writing technique but what you as a writer can do to make the experience as pleasant for you as you are making it for your characters.

Add love scenes when the characters want to make love, not when you want them to make love.

This is one of the hardest things that an author has to do and that’s called pacing. Again, I relate it back to your own experiences. What happened when you rushed something? Did it work out well? Chances are it didn’t. It’s like rushing a cake; if you take it out too soon, it’s not done, too late and it can be burnt to a crisp.

Everything has a pace, be it fast or slow. When you truly listen to your characters, they will tell you when they need to make love and when they need to argue. Part of adding steam is to know when things are right for the characters, not when a ‘formula’ tells you a love or sex scene needs to be added.

I’m a pantser and all of my stories are character driven.

Some of you may have heard of this term and some of you may not. When I started my writing career, I was anal about planning. I had charts on characters, charts on plots, I played the ‘what if’ game and twenty questions for each of my chapters. I would plan every detail to the nth degree because I wanted things as perfect as I could make them.

Now days, I write by the seat of my pants most of the time because I work things out in my head and follow that plan but not so stringently because I’ve learned to listen to my characters. I know more about them sometimes than I do my own kids. I write what the characters want me to write, which is their story. Nothing more, nothing less.

It is true, however, that there are some stories I still plan to the nth degree and those would be my heavy fantasy or futuristic stories. Those are just as much about the world building as they are about the characters or the plot for that matter. If you don’t plan those, you can get caught in your own plot pitfalls because you haven’t done your planning.

What is right for the characters needs to be right for you as the writer.

There are times when your characters might ask you to write something controversial or not right for you to write. I know it sounds strange but if your characters need to do something that you find objectionable, then maybe their story needs to be written by some one else.

Now this isn’t the same as you being embarrassed over a love scene or something of that nature. When first learning to write love scenes, they can be very disconcerting if you’ve never done that before. I know that the very first time I wrote a BDSM scene, I would get up, walk away from the computer and mutter, ‘I can’t believe I just wrote that’ and mean it. It wasn’t until I had been writing the story for a month that I felt comfortable with it.

Part of the reason that I could continue to write their story was that I didn’t feel bad about writing something done in an adult consensual situation. Adults can and do make their own decisions. My characters were adults. They had adult minds and adult thoughts. They could handle what was going to happen to them. True, you say they were just characters but to me they weren’t and it’s all about perspective.

Listen to your characters as they will tell you what they need.

This is just as important as any other issue talked about here. Characters will tell you what is important to them. In the story I mentioned above, the heroine needed to have a deep, dark fantasy fulfilled to fall in love with the one man she could. I gave her that situation and what happened in it was fulfilling for her.

Your characters need to be as satisfied with the outcome of your story as you are. Sometimes it won’t be a happily ever after but it will always be satisfying.

Exercise

1. Give me a scenario where a love scene would be appropriate for your characters.
2. Give me a scenario where a love scene would be inappropriate for your characters.
3. What type of writer do you want to be and why? (Pantser or planner)
4. Why do you think it’s appropriate to listen to your characters?
5. When wouldn’t it be appropriate to listen to your characters?

You can post the 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 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

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Lesson #1

Last week I told you all that I would be presenting the free online workshop, Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes. Here is the first lesson. There is an exercise at the end of the lesson which I would love you all to do. You can post it here for everyone to see, or you can send it to me privately at lynncrain@cox.net. At the very least, please leave a comment so I know you’ve been here!

Set the mood for both you and your characters

So what do I really mean by setting the mood, you might ask. Most of you do this without even thinking about it. Remember when you took that long bath putting bath salts in the water and lit the candles around the tub to create that ultimate experience? Yeah, I know you do. You wanted something relaxing and at the same time exhilarating. Remember that first date with your loved one? How about that first dinner? Or first night?

No matter what you’re doing you need to set the stage in order to get ‘into the mood’ for writing, especially writing love scenes. There is nothing worse than trying to write a witty, sexy tryst when you can’t get out of the doldrums.

Here are some sure fire ways to get yourself in the mood for writing great love scenes.

1. Read books the day before in the genre for which you’re writing.

Now I realize that this may sound hokey BUT there is nothing more stimulating than reading something that gets the creative juices flowing. Pick up that latest book by your favorite author. Or even get something new and different by some one you haven’t read before. Make sure that whatever you pick up, it is in the genre you are writing at the moment. There is nothing more frustrating than to be writing a romance when that erotic love scene is rolling around in your head.

Some of my favorite authors are Morgan Hawke, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Debbie Macomber, Emilie Richards, Nora Roberts, Melissa Schroeder, Joy Nash, Jennifer Ashley and Nikki Rivers to name a few. All of those people write very different things so it would depend on what I am writing the next day just what I’d be reading.

One other thing, do your best to turn off your internal editor. You know that one where you pick apart the book you are reading. This is for enjoyment and if you find yourself editing or being critical of the book you’re reading, find another book.

2. Watch a romantic movie.

For me, I just love watching a romantic movie. And it doesn’t matter when it is as the day before you write, the day you write or even the day after you write will work. It can be an old classic like An Affair to Remember or a new classic like While You Were Sleeping or Notting Hill and it can even be a brand new movie like Sweet Home Alabama. It can even be an autobiography like I Walk The Line. There’s just something wicked about Johnny Cash when you see him as a young man. But the point is, to lose your self in the romance and the story. It’s easy to write about something when you’re feeling the same emotions.

Oh…almost forgot one for those erotic romance writers…there’s nothing so sexy as the stair scene in The Thomas Crowne Affair. It burned up the screen.

3. Listen to music while you write that all important scene.

It has been said by many, many people, and proven too, that music can set the mood. Every wonder why the Scottish took their bagpipes into battle with them? It’s because just the sound of the pipes could work the men up into a frenzy and I mean frenzy. My husband is Scottish and when we went to Scotland, we stopped to hear the pipes any time we could. When we saw the lone piper at Castle Eileen Donan, we felt lonely, when we saw the bagpipe brigade practice for the Edinburgh Tattoo, we felt invigorated. There is nothing like a good song to put someone in the mood for anything. Think about how music is used to set the scene in a movie. You know exactly what is happening just from the music. Think Jaws, think Somewhere in Time and you’ll understand exactly what I mean.

I always listen to music when I’m writing and I am definitely more productive. If you go to my MySpace, you will find a band called the All American Rejects belting out their latest hit. I saw this music in a Battlestar Galactica announcement and traced it down because I loved the sound so much not to mention the really sexy scenes depicted in the commercial. My daughter in law was so surprised that I like this band she called my son right away and told him. I love music. Any music.

My kids gave me an IPOD for Christmas last year and to be honest, I listen to it a lot but while I’m at my computer, I just turn on Itunes. I frequently spend an hour or so downloading music because I never know just what I’ll find interesting some days.

For me, a day without music is like a day without sunshine.

4. Look at phrase books.

Again, this may seem a little strange but when you are stuck in a scene and nothing seems to work, pick up a phrase book and see if it can jolt you into thinking up something on your own. The two that I use are ‘The Romance Writer’s Phrase Book’ compiled by Jean Kent I believe. This is a really, really old book. It’s from 1984 and I have two copies which are both falling apart. The ISBN 10 is 0399510028 and the ISBN 13 is 978-0399510021. It’s available from Amazon.

A new but similar book, The Millennium Phrase Book by Rebecca Andrews, is done very well.
The author has updated many things and has taken into account the change in the market. This book is published by Highland Press and the ISBN 13 is 978-0-9787139-5-9.

Sometimes, I will just look at either of these books and get lost in the phrases as I roll them around in my mind to see if they will fit the story I’m working on at the moment. And since they are phrase books, you can copy things word for word if you’d like. Me, I just get the general idea and put it into my own words.

5. Look at sexy pictures.

I’m sure that many of you are thinking by this time that I have truly lost my mind. But humans are sense oriented creatures. We have to be able to touch, taste, hear, smell and see something for it to mean anything to us. Most of us tend to be very visual creatures in this day and age with everything being in our face. Why do you think that kids are so zoned into the computer games? A lot of times our visual perceptions supersede any of our other senses. Think of the car accidents because someone is not paying attention to what they are doing. Most of those people are looking the other way because had they really been looking at what they should have been looking at, the accident or incident probably wouldn’t have happened.

Last week when I was uploading something to offsite storage, I couldn’t figure out why the link would not work correctly. I worked with it over an hour before I sent it off to a colleague who immediately fired back, ‘Why is there a CW at the end of the filename?’ I had looked at that name for over an hour and had never noticed the extra letters. Talk about a ‘Duh’ moment. Our eyes tend to see what they want to see and sometimes what they see really isn’t what is there.

So just what do I mean by looking at sexy pictures, you might ask. Well, you can get some reference books like I have, The Better Sex Guide, The Kama Sutra, and Ultimate Sex to see the really erotic sexual positions as well as some great description. These books visually show us just how sexy and erotic sex can be. Now for the tamer side, I look on photo sites like www.istockphoto.com or www.canstockphoto.com. These places have some of the sexiest pictures you will ever see. Some people are fully clothed and others aren’t but you don’t see a thing because most things are rated PG on these sites. Matter of fact, one whole lesson will be on less is more because you don’t have to see everything to know it’s sexy.

Exercise

1. Give me a list of your five favorite authors and tell me why you like to read their books.
2. Give me your five top picks for most romantic movie. Again, give me a little insight as to why you think this movie is great.
3. What is your favorite music and why. Do you listen to any of the current bands? Why or why not?
4. Do you think phrase books would be useful? Why or why not?
5. Do you think as a writer you would find looking at pictures useful to writing a novel?

Hope you all enjoyed this first lesson in the workshop.

Until next week...

Lynn

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Free Workshop

I have been asked recently by more and more people just how I add steam to my many love scenes. In the course of a few years, I have put together what works for me. I’m hoping to share those ideas with you all over the next few weeks in this free workshop. So please, pass the word around to all your friends. We’ll have fun!

Here’s what we’ll be covering with each week building on the previous one:

Set the mood for both you and your characters.
- Read books the day before in the genre for which your writing.
- Listen to music while you write that all important scene.
- Look at phrase books.
- Look at sexy pictures.

Use your own experiences
- I don’t mean literally…you all remember that blush first being in love…use it.
- Most women remember their ‘first time,’ so use it.
- Most women remember the first ‘real’ date they were on, so use it.

Add love scenes when the characters want to make love, not when you want them to make love.
- I’m a pantser and all of my stories are character driven.
- What is right for the characters needs to be right for you as the writer.
- Listen to your characters as they will tell you what they need.

Get some good research material.
- Good research books are invaluable.
- For erotic, books like the Kama Sutra are a must.

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?
- Know the temperature of their skin – hot, cold, clammy or warm and inviting.
- Know how the characters should look when making love – pink cheeks, rosy lips, closed eyes, opened eyes.
- No wandering body parts.

Don’t ever write sex to fill up pages.
- Sex needs to happen when it needs to happen and not before.
- Readers can tell when a writer has had to ‘force’ a love scene.

Remember that as a an erotic romance writer you are writing hot, sizzling love scenes and not just sex. Same goes for sensual romance.

Sometimes less is more.

Make each love scene emotional.
- At least one of the two characters has to have some sort of emotional attachment to the reason they are having sex.
- It’s not always who you think it should be and it doesn’t need to be revealed right away.

Take note of the anatomical details.
- Characters have to be anatomically compatible.
- Huge men will never fit into a small, child-like woman. Not happening.
- Know what is and isn’t humanly possible.

I hope to see you all next week when we begin setting the mood!

Until then…

Lynn