The F Word

In my personal life as well as in my writing, if I had to put my finger to one truth, its that sex is absolutely vital, and one of the most telling aspects of personality and mental state. Sexuality is an essential thing, yet how we choose to act sexually is influenced so very much by our gender, our class, our education, our mood, our luck, our love. I love to think about it, especially in the context of my characters, because it helps me know them and helps me explore my own biases, feelings and desires. That being said, writing a good sex scene is really hard!

This morning, I read through the top ten entries on The Guardian's annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction awards. I wanted to see "what not to do", and compare it to my own work, from my novel The Wide and Burning World, which is, in parts, a veritable treatise on writing about sex. Let's take a look, shall we?

The following article contains sexually explicit writing that's NSFW (no pictures, though) as well as triggering things like non-consensual sex, sexualized violence and rape. 

The Librarian

It's Larkin's first chapter, woo hoo! Yes! And, I know I didn't update yesterday. I'm okay with that, and I hope you are too.

This one was a snap. I had some world detail to sprinkle in, and while that took some careful crafting, it was quite rewarding. I made my first name change, as well. I tend to pick names out of the air as "placeholders." Sometimes I get attached (hence the similarity between Daniel Larkin and Davidson Lasche remains) and other times I thank my lucky stars for find-and-replace. Amusingly enough, this was supposed to be all of Larkin's POV in the book, but that was back when there was only going to be one book, Lasche was going to be the main character and well...admittedly, I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

Just Forget It

I came back, after a relatively long break, to working on my novel, A Barber of Great Renown, today. I read through the final chapter, to get back into Larkin's voice (it's all first-person, near past) and then wrote for a solid few hours. I walked away feeling fairly well pleased.

Then I realized that I had let one of my supporting characters progress the plot in such a way that several--and we're talking major--scenes were actually superfluous. I could cut plotlines, I mean we're talking a major elision, all because I forgot not what I planned to have happen, but rather how I planned to get my character on his way to Point C.

Now what do I do? Is it better that things be shorter? My husband would probably say yes. I've been told I go on; it's been said...

Or do I go back and chop off the final few sentences I wrote, so that I can add the few plotpoints I meant to put in?

...I pace around in a low blood-sugar huff. That's what I do. Twice-bedamned novel, as Larkin would say.