Due South Workshop

Hi. I'm here to talk to you about writing kissing and/or sex. I volunteered for this question because I write a lot of stories about kissing and/or sex; kissing and/or sex are some of my favourite things. I don't feel like I'm any kind of expert on the matter, though. This is not so much a compilation of Rules You Should Follow as it is a collection of things I think I do myself. You might not find this helpful at all, or maybe you'll like parts of it and completely disagree with me about other parts. That's cool. You will almost certainly have helpful hints of your own that aren't included here. In both cases, please feel free to add to this in the comments.


Start small

I usually start writing because there's one small, particular thing I want to see some character doing or saying--Ray K wrapping Ray Vecchio's fingers around a crossbar in their headboard, for example, then giving him a look that dares him to keep them there.* Then I try to figure out what the characters are feeling in that little scenelet, and then why they’re feeling like that, and then I build up the context and backstory from there. This means that my stories are generally pretty lacking in traditional A plot (like, crime stuff and action and whatnot) because I usually only add that stuff later, as a frame for the character interaction to hang out inside of. I’m okay with that, personally. YMMV.

(Sometimes my small, particular thing (SPT™) is not part of a story in which there is smut. Sometimes it doesn’t involve kissing, even. As distressing as this can be, I’ve found that the story I’m writing usually turns out better if I focus my attention on building it around whatever the SPT is and, if necessary, leave the smut out of the picture altogether. It is a sacrifice, but it is for ART, yo.)

( continued... )

Okay! The end! That's all the rambling I'm up to tonight. It's your turn, now--tell me what you do to make your kissing scenes more kissingful or your sex scenes sexier. What's your trick?




*pearl_os and other Ray/Ray oppositionists may mentally add a Fraser to this example; he can be on the other side of the bed, watching.

**The author is sleepy and therefore takes no responsibility for any mixed or unusual metaphors; continue reading at your own risk.