Writing Sex Scenes and Romance Novels

As the title of this post suggests, I thought I would write about those darn sex scenes that always seem to push their way into my stories.

I have to admit, writing sex scenes was not my most favourite thing to do when I first started writing novels with romantic elements. No way! I could think of a million things I'd rather be doing. It was way too uncomfortable and I didn't really know what to say. And why would I want to write romance anyway? Romance wasn't for serious writers!

How naive I was!

After reading many, many romance novels over the years I discovered something very important...sex sells and many romance writers are truly gifted storytellers when it comes to the unmentionable aspects of human interaction! And then I discovered another truly amazing thing, I wanted to be one of those talented storytellers.

Despite my initial reservations with it, eventually, obviously, I figured it out, got comfortable with it and have been inserting my, words, into sexually charged scenes quite effortlessly...well, almost effortlessly. I find that I really have to be in the right mood to write sex scenes, if I'm not then it doesn't seem to work.

Another issue is that there's difference between writing sex scenes for romance and writing them for erotica...a huge difference. So it takes another kind of mood to write the hard core stuff as opposed to the lighter stuff.

So I guess the key is to know your audience and do what makes you comfortable. Know that if it's a path you want to be on then keep going, push through the discomfort and practice writing scene after scene after scene...trust me, it does get easier.

I'm working on a short story right now that I'm aiming for an erotica audience and I know already that I'm going to have to spice it up which is on the agenda for this weekend.

What do you all think? Do you find it hard, easy, a non-issue, when you're working on sex scenes? Is there anything that really makes you uncomfortable? Do you try to avoid it until you absolutely have to write about those intimate details or do you dive right in?

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