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jpskewedthroneThis was the second panel I was on at Norwescon, but I haven't had a chance to write it up since I've been partying and such since then. *grin* However, the con is now regretfully over, so for the next few days I'll be trying to catch up on all of the activities that went on. There's still one more panel I was on to cover (about creating a balanced mythos for your world).
Again, these are my thoughts on the panel topic, and the panel covered more issues than I mention here.
This panel had quite a few panelists on it--six in all--but I felt that we all pretty much agreed on the reasons behind including, or not including, sex scenes and for how explicit you should get during those sex scenes. It's always a balancing act, and often an editor will come back to the author to ask them to either include more or less, usually with some solid reasons as to why. For example, one of the editors on the panel said they once had to ask an author to cut back on a sex scene because the explicitness and tone of the scene didn't match that of the rest of the novel. On the opposite end of the spectrum, an author I know was once told that the "fade to black" scene in the book needed to have a lot more light shed upon it because it was necessary for the reader to understand the character motivations throughout the rest of the book. So putting the right amount of sex in your book is actually something that needs discussing.
I think the first thing that needs to be considered when deciding on where to go with a sex scene (if you want it at all) is the audience of the book. If it's a cozy murder mystery, then you'll probably not be having many heavy duty explicit sex scenes in it, because the audience doesn't want, nor does it expect, that. However, if you're writing erotica, at some point the audience is going to demand some rather hot and steady and explicit sex. So the first thing to consider is the audience. This doesn't really require much thought though in the long run.
So the next thing to consider is what expectations you as the author have set up regarding the sex scenes in the novel. If you've been making a big deal about the sexual tension between two characters since the first page, and you've playing on that, then when you get to the part where those two characters are going to act on that sexual tension you can't just wave your hand and fade to black, because the readers are going to hunt you down. You've been building to this moment and you won't be able to take that moment away from them. You're going to have to include the sex scene and you'll probably have to make it rather explicit. However, if the two characters have merely been friends and circumstances have come around to a moment where that friendship has abruptly sparked into the potential for something more . . . in this instance there was no established expectation from the reader and when that moment comes you can move sex scene discretely off stage. There's no need to get explicit, so a light kiss and a giggle/chuckle as they fall into bed is enough.
Ok, so we've looked at the audience and the expectations of that audience . . . so what else must you consider before including that sex scene? Well, you've got to consider the purpose of the sex scene. If there's no purpose except to have some kind of hot, steamy sex scene that might titillate you and the reader, then you'd better think again (unless that's what the audience is expecting of course). In most novels, the sex is there for some type of character development or motivation. People in books don't just have sex; they do it because something in their character needs it, or it's going to push them into some other action later on. The character reason for the sex scene will also determine the explicitness of that scene in the book.
For example, in a recent short story I wrote, the main character was feeling lonely and isolated and useless because there was nothing that could be done to change the circumstances of the moment. Fear was high, tensions were high, and in order to escape all of these emotions she needed an outlet. The one that presented itself was sex. Because of the emotions present--the fear, the uncertainty--the scene needed to be included (no fade to black here), and it needed to be fairly explicit. Not in the sense that every thrust and lick needed to be recorded, but it needed to have a sense of urgency and feverishness to it, and that needed to come across as part of the reaction to the rather dire circumstances the characters found themselves in.
In another place and time, the same two people would have met and had a much more romantic interlude instead, one not fraught with all of these overlying tensions. In that case, I'd have included the sex scene to establish how much the two were in love with each other (in case something horrible happened between them later on), or I would have faded to black at the appropriate moment (if nothing horrible happened between them later on).
In the end, it's the character themselves and the plot that drives how explicit the sex scenes are in a particular novel or short story. What is it that the sex scene will tell us about the relationship between these two people, and how it that going to relate to their actions later on? If it's used to establish a strong bond between the two, and then later those two are driven apart, then that distance between them is going to be more intense and hurt more. If it's simply a one night stand, with no real emotional committment from either, and they're never going to see each other again, then perhaps you don't need that sex scene as much as you think. All of these things--audience, expectations from that audience, character development and motivation, and the plot--go into that final decision as to whether the sex scene matters and how explicit it should be.
Again, these are my thoughts on the panel topic, and the panel covered more issues than I mention here.
This panel had quite a few panelists on it--six in all--but I felt that we all pretty much agreed on the reasons behind including, or not including, sex scenes and for how explicit you should get during those sex scenes. It's always a balancing act, and often an editor will come back to the author to ask them to either include more or less, usually with some solid reasons as to why. For example, one of the editors on the panel said they once had to ask an author to cut back on a sex scene because the explicitness and tone of the scene didn't match that of the rest of the novel. On the opposite end of the spectrum, an author I know was once told that the "fade to black" scene in the book needed to have a lot more light shed upon it because it was necessary for the reader to understand the character motivations throughout the rest of the book. So putting the right amount of sex in your book is actually something that needs discussing.
I think the first thing that needs to be considered when deciding on where to go with a sex scene (if you want it at all) is the audience of the book. If it's a cozy murder mystery, then you'll probably not be having many heavy duty explicit sex scenes in it, because the audience doesn't want, nor does it expect, that. However, if you're writing erotica, at some point the audience is going to demand some rather hot and steady and explicit sex. So the first thing to consider is the audience. This doesn't really require much thought though in the long run.
So the next thing to consider is what expectations you as the author have set up regarding the sex scenes in the novel. If you've been making a big deal about the sexual tension between two characters since the first page, and you've playing on that, then when you get to the part where those two characters are going to act on that sexual tension you can't just wave your hand and fade to black, because the readers are going to hunt you down. You've been building to this moment and you won't be able to take that moment away from them. You're going to have to include the sex scene and you'll probably have to make it rather explicit. However, if the two characters have merely been friends and circumstances have come around to a moment where that friendship has abruptly sparked into the potential for something more . . . in this instance there was no established expectation from the reader and when that moment comes you can move sex scene discretely off stage. There's no need to get explicit, so a light kiss and a giggle/chuckle as they fall into bed is enough.
Ok, so we've looked at the audience and the expectations of that audience . . . so what else must you consider before including that sex scene? Well, you've got to consider the purpose of the sex scene. If there's no purpose except to have some kind of hot, steamy sex scene that might titillate you and the reader, then you'd better think again (unless that's what the audience is expecting of course). In most novels, the sex is there for some type of character development or motivation. People in books don't just have sex; they do it because something in their character needs it, or it's going to push them into some other action later on. The character reason for the sex scene will also determine the explicitness of that scene in the book.
For example, in a recent short story I wrote, the main character was feeling lonely and isolated and useless because there was nothing that could be done to change the circumstances of the moment. Fear was high, tensions were high, and in order to escape all of these emotions she needed an outlet. The one that presented itself was sex. Because of the emotions present--the fear, the uncertainty--the scene needed to be included (no fade to black here), and it needed to be fairly explicit. Not in the sense that every thrust and lick needed to be recorded, but it needed to have a sense of urgency and feverishness to it, and that needed to come across as part of the reaction to the rather dire circumstances the characters found themselves in.
In another place and time, the same two people would have met and had a much more romantic interlude instead, one not fraught with all of these overlying tensions. In that case, I'd have included the sex scene to establish how much the two were in love with each other (in case something horrible happened between them later on), or I would have faded to black at the appropriate moment (if nothing horrible happened between them later on).
In the end, it's the character themselves and the plot that drives how explicit the sex scenes are in a particular novel or short story. What is it that the sex scene will tell us about the relationship between these two people, and how it that going to relate to their actions later on? If it's used to establish a strong bond between the two, and then later those two are driven apart, then that distance between them is going to be more intense and hurt more. If it's simply a one night stand, with no real emotional committment from either, and they're never going to see each other again, then perhaps you don't need that sex scene as much as you think. All of these things--audience, expectations from that audience, character development and motivation, and the plot--go into that final decision as to whether the sex scene matters and how explicit it should be.
