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Epub ISBN: 9781473538993
Published by Cornerstone Digital 2016
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Copyright © Diana Gabaldon, 2016
Illustrations © 2016 by Silvia F. Giachetti
Cover design © Tatiana Sayig
Cover image © Shutterstock
This work contains excerpts from the following novels by Diana Gabaldon, published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC: Outlander, copyright © 1991 by Diana Gabaldon; Voyager, copyright © 1994 by Diana Gabaldon; Drums of Autumn, copyright © 1997; The Fiery Cross, copyright © 2001 by Diana Gabaldon; A Breath of Snow and Ashes, copyright © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon; The Scottish Prisoner, copyright © 2011 by Diana Gabaldon; Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, copyright © 2014 by Diana Gabaldon.
There are also excerpts from the e-novella “Virgins,” copyright © 2016 by Diana Gabaldon.
Diana Gabaldon has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Pamela Patchet for permission to reprint “Ode to a Penis.” Reprinted by permission of Pamela Patchet.
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Cornerstone Digital
First published in the USA in 2016 by Del Rey
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About the Book
About the Author
Also by Diana Gabaldon
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Appendix A
Copyright
(for those in a hurry)
WHERE MOST BEGINNING writers screw up (you should pardon the expression) is in thinking that sex scenes are about sex. A good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not bodily fluids. That being so, it can encompass any emotion whatever, from rage or desolation to exultation, tenderness, or surprise.
Lust is not an emotion; it’s a one-dimensional hormonal response. Ergo, while you can mention lust in a sex scene, describing it at any great length is like going on about the pattern of the wallpaper in the bedroom. Worth a quick glance, maybe, but essentially boring.
So how do you show the exchange of emotions? Dialogue, expression, or action—that’s about the extent of your choices, and of those, dialogue is by far the most flexible and powerful tool a writer has. What people say reveals the essence of their characters.
Example (from Outlander):
“I know once is enough to make it legal, but…” He paused shyly.
“You want to do it again?”
“Would ye mind verra much?”
I didn’t laugh this time, either, but I felt my ribs creak under the strain.
“No,” I said gravely. “I wouldn’t mind.”
Now, you do, of course, want to make the scene vivid and three-dimensional. You have an important advantage when dealing with sex, insofar as you can reasonably expect that most of your audience knows how it’s done. Ergo, you can rely on this commonality of experience and don’t need more than brief references to create a mental picture.
You want to anchor the scene with physical details, but by and large it’s better to use sensual details rather than overtly sexual ones. (Just read any scene that involves a man licking a woman’s nipples and you’ll see what I mean. Either the writer goes into ghastly contortions to avoid using the word “nipples”—“tender pink crests” comes vividly to mind—or does it in blunt and hideous detail, so that you can all but hear the slurping. This Is Distracting. Don’t Do That.)
So how do you make a scene vivid but not revoltingly so? There’s a little trick called the Rule of Three: if you use any three of the five senses, it will make the scene immediately three-dimensional. (Many people use only sight and sound. Include smell, taste, touch, and you’re in business.)
Example (from The Scottish Prisoner):
The road was narrow, and they jostled against each other now and then, blinded between the dark wood and the brilliance of the rising moon. He could hear Jamie’s breath, or thought he could—it seemed part of the soft wind that touched his face. He could smell Jamie, smell the musk of his body, the dried sweat and dust in his clothes, and felt suddenly wolflike and feral, longing changed to outright hunger.
He wanted.
In essence, a good sex scene is usually a dialogue scene with physical details.
Example (from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood):
“I willna do it,” he whispered, and held tight when I struggled against him, trying vainly to goad him into the violent response I wished—I needed.
“Won’t do what?” I was gasping.
“I willna punish ye for it,” he said, so softly I could barely hear him, close as he was. “I’ll not do that, d’ye hear?”
“I don’t frigging want you to punish me, you bastard.” I grunted with effort, my shoulder joints creaking as I tried to break free of his grasp. “I want you to…God, you know what I want!”
“Aye, I do.” His hand left my shoulder and cupped beneath my buttock, touching the flesh of our joining, stretched and slippery. I made a small sound of surrender, and my knees loosened.
He pulled back, then came back into me, strongly enough that I gave a small, high-pitched cry of relief.
“Ask me to your bed,” he said, breathless, hands on my arms. “I shall come to ye. For that matter—I shall come, whether ye ask it or no. But remember, Sassenach—I am your man; I serve ye as I will.”
And, finally, you can use metaphor and lyricism to address the emotional atmosphere of an encounter directly. This is kind of advanced stuff, though.
Example (from A Breath of Snow and Ashes):
He’d meant to be gentle. Very gentle. Had planned it with care, worrying each step of the long way home. She was broken; he must go canny, take his time. Be careful in gluing back her shattered bits.
And then he came to her and discovered that she wished no part of gentleness, of courting. She wished directness. Brevity and violence. If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle….
She raked his back; he felt the scrape of broken nails, and thought dimly that was good—she’d fought. That was the last of his thought; his own fury took him then, rage and a lust that came on him like black thunder on a mountain, a cloud that hid all from him and him from all, so that kind familiarity was lost and he was alone, strange in darkness.
Like that.
LET ME PREFACE things here by observing that human beings are hardwired to be interested in sex. This fact is not lost on advertisers, which is why you have skimpily clad young women straddling motorcycles in men’s magazines and shirtless young men with shaved chests selling (if not precisely modeling) clothes for Abercrombie & Fitch.
Sex is right under food in the hierarchy of human desire, somewhere ahead of shelter, retirement savings, and indoor plumbing. People will watch any organisms have sex, including orangutans, barnacles, and earthworms—but we are, understandably, much more interested in watching other people Do It.
This being so, you have a valuable tool (but one to be used with discretion) as a writer. If you write about sex, the majority of readers will pay attention, whether you’re any good at it or not. (Some will avoid scenes involving sex altogether, of course, out of personal feelings of delicacy. If you’re writing for such an audience, you probably aren’t including a lot of sex. But then, you probably aren’t reading this book, either.)
If you’re going to use a power tool, though, you want to be sure it’s plugged in before you start. You also want to make sure you’re not standing barefoot in a puddle of water.
I have, for example, had the pleasure of performing at the Saturday Night Sex Scene Readings at the 2012 Historical Novel Society Conference held in London. (I have the dubious distinction of having accidentally started this event a few years ago, and now it’s a regular feature of the proceedings.) This involved a number of brave (or exhibitionistic) authors who were willing to get up in front of two hundred people after a banquet and read a sex scene from their work. The results ranged from hilarity and sighing (the “Ahhhh” kind, as opposed to the “Oh, Gaaaahd, isn’t it over yet?” kind) to silent cringing (as one attendee said to me, apropos a particular performance, “Marie Antoinette wouldn’t do that—she just wouldn’t!”).
Bad writing is pretty much pandemic; you find it anywhere, in any genre. But while bad writing about murderers, spies, elves, or young people with self-esteem issues is merely boring—bad writing about sex is hilarious.
So, how do you ensure that readers are riveted to the page rather than rolling on the floor or running off to find a spouse or friend to read the most memorably horrible phrases aloud to?
Read on.