How to Craft Erotic Scenes Leading with An Emotional Touch

When you craft erotic scenes and lead with an emotional touch, you have many advantages. First, you ground the readers in that wonderful sticky glue of emotion for why the erotic exchange is occurring. This makes our brains stand up and take notice. And it’s your language choice that adds to the process. Couple that with some literary devices to best relay the message you want your writing to send to your characters.

Language—How do you decide what words to use to craft erotic scenes?

If you are like most people who received no formal sex education, the answer to this question is whatever you use.

But it is possible to expand it. This is most important when you consider everything about your characters. It’s their language, not yours, that we need to highlight in story and scene.

This means that when you know their education, where they grew up, their influences, impactful life events, and what sexuality was like for them over time, you will fine-tune the words your characters will use, and we will hear them in your story.

Which sex language type of writer are you?

Do you ask yourself this question and then evaluate how you choose your words?

Do you think you have to describe everything that happens?

How technical or slang-prone are you in your word use?

Are you using the language based on the emotional meaning of the sexual event?

You confidently control your work when you acknowledge that your words are connected to the character and that you may require knowledge about the body to do it justice. Learn how to label body parts and consider yourself multilingual. Your first base language foundation is accurate language. Following that is medical, scientific, colloquial, slang, dirty talk, or baby talk. You can also provide nuance and depth to character sexuality when you recognize that language is also specific to a region, culture, or group.

Language Biases

Language biases arise from a lack of education, friendship/family groups, institutions like school and religion, and your personal framing of sexuality. Where you like likely uses a heteronormative frame, including the coupling and actions in sex. Know where you stand and how that affects your writing. This will help you have clear boundaries between you, the author, and the characters. And write in the voice and experience of the character.

Writing the Emotional Beats of Sex

This is where I get to nerd out on literary devices. Yes, I combine literary devices with sex writing. If characters are exchanging the emotion of sex, how do they do it? It isn’t just describing body parts and actions. Remember, the motivation for sex is based on some emotion. The emotion intertwines with the physicality of sex. That is why your scenes with sex should never read the same. The people, the emotions, the circumstances are all different.

You can use many things to add variety to your emotional beats. Basic emotional beats range from stating the motion to internal and external sensations, and advanced emotional beats employ elements like metaphors, flashbacks, and surreal imagery.

It’s all about adding more tools to your sexuality writing toolbox.

Highlights Of How to Craft Erotic Scenes.

Focus on the emotion driving the sex in the scene you are writing.

Consider how your language choice adds layers of character development through their relationship to sexuality.

Go get some real sex education, which allows you to get out of your own way if you’re stuck and find your character’s authentic voice for the story.

Use literary devices to add depth to sexuality. When you try them all, you’ve added diversity to how you weave your words.

All this and more are in The Fiction Writer’s Sexuality Guide. Follow along with the FWSG Blog Posts and see how multifaceted writing sex can be.