Lemon: The Good and the Bad of an Art Form.
By Cagelirious
With writing romantic pairings we all come to the point where things have to advance. At this point you have a choice; do you write in the sex or just leave it out? If you decide to go ahead and write the sex how do you go about it? Do you just write the lead up to the actual act or do you go for the full Monty? These are all decisions you have to make when you write a lemon and how you go about it can make or break the chapter and even the story. I'm here to give you some tricks to writing lemons into your story.
The first mistake most people make is just focusing on the actions and dialogue. The main reason I have come up with to why people make this mistake is either lack of experience in their personal life or they suck in the sack. When writing a lemon you need to be careful. If all you do is fire off a list of positions with some action and dialogue you are going to probably end up with mixed feelings and mixed reviews. I refer to this kind of lemon writing as just plain smut and it’s boring to read. People will probably skim over any lemon you do in the future if you take this approach.
When it comes to making love and just plain old dirty sex there is more to it than just actions. Yes, actions are important but so are your senses and feelings. What does the person smell like? How do they taste? What do they feel like? What do they do when you do something they like? These are all thing that should be considered and put into your writing. Are all of these questions answered?
When you have sex it is like sensory overload. There is so much you notice when you are as physically close to a person as you can be and to not use it is in no way creative. Then you have all the emotions and feelings involved. If you have a couple who spend most of their time fighting or being aggressive towards each other, it’s more likely they’ll have more of an interest in rough sex than taking it slow and soft. If you have a couple who enjoy talking, writing love poems and cuddling they’ll probably be more interested in taking their time and making the most of it.
Of course not every time will be the same. They might be angry at each other and have some nice, hard makeup sex or they could have a romantic dinner and be so full of love that it is gentle and soft.
The last thing to take into consideration in writing is outside stimuli. Are they in a bedroom where candles are burning on a nice soft bed? Are the sheets silky or rough? Did they not make it to the bed and are on the floor getting rug burn? Maybe it’s a quickie and they are in a bathroom that has just been cleaned and the smell of chemicals is in the air. Are they near fresh cut grass or in the woods where the air is clean and smells like pine trees? What do their surroundings look like? What do they smell like? What do they feel like? Use description.
There is so much that goes into the act of sex and using all your senses makes that experience better. Using all of them in your lemon will make it a richer and much more descriptive and that is always a good thing.
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing. I do like a lemon that entices all of the senses!!!
D.C. ~ I found myself getting emotional while reading your article - and that was before I even got to the lovely excerpt by TheWrtrInMe, who just happens to be one of my favorite writers for reason you all now understand! Life is about living and loving in every way God (I personally believe) made us to love: with our minds, our hearts, and, good Lord, YES, with our bodies! And when all three are present - watch out!
Many writers struggle with the 'to go explicit or not to go explicit' conundrum, myself included. Sex is, by it's very nature, explicit and raw no matter how rough & urgent or gentle & slow it plays out. But, as you said, we all have our own preferences ... and most of us, in real life, have several divergent ones. What can be a stumbling block is the fear of allowing others to have insight into how we see our own selves in the bedroom ... as opposed to who we want to present ourselves as outside the bedroom. God bless those who get past that ... you have to know you are doing a public service. How many times have I read something and thought - "Hm. Interesting ... I've never tried that! *Raises sing-song voice above the murmur wafting from the television* Uh ... husband, where are you? *smarmy grin*"
One of the hardest things in Fan Fiction is to write for yourself, especially if you have a competitive nature *raises hand* "Guilty" - but it inevitably makes your story that much richer, interesting, and a joy to write as well as a joy to read. Who hasn't received a nastygram from a reader for something you wrote ... or for taking too long to update ... or for the sun continuing to come up in the East? Ignore those people and go with your own gut - or your own needs/desires. An ungrateful reader's comments tell the world more about them than about your writing.
Thank you, D.C., for publishing this article on a topic that we all love to read about! This is such a fantastic site for all of us who have been writing for under a year - and all others as well!
Post a Comment