2004 Romance Author Roundtable

5. AOTW: Level with us --- how easy or difficult is it to write a love scene?

Karen Rose: Well, really, truly (grin)… Not as easy as you think. It's an incredibly intense experience, both for the writer and the characters. I'll normally have the love scenes in my mind from the beginning of the book, and when I get a spare moment I'll mull them over in my mind, weeks before actually writing the scene. It's almost like setting up a movie scene --- where are they, from what angle do you see them? Who gets to tell about it --- hero or heroine or both? Then you have to get mentally stoked --- THEN you have to make sure nobody bothers you while you're writing it. This is often the worst part. My family and friends might leave me alone for days, but pick the exact time I'm doing an intense scene like a love scene to pop in or call to see how I'm doing. That's perhaps the most frustrating of all because I want to growl, "Leave me alone!" but it's not nice to do, because they have no clue that my mind is … occupied.

Jill Marie Landis: Honestly, it's the worst! I write right up to the love scene and write (INSERT LOVE SCENE HERE) and then I pick up the story as if it already happened. It might be days or weeks before I go back to write it in.

Why is it so difficult? Well, being educated by nuns might be part of it! :-) But I guess because after twenty novels and an average of 3 to 4 love scenes per novel, well, you get it. I have to really work to come up with something new, something that I haven't had characters do before --- a new locale or situation in which to set a love scene.

When I finally sit down to fill in the blanks, I crank up the CD player with R&B oldies and I don't let myself think about things like, "My mom will be reading this!" I just type. Somehow they eventually get written. Personally, I wouldn't mind if romances didn't have love scenes in them. I'm not one of those readers who has to have them in the book at all. If they are there, I read them. If not, I don't miss them. But I do know that for some readers they are an integral part of the experience of reading romances, so I include them.

Nicole Jordan: When I'm asked how I do research for my love scenes (usually by non-romance readers who expect a titillating answer) I reply, "You don't have to kill someone to write a murder mystery. You just need a good imagination." But actually, I do research of sorts by occasionally reading erotica, which a writer I admire once advised me to do.

Writing love scenes isn't difficult for me. Trying to make them good, however, is darned hard! I want my stories to be spicy, so I purposely devise plots where sex and lovemaking are important to my hero and heroine's relationship. Beyond that, I make certain each love scene has a clear purpose --- a reason for existing. And I always strive to make each one integral to the story, so that it both impacts my characters in some definitive way and changes their relationship to some degree, moving it forward or backward. Other major challenges in writing love scenes, I've found, are keeping the sex appropriate to the times and to the characters, and making each scene different from all the others in the book and from others in my previous books.

And so that I'm not simply writing sex, during the actual writing process I focus on the emotion and sexual tension and growing relationship between the characters, not just the sex and sensuality. I also try to tap into appealing fantasies to create romantic scenes that most of us can only dream about (regrettably!) If I've done my job right, the passion between my hero and heroine is special and leaves readers thinking, "I wish that could have been me."

Kimberly Raye: I think it's extremely easy to write love scenes. I'm a character writer, and if I manage to stay true to my characters (meaning if I act and react the way that they would, not the way that I would in the same situation) the scenes come much easier. I find that when I do have difficulty, it's often because I'm leading the couple in a particular scene, rather than letting them lead me. That's when I get caught up in trying to write something "different." Hello? There are only so many sexual positions. Unless your main character is a contortionist, you're limited in what he or she can actually accomplish in any given sexual situation. But the bottom line is, the reader isn't interested in the actual sex act. They're interested in what the characters are feeling during a love scene and its impact on the developing plot. Remembering this keeps me on track and helps the love scene to develop naturally and, therefore, write easily.

Laura Lee Guhrke: For me, it is very difficult because there is so much going on at one time. There is physical choreography, a bit of dialogue that has to sound like what people would really say at a moment like that, and there is a lot of emotion going on. It's a time-consuming job to coordinate it all. Also, you're describing an act that is basically the same for all humans everywhere. Making it unique without being bizarre is the trick. That is tough.

Stephanie Bond: I find writing love scenes difficult; since my books are typically humorous, I think it's important to carry that tone through the love scenes as well. On the other hand, I don't want to ruin an intense, romantic moment with inappropriate humor, so it's always a balancing act.

Lisa Kleypas: Difficult, but by far the most fun part of the job! Having become completely shameless as the years have gone by *g*, I don't have any qualms about showing intimacy between the characters. However, the trick is to reflect or enhance the relationship's development in the love scene. I like to think that not one of my love scenes is interchangeable with any of my others, because the characters and their thoughts and feelings make it different every time.

Cherry Adair: It's easy. If I get all hot and bothered, then it's a pretty good indication that I'm on the right track for the reader. Not everything turns everyone on, and in romance it's more about the emotions of the scene than the sex itself --- so it's a balancing act. Sometimes the characters don't cooperate, and they don't want anyone watching them, including me. That's when it's tricky. But if they're meant to be together, then the love scenes are a natural extension of the story.

Lisa Jackson: It depends on the characters. If the love scene is in the wrong place or time in the book, it will be forced and nearly impossible to write or make believable. The book, by its nature, and the characters, because of their personalities and life experiences, should dictate if there are love scenes, how many there are, where they should occur and how detailed they should be.

Susan Crandall: I personally find them easy (and fun) to write. By the time my characters are making love, I've established so much about them and their relationship that I try to put a very "personal" spin on the situation. I look for the unique connection between these two people. By climbing inside their relationship, it's easy to see what drives them, how they'll relate to one another.

Linda Francis Lee: Whether it's a love scene or any other scene, it truly depends on if I'm in the flow of the story. Some days, blank pages scare me to death. Other days I can't type fast enough. But I was fortunate enough to have a professor who told me that writers write --- whether they feel like it or not. The muse isn't always kind or even there, but if you get something down on the page, at least then you have something to work with, something that you can turn into just what you need with editing.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips: It was very easy in the early days of my career, but has become increasingly difficult after 25 years. The language becomes the biggest obstacle. How do you put your own stamp on something that's been written about hundreds of thousands of times? It's an increasingly daunting challenge, but I'd stop writing before I, uh, blew off a love scene. The secret for me is character, character, character.

Jane Feather: I assume we're talking about sex scenes here. Quite honestly, I've never found them hard to write. What is difficult is trying to find different ways to describe one basic activity that only has a limited number of printable variations. It's easier now that the taboos on language have lifted and one's no longer obliged to look for euphemisms for genitalia. I found it more laugh-inducing than arousing searching for an original alternative to "jutting manhoods and thrusting shafts."

Judi McCoy: For me, it's easy, but I know plenty of authors who hate it. They write the entire book and plug in the love scenes at the very last minute. I enjoy writing the intimate interaction between my hero and heroine. Their making love is the commitment --- what the book is all about. It thrills me to convey on paper the idea that a man and woman can find love in such a beautiful act, even if it starts out 'in lust.'

Mary Balogh: I don't really think of my books as romances. I think of them as love stories. They are emotional experiences, bringing together as they do two people who are quite separate entities to the point at which they commit their lives to each other in a deep love relationship. Sex is a crucial aspect of such a relationship, and so it is important for me not to leave the reader outside the bedroom door, so to speak, and thus remind her that she is not one of these characters but a reader holding a book.

I love writing love scenes. I look forward to them. I never write them for titillation purposes. My love scenes are an integral part of the love story, the moments at which the passion of the growing relationship is at its most intense --- either negatively or positively, showing what is wrong with the relationship or what is right. Love scenes are as much an emotional experience as a physical one --- perhaps more so.

Beverly Jenkins: For me, love scenes are easy, maybe because I was in a passionate marriage to a passionate man for 32 years. LOL

Linda Lael Miller: It's usually difficult for me to start a love scene, but once I do, it sort of writes itself.