Sex is part of the common human experience, and we should write about those, shouldn’t we? I’m always struck by how authors are blithely happy to write shocking scenes of violence or murder (which rarely happens to most of us), yet tell me I’m brave when it comes to writing about sex.

Sex can reveal so much about your characters. Being intimate with someone can make a character very vulnerable, and show a real, perhaps even different side to their personality. If your main character is precise and orderly, for example, are they the same when it comes to sex? Or do they see that as a rare chance to be wild and messy? Who are they, both as a character and as a sexual being?

I make sure the scene has a purpose

Does the sex scene tell us more about the characters and/or move the story on? Does it deepen the stakes? Will the story be as enjoyable without it? If not, then it’s gratuitous. Unnecessary sex scenes are like any other pointless scene—a waste of words. 

Not all sex scenes have to be sexy

Sometimes I want a sex scene to be so sexy that our reader needs a cold shower. But other times I might want the scene to be romantic, or funny, or show how awkward our characters are together. What will readers feel reading the scene? And is that what you want them to feel? (Sometimes I write a sex scene I think is very hot, only for readers to tell me it made them laugh.)

It doesn’t have to be wildly explicit

(Though it can be!) A sex scene can be very explicit, but leave a lot to the imagination; or, it can be subtle in terms of vocabulary, but very descriptive. It can tell us exactly who’s doing what to whom, or it can be more about sensations and feelings. Alternatively, if I feel that fading to black would be more natural for my voice or story, I can write a sex scene without writing any actual sex, by focusing on all the elements surrounding sex: the sultry looks beforehand, the clothes on the floor, the dreamy haze afterward. The readers will eagerly fill in any gaps.

I consider my genre

Each genre has different, usually unwritten, conventions when it comes to sex. Reading round the genre I plan to write first gives me a good idea of how much sex is usual in similar books, what sort of language is used, and how explicit the scenes are.

I try not to let embarrassment win

It’s like dancing as if no-one’s watching. I write sex scene as if no-one is going to read it.

Yes, eventually my mother-in-law, nieces, and dentist might all read my book. If I’ve done a good job of writing it, they’ll be lost in the story and won’t even remember that they know the person who wrote it while reading. However, I find it hard to write a scene that makes me uncomfortable. I need to be true to my style, voice, and story.

I try to avoid being nominated for the Bad Sex Award

Even award-winning authors can lose their minds when writing sex scenes. The much-missed annual ‘Bad Sex Award’ that celebrated bad writing in published novels is testament to this. The awards generally go to terrible metaphors (such as comparing nipples to cherries/raspberries/choose your own fruit); corny old clichés (throbbing manhoods, snowy-white virginal breasts); and a sudden outburst of thesaurus-sourced words large enough for the writer to hide their embarrassment behind. There are also several popular websites and Faceplant pages devoted to bad sex-writing.

It’s not that hard to avoid bad sex writing: I try to use a similar style and vocabulary as the rest of my book. To avoid cliché, I reflect on how the sensations feel, what the emotions are like. Just think—as for any scene—what the experience is like for my characters.

I put other things into the scene

Sex isn’t usually silent. Well, it can be. But it can also include other interesting things. Characters talk during sex, and they also think—sometimes about quite surprising things.

I remember that it’s a scene like any other

A sex scene is just the same as any other scene. It has a rise and a fall, it shares the same tone and tension of the story, it’s about character and not plot, and yet something must also happen. Writing a good sex scene requires thought about plot, dialogue, pacing, description, and characterisation: the same elements that are needed for any scene.