How to Write a Sizzling Sex Scene

By Elizabeth Engstrom

Good sex scenes are a must in today’s novel, and they don’t just happen on their own. There is a structure, a method, and boundaries to be drawn. Whether you want to write for publication or your own enjoyment, whether you want to write sizzling sex scenes for your novel or erotic short stories, you’ll find the tools here. This book is about recognizing the sensuality of our bodies, our minds, our lovers, our environment. Based on years of erotic weekends and riotous conference presentations, veteran author Elizabeth Engstrom presents in this book an awakening jolt for the senses. It is about recognizing and expressing the things that make us feel good about ourselves. It is about describing the indescribable. It is about writing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Imagination Fully Dilated Publishing
• Release date: Jul 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9780996553612

Elizabeth Engstrom

Veteran writer Elizabeth Engstrom has investigated and written about murder and serial killers, both in nonfiction for Time Warner’s Crime Library and in her own dark fiction. Singled out by People Magazine as one of America’s best mystery writers, her 13 critically-acclaimed books and more than 250 short stories, articles and essays have been well-received in markets around the world. Two movies based on her books are currently in development. She holds a master’s degree in Applied Theology, which gives her a unique view on family dynamics. She is on faculty at the University of Phoenix.

Book preview

How to Write a Sizzling Sex Scene

Elizabeth Engstrom

How to Write a Sizzling Sex Scene

Elizabeth Engstrom

IFD Publishing, P.O. Box 40776, Eugene, Oregon 97404 U.S.A. [phone]

www.ifdpublishing.com

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All persons in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

Cover Art, Copyright © Alan M. Clark 2015

eBook Design, Eric Witchey

First eBook edition, Copyright © 2015 Elizabeth Engstrom, IFD Publishing

eBook epub format edition ISBN: 978-0-9965536-1-2

Dedication

Dedicated to Al Cratty

My inspiration for many things erotic

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all the writing conferences and conventions where the presentation of this information was honed, to all the students who attended my erotic writing weekends, to all my lovers who taught me the finer points of pleasure, and all the writing teachers and students over the years. May you all read this information, do plenty of research on your own in private, and then write your best erotic work.

Contents

Cover

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Contents

Books by Elizabeth Engstrom

Contents

Start

Foreword

First, a Comment

Chapter 1: Why Sex Scenes?

Chapter 2: Is it Erotica or Pornography?

Chapter 3: Size Doesn’t Matter, but Point of View Does

Chapter 4: The Simple Structure of a Sex Scene

Chapter 5: What Do You Call Body Parts?

Chapter 6: Practicing

Chapter 7: Organizing an Erotic Writing Group

Chapter 8: Organizing an Erotic Writing Weekend

Chapter 9: My Weekend Workshops (Including the Memorable One for Men)

Chapter 10: Hmmm. What if I Like Doing This a Little Too Much?

Chapter 11: More about Writing Fiction in General

Chapter 12: Resources

Afterword

End

About the Author

Connect with the Author Online

Other eBooks from IFD Publishing

Books by Elizabeth Engstrom

Novels

When Darkness Loves Us

Black Ambrosia

Lizzie Borden

Lizard Wine

Black Leather

Candyland

The Northwoods Chronicles

York’s Moon

Baggage Check

Collections of Short Fiction

Nightmare Flower

The Alchemy of Love

Suspicions

Nonfiction Books

Something Happened to Grandma

How to Write a Sizzling Sex Scene

Anthologies Edited

Word by Word (co-editor)

Imagination Fully Dilated (co-editor)

Imagination Fully Dilated vol. II (editor)

Dead on Demand (editor)

Pronto! Writings from Rome (co-editor)

Ship’s Log: Writings at Sea (co-editor)

Lies and Limericks (co-editor)

Mota 9: Addiction (editor)

Foreword

"Pornography is about dominance. Erotica is about mutuality." –Gloria Steinem

I decided to write this small book right after I got yet another call from a writer’s conference director asking me if I would come give my sex talk at her conference.

My sex talk.

For years, I’ve been teaching weekend workshops on writing erotica for women (and one memorable one for men—more on that later) and giving short conference-sized workshops on how to write well-crafted sex scenes. Sex scenes are crucial to good fiction; they’re excellent opportunities to reveal character, and there’s a simple structure to it. These classes are wildly popular, and they have made me an in demand instructor at writer’s conferences and conventions all over the world.

In fact, occasionally I will walk down the hall at a writer’s conference and hear furtive whispers: There goes the sex writer.

Sex writer! As if I were a pornographer. I could be insulted, but I’m not; I’m amused.

The classroom is packed with expectant faces. What is she going to do? (What do they think? Unbutton my blouse?) What is she going to say? (What do they think? Run down a list of dirty words?)

I talk about writing. I talk about the sexual nature of their fictional characters. I talk about the three-act structure of a scene, and the three-act structure of a sex scene. I talk about practicing writing. I talk about vocabulary and what to call body parts. I talk about the difference between pornography and erotica. I talk about revealing character to the reader, and revealing character at a most vulnerable moment.

Those in the audience, they hear me—they’re taking notes—but I know they’re not thinking of their fictional characters. They’re thinking of themselves. This is what makes these classes so popular. I don’t use any dirty words. I don’t name any body parts. I talk about writing, but they’re all thinking of themselves. They think of themselves as fictional characters and they look at their sexuality. My class gives them permission to do that. And it’s fun, because they can ask thinly veiled questions: My character has this problem… And we pretend she’s talking about her character. I make light of it, and I can do that without insulting