Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Love Scenes

When I wrote my early novels, a chaste kiss was all that was allowed! By the time I came back back to writing fiction again, the whole world had changed and it took me a while to get used to writing love scenes. My very first effort was described by a friend as 'a bit like a 1940's movie where the action moves away from the couple to a curtain wafting in the breeze.'
Gradually I got a bit more daring (and less inhibited)- I think 'Jed and Abbey' from 'The West Wing' helped me there!
But I still don't like (and wouldn't write) graphic descriptions, use of the coarser words for the male and female anatomy, or 'one-nights stands'/'sex for the sake of it' scenes.
I prefer my sex scenes to be part of a loving relationship, the culmination of a long foreplay where the hero and heoine have been falling in love with each other. That, to me, is the essence of a romance novel.

3 comments:

  1. Your love scenes are real sizzlers, Paula. You've left chaste well behind.

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  2. The love scenes definitely do need to be part of the romance between the heroine and hero.

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  3. Yes, left chaste behind, Ana - and thanks for describing them as sizzlers! I've already told my daughters they will probably blush at Chapter 12 of 'His Leading Lady'. I can imagine them thinking 'My Mum wrote THAT?'

    Debra, I've read too many so-called romances where the author seesm to think that hero grabbing heroine and carrying her off to bed (or wherever!) in the early chapters in 'erotic'. For me the slow buld-up is far more interesting and exciting.

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