When I first had the idea to write my own gay romance novel, one of the first decisions I made about the style of the book was that it would be fade-to-black. For those who don’t know, this means that while the romance will be seen on the page, including flirting, kissing, cuddling, affection and even some suggestive conversation, the actual sex stuff takes place off-page. The term fade-to-black (or FtB) originates in film and television and refers to the scene cutting away once the heavy petting gets too heavy for whatever rating the film-makers are hoping to achieve.
There are many reasons an author may use this technique in their writing:
So the novel is appropriate and accessible to a range of readers, including a young adult audience.
To make the novel more commercially acceptable.
They don’t want to/like to write sex scenes.
They don’t feel their book needs them or will benefit from them.
My reasons weren’t any of the above. My reason was quite simply that I was embarrassed! The thought of writing these scenes and having others reading them made me feel very uncomfortable. I was worried that people would judge me for what I wrote. I was also worried people might think I was sex-obsessed or perverted for writing these scenes. I was worried people might think it inappropriate for a mother to write these things. Really, I just went a bit Mary Whitehouse on myself. (If you don’t know, she was a horrid British woman who became famous for being professionally outraged in the 70s and 80s. Google her; you’ll get cross!)
Which was all rather odd because if you ask anyone who knows me “prude” is the last thing they’d call me. (In fact, tart, flirt, and horny cow would feature a lot higher on the list!)
As I consumed more and more MM (male/male) romance I joined several FB fan and recommendations groups. Some of these were based around one particular author, and that author is usually an active participant in their group. Interacting with the authors, who were all lovely people, many of whom had children and partners and perfectly normal lives, but also wrote very hot and heavy sex scenes, made me realise that the author and person were totally separate entities in my head, even though I only interacted with them in their capacity as an author. I never considered that the people who wrote these books were sick or perverted or oversexed, or any of the unkind things I’d thought about myself. I also realised I really liked a lot of books that had explicit sex in them.
As I became more of a part of the community of romance authors and readers, I saw people requesting books with explicit sex scenes, sexual preferences of characters, specific physical features of characters (often anatomical, if you catch my drift), various kinks, and being wholly unashamed about it.
So I made an important decision: I decided to get over myself.
I decided that if sex scenes felt natural, and like they fit in my book, then I would write them. I sought advice from other authors, and one of the most important and surprising things I was told was: Make sure the sex scenes aren’t “skippable.” I.e. they have to bring the plot forward in some way; they should illustrate a change or development in the relationship of the main characters. Otherwise you’re just writing p0rn. (Which there is absolutely nothing wrong with, it just isn’t what I’m writing.)
So yesterday, I wrote my first proper sex scene! I wasn’t embarrassed while writing it; quite the opposite in fact. Like with this whole process, I just wrote what came naturally, then did a very quick re-read, fixed a couple of glaring problems and left it. I’ll go back to it later, with fresh eyes.
So there you have it: from Mary Whitehouse to Jackie Collins in the flick of an eye!
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