What is the best way to construct this sentence?

[AG31]

I got to noodling about this when I got inspired by a bit in a book I was reading. It will probably never see a real story, since I no longer have fantasies feature female MCs. But I would like to pin it down and put it in the Writer's Notebook thread.

Her whole body was was suffused with warmth. It focussed/was concentrated deliciously(??) on/gathered deliciously in her breasts/nipples and vagina/between her legs.

I'm not particularly happy with any of the choices of words. Hoping you brilliant writers can come up with something better!

 

[TheRedLantern]

Her whole body was was suffused with warmth. It focussed/was concentrated deliciously(??) on her breasts/nipples and vagina/between her legs.

Personally, what I'd do is scrap this whole bit and rewrite it from scratch. I don't mean that as an insult, and i wind up saying the same thing about my work all the time (I'm pretty sure the people who have beta read my work will tell you that I don't get too precious about ripping out chunks and rewriting them)

This bit screams "the author's heart is not into it." Passive voice. Adverb. Clinical words. "Suffused." (again, not trying to beat up your writing, just trying to show what it is that I'm seeing and how I approach a revision for something that doesn't feel like it's working the way I want)

Maybe something more like this:

Warmth spread through her body. A bead of sweat rolled between the curves of her breasts. Her hands pressed against her stomach and slid downwards, drawn to the heat of her own sex.

I still don't totally love that, and I would make another pass or two over it before I considered it "good." But my boyfriend has decided to make breakfast and only a great fool says "no" to free waffles.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The heat spread through me irresistibly, each fiber, every nerve, alive and tingling. Heart pounding, breath faltering. And the surge of stimulation arrowed inexorably toward my bullet hard nipples, and my throbbing, needy clit.

 

[SimonDoom]

Totally agree with TheRedLantern's advice here.

"Body was suffused with warmth" is passive, and it's a cliche. No insult -- I think we've all dealt with writing choices exactly like this. I know I have, and I'm sure I've been guilty of this sort of thing countless times.

Scrap the thing and focus on the one thing you really want to say. Decide exactly which body part you want to focus on, rather than the "body" generally. Then pick your verb. Verbs are the key. Make it active voice.

Boil it down to the essentials. "Her vagina warmed at the touch of his finger." In this case you turn "warmth" into the verb "warm." You focus on one body part. And you focus on the thing that's doing the warming.

It's still a bit of a metaphor/cliche, because, really, does the vagina get "warm" when somebody touches it? Not exactly, but it probably DOES accurately describe how a woman might feel when that's happening.

The key is to burn all the cliches, passive voice, and generalizations to the ground and start from the beginning by trying to express the point as precisely as possible. Only you can decide that, because you know what you want to say. We don't.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Her whole body was was suffused with warmth. It focussed/was concentrated deliciously(??) on/gathered deliciously in her breasts/nipples and vagina/between her legs.

Her body sang with the thrill of arousal. Her nipples tightened, her clit throbbed.

"Darling, more tea?"

(It was an EB café, after all.)

 

[TheRedLantern]

These threads are gold, @AG31 ! Thank you for opening your work up for us to feast on. I love revising prose and I enjoy seeing how other people approach it. @EmilyMiller has some great word choice in her version, and @ElectricBlue has a great minimalist style that is worth examining (I confess to having studied his previous Hammered story when I was trying to write mine)

Edit: And @SimonDoom agreed with me, which reveals him to be a person of taste, intellect, and quality

 

[Dreamerman77]

How about something simple like: Her body bloomed with heat...

 

[AG31]

Personally, what I'd do is scrap this whole bit and rewrite it from scratch. I don't mean that as an insult, and i wind up saying the same thing about my work all the time (I'm pretty sure the people who have beta read my work will tell you that I don't get too precious about ripping out chunks and rewriting them)

This bit screams "the author's heart is not into it." Passive voice. Adverb. Clinical words. "Suffused." (again, not trying to beat up your writing, just trying to show what it is that I'm seeing and how I approach a revision for something that doesn't feel like it's working the way I want)

Maybe something more like this:



I still don't totally love that, and I would make another pass or two over it before I considered it "good." But my boyfriend has decided to make breakfast and only a great fool says "no" to free waffles.

I'm totally fine with a complete re-write. But the key points I want to convey are the heightened sensation at the nipples and genitals. Avoiding those words....

 

[AG31]

How about something simple like: Her body bloomed with heat...

See my reply to RedLantern.

 

[AG31]

Passive voice. Adverb.

I'm giving your reply a good think, but before I can finish thinking, I need to understand what you mean by "adverb" here. Needs an adverb? Shouldn't have an adverb?

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

Personally, I would avoid passive voice and say something like:

She paused, enjoying the warmth spreading over her skin. Had it been so long that she had forgotten the thrill of a lover's touch and the tingles it sent throughout? She smiled at the feeling. "I love it when you do that to me," she said.

 

[AlexBailey]

Her body blazed with desire, wet, hard, and aching in all the best places.

(final edit)

 

[StillStunned]

Her whole body was was suffused with warmth. It focussed/was concentrated deliciously(??) on/gathered deliciously in her breasts/nipples and vagina/between her legs.

With every breath, she felt the heat spread inside. It lingered in her breasts, where her nipples seemed to strain and grow taut. Passing on, into her stomach and below, it nestled between her legs, at once both unsettling and delicious.

 

[AG31]

in all the best places.

That's good! I'll see if I can work it in.

 

[AG31]

I was going to name those that suggested a switch to the active voice, but it appears to be 100%. I began thinking hard about this upon reading @RedLantern's reply and got enough content to post its own thread: When, if ever, do you choose the passive voice? I hope y'all put a Watch on this thread so you see this.

 

[AG31]

I now see that the style of a sentence is heavily dependent on context. You, dear editors, would have no way of knowing these things, but my MC is the recipient of the action (I don't know what the action is), and at this point she is not being touched, and she tends toward somber.

One good thing about the replies is that people seemed to take from the writing what I was intending, even though most didn't care for the intension.

focus on the one thing you really want to say.

What I really wanted to say was that the erotic feel first engulfed her whole body and then focused on her breasts and genitals.

Boil it down to the essentials. "Her vagina warmed at the touch of his finger."

It wasn't just the vagina, and she wasn't being touched.

Her body sang with the thrill of arousal. Her nipples tightened, her clit throbbed.

Sang is too cheerful, and clit is too slangy. But you and @AlexBailey are the only ones to preserve the essentials of what I was trying to say without adding a bunch of stuff I wasn't trying to say. Thanks!

Her body bloomed with heat...

I'm considering adopting this.

and aching in all the best places.

This evokes a smile in me. My MC isn't smiling. Do any of you have a word for the difference between borderline smiling and not smiling?

 

[TheRedLantern]

I'm giving your reply a good think, but before I can finish thinking, I need to understand what you mean by "adverb" here. Needs an adverb? Shouldn't have an adverb?

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs" -- Stephen King

He goes on a whole rant about them in On Writing.

99 times out of 100, a verb/adverb combo is better as just a stronger verb. I agree with Stephen King on this one, adverbs are weak. There's no emotion, no punch from them. Rip. Tear. Shred. These are words that pack a punch. "Cut deeply" or "Sliced sharply" don't.

 

[AG31]

Personally, what I'd do is scrap this whole bit and rewrite it from scratch. I don't mean that as an insult, and i wind up saying the same thing about my work all the time (I'm pretty sure the people who have beta read my work will tell you that I don't get too precious about ripping out chunks and rewriting them)

This bit screams "the author's heart is not into it." Passive voice. Adverb. Clinical words. "Suffused." (again, not trying to beat up your writing, just trying to show what it is that I'm seeing and how I approach a revision for something that doesn't feel like it's working the way I want)

Maybe something more like this:



I still don't totally love that, and I would make another pass or two over it before I considered it "good." But my boyfriend has decided to make breakfast and only a great fool says "no" to free waffles.

So I did give it a think and it resulted in a whole new thread: When, if ever, do you choose the passive voice?

As to the use of the adverb deliciously, can you suggest a way to intensify the verb (whatever is chosen) focused/concentrated/gathered to evoke deliciously? I assume deliciously is the one you were referring to.

You had no way of knowing, but she was alone, perhaps just observing someone. Not touching herself.

 

[AG31]

Clinical words. "Suffused."

Not that it proves a single thing, but I had to share this sentence from a book I was reading just now (City of Secrets, by P. J. Tracy).
He tensed when he heard a car door slam, then felt the hot surge of adrenaline suffuse his body and sharpen his mind.

 

[nice90sguy]

Non-contact infrared thermometry was applied to the subject's breasts and vulva. Vascular dilation was noticeable, but well within normal levels. Vestibular gland secretion was detected, causing a raised, but not abnormal temperature reading around the vulva. No further action is required.

 

[TheLobster]

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs" -- Stephen King

Goodness me, now I shudder to think how much more of a doorstopper The Stand would be if he actually used those adverbs.

 

[AG31]

, "A pleasant heat crept over her body, brushing her chest and breasts. Her nipples tingled against her tight half-shirt. The feeling slithered down her bare stomach until finally, deliciously, exquisitely it reached her sex."

This has possibilities. Especially "sex." But I can't get my head into the feeling slithering down her stomach.

 

[EmilyMiller]

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs" -- Stephen King

The full quote is:

“The road to Hell is neatly paved with adverbs.”

 

[AG31]

Thanks to all. Here's what I'm settling on.

Heat blossomed throughout her body, gathering in delicious intensity in her breasts and sex.

Thanks, in particular, to @RedLantern and @Dreamerman77.

 

[AlexBailey]

Well, @AG31, now that you got my ADHD going I’m think about all of the ways replacing “the best” in the sentence below modifies the emotional impact:


Her body blazed with desire, wet, hard, and aching in all the best places.

* the worst
* her favorite
* her most vulnerable
* the usual
* the expected
* the most important
* the most private
* the most ungodly
* the most intimate
* the most shameful
……