Do you feel like your sex scenes are all the same?

[ronde]

Question: How do you keep your sex scenes from feeling 'the same'?

I'm writing two stories for Geek Pride. One is about the arrival of aliens who accidentally cause genetic problems with humanity and procreation. The other is about a geeky guy who summons a succubus who expects more out of him.

Those are wildly different scenarios and the stories feel fun and unique getting up to the sex part. But I get to the hot parts and I feel like I go back to the same-old sentences, progression, and feel to the story.

How do you authors avoid feeling like that? Can anyone provide perspective to help me? I have good stories but they feel like they're like my other stories when it comes to the sexy, intimate scenes.

Outside of the old plug-n-chug, sex scenes don't have to be the same because they involve humans and in some of my work, humanoid aliens. Humans aren't like most mammals who have sex based upon instinct, and unless you write your characters like that, even aliens think and so probably have different ideas about how to go about sex. There is also a huge range of body types in humans and you can give your aliens some of those differences. For instance, with males, there are "showers" and "growers". Showers don't get much bigger than when soft. Growers increase in size when aroused. Female have an almost infinite range of responses to stimulation and timing, from "don't ever do that again" to "I'm ready right now". The variation comes from the character, not from the scene.

 

[Ian_Snow]

I know you publish in the marketplace - how many words a year do you write, roughly?

It really varies on the year, but I'd say somewhere around 750-900k a year.

Also, re: the OP, I forgot to answer the "how do you avoid that feeling" question, and the answer for me is pretty simple. I read a ton, and not just in the genres I write. Take notes on what you like, snippets or bits of dialogue or whatever, but the important part is simply reading. Obviously I'm not saying straight up steal someone else's work, but you'd be surprised at what fuels the creative fire.

 

[tenyari]

I'd have to look but I don't think I've ever had this problem.

My erotic scenes are not very mechanical. I will interrupt them with a lot of dialogue, humor, and side events. Sometimes even tangent out for some backstory.

Like any other scene - it's a place for me to put in the trappings of plot and use the action to try to show rather than tell something or another that itself has nothing to do with the actual scene.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It really varies on the year, but I'd say somewhere around 750-900k a year.

Which is a lot, 2k words a day, every day of the year! I could never contemplate doing that, wouldn't want to. Impressive though, I hope it pays more than a few bills.

 

[XerXesXu]

Which is a lot, 2k words a day, every day of the year! I could never contemplate doing that, wouldn't want to. Impressive though, I hope it pays more than a few bills.

Over the last 12 years, I've produced, on average, ~135 words, ready to publish, each day. I've written, maybe, five/ten times that, but in occasional bursts of five to ten thousand words when I have a day to write. Sadly, I can't write in the interstices between doing other things, but I can plot and plan in my head. It doesn't near produce any worthwhile return on my time, but that's not the point.

 

[Erosfan]

My sex scenes vary to some degree, but I write in the same genre. Exhibitionism and CFNM are where my interests and most of my experience comes from.

 

[Voboy]

To get rid of the humdrums, I focus on developing the characters of the participants. Make them different, with different life experiences, hang-ups, and goals, and they are going to want to very different sex. It's actually more important, I think, than varying the circumstances.

This is how you do it.

Once your characters become actual people, different from the other characters you write, they'll have sex differently. Let your characters fuck in whatever way is true to their nature. If you've given them a good and unique nature, the sex will have its own style.

 

[Athalia]

The way I think about it is that I have sex quite a lot. It’s with the same person and there are only a certain number of things we can do. But it’s never boring, it’s different each time. Nuances. Emotions. What led up to it. Try to capture that in your writing.

Em

That's a good approach. When I write about characters getting into sexual situations, I have them ask themselves, "What's different about this sexual situation? What makes it stand apart from the others?" I have them bring in their likes, dislikes, fears, and curiosity, and these are all in different proportions according to the way I've built the character. Otherwise, sex would be like car repair to a mechanic: pretty much the same routine every time when you replace a part (although mechanics tell me that it's not always that simple).

 

[dbelmont699]

Question: How do you keep your sex scenes from feeling 'the same'?

I'm writing two stories for Geek Pride. One is about the arrival of aliens who accidentally cause genetic problems with humanity and procreation. The other is about a geeky guy who summons a succubus who expects more out of him.

Those are wildly different scenarios and the stories feel fun and unique getting up to the sex part. But I get to the hot parts and I feel like I go back to the same-old sentences, progression, and feel to the story.

How do you authors avoid feeling like that? Can anyone provide perspective to help me? I have good stories but they feel like they're like my other stories when it comes to the sexy, intimate scenes.

I felt the same thing in many of the things I've written over the years. That the sex is often at risk of becoming formulaic.

I feel back on analyzing and thinking about how real sex happens as opposed to fantasy sex we write about. In case I could see that good sex was often 95% build up. Of course I don't actually look at it that way. I might spend if the actual sexual encounter took an hour half of that or even more of that time might just be spent undressing and kissing and touching and exploring.

In my writing I don't make the actual penetrative sex a long thing. Which I think conforms more to the reality of actual sex. If it seems short in a story then I have them go again. I find that more common in my analysis of real sex. Most women I've ever been with we're not really interested in 30 minutes of incessant in and out. But 5 minutes of very high passionate penetrative sex and a good cum followed by some relaxation and a bit more foreplay and more arousal and then another girl. Better to good 5 minutes sessions of penetrative sex then 10 minutes of a boring in and out.

The core principle to me is remembering that it is people involved in sex. The focus is on the people. Not so much on the insert tab a into slot b but why she would let tab a into slot b. What are her feelings and his feelings around the whole buildup and rationale for doing sex.

I play the same concepts in my photographic creations building various components into the image to try and at least suggest the rationale and the buildup that's going into the actual penetration. Not focusing on the penetration. In fact with my photographic stuff I sell them focus on the actual penetrative part. It's either the lead up or the aftermath. Mainly because I think most people can imagine what went on is going to go on but it's the progression up to or immediately afterwards that fills in the fantasy story.

Of course the real final touchstone is if it makes me hard. If I create a scene or a story that doesn't make me want to stroke myself then I figure I haven't got it quite right. And so I look at it and ask myself how I would change it to make it powerful enough for me to do that.

 

[Andrew2023]

When my children outgrew them, I repurposed a few of their old "mix and match" storybooks ...

A few post-it notes, and now instead of ...

Ringmaster Burt || riding a circus cart || bumped a clown || who tripped a Hippo || into the striped tent ...

I have ...

Three lesbians || with 10 inch cocks || sucked off the firemen || behind the bleachers || at the state fair ...