Wednesday's Classroom

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes - Lesson #3

© 2010 Lynn Crain

Here we are, back again with the third lesson in my Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes class. I do hope you are enjoying this as I haven’t gotten much feedback so far. But what I’m seeing is allowing me to make this class better!

Please enjoy this lesson!

Lesson 3

Add love scenes when the characters want to make love, not when you want them to make love.

This is one of the hardest things that an author has to do and that’s called pacing. Again, I relate it back to your own experiences. What happened when you rushed something? Did it work out well? Chances are it didn’t. It’s like rushing a cake; if you take it out too soon, it’s not done, too late and it can be burnt to a crisp.

Everything has a pace, be it fast or slow. When you truly listen to your characters, they will tell you when they need to make love and when they need to argue. Part of adding steam is to know when things are right for the characters, not when a ‘formula’ tells you a love or sex scene needs to be added.

I’m a pantser and all of my stories are character driven.

Some of you may have heard of this term and some of you may not. When I started my writing career, I was anal about planning. I had charts on characters, charts on plots, I played the ‘what if’ game and twenty questions for each of my chapters. I would plan every detail to the nth degree because I wanted things as perfect as I could make them.

Now days, I write by the seat of my pants most of the time because I work things out in my head and follow that plan but not so stringently because I’ve learned to listen to my characters. I know more about them sometimes than I do my own kids. I write what the characters want me to write, which is their story. Nothing more, nothing less.

It is true, however, that there are some stories I still plan to the nth degree and those would be my heavy fantasy or futuristic stories. Those are just as much about the world building as they are about the characters or the plot for that matter. If you don’t plan those, you can get caught in your own plot pitfalls because you haven’t done your planning.

What is right for the characters needs to be right for you as the writer.

There are times when your characters might ask you to write something controversial or not right for you to write. I know it sounds strange but if your characters need to do something that you find objectionable, then maybe their story needs to be written by some one else.

Now this isn’t the same as you being embarrassed over a love scene or something of that nature. When first learning to write love scenes, they can be very disconcerting if you’ve never done that before. I know that the very first time I wrote a BDSM scene, I would get up, walk away from the computer and mutter, ‘I can’t believe I just wrote that’ and mean it. It wasn’t until I had been writing the story for a month that I felt comfortable with it.

Part of the reason that I could continue to write their story was that I didn’t feel bad about writing something done in an adult consensual situation. Adults can and do make their own decisions. My characters were adults. They had adult minds and adult thoughts. They could handle what was going to happen to them. True, you say they were just characters but to me they weren’t and it’s all about perspective.

Listen to your characters as they will tell you what they need.

This is just as important as any other issue talked about here. Characters will tell you what is important to them. In the story I mentioned above, the heroine needed to have a deep, dark fantasy fulfilled to fall in love with the one man she could. I gave her that situation and what happened in it was fulfilling for her.

Your characters need to be as satisfied with the outcome of your story as you are. Sometimes it won’t be a happily ever after but it will always be satisfying.

Exercise

1. Give me a scenario where a love scene would be appropriate for your characters.

2. Give me a scenario where a love scene would be inappropriate for your characters.

3. What type of writer do you want to be and why? (Pantser or planner)

4. Why do you think it’s appropriate to listen to your characters?

5. When wouldn’t it be appropriate to listen to your characters?

See you all next week for Lesson #4 in Wednesday’s Classroom!

Lynn

Wednesday's Classroom

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes - Lesson #2

© 2010 Lynn Crain

We’re back for lesson #2 in the Adding Steam workshop. I sure do hope you all are enjoying this as I do love to share my information!

Lesson #2

Use your own experiences

I’m sure at this moment, you are wondering just what am I talking about. Your own personal experiences can’t be what people want to really see. Well, I’m here to tell you that they do. People must relate to your characters; they must find some common ground or your characters will be meaningless to them.

Have you ever caught yourself while reading a book saying some thing to the effect of, ‘I can see myself doing that’ and know you mean it?

And I don’t mean using the experiences literally…you all remember that blush first being in love…use it, use it to your best advantage because people like to read about other people. How many of you are sick of the heroine or hero always being perfect? I know that I am. Why? Because people are flawed, even the really great people have flaws. They put their pants on the same way we do. They wear underwear, they shower, they go to the bathroom and for heaven sakes’ most of them fart too.

But the point is that you know and can relate to all those things. Use what you know. There is an old saying ‘Write what you know’ and the reason is that if you write about what you are good at, it comes more naturally.

If you are writing romance, there are some things that only women know. Most women remember their ‘first time,’ so use it. You can remember what it was like seeing your spouse for the first time. I do. I thought he was crazy because it was freezing and he was wearing shorts. I also remembering me thinking he wasn’t bad looking and maybe I should get to know him. I’ve used different version of this again and again.

Another one, most women remember the first ‘real’ date they were on, so use it. My husband and I didn’t date at first, we gang dated meaning we went out with a group of people. And we always seemed to pair up differently. Sometimes I look at my husband and don’t know how I ended up married to him. But I do know I worked my butt off to get him. This is something I can use.

The same can be said for men. When I decided to write from a man’s point of view, I realized I was out of my depth. I don’t know what a man feels during sex. But I do know my husband and trust his judgment. When I’m writing from the male point of view, he reads everything. He tells me things like ‘a guy wouldn’t think that emotionally about this’ or ‘no way would a guy do that.’ To be accurate, you have to have resources you can fall back on.

You can use anything you have experienced to make your writing richer and fuller. Everything you do in this mode just makes it so a reader can more readily identify with your characters. If the reader can’t identify with your characters, they won’t finish the book or maybe they won’t even pick it up.

Exercise


1. List ten experiences that you can use in a novel, be it romance, erotic romance, sensual romance or just a regular book.

2. Take one of those experiences and write me a whole paragraph about one of your characters doing the same thing.

3. What did you get out of the experience? Can you apply this to your writing.

4. List one outside resource you can use when you need it. It can be a person, a book, a library or even a place on the internet. The point here is to get you thinking about how you can find out the information you really need.

See you all next Wednesday!

Lynn

Wednesday's Classroom

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Lesson #1 

© 2010 Lynn Crain

Welcome back to Wednesday's Classroom. Last week I told you all that I would be presenting the free online workshop, Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes. Here is the first lesson. There is an exercise at the end of the lesson which I would love you all to do. You can post it here for everyone to see, or you can send it to me privately at lynncrain@cox.net. At the very least, please leave a comment so I know you've been there!

Lesson #1

Set the mood for both you and your characters

So what do I really mean by setting the mood, you might ask. Most of you do this without even thinking about it. Remember when you took that long bath putting bath salts in the water and lit the candles around the tub to create that ultimate experience? Yeah, I know you do. You wanted something relaxing and at the same time exhilarating. Remember that first date with your loved one? How about that first dinner? Or first night?

No matter what you’re doing you need to set the stage in order to get ‘into the mood’ for writing, especially writing love scenes. There is nothing worse than trying to write a witty, sexy tryst when you can’t get out of the doldrums.

Here are some sure fire ways to get yourself in the mood for writing great love scenes.

1. Read books the day before in the genre for which you’re writing.

Now I realize that this may sound hokey BUT there is nothing more stimulating than reading something that gets the creative juices flowing. Pick up that latest book by your favorite author. Or even get something new and different by some one you haven’t read before. Make sure that whatever you pick up, it is in the genre you are writing at the moment. There is nothing more frustrating than to be writing a romance when that erotic love scene is rolling around in your head.

Some of my favorite authors are Morgan Hawke, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Debbie Macomber, Emilie Richards, Nora Roberts, Melissa Schroeder, Joy Nash, Jennifer Ashley and Nikki Rivers to name a few. All of those people write very different things so it would depend on what I am writing the next day just what I’d be reading.

One other thing, do your best to turn off your internal editor. You know that one where you pick apart the book you are reading. This is for enjoyment and if you find yourself editing or being critical of the book you’re reading, find another book.

2. Watch a romantic movie.

For me, I just love watching a romantic movie. And it doesn’t matter when it is as the day before you write, the day you write or even the day after you write will work. It can be an old classic like An Affair to Remember or a new classic like While You Were Sleeping or Notting Hill and it can even be a brand new movie like Sweet Home Alabama. It can even be an autobiography like I Walk The Line. There’s just something wicked about Johnny Cash when you see him as a young man. But the point is, to lose your self in the romance and the story. It’s easy to write about something when you’re feeling the same emotions.

Oh…almost forgot one for those erotic romance writers…there’s nothing so sexy as the stair scene in The Thomas Crowne Affair. It burned up the screen.

3. Listen to music while you write that all important scene.

It has been said by many, many people, and proven too, that music can set the mood. Every wonder why the Scottish took their bagpipes into battle with them? It’s because just the sound of the pipes could work the men up into a frenzy and I mean frenzy. My husband is Scottish and when we went to Scotland, we stopped to hear the pipes any time we could. When we saw the lone piper at Castle Eileen Donan, we felt lonely, when we saw the bagpipe brigade practice for the Edinburgh Tattoo, we felt invigorated. There is nothing like a good song to put someone in the mood for anything. Think about how music is used to set the scene in a movie. You know exactly what is happening just from the music. Think Jaws, think Somewhere in Time and you’ll understand exactly what I mean.

I always listen to music when I’m writing and I am definitely more productive. If you go to my MySpace, you will find a band called the All American Rejects belting out their latest hit. I saw this music in a Battlestar Galactica announcement and traced it down because I loved the sound so much not to mention the really sexy scenes depicted in the commercial. My daughter-in-law was so surprised that I like this band she called my son right away and told him. I love music. Any music.

My kids gave me an IPOD for Christmas a couple of years ago and to be honest, I listen to it a lot but while I’m at my computer, I just turn on Itunes. I frequently spend an hour or so downloading music because I never know just what I’ll find interesting some days.

For me, a day without music is like a day without sunshine.

4. Look at phrase books.

Again, this may seem a little strange but when you are stuck in a scene and nothing seems to work, pick up a phrase book and see if it can jolt you into thinking up something on your own. The two that I use are ‘The Romance Writer’s Phrase Book’ compiled by Jean Kent I believe. This is a really, really old book. It’s from 1984 and I have two copies which are both falling apart. The ISBN 10 is 0399510028 and the ISBN 13 is 978-0399510021. It’s available from Amazon.

A new but similar book, The Millennium Phrase Book by Rebecca Andrews, is done very well. The author has updated many things and has taken into account the change in the market. This book is published by Highland Press and the ISBN 13 is 978-0-9787139-5-9.

Sometimes, I will just look at either of these books and get lost in the phrases as I roll them around in my mind to see if they will fit the story I’m working on at the moment. And since they are phrase books, you can copy things word for word if you’d like. Me, I just get the general idea and put it into my own words.

5. Look at sexy pictures.

I’m sure that many of you are thinking by this time that I have truly lost my mind. But humans are sense oriented creatures. We have to be able to touch, taste, hear, smell and see something for it to mean anything to us. Most of us tend to be very visual creatures in this day and age with everything being in our face. Why do you think that kids are so zoned into the computer games? A lot of times our visual perceptions supersede any of our other senses. Think of the car accidents because someone is not paying attention to what they are doing. Most of those people are looking the other way because had they really been looking at what they should have been looking at, the accident or incident probably wouldn’t have happened.

Last week when I was uploading something to offsite storage, I couldn’t figure out why the link would not work correctly. I worked with it over an hour before I sent it off to a colleague who immediately fired back, ‘Why is there a CW at the end of the filename?’ I had looked at that name for over an hour and had never noticed the extra letters. Talk about a ‘Duh’ moment. Our eyes tend to see what they want to see and sometimes what they see really isn’t what is there.

So just what do I mean by looking at sexy pictures, you might ask. Well, you can get some reference books like I have, The Better Sex Guide, The Kama Sutra, and Ultimate Sex to see the really erotic sexual positions as well as some great description. These books visually show us just how sexy and erotic sex can be. Now for the tamer side, I look on photo sites like www.istockphoto.com or www.canstockphoto.com. These places have some of the sexiest pictures you will ever see. Some people are fully clothed and others aren’t but you don’t see a thing because most things are rated PG on these sites. Matter of fact, one whole lesson will be on less is more because you don’t have to see everything to know it’s sexy.

Exercise

1. Give me a list of your five favorite authors and tell me why you like to read their books.

2. Give me your five top picks for most romantic movie. Again, give me a little insight as to why you think this movie is great.

3. What is your favorite music and why. Do you listen to any of the current bands? Why or why not?

4. Do you think phrase books would be useful? Why or why not?

5. Do you think as a writer you would find looking at pictures useful to writing a novel?

Hope you all enjoyed this first lesson in the workshop.

Until next week…

Lynn

Heavens! It’s Tuesday!

Hello, everyone...and I’m sorry I’m terribly late on this one. Today, I am in computer hell because I apparently have some sort of virus type bug on my computer. The program caught it but states I must erradicate it but I can’t seem to find it.

So, it would seem I am in a pickle as to what to do today. I have other computers I can use, and am doing so right now, but still it is such a hassle to move from place to place getting what time I can on a machine. This is not the optimum thing for a person who writes all day long. Matter of fact, this is downright annoying when it comes down to it.

So this will be short and sweet today...and I so apologize for it...I just have to be doing other things with that infernal machine.

But you have a lot to look forward to this week.

Tomorrow is Wednesday’s Classroom and Lesson #2 of Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes.

Thursday will be the day I reveal an unedited excerpt from my new story, The Harvester. Yeah, I’m really excited by it and plan to turn it into my publisher on that day. I thought giving you a treat would be fantastic.

Friday is This and That day and I have a ton of new links for you. It will probably be a double batch or I might increase it to fifteen a week as the document is getting longer and longer. I also want to give these links to you in a time frame where it is relevant. I hate it when I get a link and the time for the information to be useful to me is long past.

Saturday is going to be Sexy Saturday and will start matching my yahoogroup as the day I promote myself first then others as I can. Each week, I will do at least one excerpt from a backlisted book. If I can, I will promote them newest to oldest so you all can check them out. When I run out of me, I’ll put in something from someone else to break it up so it doesn’t have to be an ‘All About Lynn’ fest all the time. Yeah, I know, I’m weird that way.

Well, there you have it...the rest of the week all planned and ready to go...if you want more, you’ll have to let me know!

Thanks for being so supportive and being the best readers in the world. I love you all!

Until tomorrow!

Lynn

Wednesday’s Classroom

Last week I told you I would be adding a free class to my lineup of fantastic blogs. I remain true to my word. Here is the agenda for the class which will be held over the next nine weeks. We will be doing a unit every week for the next nine weeks. They will go along with this agenda and the only thing I would like from you is participate. Just comment on the class and participate by doing the exercises at the end of each lesson.

Also, you can ask me any question you wish as I am available any time I’m at my computer. That’s every day, almost nine to midnight. LOL! It really depends upon the family and if I can keep focused. Sometimes when a story is close to the end or I have to work out a scene, I will often break for a day. But I always check my email.

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Free Workshop

© 2010 Lynn Crain

I have been asked recently by more and more people just how I add steam to my many love scenes. In the course of a few years, I have put together what works for me. I’m hoping to share those ideas with you all over the next few weeks in this free workshop. So please, pass the word around to all your friends. We’ll have fun!

Here’s what we’ll be covering with each week building on the previous one:

Set the mood for both you and your characters.

• Read books the day before in the genre for which your writing.
• Listen to music while you write that all important scene.
• Look at phrase books. 
• Look at sexy pictures.

Use your own experiences

• I don’t mean literally…you all remember that blush first being in love…use it.
• Most women remember their ‘first time,’ so use it.
• Most women remember the first ‘real’ date they were on, so use it.

Add love scenes when the characters want to make love, not when you want them to make love.

• I’m a pantser and all of my stories are character driven.
• What is right for the characters needs to be right for you as the writer.
• Listen to your characters as they will tell you what they need.

Get some good research material.

• Good research books are invaluable.
• For erotic, things like the Kama Sutra are a must.

Details are everything.

• If a character is fantasying about a certain body part, can you imagine what happens when they actually get that body part?
• Know the temperature of their skin – hot, cold, clammy or warm and inviting.
• Know how the characters should look when making love – pink cheeks, rosy lips, closed eyes, opened eyes.
• No wandering body parts.

Don’t ever write sex to fill up pages.

• Sex needs to happen when it needs to happen and not before.
• Readers can tell when a writer has had to ‘force’ a love scene.

Remember that as an erotic romance writer you are writing hot, sizzling love scenes and not just sex.

Sometimes less is more.

Make each love scene emotional.

• At least one of the two characters has to have some sort of emotional attachment to the reason they are having sex.
• It’s not always who you think it should be and it doesn’t need to be revealed right away.

Take note of the anatomical details.

• Characters have to be anatomically compatible.
• Huge men will never fit into a small, child-like woman. Not happening.
• Know what is and isn’t humanly possible.

I hope to see you all next week when we begin setting the mood!

Have a great week! Until then…

Lynn

The Writing Life

This week has been a busy week so far and it’s only Tuesday. Actually, it started last week as we looked at houses because we’ve decided it that we may want to expand. I’d personally like my own bathroom and a pool. Tired of sharing with the guys. LOL!

Then on Saturday, my youngest decided to twist his ankle and it’s a weird sprain. It still pains him but it’s not bruised or swollen for the most part. But he can’t walk well and this will necessitate a visit to the orthopedic surgeon. Sigh.

Monday was a writing day although I tweeted more than I wrote it seemed as I had the kid and the dog to contend with. The dog you ask...yeah...the dog. Seems that when Kyle got hurt and was Jekyll and Hyde on us, the dog freaked and decided he needed to chew a bit of his own flesh off. He needs to go to the vet but he made for an already hosed day.

I so hate Monday’s for the most part. Instead of complaining I decided to do a little cop out and find a quote, which I think absolutely appropriate. Here it is.

"Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing and life doesn’t." ~Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman wrote Stardust for which I am very grateful. I love that story and follow him on Twitter. He is so dead on with his quote that the moment I saw it this morning, I knew I had a winner.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people when they’ve asked me what’s up, that they wouldn’t believe me. And Neil has told me why. LOL!

What has been your worst people-will-never-believe-me day? Tell me and you’ll get an extra ticket tossed into the hat...so to speak...LOL!

Have a great day...don’t forget...tomorrow is Wednesday’s Classroom and Lesson #1 of Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes will be posted.

See you on Thursday!

Lynn

Wednesday’s Classroom

In order to get my blog more organized, I’ve decided to make certain days to certain things. Well, not all of them...LOL!

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays will still be pretty much open days for doing whatever needed. On these days, I will talk and hopefully inspire someone to be a better writer.

Wednesday’s I’ve decided to make it my classroom day. On these days, I will do a lesson of sorts. I’ll give a lecture on the blog, which will have homework for those who want to participate. The subjects will be varied and based upon first and foremost, what you all might like to see. I already have some lessons in place and we’ll start with those until I can get some more input from you. This week’s lecture will be on the different levels of intimacy and will feed into next week’s ‘Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes.’

Friday will be 'This and That’ day where I post some of the many, many links and interesting things which come across my desk. And believe them there are a lot of them.

Saturday will go right along with my Sexy Saturday on XtraOrdinary Romance’s yahoogroup. Every week, I open my loop to other authors and readers to post. Some weeks there are a little, some a lot but when we do post, it is a fun filled day full of sexy excerpts. Hope you all can join us there sometime.

So, without further ado, here’s the first lecture in Wednesday’s Classroom. Enjoy!

The Many Levels of Intimacy

Over the years, I have written to various levels of sensuality. Each story requires something different but in general, the levels of intimacy remain the same. You will find many articles written on this subject with good reason. For us, the romance writer, be it erotic or sweet or sensual, the stages are all the same.

Everyone agrees that these steps need no verbal queue but all lead from the first advance to intimate contact. It’s all in the body language, folks and body language doesn’t lie. If you need some lessons in body language, watch the new Fox show, Lie To Me and you’ll learn everything you ever wanted about body language. They do it right.

But getting back to us writing love scenes, it is imperative that you have these steps. Sometimes, you can skip a step if the story calls for it BUT for the most part, these steps need to happen for your reader to get into your story. In addition, the love scenes can make or break a novel.

Eye to body – This is commonly known as the once over. And it is usually very subtle. The gaze will drop from the upper face, meaning the eye and nose area, to the lower face then on down to the upper parts of the body. Sometimes, the person will step back to get a better, fuller look at you. If that happens their whole posture will change as they glance at you up and down to see how your face matches your body.

Eye to eye – Intimacy increases the moment two people have eye contact. The more eye contact, the more soulful the looks. The looks will become more and more meaningful as more are exchanged. If a person refuses to gain contact in this sensual charged moment will send a message one is not interested.

Hand to hand – Contact is usually lingering but light. It can be disguised as being accidental or occurring in a social setting, which is considered acceptable. This would be like one putting a hand under and elbow to guide someone, two people reaching for the door handle at the same time or a handshake that slowly ends. Look at the way the Victorians or those of the Regency period acted toward each other and you will see this step everywhere.

Hand to shoulder – This behavior can again be hidden within what is considered socially acceptable behavior. Until this point, either person can withdrawal gratuitously without any real hurtful feelings. However, once this boundary has been crossed, there is no going back without one’s pride being severely injured. This is just a touch to the shoulder for a variety of reasons, like getting ones attention. This is also a form of claiming ones territory and can be used to ward others off.

Arm around waist – This is the signal that one wants greater intimacy. This is the time to get out if one does not desire this relationship. Feelings will be hurt if one doesn’t respond positively to this gesture.

Mouth to mouth – No, we don’t mean the resuscitation kind. LOL! This is the actual act of kissing where chemical information is passed from one person to another. The kiss adds another sense to intimate contact and that is taste. The first sense, encountered way back in step one, is smell and pheromones are a very powerful odor. Taste can tell one all sorts of information about people like body temperature, hygiene level and a variety of other things. If the people are involved in the kiss, their temperature will go up since the stimulation will cause sexual excitement. When people are emotional cold, they are usually physically cold as well which means they are not that interested in continuing the encounter. The more passionate a person gets, the more their temperature increases.

Hand to head – This is a trust issue. The more one person trusts another, the more likely they will allow their head being touched. Women tend to do this way before men. Caressing ones head indicates an increasing trust between the two people involved. Our heads are extremely vulnerable and only someone we trust is ever allowed to touch us there with a negative reaction.

Hand to body – This fondling can happen through clothes or under them. Some people will close their eyes as they are unconsciously gathering more information about the person they are with. However, keeping one’s eyes open while maintaining total eye contact is a more powerful gesture. There one uses even more senses, touch, sound, taste and sight as well as smell. During the physical portion of our encounter, our sense of smell is very powerful, as it will help us to become more in tune with our sexual partner, making us more sensitive to their unique smell. Odors are a powerful aphrodisiac, which helps to prepare us for a pleasurable experience and to etch our partner in our memory. The best source is natural smells, so keep the perfumes to a minimum.

Mouth to body – This can be very stimulating and a real turn on for both parties. Breasts and necks are very sensitive for both sexes as are the lower abdominal region. Fellatio and cunnlingus can be very rewarding as long as both partners are into oral sex.

Hand to genitals – Gentle caresses are always best in this stage. If you have gotten this far, intercourse is usually imminent. One can heighten the sexual tension in the story by making the characters get this far without fulfillment. Once one gets to this step, each partner trusts each other explicitly in a normal relationship. There are some other types of relationships where trust is never achieved.

Genital to genital – This is the final act in lovemaking. Everyone is different and the emotions as well as all the senses need to be utilized when writing a great love scene. Vaginas and penises are utterly boring when none of the stimulus is present.

Now, not all of these steps need to be present in your novel. Just remember, each step is a sensual journey. Recently, I had been in the blah stage of writing a love scene. Then I saw last an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and they reminded me of just how sensual stolen looks and accidental caresses could be. Suddenly, I was all hot and bothered again to get back to my characters.

Hope that this little journey can help you all create great love scenes.

Until next the next Wednesday’s Classroom…

Lynn