March 6, 2007 | One Night Stand, writing
Phillipa asked a really good question in the comments to my post below, and I’m copying and pasting it because I want to write about it.
Julie - I hope you don’t mind me asking (I bet you’ll laugh) but do you think is it more difficult to write a sex scene in the first person? I expect it’s no different to writing about the experiences of a fake medium in the first person but…I always think I have the distance of the third person when I write about sex.
I know a first person character is still ’someone else’ not ‘you’ but is it more difficult to shed the consciousness that parents/aunties/whoever might be reading and thinking it’s you?
My experience is YES–it is SO much more difficult to write a sex scene in the first person, so far anyway in the two books I’ve written from that point of view.
In this book, I write about sex in two ways–one, through the heroine’s eyes, and two, through the third-person erotica novel she is writing. The third person erotica novel extracts are so much easier. This could be because I don’t have to write the whole thing, and because I don’t really have the weight of characterisation to convey in them (since they’re only snippets), and also because they’re pretty much parodies…but I think, too, that it’s because they’re in the third person.
All of my M&B novels are in the third person, and I don’t have trouble describing sex in them in quite a bit of detail (unless I’ve got morning sickness, see below). But in Spirit Willing, and in this book I’m writing now, my instinct is to skip over the nitty-gritty detail and concentrate more on the build-up, or the dialogue, or even fade to black.
I don’t think it’s because of what Phillipa suggests–that I think someone might think I’m describing my own sex life. I never am, and that idea stopped bothering me a long time ago. I think it’s because when you’ve got a first person narrator, it’s as if that person is there telling you the story, and people just don’t describe their sex life in detail that way.
Or, rather, the character I’m writing now doesn’t. I can imagine a character who would. But Eleanor is actually quite shy, a fairly inward-looking person. I’m having trouble even getting her to use graphic or coarse language to describe her own sex life, though obviously she knows it and uses it on a regular basis, because she writes graphic sex scenes all the time for her job. Yet they feel wrong coming from her point of view.
This isn’t a problem in third person, because I can just describe what happens–obviously slanting it to suit the point-of-view character, but some of it is just objective description. First-person narration is too intimate, not because I’m too close to the character, but because she’s too close to the reader. It’s as if she (not I) gets embarrassed.
What do you think? Have you had this problem with narrative viewpoint and sex scenes? Why or why not?
Phillipa Ashley says:
Wow - thanks for blogging about this. I’d love to have a go at a first person novel and last night I wrote a first-person short story (with no sex) that set me wondering. You see I thought you handles the sex very well in SWFW, all in character and I am not sure, if I’m ready ‘technically’ yet for a whole first person book.
To save me going on and on, using your blog, I hope you don;t mind if I continue on mine -and thanks so much for the very stimulating answer. LOL P x
Julie says:
Actually I just remembered that one time I did write a first-person short story with lots of explicit sex in it, but that was the sort of character who would.
This is just me I’m talking about–I’ve read some very good erotica written in the first person, for example.
Phillipa says:
“I think it’s because when you’ve got a first person narrator, it’s as if that person is there telling you the story, and people just don’t describe their sex life in detail that way.”
This is very interesting because a friend of mine has just had an epistolary mainstream novel published and she said she could think of no appropriate way - or real reason - why the characters would write explicitly about their lovemaking in their letters to each other. As you say, they just wouldn’t describe it in such detail. They do touch on the subject, however, and in a most unusual way, with the man describing the encounter in tender and ‘feminist’ language. I’ll try and persuade her to come and tell you - much better than I can!
Amie Stuart says:
Yes, absolutely it’s harder to write sex in first person but I think, for me anyway, it’s more mechanics and things like flow.
Jessica Raymond says:
This is a great post — thanks to Pip for bringing it up and to you, Julie, for expanding on it. The new book I’ve just started to write is in first-person and I hadn’t even thought about what will happen when I come to writing the sex scenes. I haven’t written “sauce” in first person before and I’m not sure how I’ll manage with it, but my instinct tells me I’ll probably lean towards doing what you did — skipping more of the detail that would have been used in third-person.
Jess x
liz says:
It was funny reading this because having just finished SWFW as few weeks ago I did notice that the sex side of it was played down or less of it compared to your other books. I hadn’t attributed it to the first person but more to the overall difference in the feel of the book. I can see that it would be more difficult to handle successfully in first person because that person voice is so present and if not handled well overwhelming (which I found at times in Notes on a Scandal which I finshed last night) and sex scenes can to be overwhelming anyway. Hell, I have trouble writin sex scene full stop let alone in first person.
Julie says:
An epistolary novel would be even more difficult to write sex scenes in, Pip, because why would you describe sex in detail to the person you’d had it with? Unless you were trying to turn them on, I guess. It seems more likely you’d describe what you were planning on doing in the future, rather than what you’d done in the past, but again that’s character too, I guess. I’d be interested to know what your friend’s take on it is.
Amie, what do you mean by mechanics and flow?
Jess, it will be interesting to see how you feel about it when you get there. I’ve just finished my second sex scene in this book by ending a chapter before it begins…
Liz, I really did mean to write the sex in more detail in SWFW, but Rosie told me to butt out, it was private. (Quite literally–I wrote those words and then deleted them!) Eleanor is doing the same thing, but she’s less blunt, I guess.
Of course there is a different audience for LBD than for M&B books so that determines the level of detail in the sex scenes, too.
Phillipa Ashley says:
Julie - don’t you find that the LBD books don’t have a specfic level of sexual detail. The ones I’ve read vary from Step On It, Cupid to Rachel Gibson. That’s what I like best about them and I think that underpins the whole ethos - a short romantic treat that’s always a surprise.
Phillipa Ashley says:
Just wanted to say that I always liked the whole range of HMB too, from Tender to Modern..:) I tend to enjoy particular authors, however spicy or sweet! It’s just I certainly haven’t seen or received any guidelines of any sort, apart from my own individual notes (oh yes!), on my LBDs.
Michelle Styles says:
It depends on the line you write for at HM&B as well, Philippa. Historicals run the range from sweet to spicy and there are no guidelines — just what feels right for the story.
I once tried to write a contemporary first person and decided that writing the sex scenes in the first person made it to voyeuristic for me. It was like a girlfriend was telling me about it. Ah ha, I thought, that is why most sex scenes are kept as third person, because then the narrator *I* does not get in the way. But it could be just me.
Rosy Thornton says:
Hi Julie,
I’ve often read your fascinating blog (following the link from Phillipa’s blog) but have never dared to post before. I’m the one who wrote the epistolary novel she mentioned (called ‘More Than Love Letters’ and published by Headline). As Phillipa says, I had a helluva job knowing how to approach the scene where they Finally Do It. Up until then the hero and heroine had both told their main correspondent/confidant about their growing attraction, and even about the odd bit of snogging - but it stretched imagination just too far to have either of them writing or e-mailing the details of a full sexual encounter to any third party!!
You say in a post above that the protagonists themselves are not likely to describe to each other in a letter what they have done (as opposed to what they fancy doing next!) but actually, I did include some after-the-event thoughts from both sides. Things they felt and wanted the other to know but were far too inhibited to say to each other face to face at the time…
Joan says:
Your aunties don’t read your books…..or your blog!
Love, Aunt Joan
Julie says:
It definitely depends on which line you’re writing for in M&B–there are guidelines about the levels of sensuality for Romance, Modern, and Modern Extra, but as Michelle says, not for Historical. This is probably because the sensuality is a selling point for Modern and Modern Extra, whereas the historical aspect is the most important in Historical. Do you think?
LBD does have a different audience and feel, and sexiness isn’t an overall selling point, as it is with Modern Extra, so there can be a range. It’s all reader expectation.
Julie says:
but actually, I did include some after-the-event thoughts from both sides. Things they felt and wanted the other to know but were far too inhibited to say to each other face to face at the time…
Rosy, I LOVE that idea–how incredibly romantic and emotional. Will have to look out for that.
It’s still not exactly an explicit sex scene though, is it?
Julie says:
Aunt Joan…hmmm. Yes. I believe you.
Tilly says:
Um, well, you say I write first person sex well. And I say, woo, yeah, great. I do. But I’m not sure if I can explain it to anyone else. I’ll try.
Yes, if you write first person sex scenes people will think it is you. A lot of people still talk to me as if Peep Show was my autobiography. But the thing is, that’s okay. So people might find out you have sex, or think about sex, or think sex is good. Or think you have a different kind of sex to te sex you do have. It doesn;t amtter. Look, are you writing about wanting to pay a man for sex? Or spying on gay men? Or fetishising disabled guys? ‘Cause I written about all thsoe things and people think those books contain truths about me and, yes, they do, but nothing bad has happened. I have no shame. This could help. I also have a partner who doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him - which probably double helps.
Try not to think about potential readers, but if you do, imagine one potential reader as someone you really, really want to get off with and you are trying to dirty talk him into bed.
Seriously, write in third (that character POV) and then convert it. This works for me. Some people can’t do it, but I quite often rewite into different tenses and POVs. It seems to work fine. Were-book was in first but is now in third and that didn’t cause any problems.
If the character wouldn’t tell anyone about sex, fine, but she must think about it. Write stream of consciousness rather than confession. If she, say, wouldn’t use a word like ‘cock’ you can have some fun with this as she might think of it as his ‘penis’ or, I don’t know, his ‘willy’ but as she gets more excited she might start thinking different. Try writing her stream of conscious, frist person, approach to orgasm and see what she says then. If I had a character like that, I would like to make her talk/think quite dirty in bed. But that’s just me.
Read some first person filth. My books, obviously, Kristina Lloyd’s Asking For Trouble is great, Mr Benson by John Preston (this is gay SM porn, but you did come asking me), Carrie’s Story by Molly Weatherfield. I’d also reccomend Stephen Elliott’s My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up. It’s first person, sort-of-memoir and it probably says more about exposing yourself in erotica writing than I could, but the whole dead mother, rotten childhood aspect (yeah, it’s an erotica book - but it has a lot of levels) might not be so great for you right now. If you see it in Borders, read the introduction.
That’s it. This is going to look mega-long isn’t it? This little box won’t let me see how much I wrote.
Rosy Thornton says:
I must admit that both my mum and my Aunty Sybil (really!) have read my book and are determined to read the next one. And I’m also afraid that my commitment to family harmony (and my general embarrassment) is higher than my artistic imntegrity, so explicit sex is out!
I did have a lot of fun writing the explicit stuff when all I was doing was sharing fanfic on the net (with strangers and virtual friends) - but I never tried first person. Just too close to home, I reckon. I genuinely admire those that can take on the challenge and come up trumps.
Fascinating discussion!
Rosy.
By the way (waves to Julie) I gather you were at New Hall for a bit. I used to be there, too….
Phillipa Ashley says:
This IS a brilliant discussion. Tilly and Rosy - thanks for your comments and Julie, for letting us all rattle on (me anyway).
If it’s time for confessional I’ve had ‘bad’ words edited out of my sex scenes - words that don’t bother me but aren’t to everyone’s taste. My in-laws (some over 75) have read Decent Exposure and no on e has complained yet.
Somre of the most thoughtful and insightful comments I’ve had have been from men who didn’t mention the sex but (typical) loved the male POV in the book, of which there is an awful lot. One or two women have made remarks that I must be ‘a very lucky woman’ which is fun. I think I stopped worrying about what the neighbours would think about two days after the book was out - there are FAR more things to worry about now, as Julie, you and other authors warned me! Actually, I have a secret hankering to write a really controversial, unreconstructed ultra-alpha hero but I’ll leave it to the experts.
Intersting Tilly that you chnage POV from third to first - I’ve done the other way round recently as I envy the way that first-person books engage the reader so quickly and intensely.
Jenna says:
When I write erotica (hush) I always opt for first person because I find it more effective. But then, I only write erotica about married couples, so I don’t have to build up so much because there is an underlying trust and less squick factor.
It’s all about the character though. I read Michelle Pillow’s Cheek, Bitten By the Bug. Great sex scenes in first person…but as the characters grew closer, the scenes became more emotional and less descriptive. It was a nice technique.
My husband kinda enjoys that people now think our sex life is smoking. We’re high school sweethearts, so there’s only ever been us, and I think for him it is some kind of validation. I say that without him ever having read any of the erotica. He thinks the M&B books are a bit much.
Julie says:
Tilly, thank you so much for coming and giving your perspective (despite your looming deadline). You’ve made me think about the sex scenes in my book and I really considered your stream-of-consciousness idea, but I think in the end this is a romance rather than an erotic novel and I think I need to flirt with sex rather than go all out with it. (So my lack of explicitness, in the end, is down to audience and narrator, not just narrator.)
I love the idea of inhibitions being dropped, even as far as language, in a sex scene. I also love the idea of thinking of one reader as someone you want to talk into bed. This is great stuff I can learn from and use, in a different kind of novel, maybe.
Julie says:
I force my relatives to read my books, Rosy and Phillipa, so I had better get over any embarrassment fast!
Glad you’ve both had good feedback from family.
It’s true that people look at you and your husband/partner in a different way when they find out you write about sex. It’s cool that your partner doesn’t care, Tilly, and that your husband thinks it’s enhancing his reputation, Jenna!
I’ve had some small edits made for language and content in my M&B sex scenes. It remains to be seen if I’m edited for any of the language in this book–not in the sex scenes, but in the erotica extract bits.
(Rosy, yup, I was there from 1990-1–how about you?)
Kate Johnson says:
Okay, I came in late on this. But as someone who writes erotica, often first-person, I’ve found it very interesting!
It’s very different to writing a third-person scene and yes, it does feel a little uncomfortable sometimes. But I’ve never felt as if it’s me writing about my experiences–maybe because the first-person characters I’ve written in erotica have been so unlike me!
I do have a first-person series that has virtually no explicit sex in it, and that heroine is a lot like me, so maybe there’s something in that.