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.

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?)

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.

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.

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.

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….

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, 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?

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.