Four Sex Scenes

I’ve finished the latest edit on Voyageurs, and it’s ready to go into dev edit as soon as I do one more thing.

Write four sex scenes.

After all, it’s a romance novel, or at least a soft SF novel with romantic elements. There are four places in the novel where they’re having sex, but I don’t go into detail. I suspect that romance publishers will need sex scenes.

I’m terrified.

I have nothing against sex — in fact, you can think of me as sex-positive. But I have seen so many bad sex scenes in my writing time that I fear that sex can’t be written well. There’s over-the-top tentacle sex . There’s overwrought adjective sex, where the men and the orgasms are bigger than life. There’s contractual obligation sex scenes and there’s tab A- slot B clinically detailed sex scenes.

I don’t want to write any of these. I want to write something emotionally fulfilling, heavy on relation and light on mechanics. I don’t know if I know how to do that.

If you hear me screaming today, know it’s because I have to write four sex scenes.