Questions Answered

Part 2

I'd like to apologize right now for not answering anything in this since December. That's just shitty of me. I had a fulltime course-load this past semester with five classes though, and it took everything I had just to try and get my regular stories updated at all. But the semester's over now, and I have a couple days before I start up on the summer semester and finish my degree.

Now, I've gotten some really great questions from you guys, and I know you're eager to have them answered. I promise, I'll answer every single one that's come through the reviews at this point. I might even write up a couple of these chapters right now to have them queued up for posting. We'll see.

So, let's get to question number one.

Question 1: Smut advice for the young and/or inexperienced.

Alright, this is a question that I actually had to sit and really think on. It's kind of a hard thing to answer, to be honest. Like, I can sit and tell you how to write a sex scene, but if you're young… It kind of makes me uncomfortable to answer it. Trust me, I'll explain why.

So, I know some number of my readers are teenagers. And I know the rules on this site say that we can't post MA material, and I do it anyway. (Shit, don't tell the admins about that…) But I can kind of write it off while posting as, "I'm writing this for mature audiences, not for kids to read my porn." I also know how the internet works (sort of lol, not in a super technical sense) and that people who technically shouldn't be reading what I post, are reading it. But I'm not actively going out of my way to say, "Hey kiddos on the playground! Take a look at this porn I wrote!"

Giving smut-writing advice kind of falls in the same vein for me. I don't want to give advice on writing sex scenes to people under 18, because I'm pretty sure that's illegal in some places. It's also part of the reason that the CFLA (Crack Fiction Liberation Army) community that I was a part of got "disbanded" by us mods. There were underage writers and readers in there, and what we talked about was very clearly "adult" conversation. If that makes sense. It's one thing to read my smutty writing when you're thirteen, fourteen… hell, even seventeen. It's another thing entirely for me to actively tell you how to write about characters fucking.

However! There's another part of me that really does want to answer this question. And that's because there are people who might be reading this that are adults, but are inexperienced. They haven't had sex for one reason or another. I know a few people who are sex-repulsed (a nifty term that I learned recently), but they want to write scenes of their characters, who aren't sex-repulsed, getting their freak on.

If this was on another site where you had to verify you're over eighteen, I would give a much more in-depth response to the question. As it stands, I'll give you guys the answers that I'm comfortable giving, because I know we're in mixed company.

(And to the ones who are under eighteen and reading this… please don't tell me that you're under eighteen. Please. For my own sake and for plausible deniability… don't. Also, I'm not trying to single anyone out in regards to the vague-ness, or make anyone feel like they're less of a writer because I won't fully answer this question. It's as much for your benefit as it is for my own personal mental state.)

Alright… So, how to write the "mature" scene…

Okay… So… Words. Uh… Sex things… Hand gestures... Penis!

Alright, I'm just playing. I needed a little laugh for a moment.

I guess a good place to start would be talking about the difference between Romance and Erotica. For a while, I didn't know there was a difference between the two. I just thought that Romance was the big umbrella and Erotica fell under it. Which it does… sort of. They're both part of the same literary branch, involving the relationship between two people, that isn't platonic. The real difference comes down to the details.

So, what is Romance? I won't get into all the technical bullshit. A quick google search can tell you about the history of the Romance genre. But if we want to get super reductive here, then Romance is about the Relationship. A good example would be those god-forsaken slow-burn fics (that I love so fucking much), that focus on building the relationship between the characters and not the sex. An example for the ones who read all of my stories would be Lean On Me (ElfLu).

Alright, then what's Erotica? Well, I think the easiest explanation of Erotica is that it's straight up porn. I write a lot of Erotica scenes in my stories. Any time you get a solid description of the fucking, that's jumped dick-first into Erotica territory. Another way to think of it is like this. You know PWP ("Plot, what plot") stories? Erotica. There can be plot in erotica, and there can be erotica interwoven in a plot. But if the story hinges on the sex scenes, then it's Erotica the Genre.

Again, this is super reductive, and there are nuances to each of the genres. Also stories can shift between the two. Or even have an even combination of both.

What I'll talk about to answer this is how to combine Romance and Erotica. Without giving too much detail. I hope.

The best way I've found to write out those mature scenes isn't in writing the actual sex part of it. Yes, if you want to write Erotica, then you get super detailed. If you're writing a Romance that has a sex scene, make it about their relationship. Make it about the emotion behind what they're doing. You can enhance a story with a sex scene by taking it away from the physicality and showing how the actual relationship between the characters is affected by this moment.

So ask yourself a few questions before you dive into writing that scene.

What makes this special? Decide whether it's one person's first time, both of their first times, just a random fuck in an alley. You need to know why you should spend time writing this scene out of every other scene. If you're going for Erotica, you don't really need a reason to write sex scenes; they're expected. But if you're writing Romance, then there has to be a reason for the readers to see that scene in particular.

What's your intent, as the author, for this scene? Now this could vary depending on the story you're writing. Maybe it's a crazy non-con or dub-con scene, and you want to focus on how fucked up the situation is. Maybe you want to focus on the emotion behind their first night as a married couple. Or, as we know is common in the Fairy Tail fandom, maybe it's a mating ritual and you'll be doing some world-building (setting up lore and things) with this scene. Or maybe it's a BDSM couple, and they're exploring things. I'd be very careful with this, unless you're already in the BDSM community. It's very easy to misrepresent what it is that those in the BDSM community do, and the best course of action is to not write it until you've really had some time to do solid research. The easiest way to do that is find a forum or someone knowledgeable in what being in the BDSM community is really about, and ask all the questions!

What makes this scene different from the other times they could have sex? If you can't answer this one easily, then reconsider putting the smut in. Now, if it's the first time they bang, I can see it being important. Or if they're breaking up and this is a "goodbye kiss" scenario. Maybe you're only writing the foreplay that leads up to the sex, and something important happens during that. Or plenty of other reasons.

Let's say you're determined to write the sex. Fine. I usually am, so I totally understand. But how do you go about writing that smut scene?

Like I said before, put the emotion in it. It's one thing to have that physical side, and even beautiful descriptions of what shit feels like when it's touched and so on, but finding the balance between physicality and the emotional connection (or even the emotional disconnect) is what grounds the reader.

The easiest way to go about doing this is to get in the character's head. What are they thinking about while having sex? Are they focused only on what's happening right then? How does this compare with things they've experienced before? Or is the character also inexperienced and this is new territory for them? If that's the case, then how does it feel, emotionally, to be doing something new like this?

Now, I won't tell you what to write and what not to write when it comes to smut. That's for you to decide. The best way to determine how to go about writing it is to just try it and see what you think. Maybe try reading other works to see how those authors tackled the smut issue, and decide what you liked about it and what you didn't like.

A lot of it boils down to practicing your writing.

"But Gem," you might be saying, "This doesn't really tell me how to write it. What if I've never done [sex things]?"

That… is a great question. I am not telling you to go out and do whatever it is you want to write about. Some people write from experience, while others just wing it. To be perfectly honest, I do a little of both. Sometimes I ask my husband to reenact a scene with me, so I can make sure it's physically fucking possible for people who aren't gymnasts to get into whatever position I have in mind. Other times, I stare at a blank wall and picture it in my head and just pretend I know what the hell I'm talking about when it comes to Lucy getting spanked and loving how it feels to have hot wax poured on her body.

I'm not saying you need to go out and do it… whatever it may be.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: you don't always have to write the "mature" scenes. There are a lot of stories that don't have that content in them, and they're fucking majestic. If you'd like an example, check out rhosinthorn and her story "Still Standing" - it's a slowburn with absolutely no smut, and it's amazing. Some people just don't write smut for one reason or another.

On the other side of the coin, there's apriiil and her "Fairies and Their Kinks" story collection, where she's working on figuring out her "smut voice." Basically, it's her way of determining where she wants to be in regards to writing the sex scenes. Some people like only writing foreplay. Some like to take it to the end. It really depends on you as a writer.

If you're inexperienced, you don't need to write those scenes just to have a good story. Some of the best stories out there don't have them. If you're underage, why are you even considering writing a smut scene? I don't want to sound condescending, but a lot of the time readers can tell when it's a "young person" writing smut, simply based on some of the details that get put in there.

Unless you're writing a parody of some sort, no one needs to know the exact measurements of a penis. No one thinks in regards to their precise dick size. It's weird to even read something like:

He whipped out his throbbing twelve inch cock and wrapped his hand around the six inch girth.

Dicks are not that big, and if they are... that shit is not going inside someone easily...

I hope that helped. Maybe one day I'll come back to this question when I can think of more to add to it that isn't a play-by-play on writing sex. Maybe. But, look at that, there was some specific advice in there after all.

Seriously, that dick thing gets on my nerves to no end and just ruins the whole scene for me when I read it.

And now I'll take one small question that's easier to answer. That one took a lot out of me.

Question 2: I'm just wondering if you listen to music or something along those lines as your write, or as an inspiration. If you do, what kind do you listen to? If you don't, what do you do for inspiration?

It really depends. When I'm writing action scenes for things, I tend to put on my Pandora playlist that's loaded up with video game music; things like the Dragonborn song from Skyrim, Boss music from any Final Fantasy game, etc. For some stories, having music in the background is too distracting, because I end up putting more focus on trying to find the perfect song to fit the mood.

For Cross Point, it's fifty-fifty. I had the songs picked out for each chapter beforehand, but some of them have changed since I first chose them. So for some of the chapters, I have the song playing almost constantly while writing the chapter to keep myself in that song's "headspace." Remember that chakra-balancing Reiki scene in Chapter 14 of Cross Point? For that one in particular, I searched Youtube for a tantric/meditation sort of song that I could just play while writing out how Bickslow healed Lucy and aligned her chakras. Other times, I don't have the song chosen for the chapter anymore, so I write the things I have plotted out and just let it flow. When I pick the song, I go back through the chapter and listen to that bitch on repeat while I'm revising to see if it inspires me to add anything to the chapter.

If I'm not listening to music though, I just have to have background noise. Even white noise works. Just something so I'm not only hearing the keys clicking - because that makes me super fucking tired and then I fall asleep while writing the chapter.

My absolute favorite thing to listen to that isn't music though… Bob Ross. No bullshit. If my husband isn't using the television - we tend to sit next to each other on the couch while I write and he plays whatever his new video game is - then I hop on Netflix and put on some Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. And I just keep that soothing ass voice drifting in the background while I write. When I get to a point where I need to look away from the screen - whether I'm curious about what he's painting or if my eyes are starting to hurt… or if I need to drink something... or breathe sometimes - Bob Ross is there with that beautiful afro and even more beautiful artwork. He's just so relaxing.

That's it for questions this time around. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Keep sending in those questions, and I'll do my best to keep answering them!

~~GemNika