The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers

I'm a freelance writer, looking to expand and improve my writing, and The Joy of Writing Sex is one of the best resources I've found. It's not just about writing erotica. It gives the reader tips and guidelines for introducing love scenes into any genre, and how to make it believable, and provides examples from modern literature. Elizabeth Benedict doesn't say or do anything cutsie, and that makes the book not only informative, but a pleasure to read.I think that possibly the best thing about this book, other than the examples, are the exerpts Benedict included from the interviews she conducted with authors about their work.

Man, it's one thing to think about sex, another thing to have sex, and waaaaaay different to write about it. It's difficult to the max, especially when you really don't want to come off sounding like you're writing porn - or even erotica. Elizabeth Benedict has done a favor for all of us writers who have struggled with the topic, right down to interviewing famous writers of famous sex scenes. It's a resource for MFA students, authors, teachers, and just ordinary people who like to write for their own pleasure. The Joy of Writing Sex is sane and straightforward, entertaining and informing, hip and...sexy!

You can write serious literary works and have sex scenes as Benedict illustrates. Is it going to make our parents blush? Probably, but she even deals with those issues. She teases out some of the best examples of being specific and not necessary explicit--what are the sights, sounds and smells surrounding our characters, not just the body parts they are using. What are they thinking and what are they saying? I found great validation in my book, "Forever Retro Blues," that my sex scenes were not just gratuitous, but functioned as part of the whole story. I wrote with intuition because I did not yet have this book, but I know I will do better in the future for reading Benedict's book.

If you are writing modern fiction, the odds are you will include a sex scene somewhere in your story. The problem I see in most published fiction is that the sex is predictable, i.e. it's almost always fantastic. This could also be interpreted as boring, leading me to frequently skim over 2-5 pages searching for the point where the story starts again. Authors who strive diligently to avoid dead spaces anywhere else in their novels will let the action come to a dead halt while the characters get laid. Ms. Benedict shows you how to avoid this all-too-common problem. Just as some scenes in a story are located in a bar, along a street, or at a society party, some scenes happen in the bedroom (or kitchen, or back seat of a car), and these scenes can do everything a scene is supposed to do. They can move along the plot, reveal characterization, disclose an important piece of backstory, and/or up the conflict. This is why Ms. Benedict's advice can help all of your writing, especially when she asks you to explore your characters' attitude toward sex. What are their attitudes to everything else in the world? It's a great question to ask yourself each time you lead your characters into a new situation - they've got opinions and reasons for them! If your sex scenes are only sex, and you wish they were a lot more, I highly recommend this book. One caveat: the examples include gay sex as well as hetero, and this may be offensive to some readers.

Recognises the need for good sex between the covers (of a book). Good sex is hard to write. Even bad sex is hard to write. It's even harder to read. We writers need this kind of advice, to help spare us all from the agony of badly written, clumsy, forced or farcical sex scenes. I've told all my writer friends they HAVE to get their hands on a copy.