How to Write a Fight (or Love) Scene Part 2

writing fight and love scenesAll right. If you’ve read Part 1, you’ve done the foreplay, the participants have gone through the rituals required by their society, and the emotions are high enough to require action. How are you going to write it? What details will you include? Whose point of view will portray the scene the best?
. Continue reading “How to Write a Fight (or Love) Scene Part 2”

How to Write a Fight (or Love) Scene

writing fight and love scenesThe first symptom of a poorly written fight scene is: too much violence. Characters flail away at each other in a multitude of fancy ways, the body count rises, the gore gushes, and it all blends together in an emotion-numbing jumble until readers are tempted to skip to the end to find out who wins so we can get back to the story. The writer who doesn’t know what he really wants from the fight covers it up with technical details and mayhem. Watch a Transformer movie if you don’t know what I mean.

And love scenes? Same thing. Lots of graphic description of body parts in motion, but strangely unsatisfying. Watch “Fifty Shades of Vanilla” as one reviewer called it. Love and fight scenes cover two primary human activities: taking life and creating it. Let’s see how to make the best of connecting to the basic (note I didn’t say ‘baser’) instincts of our readers. Continue reading “How to Write a Fight (or Love) Scene”

How to write a good love (sex) scene…

As a writer, I’d like to say I’m more known for my fantasy and thriller novels than for my romances and erotic romances (as V. J. Devereaux) but given how often I’m asked about the erotica, I’d have to say it’s about even. *grin* However, anyone who has read any of my books knows there are very few of them that don’t contain a certain level of romance. I’ve always wondered why we’re far more comfortable showing acts of mayhem and murder but we can’t show two people expressing affection and intimacy, one of the most joyful expressions of life? Far more important to your writing, though, is the reason you’re including that scene, whether you stop at the door, take a few steps inside, or go all the way. Continue reading “How to write a good love (sex) scene…”