The crit group was a hundred pages into Half Lives before one of them asked, “these two guys do have sex, don’t they?”
Yes, I said.
When?
In about six hundred pages.
We’ll get to see it, right?
Um . . . no.
The answer, while unloved, had been something I’d wrestled with for a while. HL was a dark fantasy. While love was at the core of the story, showing the sex didn’t seem necessary. Besides, I argued, the characters were facing a sentient ancient evil. When did they have time?
The crit group understood. While sex scenes were fun to read and write, not every story needed them.
Time passed. Pages were revised, sent out, and critted. Around page two hundred, a new question emerged; “we’ll get to see these two other guys have sex, right?”
Yes. Kind of.
Kind of?
Fade to black.
We’re coming over to your house later.
Um . . . I just moved.
The threats–I mean questions, did raise some interesting issues. When does a story call for sex? When does sex reveal new facets of the characters and when is it in the way?
In erotica, the answer seems easy. Sex is the story. In romance, sex can both draw the characters together and tear them apart. In dark fantasy? I’m uncertain. Some have it. Others don’t.
I do remember reading stories where I wished the author had gone farther. The genres vary, from fantasy to romance to mystery. I didn’t want anything hardcore. Just a hint of something. A touch. A kiss. I’ve seen some characters almost lose everything. As a reader, I need to feel it was worth it, and sometimes fade to black (or fade in from black) doesn’t do it.
Where does this leave me in HL? I’m still trying to figure out the sex question. So far, I’ve come up with this: for as much time as one character spends being afraid of intimacy and acting out against it, I must then show him being loving and intimate for a longer period of time.
Love is stronger than evil. It just takes a whole lot of pages to show it.
Written by Luisa Prieto
Dark fantasy writer by day, dark fantasy writer by night. I'm charmingly dull that way ;)
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Victoria wrote,
I like Kirby Crow’s Scarlet and the white wolf, where the sex doesn’t happen and it feels perfectly right. With too many books the sex comes to soon I feel. I always preferred when the plot was the main focus and the characters build their sexual tension until about the end of the book. Even if the sex doesn’t happen in the 1st book like with Scarlet it feels great and satisfying. One of the best books I remember in regard of your topic.
Link | November 29th, 2007 at 10:28 am
L.M. Prieto wrote,
I’ll have to look into that book. Thanks :)
Link | November 30th, 2007 at 3:13 am
Ally Blue wrote,
All kidding about the loverly mansex aside, I say trust your instincts. They are very, very good instincts, and if it feels wrong to put a sex scene in then it doesn’t need to be there. I’ve barely started HL, considering how looooooong it is, but what I’ve read is completely riveting and doesn’t really need sex to keep it that way :)
Link | November 30th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
L.M. Prieto wrote,
Thanks :)
We’ll see what you say in another two chapters ;)
Link | December 2nd, 2007 at 7:29 pm