Lindsay Straube: How I Write a Sex Scene

Plenty of people find the amount of sex in my books gratuitous. I find it necessary. Basilisk culture is intrinsically tied to sex: it literally determines who rules their society. Sex is the way my characters communicate–the way they establish and define their relationships to one another. It would be impossible to write my books without it. Often the sex is not actually about sex at all–it’s merely a vehicle for character development, or a way to further the plot.

In my newest book, Kneel Before Me, even the lack of sex scenes has meaning. Daphne (our FMC) is waiting until she’s in love to sleep with someone, and Kronos (our MMC) is respecting her wishes. This tells us everything we need to know about them as characters without any sex at all. The absence of sex is just as important as the presence of it—if not more important.

So here’s how I write a sex scene.

The first thing I establish is why the characters are having sex. Despite what you might think given the nature of my books, I hardly ever write a sex scene just for kicks. There’s always a reason why the sex is happening, and the reasons vary widely. It could be the breaking point after chapters of simmering tension, or the culmination of a slow burn after they’ve barely even touched hands. Sex is often a turning point between characters–a moment when they go from one stage of their relationship to the next.

Once I understand why the scene is happening, I figure out how it will happen. Sex is about power. At any given time, that power can change hands. This can be done literally through certain sex positions, or figuratively as the characters realize their feelings for each other. Sometimes only one person is emotionally available, sometimes both of them are. The sex could be slow and intimate or a wild, drunken mistake. The only thing it must be is intentional.

I’m often asked where I draw the line—when and why a book would be considered erotica instead of romance. I’m sure there’s an official definition, but for me, the difference lies in the way sex is incorporated into the plot. If you can remove the sex scenes from the book and the plot remains the same, then you’ve got yourself a romance. In my case, the sex is so deeply intertwined with the plot that it would be impossible to remove it. The story would make no sense without the sex scenes, and the relationships my characters have with each other would make no sense either.

Sex is a tool like any other: no different from dialogue or sentence structure or punctuation. It’s an uncomplicated way to show without telling, and my books wouldn’t be the same without it.

Kneel Before Me, prequel to Kiss of the Basilisk, is published by Arcadia (an imprint of John Murray Group) in HB, ebook and audio.