Should love scenes be tested? Or stay a fantasy…
Today we have author Jenna Bayley-Burke visiting Naughty and Spice. She’s writes for multiple publishers and today is asking everyone quite a fun question! Should love scenes be tested? Or stay a fantasy…
* * *
Would you could you in a tree?
Could you would on your knees?
Would you could you in a box?
Could you would you with a Fox?
Would you could you on a boat?
Could you would you do what you wrote?
Maybe?
Thanks for having me at Naughty & Spice y’all. When I started to write this post I knew I wanted to talk about where our characters make love because it plays a part in my last two releases…but Feisty’s post yesterday got me thinking…if there is such a thing as TMI from authors about their personal lives, isn’t it sometimes because people ask?
I know I had to be careful in both For Kicks and Her Cinderella Complex when they had water scenes. When I read a sex in water scene written as a slip and slide I roll my eyes. It’s not that easy. It works, yes, but it’s all in how you do it.
In For Kicks the heroine is a virgin. Kinda. It’s complicated. But anyway, sex in the tub that first time? Not so much. Fun in the tub? Great prelude to coming attractions. Things progressed. Phone sex. Hotel room sex. And THEN pool sex. But that is the cherry on top. Hmmm…pun intended?
Locations for lovin’ become part of the dirty talk for the couple in Her Cinderella Complex. When Heather realizes she’s just lived out two of her fantasies (skinny dipping, kissing under water) she decides to list them all…and then improvise a few more as things go really, really well. The pool, under a waterfall, on a trampoline…
I love reading about different locations as much as I love writing about them. But do I want to know the reality behind it? Do I want to know if an author made sure you really can have sex on a cruise ship balcony or in a treehouse?
Nope. I like my fantasies much better J No worries about pictures surfacing on the internet or having to call your best friend and explain why you need bail money. But then, I am a total chicken.
What do you think? Do you like thinking the love scenes in books come with an ‘reliably tested, completely approved’ stamp, or should they just stay part of the fantasy? And if you ‘don’t wanna know’…then next time you hear someone make a snide comment about how acrobatic an author must be to keep up with all the research for her writing be sure to chime in that Stephen King never killed anyone to research his books. That we know of at least…
Thanks for having me, y’all!
Jenna Bayley-Burke
March 7th, 2008 at 6:38 am
Maybe I’m odd, but I honestly haven’t spent much time wondering if an author has ever “test-driven” the scenes in her books.
The only problem I have is when a love scene is just so over the top that it can’t be possible in any way. It just pulls me right out of the story, you know? Luckily for me, I’m pretty forgiving in those situations. And I have an amazing hubby, who has proven to me that some of that stuff, well… Yeah, it can happen.
Then again, I haven’t tried writing anything that I haven’t seriously given thought to, or tried myself. (Sadly, I’m not that adventurous…yet.)
Ciao!
March 7th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Well, considering that a fair number of my ‘love scenes’ are my vampires having a meal (feeding is the orgasmic activity for my vampires) I sincerely hope they are strictly fantasy.
For my straight erotica, most scenes are ‘author tested’ as I never do anything really adventurous there. On the living room couch or in the kitchen aren’t very adventurous.
For my BDSM work the reply is ‘not yet, but sure enough working on it.’
March 7th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Keep it a fantasy. Things are never as good as you imagine them to be. Sad but true.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I certainly think they can be inspirational, though.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I think that there are some things that I would want to try and some things I would leave alone. I’ve written things that I have and haven’t tried. I haven’t really read anything that would be so far off the mark that I think it would be impossible, I just don’t have the desire to test it out…yet. I don’t think that if I try them in real life that it’ll be ruined for me if it doesn’t work out, if the character is into it then I’m into it. I have read some things that were so juicy that it made me want to try them…and I doubt that they would be bad in real life. Even the most common practices can suck if your partner has no clue what he/she is doing. I say don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Interesting take on the TMI thing. To be honest, I really never think about if the author has actually done the scene in question. Maybe I will now…
And as for water sex? If I answered, it would be TMI.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
There was one book I read where the love scene had obviously been pieced together…things were one place and then another and then back and…
That got me. So did one toe sex thing. 
But I have had ‘friends’ assume I test everything for accuracy. I don’t even have a trampoline!
March 7th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
It might be true that the reality is rarely as story-book orgasmic as the fantasy, but in my book, it’s the thrill of just knowing you did it that makes it worth fulfilling. Mr. Robin and I have been naughty in some unexpected places and had to break things up way before either of us was ready — but it was really fun to give each other surreptitious looks afterward, knowing there’d be time later to finish what we’d started. You can have an orgasm anytime, but an adventure…? That’s something that’s once-in-a-lifetime.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Toe sex? Say what???
If I wrote every sex scene based on my sex life, oh, I’d be writing Inspirationals.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
And yes, I would with a Fox. Yummy pic.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Serious about the toe sex. I shuddered when I read it. To each their own I guess, but eeeww
I do check out balconies now since reading so many love scenes that take place on them ‘but no one could see’. I always look around, checking out if I can see on other people’s balconies.
Now THAT is something I am liable to be arrested for. Balcony peeping.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Hey, let’s face it, if I tried half of the positions/locations I get my characters in, I’d not only need bail money, I’d need an ER. LOL
Still, when my brothers-in-law waggle their eyebrows and ask with a smirk if I use my husband for “research,” it’s fun to snuggle up to his side, look adoringly up at him, and say “Why, yes. Yes I do.” That shuts ‘em up pretty quick, and guarantees will be paying extra special attention to me. Later.
March 7th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
As an author, there are times I make my husband sit with me in certain positions, then move to others, so I can see how awkward, or how to describe it. We usually snicker like 12 year olds the entire time. As a wife, I can say there is nothing that turns my husband off more than trying to live up to a mental fantasy I’ve got for/from one of my books. He prefers to be in the drivers seat, and for sex to be in the moment. That said, he doesn’t always *know* that some trick with my mouth may have come from my expanded horizons via reading…
March 7th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
TOE SEX????
Um no thanks.
Great post Jenna!
March 8th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
This is interesting. I never even think about the author unless I am reading an autobiography. I think about the author of fiction before I read it, as in “Oh so-and-so has a new one out”, or “I haven’t seen this one by so-and-so before” or “when did she start writing paranormals?” or “I haven’t read one of hers, yet..” Thoughts of that nature. I guess since we are dealing with fiction, I just read the story as fiction and don’t consider anything but the storyline and the characters. Now, if Feisty ever writes an auto, I’m sure I’d be thinking “wow this girl is a FREAK!”
I’m reading Shana Abe’s “The Smoke Thief” and I have yet to ask myself if she has the ability to turn into a dragon, or knows anyone who does.
As far as the TMI blog, if TMI bugs ya, don’t go out of your way to find it and read it and be annoyed by it. duh.