O, For A Muse of Fire: Shakespeare’s Inspiring Love Scenes

Like a Costco of love scenes, Shakespeare has something for everyone. While there is no sex on the page, there is plenty of innuendo. Some rowdy, some sly, some witty, love scenes of every flavor abound from passionate, lusty, or dark, to outrageously funny, poignant, or earnest.


Shakespeare’s lovers are virginal youths, gods and goddesses, attractive opposites, and murderous spouses. The wonder of Shakespeare’s characters in love, coupled with his brilliant language – that can be bawdy, or transcendent – is something you will be struck by again and again. You’ll never fail to find gems within his work that will inspire your own creation of both evocative love scenes and rich characters.

Revisit the most famous, and oft-quoted, of his plays – “Romeo and Juliet” – and you’ll be wallowing in romance, love, desire, and rapturous words of love. He captures with eloquence the youthful energy and passion of the pair. Witness the speeches of Romeo and his Juliet where their impatience and lust are so evident. Romeo’s famous Act II, Scene II speech “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks, It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.”, conveys his emotions and hormones running amuck. And Juliet, as she awaits the return of Nurse, her agitation blatantly clear, bemoans, “O, she is lame! . . . Had she affections and warm youthful blood, She would be as swift in motion as a ball;”. Later, the all-encompassing power of her love is laid out for the reader in Act II, Scene II with its stunning conclusion:


“…Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy’d. …”


On the opposite end of the love scene spectrum, you have the witty adult banter replete with sexual innuendo, foreplay if you will, between Kate and Petruchio, in “The Taming of the Shrew”. This famous meeting is a terrific example of Shakespeare’s bawdy bent (Act II, Scene I):


Kate: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruchio: My remedy is then to pluck it out.
Kate: Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail!
Kate: In his tongue
Petruchio: Whose tongue?
Kate: Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.
Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail?
Nay, come again,
Good Kate, I am a gentleman.
Kate: That I’ll try


For the author crafting love scenes reading the plays of Shakespeare provides a bountiful wealth of inspiration.

In addition to his plays, there is also the breathtaking beauty of his poems and sonnets – rife with intense romantic emotions. The most famous, perhaps, Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”), presents a lover’s litany to his lady of all her beloved characteristics. But my personal favorite literally chokes me up. In a few short lines it expresses the all-encompassing power of love:


When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


To paraphrase Portia, I rest my case.


P.S. Of course, among the canon of dramatic literature, lovers and love scenes abound. For other tastes, you might try:


“Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” – a great exploration of post-coital emotions by John Patrick Shanley


“Talk To Me Like The Rain and Let Me Listen” – a lyrical outpouring between 2 lovers exposing their deepest longings, by the master, Tennessee Williams.


“Frankie and Johnny In The Claire du Lune” - Terence McNally’s quiet exploration between two strangers, hesitate, ordinary, who succumb to loneliness and longing. This is an exquisite, passionate play, as lilting as the song the title it references.


“Fool For Love” – Again, this Sam Shepard play is sizzling with erotic tension and action between the two incestuous sibling lovers.


“Desire Under the Elms” – Like some other plays of Eugene O’Neill, “Anna Christie” and “A Moon For the Misbegotten”, “Desire”, with its theme of forbidden lust and love, is a deep and dark exploration of the human heart.


One of the most tortured pair of lovers in all of dramatic literature is Tennessee Williams’ very own Maggie the Cat and her husband Brick. The dynamics of familial pressures on a couple, Brick’s tormented secrets, and Maggie’s unrequited lust for her handsome husband are brilliantly explored. And perhaps the universal desperation of lovers’ can be summed up in Maggie’s classic speech:


“You know, if I thought you would never, never, never make love to me again – I would go downstairs to the kitchen and pick out the longest and sharpest knife I could find and stick it straight into my heart, I swear that I would! But the one thing I don’t have is the charm of the defeated, my hat is still I the ring and I am determined to win! What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? I wish I knew . . . Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can . . . Later tonight I’m going to tell you I love you an’ maybe by that time you’ll be drunk enough to believe me…”

Heroes Found - And Lost

I like my heroes flawed. Conflicted, tormented, filled with issues, dark desires, contrary natures and imperfect. Paragons of heroic virtue bore me. In all the books I read and enjoy most the heroine (often flawed in her own ways) recognizes the hero’s flaws – but also the rock solid man beneath those flaws. And she is strong enough to love him in spite of them and help him become a better man in the bargain. If he has no reason to grow, why read the book?

Four years ago I discovered two heroes. Six months ago today, I lost them both. Sheriff Bo Handel, of Cado County, Texas populated several Southern noir crime novels, and a number of short stories. He was not a romance hero. Bo was older, a bit out of shape, and not as handsome a devil as we expect in our romances. But he had all the makings of a true romantic hero. He had flaws, but had faced them. He was brave, courageous, loyal and compassionate. He was a sexual animal true to his woman, a younger female deputy in his department – while never forgetting the memory of his deceased wife. He was good with a gun, fearsome with bad guys, and a force to be reckoned with by the foolish, ignorant, lazy, stupid, criminal and stuck-up. He was not above blackmailing a corrupt politician – but only to get more money for the salaries for his officers. He did not always equate right and wrong with what was necessarily legal or not. But his choices were always what he knew was honorable in his heart. His creator had hopes for a film option for his stories, and relished the thought of Tommy Lee Jones being cast as the crusty lawman.

Bo Handel was also not a surprising character to be have sprung from the fertile mind of my real-life hero, Milton T. Burton, of Tyler, Texas. Milton possessed many of Bo’s own qualities, from his diverse interests, feisty sense of humor, ill-tolerance of the fools of the world, and his treatment of women. And in truth, Milton himself possessed great vocal similarity to Tommy Lee Jones.

Milton passed away on December 1, 2011, after fighting valiantly against a series of ailments, including a hospital acquired infection, that in the end wore out his considerable, but not unlimited, strength. I was able to speak with him one last time two days before he died. I think he knew then that he wasn’t going to make it, but he never made a complaint. That’s certainly my idea of a hero. Before he died, he told his daughter that he had lived a good life. And while I knew of the trials he’d suffered, I knew too of his staunch love for his family, the joy in his diverse friendships, as well as the tremendous pleasure he took from the simplest of things – good food, good books, rousing conversation, the arts including theatre and music, as well as great films. He was tough, but funny, a redneck intellectual, and a curmudgeonly but comforting man.

Milton and I met, if you will, on a writers’ forum. He said he liked my sense of humor, and that I, too, was a writer, and invited me to a forum of his own, unlike any other, and I met a number of other wonderful, eccentric folk, thanks to him. He started asking my opinion of his writing, and from there it was off to the races. We began talking on the phone, and once we developed a personal relationship it was as if we’d been friends for years.

Every day, often several times throughout the day, I’d be greeted by Milton’s basso profundo, “Howdy, how you be?” greeting. Inconsequential topics, jokes, a good meal, a great video discovered, and most often, writing discussions were what we talked about. Our friendship morphed slowly, sweetly, into something more, though we never had the chance to meet. His Texas drawl and his belly laugh brightened many dark times for me, and he never failed to offer his sympathy, advice and support when I needed it. He also nudged me mercilessly about my writing if he felt I wasn’t producing. I was his reader, his cheerleader, and press rep. He called me his girlfriend, and I called him my man. Silly perhaps for 2 physical strangers, of more than a certain age, but true. His daughter, at the end of his days, told me she knew how very much I meant to him, and that I had added a great deal of enjoyment to his life.

So fictional Texas hero Bo Handel has ridden into the sunset. Alive on the pages of Milton’s published books, and the unpublished manuscripts I’m fortunate enough to have, yet no more adventures lie in store. Because my very own Texas hero is gone, too. Milton’s author’s bio said he’d been variously a college professor, cattleman, and political advisor but he’d been far more. He was most certainly flawed and would be the first to admit it. He was tortured, too. By his own mistakes, and by the bad hand fate had sometimes dealt him, most importantly in the death of his young son, George, who he mourned until the day he died. But he triumphed against adversity by sheer dint of willpower. He was a great friend, a generous mentor, a devoted father, beloved grandfather, and mischievous lover. And I know that of great importance to him, Milton was simply a superb storyteller. He never quit writing. He finished the final galleys of his last book, Mortal Remains, literally days before he went into the hospital. It was his swan song, and I know it would have pleased him had he known it would be his last work.

Over the years, Milton sent me dozens of photographs. I have saved them all, but I keep one of the last ones he sent me close at hand. It is a picture of his writing desk where he nurtured his fertile and creative imagination and wrote great tales of good, evil, men, women, and the world he loved.

Above his desk hangs the Confederate flag. On it sits, among the writing implements, his pipe. Against the desk lean his crutches.

I keep this picture close because I miss him. And because whenever I look at it, I can hear him say in his twanging growl:

“What have you written today?”

Mining Drama for Writing Gold

Many of you have heard me mention my experience with (as an actress for 20 years), and use of, dramatic literature as a tool in my own fiction writing. In my dialogue portion of a past workshop, I stressed how valuable I felt this experience was in learning to craft effective dialogue in fiction. As plays do not have narrative, the full weight of the storytelling lies with the dialogue. In my workshop on “voice”, I used the example of Shakespeare’s use of word choices in helping to define his characters including sibilant “s”s in Richard III’s dialogue, which lend a reptilian quality to his speech. And I’ve always been a fan of Shakespeare’s deft hand with description – in the often used form of the prologues - as in this segment of the Act IV “Henry V” Prologue, in which we’re swept into the scene with just a few lines:


From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch:
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation:
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.


or a Chorus, as used in “Romeo and Juliet” to convey “fair Verona, where we lay our scene”.
In studying dramatic works, you can uncover helpful clues and guidance for every aspect of narrative fiction, from plot to characterization, to description, theme, conflict – in addition to dialogue. Plays are the short, sweet, easily dissected lessons to study that might aid you in your own writing.

My favorite playwright, William Shakespeare, provides a cornucopia of material for study. His plays represent storytelling of every stripe, including romances, comedies, tragedies, histories, and even paranormal tales. They’re rife with great ideas and examples for writers.
Look at plot. How many of you have been asked, “Where do you get your ideas?”. Folks are asking you, of course, how you come up with your plots. I’m not talking copying, of course, or “stealing” the plots in their detailed entirety. But you CAN be inspired by elements found there.

You’ve heard the lament, “She stole my idea!”. But the fact that another author’s story has a similar skeletal structure – i.e. plot – should not concern you. After all, there are a finite number of plots and it isn’t the plot, but the full expression of your story adorning that plot – the story flesh on the plot bones – that make the difference between stories with similar plots. And if you pare down a plot to a one-line description? “Guy meets girl, they fall head in heels in love, but their families don’t get along. Can they overcome the objections to have a happy ending?” That can be the plot of “Romeo and Juliet” – or a contemporary romantic comedy set in 21st Century Manhattan. Though the number of plots are finite, I’m guessing the number of permutations manifest in those plots is not.

If you come up with some “blurbs”, it is easy to see the universality of plots:
“The eldest daughter of a wealthy nobleman is considered unmarriageable. He connives to get her married to a rich man from out of town. Will it be oil and water? Or will the two find love?” [Could be “The Taming of the Shrew” . . . or any number of Regency romances.]
“A murder victim’s son seeks revenge while the woman who loves him tries to hold onto his tormented heart. Will his obsession blind him to her devotion?” [“Hamlet” – or a romantic suspense thriller?]

“A sinister, powerful man is willing to murder to capture an innocent woman for his own. Will she survive his attentions?” [“Richard III”, or a Gothic romance, dramatic historical romance OR paranormal romance?]

“A lusty holiday celebration is the backdrop for mismatched lovers, jealousy, and woodland trysts. Will true lovers be united?” [“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or a Nina Bangs paranormal romantic comedy?]

When you boil down the most basic description of a plot it is easy to see just how interchangeable those basic elements can be with any genre, including romance!

In fact, there has long been debate as to how many basic plots there are. From a single, universal plot – as explained by Joseph Campbell, the “monomyth”, also referred to as the Hero’s Journey, to 3 plots (The Basic Patterns of Plot (Foster-Harris), 7 (The Seven Basic Plots: Stories and Why We Tell Them, Cristopher Booker) , 9 (James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure), 20 (Ronald B. Tobias’ 20 Master Plots), 36 (The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, Georges Ploti) and 69 (Rudyard Kipling’s though they were not apparently delineated).

“Romeo and Juliet” utilizes the time honored trope of the star crossed lovers as the crux of the plot. R&J is the classic, but the plot of lovers kept apart by some inexorable force, in this case feuding families, is absolutely paramount in every romance novel. There must be that almost insurmountable conflict that keeps the lovers apart, which keeps readers fretting that the love will not survive. (We know they will, but the best stories are the ones where we actually think they MIGHT not get their HEA!). Scottish historicals, for example would be lost without the use of the warring clans to which the hero and heroine belong.

I’m not advising copying from Shakespeare, but instead read through the canon in search of time-honored elements that you can adapt for your own purposes. The loyal best friend (Mercutio), the confidant or mentor (the Nurse), the sets of parents attempting to reinforce the conflict. Or a different sort of use. I recently finished reading a romantic thriller, in which the hero and heroine are separated - star crossed - by two segments of the enemy. The hero believes the heroine has been killed but a double-agent slyly lets him know the truth by referencing Romeo & Juliet – a clue that informs the hero while it appears his love is dead, she is not, so he fights on to rescue his woman.
If Shakespeare’s not your cup of mead, there are dozens of other playwrights whose work can serve this same educational purpose. Try Tennessee Williams’ “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof”. Maggie and Brick are star-crossed lovers of a quintessentially American breed. Or for even more bite, Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with its “before” and “after” view of the dark sides of marriage. Or George Bernard Shaw’s Brits, Anton Chekhov’s earthy mortals, Sam Sheppard’s incestuous couple in “Fool For Love”, or Lanford Wilson’s tormented eccentrics, Wendy Wasserstein’s urbanites or Neil Simon’s comedic canon.

Trust me, there’s a play for every plot, and every taste. Each one a master class in storytelling.

Celebrating A Classic - 75th Anniversary of Gone with the Wind

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Coincidentally, it is also the 75th anniversary of the publication of Gone with the Wind. 75 years after the War Between the States ended, Margaret Mitchell published her only novel; a novel which has become an icon of American literature. It has been called, variously, “one of the most extraordinary phenomena of bestseller history” and “one of the most popular books of all time”, as well as “the most romantic novel in history”. It garnered a Pulitzer Prize for Mitchell, and the subsequent film earned a record 10 nominations and won the Best Picture award of 1939. The book became an instant bestseller, despite an unprecedented price of $3.00.

Gone with the Wind has stood the test of time in the US, but also has remained a bestseller throughout the world. It has been surmised that, perhaps, the themes of the novel are so familiar to anyone, anywhere, because, sadly, war is universal. It has been translated into 40 languages and published in over 50 countries. In Japan, it has been translated and is frequently presented as a stage production. Mitchell herself said that the theme of the novel was “survival”: certainly a timeless and universal one.

The Margaret Mitchell Museum in Atlanta sees visitors from all over the world, who come with stories of their own experiences with war. “Windies” – die-hard fans of the novel and its author – celebrate the book with pomp and relish. This year they are planning a champagne toast at the author’s gravesite to commemorate the anniversary. There have been several sequels, Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley and Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCaig, as well as the disputed parody novel, And The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall. Negotiations are also underway for another sequel to be penned. In addition to the frequent Japanese theatrical productions, the musicals “Scarlett” and “Gone with the Wind” have been produced in England.

As with other novels of troubled times, GWTW has earned harsh criticism for its negative presentation of the slave characters and its benign view of the institution of slavery. It seems important to keep in mind, however, that Margaret Mitchell was writing from a single generation’s distance from the cataclysm, and from a locale at the heart of it. Much of her research was based on conversations she heard throughout her life from survivors and participants of the “war of Northern aggression”. The book’s sympathetic tone might rankle now as we view it from nearly a century later. Today’s novels of romance fiction also often deal with sensitive and sometimes controversial topics too, however and come in for their own share of criticism. The books that started it all, the “bodice rippers”, in fact quickly evolved beyond the “forced seduction” scenario in great part because of the outcry over the tacit presentation of rape as something that could be romantic.

Too, the protagonist of GWTW is not a typical romance heroine by any stretch. Scarlett O’Hara will, by her own admission, lie, cheat, steal or kill before she or any of her family go hungry. She is also immature, manipulative, selfish, and covets another woman’s husband until, well, until she doesn’t anymore. Because she has then set her sights on the incomparable Rhett Butler. However, she also embodies many of the de rigueur qualities in today’s heroines: fortitude, bravery, determination, pluckiness (gumption as Ms. Mitchell said), loyalty to home and family, and a zest for life and love.

As for the towering person of Rhett Butler, I find him the consummate romance hero. Despite his shortcomings, he fulfills the number one requirement of a romance hero: He comes through when the need is most dire. Of course, I like my romance heroes mad, bad and dangerous to know and flawed. The better to be saved and converted by a romance heroine!

The tempestuous character of Scarlett, and the novel overall, despite these issues, is unforgettable. Mitchell created a panoramic tale of love, loyalty, heartbreak and lust for life, set against a backdrop of the most devastating events the country has ever faced. The primary characters barely survive – and in fact, a number of them don’t. Characters go from the highest of heights to the most abysmal of lows. Talk about your black moments!

Gone with the Wind is a categorized as a “popular novel”. Certainly I would consider it “women’s fiction”. Today’s romance fiction also falls into those categories yet, in the end, while GWTW is certainly not a romance, by today’s standards (a happy ever after being notably absent for everyone involved) it is one of the most romantic novels of all time. A larger than life hero and heroine, trials and tribulations, historical sweep, passion and as with every romance – painful lessons learned.
Margaret Mitchell’s own words about her book might also sum up a basic romance novel tenet: “I wrote about the people who had gumption and the people who didn’t.”
Despite the differences in length, complexity of narrative, and the most assuredly un-happy ever after outcome, Gone with the Wind might well be considered a progenitor of contemporary romance novels: stories where a hero and heroine meet and fall in love (albeit at different times), face impossible odds on the path to happiness, but who, in the end, are able to overcome the odds and find joy together.

Margaret Mitchell’s novel mirrored her own life in many ways. Her mother died during the 1918 influenza pandemic and she was left to care for her family, Irish Catholic just like the O’Haras. She was an independent woman, choosing to pursue a career in journalism when women were certainly not regulars on the newspaper beat. She suffered through an unhappy first marriage, only to marry the 2nd suitor who had been simultaneously vying for her attention when she accepted the proposal of the first.

Her novel almost never saw the light of day and the tale is legendary in the annals of publishing. While the specifics of the story vary, it is said that after seven years of work she had secreted the manuscript away in a pile of envelopes, in her closet, having no intention of pursuing publication. But when Macmillan editor Harold Latham visited Atlanta in the hope of discovering a new Southern writer (would that this practice was still in place – we could avoid all those rejections and just wait for the editors to come calling!), a mutual acquaintance mentioned Mitchell’s book. Apparently a friend found it humorous to think that Mitchell had written a book and Mitchell, her back up over what she perceived as a slight, marched to Latham’s hotel and handed over her tome. When she later tried to get Latham to give it back, he refused. He’d already begun to read, and had been swept away (couldn’t resist!). The rest, as they say, is history.

Sadly, Margaret Mitchell’s own HEA was not to be. Her life was cut short by tragedy when she was hit by a car and killed at the age of 49.

Gone with the Wind has sold more copies than any other book in history (with the exception of the Bible). It has fired the imagination of other writers who have sought to capture the time, the characters, and the questions of the time. It lives because it speaks to the human spirit of those who struggle against the tides of war. It gives us a heroine who remains unbowed despite all travails. Who never gives up and even as the novel closes, prepares to do battle again for the man she loves. Because, after all, tomorrow is another day!

What Do YOU Do While You're Waiting For "The Call"?

Congratulations! You have finished your manuscript. You have reviewed, revised, re-drafted, edited and polished like mad. And you have begun the query process, or actually sent off your baby to the agent or editor of your dreams: The vital step on the road to publication. So now you are a contestant in The Waiting Game. Be it for six weeks for a response to a query or six months – or more – for a response to a partial or full submission, you’ve got some time on your hands. Nothing to do but take up a hobby, watch some reality TV, wait and pray to St. Frances de Sales (patron saint of writers). Right?

Wrong!

Now is the most important time of all to be proactive. The time between now and an offer on your book is no time to relax. This is a crucial time, during which you can either learn to bake artisanal bread, finish that sweater you started in 1991, or prepare for the road to publication.

Okay. You know everyone says that once you submit you have to keep writing. And that is essential (no publisher wants a one-hit writing wonder, right?). But what else can you do?

Plenty.

Research: Rejection will be inevitable. (Unless you’re the lucky one in a million who hits it big with the first submission of your first novel – in which case, play the lottery, too.) So who will you submit to next? You want to be ready to go – no wallowing in self-pity. Research publishers, editors and agents. The titles and authors they produce. Study your query letters and hone them for new prey. Ditto your synopses.

Investigate: What’s the state of the industry you are in? What’s happening with technology? Business and trends? Legal and contract issues? Sales? Time to become well versed in the business of which you hope to be a successful part.

Discover: Opportunities to promote yourself in the writing and publishing community via contests, workshops, conferences, conventions and other networking venues.

Fine Tune: Your brand, platform and your presence – by working on your website, social networking, newsletter, and your marketing plan for the momentous day when you are a published author.

Read: Your genre to keep abreast of what’s being published; other genres; fiction – everything! Trends in publishing and reading are key to understanding how to position yourself amid the pack. Your competition is not just other romance authors. It is any writer, any book on which a reader will spend her money.

(And an aside here - be aware not just of trends in publishing, but of trends in entertainment. Someone once said of the railroad magnates that the reason they lost supremacy was because they thought they were in the "railroad business", when, in fact, they were in the "transportation business". As a writer, you aren't in the publishing business: You're in the ENTERTAINMENT business! You're competing for the time and money people are spending on entertainment, be it books, TV, film, sports or theme parks. What else is going on out there?)

Hone Your Craft: Get your do-it-yourself MFA in creative writing. Become a consummate storyteller – work on aspects of craft and technique, do exercises, read critically and take classes, workshops and panels. You can always ALWAYS improve your skills – which improves your chance at success.

Write: Duh, right? But it REALLY IS the best way to keep honing your writing ability, keep your momentum going, to evolve your skills and your voice and become the best author you can be – and have more material under construction so when asked, the publishers know they’re looking at the real deal: a writer looking for a career.

Embrace Your Bliss: Use the waiting opportunity to keep your life sane, organized, productive and joyful. Plant your garden. Reconnect with friends and family who’ve patiently waited for some quality time while you toiled over a hot keyboard. Remind your significant other that romance writers do it with creativity. Do whatever makes you happy to recharge your human batteries.

Explore: Everyone, everything, the world around you. Experience and stimulation are the sustenance of a writer. Use some time to refill your creative well and use everything as fuel for stories. Walk, watch, listen, taste, smell – FEEL.
This time of suspended animation offers precious opportunities to create a solid foundation for yourself, to be ready when you must move on to your next submission or – fingers crossed – publication. Think of yourself as a Writing Olympian. Only the writer who has trained to tip-top shape will be able to compete.


* No matter what stage of the business you are at, these hints can keep you sharp, productive and looking forward to your next achievement as a writer.

The Passion Is In The Details

I am a big fan of the use of sensory details in writing. Particularly when writing romance in order to convey passion and create a sensual atmosphere, even aside from love scenes. These exquisite details can infuse a story with intensity and immediacy which both raises the story to a higher level and allows your reader to swept away, along with your characters.

As a writer of erotic romance, I get great pleasure out of writing, and reading, sensual and erotic stories and enjoying the authors’ abilities to sweep ME away with sensuality. Sensual not just in the sexy sense, but in the five senses sense.

The most frequent use of a sense, and probably the most natural, is the use of visual description. What our characters or the narrator see. Descriptions of physical appearance, clothing, setting. Certainly they add a wealth of detail to a scene and help our readers visualize the bed on which our couple is entwined, or the beach they are laying on, or the meadow in which they are embracing.

To add extra layers of intensity and immediacy to an erotic scene – indeed, to add eroticism to any scene - sometimes all it takes is a judicious use of sensory detail. Sound, touch, taste, smell – combine it with visual detail you can create an erotic panorama that will titillate and arouse your reader from the mind, on down, no matter the level of heat in your tale.

A terrific example of the breadth of sensory detail and the way it can be used to masterful effect in erotic writing, can be found in the latest Cleis Press anthology edited by the prolific Rachel Kramer Bussel. Passion: Erotic Romance for Woman (Cleis Press, 2010) contains a marvelous cross-section of writing styles, but even more intriguing is the use of sensory detail that sets each story apart from the next, and makes each stand out for it’s own strength of atmosphere and passion.

“Autumn Suite” by Suzanne V. Slate is a stand-out. It is impeccable in the seamless blend of music and sexual passion. The imagry of one lover’s cello, and a droplet of sweat, envisioned as a tear; touch and sound echoes throughout the piece when juxtaposed with the physicality of lovemaking. The entire story reads like a sonata.

Sound is used to great effect, too, in Wickham Boyle's “The Cherry Orchard” (a marvelous story simply for its genesis in the Chekhov play) with laughter and screams, before the author moves into sections deftly incorporating taste – from food itself, to the tastes of sex rendered in gastronomical terms.

In contrast to both of these more lyrical stories, the earthy “Crave You Close” by A.M. Hartnett instills eroticism into an environment of family fights and the taste of burgers and blueberry shakes. Lizzy Chambers’ lusty, yet tender, “Riding Wild Things” brings the reader into the unexpectedly sexy and immediate world of rodeo riders, and lovers who ride more than bucking broncs. You can practically hear the lovers' moans in this story!

And I was intrigued to discover Ms. Bussell’s own story, aptly (for the purposes of this post) titled, “Five Senses”, in which she breaks down her voluptuous scene of seduction and surrender into segments, each addressing one of the senses. It is a lesson in itself on writing eroticism via sensual detail.

What is erotic? What sense most conveys eroticism to you? What sensory description arouses you?

Is it the words depicting the feel of a drop of a lover’s sweat dropping to his partner’s flesh and trickling down to mingle with her own? Maybe a description of the tastes of a delectable dish being shared between lovers – before they share their bodies’ flavors? Or the rendering of the sight of a zephyr breeze ruffling a lock of hair that lays upon a pillow as someone sleeps in the aftermath of passion? Perhaps the sound of a sonata as it accompanies the lovers’ timeless dance of love?

Or perhaps it is, instead, the deft rendering of a scream of passion echoing through a country night as hands pound the roof of a caddy; or the building crescendo in dancers’ bodies as they engage in foreplay via a raucous two-step?

Creating eroticism in a romance of the less graphic and sweeter variety may seem a contradiction. But it is not. A sensual atmosphere of passion can be created without the use of four-letter words – or acts.

Imagine, if you will, the effect of a woman’s simple sigh and all it can convey to a reader, as a man takes her in his arms. Create the wealth of emotions in a woman as she watches her lover's hands – the delicate movements, the touch of a caress – as he plays a game of chess, and treat your reader to her anticipation as she craves the touch of those hands – on her body. Perhaps you can convey the heat a lover feels when he registers the delicate scent of his lover from her abandoned scarf as he touches the silk to his nose; as he recalls their last caress before parting company. Share with your readers the depth of emotion welling within a couple as they sit in the symphony, the languid notes of Beethoven’s Pathetique washing over them – drawing them back into their embrace beneath a moonlit sky as their bodies swayed to the melody composed by love.

How fleeting, how simple: the touch of a fingertip against hungry lips; a heated gaze across a crowded room; the sound of a whisper humming along phone lines; the taste of a lover’s skin in a brief kiss upon a cheek.

It can be poetic or raunchy, graphic or gripping, dramatic or light-hearted, earthy or ethereal. It can even be subtle! Using sensory details in creating erotic scenes can compliment the sex and send the story soaring.

Why not give it a try? Pick a sense, any sense … and let your imagination run wild.