X. Epilogue Developing any skill requires a lot of practice and the courage to fail. How many hours do piano players practice scales and etudes before their first concert? How often do ballet dancers stumble before they are perfect at their pirouettes? Samuel Beckett said: ‘Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. […]

IX. And what about me? Sex is always personal! Sex is one of the most intimate situations of human existence. The importance and meaning of sex in the personal lives of writers and readers varies considerably. It is also not necessarily reflected by their writing or their reading habits. Sex, even in fiction, is more […]

VII. ‘I’m coming!’ vs. ‘Let go!’—Find your balance! But even if you’ve thought of all the things we’ve mentioned so far… if you know the purpose of your sex scene if you have a good grip on your POV and your characters if you’ve come up with realistic sex acts at the core of the […]

VI. The ‘Dirty Deed’ 1. Research That may sound strange, but you can—and quite often you really, really should!—do some research before writing your smut. Just because I have the experience of cooking and eating some excellent and a few really bad meals doesn’t mean that it won’t help me poking around some cookbooks and […]

V. ‘That Scene’ in Context 1. ‘What’s with the rest?’ – ‘That Scene’ in Your Story During the first part of the current ‘There and Back Again’ SMUT Workshop the most striking result was just how much context mattered to the vast majority of participants. Out of context, nearly all scenes we compared fell flat. […]

IV. The Big IF – Do you really need a sex scene? And if yes, what kind of a sex scene do you need? 1. Why write a sex scene? Or better: Why not? I am convinced that there is no overarching reason why explicit sex scenes should not be written. Sex is a part […]