"Pillow Talk...

or Why is there Sex in My Fantasy." This was one of the panels I went to. Of course, it was a full house.

On the panel were romance writer, Valerie Parv, dark fantasy writer, Stephen Dedman, erotic fiction writer, Elaine Kemp, and chaired by sci-fi writer, Russell Blackford.

The panel didn't, per se, answer the question, but waxed lyrical on the topic of writing sex scenes in general.

The majority of the discussion dealt with so called 'women's fiction' and it's effect on world sales - which is enormous. The 'fantasy' part dealt more with sexual fantasies than the world of fantasy.

No fantasy novels were mentioned, and Valerie read an excerpt from a friend of her's manuscript that sounded to me like it needed a damn good editing! Which just shows that a writer should always read their texts aloud to test for inconsistencies, for readability, and for complexity.

As to why there is an increase of sex in fantasy novels? Well, my humble opinion is that more and more readers expect their fantasy books to be created as close to reality as possible. Yes, magic happens, no, it doesn't need an intensive explanation as to why magic happens. Yes, the plots are brilliant, the characters well-crafted; yes, a writer gets to torture those same characters. But. If you're going to torture them in interesting and creative ways, those incidents have to be written to impart to the reader how, well... torturous the situation is. Equally, if your characters are going through the bad times, the good times have to be written with the same emotional impact; and that means the sex, too.

I don't think it's a societal thing for writers to have their characters engage in intimacy, it's a humanity thing. Everyone gets it on with a partner/s. And in this new century, readers are more discerning, more mature and more willing to accept that that's what happens between to people. They want their fantasies as true to life as possible, even in a fantasy arena.

If you have a male and a female in a story, sexual tension is going to happen. (Yeah, sure, if you're writing gay fiction, male-to-male, female-to-female stuff happens too.) Just because you're writing in a particular genre, doesn't mean intimacy doesn't happen. It does, but writers in the past have glossed the events over. While that has long been acceptable, I think readers want it all now, not the euphamisms, not the closed door or fade out, they want everything.

The most informative comment came from Elaine, the erotic fiction writer, and was the most helpful:

"Books should be written on a one-third/two-third ratio: for every action sentence, write two descriptive sentences while that action is happening." This has, apparently, worked for her, as Ms Kemp has just sold two erotic fiction books to publishers in the U.S.

If sex in fantasy is an inevitability, which I think it is - though only where appropriate, writers are going to have to get used to the idea of creating those scenes.

The best suggestion I've heard to get over the squeamishness and uncomfortableness of writing sex scenes is this: write the most wicked, blatant, full on, sex scene you can think of and repeat writing a variation on the theme until you're comfortable with it.

As a last comment on the topic, one panelist put it this way: "if it doesn't arouse me, it won't arouse the reader."