From my guest post on Long and Short Reviews. Enjoy!
http://www.longandshortreviews.com/gu...

**********************************************************

In romance writing, we love our oohs and ahs. But it turns out that love scenes are quite tricky, and much harder to craft than one might expect. There’s no right way to do it, no how-to manual. Some writers prefer to simply fade to black; others favor a lot of description. It’s a highly personal decision. (Full disclosure: I fall somewhere in the middle. I love a sexy description, so long as it’s done artfully and with purpose.)

Still, certain things hold true regardless of your particular preferences, and it’s important to keep them in mind. After all, a badly crafted scene involving a bank robbery may be boring to a reader, but a badly crafted love scene can be just plain hilarious. And that’s not usually the goal.

The good news is that as human beings, we’re biologically programmed to be interested in sex. Sex of any kind, really. Cows, horses, grasshoppers – if a creature is doing it, we’re inclined to at least give it a glance. So you can expect the cat ears of your readers will naturally swing forward at the first gasp of desire. As such, love scenes are powerful tools in your arsenal of storytelling. Use them responsibly! When you have a tiger by the tail, there’s a lot that can go wrong. Here are a few things to keep it from turning on you:

1. Context. Context. Context.
The measure of a great love scene is that it could only be written for those two specific characters in that particular moment in time. I can’t stress this enough. Sex is not an exchange of sweat; it’s an exchange of emotion. (And there’s a wide range of emotion available to you; don’t limit yourself to just love or lust.) What happens in a sex scene is far less important than why it happens or how your characters feel about it. Too much description with too little emotional context and you have wandered into “hokey pokey” territory. Readers deserve far more than just being told where the right arm presently is.

2. Words matter.
• Power words like “lick” go a long way towards painting a vivid mental picture, and the human brain is more than willing to fill in the rest. Too much detail can be unnecessary and distracting. If you find yourself describing slurping or slapping, you’ve likely gone too far.

• Resist verbal contortionism. I cringe when I read scenes where an author has gone to extreme measures to avoid using certain words. It’s true that how a writer describes the female body, in particular, is a very personal and stylized thing. But most romance readers are not so delicate that you need to say “tender pink crests.” Just say nipple. No one will mind.

• Leave out the euphemisms. If you find yourself writing “coochie,” perhaps you yourself are not comfortable with the level of description in your scene. Your readers will know it. Further, if “flesh knife” appears in your novel, might I suggest any number of better alternatives?

• “Moist” and “creamy” are best left to describe the excellent cake your lovers will enjoy together afterwards. Enough said.

3. Say something!
One of the things I look for in a great love scene is dialog. Keep in mind that these are two human beings. Interacting. And that interaction should move the story along, not just serve as a sexy digression. Dialog is a highly efficient and interesting way to convey emotional context. As you sit down to craft a love scene, try thinking about it as a dialog scene with physical details to support.

4. Employ at least three senses.
In the throes of writing a sex scene (no pun intended!), it’s easy for us writers to forget that our sense of touch is only one arrow in the quiver. What we see and hear, what we smell, and what we taste play equally important roles. By layering in several senses, you can paint a three-dimensional picture that is far more vivid, compelling, and artfully sexy.

Oh, baby!