Customer Reviews

The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This was recommended in place of Susie Bright's How to Write a Dirty Story, and I have to say compared to it, this is a much better book. It focuses on sex, and the wide variety that's out there.

One thing that I really enjoyed is that the author doesn't ignore important topics: AIDs, Adultry, incest, and many other things. She doesn't treat any subject as taboo, nor does she approach them with embarrassment. They are simply topics she discusses.

I was pleased to see that she touches on all types of sex: first times, married sex, adultery, recreational, etc etc. She brings up points that anyone writing a sex scene needs to think about, and reminds you that sometimes the sex isn't the main purpose of the scene, and that it doesn't have to be graphic to get the point across.

I found this book to be much more helpful than others. Instead of telling people how to prepare, it uses examples to show Benedict's points, and picks those examples apart so the reader can understand exactly why such things are necessary.

Man, it's one thing to think about sex, another thing to have sex, and waaaaaay different to write about it. It's difficult to the max, especially when you really don't want to come off sounding like you're writing porn - or even erotica. Elizabeth Benedict has done a favor for all of us writers who have struggled with the topic, right down to interviewing famous writers of famous sex scenes. It's a resource for MFA students, authors, teachers, and just ordinary people who like to write for their own pleasure. The Joy of Writing Sex is sane and straightforward, entertaining and informing, hip and...sexy!

If you are writing modern fiction, the odds are you will include a sex scene somewhere in your story. The problem I see in most published fiction is that the sex is predictable, i.e. it's almost always fantastic. This could also be interpreted as boring, leading me to frequently skim over 2-5 pages searching for the point where the story starts again. Authors who strive diligently to avoid dead spaces anywhere else in their novels will let the action come to a dead halt while the characters get laid. Ms. Benedict shows you how to avoid this all-too-common problem. Just as some scenes in a story are located in a bar, along a street, or at a society party, some scenes happen in the bedroom (or kitchen, or back seat of a car), and these scenes can do everything a scene is supposed to do. They can move along the plot, reveal characterization, disclose an important piece of backstory, and/or up the conflict. This is why Ms. Benedict's advice can help all of your writing, especially when she asks you to explore your characters' attitude toward sex. What are their attitudes to everything else in the world? It's a great question to ask yourself each time you lead your characters into a new situation - they've got opinions and reasons for them! If your sex scenes are only sex, and you wish they were a lot more, I highly recommend this book. One caveat: the examples include gay sex as well as hetero, and this may be offensive to some readers.

I'm a freelance writer, looking to expand and improve my writing, and The Joy of Writing Sex is one of the best resources I've found. It's not just about writing erotica. It gives the reader tips and guidelines for introducing love scenes into any genre, and how to make it believable, and provides examples from modern literature. Elizabeth Benedict doesn't say or do anything cutsie, and that makes the book not only informative, but a pleasure to read.

I think that possibly the best thing about this book, other than the examples, are the exerpts Benedict included from the interviews she conducted with authors about their work.

You can write serious literary works and have sex scenes as Benedict illustrates. Is it going to make our parents blush? Probably, but she even deals with those issues. She teases out some of the best examples of being specific and not necessary explicit--what are the sights, sounds and smells surrounding our characters, not just the body parts they are using. What are they thinking and what are they saying? I found great validation in my book, "Forever Retro Blues," that my sex scenes were not just gratuitous, but functioned as part of the whole story. I wrote with intuition because I did not yet have this book, but I know I will do better in the future for reading Benedict's book.

Recognises the need for good sex between the covers (of a book). Good sex is hard to write. Even bad sex is hard to write. It's even harder to read. We writers need this kind of advice, to help spare us all from the agony of badly written, clumsy, forced or farcical sex scenes. I've told all my writer friends they HAVE to get their hands on a copy.

I read this book cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ms. Benedict not only gives examples of erotic scenes and different scenarios like 'the first time' and 'adultery', but gives good pointers on how to write each of them. She teaches you how to get inside your characters' heads and realize their backgrounds, beliefs, anxieties, etc. before writing The Big Scene. It is important that you know your characters because if you don't, you'll produce nothing but empty pornography. Get this book if you want to write about quality sex.

As a writer of a *non-fiction* book about sex, I found plenty of fine instruction in this book for fiction writers. Benedict skillfully blends tips and well-developed advice from a writing instructor (I wish I could take her course!) with excerpts from writers she admires who illustrate her points. This is a marvelous book for writers about sexuality -- non-fiction as well as fiction -- and for any writer interested in craft.

Joan Price
Author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex after Sixty

Great book to flesh out your approach to writing about sex. The author rightfully points out that writing about sex evokes the oft hidden world of the writer's own inhibitions. Great integration tips for sexual discussions within a larger story

I had the pleasure of hearing a lecture and visiting with Elizabeth Benedict, which inspired me to choose this book when I was pondering the best way to approach the sexuality component of a couple of characters in a mystery novel. I'm glad I did. Despite the title, this book is really about the joy of writing great fiction - and how to use sex as another tool for advancing plot, enhancing characterization, writing revealing dialogue, etc. Although the topic is ostensibly the act of sex, Benedict's book is really about how the act of sex helps readers understand what's going on in your book and in your characters' lives in a way that most people understand is about far more than the plumbing of our human anatomy. Benedict structures her book well and productively, with lists where appropriate and a consistent format in each chapter. Her best advice (which you'll have to read the book to truly appreciate): make sure there's always at least two things going on.