For me, it’s an inevitable; a consummation (pun intended) without which the book wouldn’t seem complete. I enjoy considering love scenes, writing those exalted, magnificent moments; enjoy even more the natural reaching-point that they represent for the characters. These comings-together are beautiful occurrences that I am fortunate enough to share, as when love comes to dear friends.
But what makes a love scene good? What makes it wonderful?
I’ve written before in this space the limitations and minimum requirements that fulfill the moment for me. Graphic passages? No. Squishy bits? No no. We create an idealization as exquisite as the moment can be. Some of that is experience. The rest is a wish made manifest; an encounter leisurely and consuming and full-hearted in its physicality, and, yes, pure.
Where does the love scene come from? Where in our lives does it fit? Is a well-wrought love scene a kind of wish fulfillment; a fantasy externalized? Perhaps. And is there anything wrong with that? Ah, it’s question time.
I have often wondered about folks I’ve known, male and female, who maintain fantasy loves in the form of actors, fictional characters, musicians. What does the love scene represent in the light of their real-life relationships? If the writer has a partner, is the imagining, the executing, of that perfect fictional moment a form of cheating? Does the creating of an idealized love represent a betrayal of sorts?
Writers, like actors, maintain a tenuous hold on reality. Imaginations fly to impossible places. Lines get blurred. Little wonder that actors who love on film often drift into love in life. In writing, the gathering and manifestation of faux-love are a bit more problematic. We write beings to life; often they are based on flesh and blood people…more often, still, people we are well aware will never be ours. There is titillation is innocent. And it is dangerous. The real can equal the unreal; can even surpass it. But knowing the difference and living by the laws of real—much tougher.
What is a good love scene to you? What makes it good? How does it coexist in an existence where real love lives? Those are the questions of the day. Asked with all the love in the world.
6 comments
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January 22, 2013 at 8:32 am
writerdood
Tension. That’s what I like in a love scene. Not knowing if it’s going to work out. Suspecting it might not. Watching it fall together. It’s not the completion where love is found, but the pursuit of it, and the potential for success or failure.
January 22, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Alexander M Zoltai
I feel a love scene, like any fictional scene, needs to accomplish two important goals:
Move the action forward
Reveal a bit more of the story’s theme
January 24, 2013 at 1:27 pm
C.B. Wentworth
The concept of anticipation is what makes a good love scene for me. There has to be nice balance between the build up and pay off or it just doesn’t work.
January 25, 2013 at 9:57 pm
mywithershins
I don’t write too many of them, since I write mostly for teens. I still include a diluted type of sexual tension between the male and female characters.
I really liked the way you handled the love scenes in The Spiritkeeper. They were tastefully done, no ‘squishy bits’, and enough build-up to make the climactic scene satisfying as a reader. I think you’ve managed to ‘nail it’, so to speak.
January 31, 2013 at 7:43 pm
lynnbiederstadt
MWS, I would love to see an example! And a question: any progress with Everything?
-xo lb
January 31, 2013 at 9:00 pm
mywithershins
I’m afraid my research has me kind of stalled on the WIP. I never did like homework in school and my approach to this one is opposite to the way I normally write, which is muse first and research what I don’t know. This time I need to know the history before I write the story and the brain just isn’t absorbing the information well enough to incorporate it. In addition, we have a house guest who needs a lot of help because of a serious injury, so there isn’t a lot of time to work on my writing, unfortunately.
As for an example of a romantic scene, I might have to go back through my archives and maybe I’ll post one of the scenes at some point.