Before we start talking about how to write about sex, we need to ask, why are you writing about sex? There's a sizable market in erotica, well written erotica sells. And if what you plan to write is erotica, you have to write about sex. Obviously, that's what erotica is. Notice I said that's what a prosecutor is. I didn't say that's what pornography is.

I don't write erotica and I don't write pornography. But SF Hopkins writes erotica, and she describes the difference between erotica and pornography like this. In erotica, what matters most is what people feel in pornography. What matters most is what people do. What people feel, that's also the most important thing and the majority of fiction, even fiction that never mentioned sex explicitly. What you the novelist needs to show your reader is how people feel.

So you're about to write the passage in which you propose to this ascribe a sexual act in detail. Ask yourself this question. Well, what I'm about to write help the reader to understand more about my characters, more about what they feel more about what they want more about why they do the things they do? And if you can't answer yes to those questions, when you think about the sex you're about to describe, then quite frankly, you shouldn't be describing it. If your characters have reached a point where they're about to have sex with each other, what your reader wants to hear about will not be anything to do with who does what and what goes where it'll be about the feelings they have before they make love or have sex because those two things are different. The feelings they have while they're doing it, and the feelings they have afterwards.

Because when your characters do which that got interviewed on your job as a novelist property, your readers know they've reached it and your readers don't need a description. your readers either know what people do when they get into bed together or they don't. If they do know, they don't need you to tell them. And if they don't know, then ask yourself is telling them really your job. In the next video, I'll be giving an example of fiction that describes sex without describing sex. I'll see you there