{"id":4877,"date":"2012-09-05T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=4877"},"modified":"2012-09-05T06:00:39","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T11:00:39","slug":"write-like-your-moms-not-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=4877","title":{"rendered":"Write Like Your Mom’s Not Watching"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
John Stewart can’t believe you just wrote that.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let\u2019s be clear from the outset. My mom is the last person I fear judgment from in my work.<\/p>\n

But I think every writer second guesses their decisions about how far to go in sex scenes. In Monster in My Closet<\/em>, I wrestled a great deal with writing the incubus plotline. Not because it was filled with sex, but because it was, essentially, rape\u2014even if, in some cases, all he did was brush his hand against his victim\u2019s arm.<\/p>\n

I expected some backlash over it. I worried I\u2019d chosen a sensitive subject. And I did choose something difficult. But in my head, I had imagined the ickiest, scariest scenario I could, and that\u2019s what came out. It felt right. I wrote it. And I waited for people to yell at me.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t come. A few reviews have said they didn\u2019t feel the nastiness of the incubus fit with the quirky, lighter feel of the rest of the book. But many more said they liked the mix of light and dark.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the lesson here? No matter what you write, you can\u2019t please everyone. Write the story as it presents itself. Don\u2019t self-edit to please people, whether you know them or not.<\/p>\n

I admit, I worry a little over my dad reading those scenes, but honestly, he reads Stephen King. He reads all kinds of stuff. What I wrote isn\u2019t going to shock him.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no sex at all in Pooka in My Pantry,<\/em> icky or not. So, now I\u2019m worried about that. What if people are expecting it now that they\u2019ve read the first book? Should I put in a sex scene? Well, no. There\u2019s no room in the plot for that, so I\u2019m not about to wedge in a sex scene. It goes both ways. Embarrassment at what\u2019s not included can happen just as easily as it can at scenes that were included.<\/p>\n

Write the scenes that need to be there, regardless of audience reaction, no matter who you think that audience is. Write the story that needs to be told and worry later about what people close to you will think.<\/p>\n

With all the other decisions we make while writing\u2014word choices, sentence structure, character actions, plotlines\u2014worrying over who\u2019s going to read it can paralyze us into never finishing.<\/p>\n

Finish it. Worry about consequences later. Your mom’s probably a lot less prudish than you think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s be clear from the outset. My mom is the last person I fear judgment from in my work. But I think every writer second guesses their decisions about how far to go in sex scenes. In Monster in My Closet, I wrestled a great deal with writing the incubus plotline. Not because it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[699,987,995],"class_list":["post-4877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-life","tag-mom","tag-self-editing","tag-sex-scenes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}