Anthony Pacheco: Rehabilitated Hack Writer

When the voicing changes in a sex scene, either you’re in for porn or a snooze. That’s my take as a reader. As a hack writer, well, take that statement for what it is worth. Not much, heuh heuh heuh, not much.

I have my theories on why the switch in voicing occurs, but we’ll just move on, shall we?

Friday, I discussed the answer to descriptive sex scenes or closing the door: it depends. I posted a good example of a scene where I felt nothing further needs showing (I hope!). This is the crux of how I go about writing scenes filled with hot woohoo (and woohoo is a technical term): stay true to the characters at the same time staying true to the story.

That is the magic formula. The story and reader have the same demands. Not a single word in a novel is wasted.

Not.

A.

Single.

Word.

This maxim is now driving my writing. It’s why I delete scenes. It’s show, not tell. And it is why sometimes when two (or more, heuh heuh heuh) people get together, they have hot woohoo and I leave it up to the reader’s imagination, or I show something in explicit detail.

And it took me torturing my beta readers to find that one out. Thank you beta readers! I love torturing you long time!

Oh, whoops, that didn’t come out right.

Anyway, since I’ve just talked like half a week of show not tell, here’s an example. Below the line is an explicit sex scene between Bob and Martha, a scene I feel would be necessary. Don’t go there (or keep reading, if you came here via a link), if such is not your cup of tea. The scene is explicit.

(below the more line)

Bob looked to Martha, wrapped around him as if she was willing herself to sink right into his body. She was awake—barely—and had a smug grin, lying there with her eyes closed. The room smelled like left over sex, warm musk gone cold.

He stroked the skin along her arm and her back, almost as if his hand had a mind of its own. Martha’s skin was woman soft, and luscious. Just like Dianne.

Bob closed his eyes. He should have expected Dianne’s sudden intrusion, even here, but his breath caught in his throat anyway. A testament to his self-control, he managed not to tense. He blinked a couple of times, in case he had to clear away tears.

Martha, however, sensed something, and she tilted her head up to his face and opened a single eye. Bob willed himself to be a blankness. She shrugged with an eyebrow, closed the eye and sighed. He did not think it was possible, but she relaxed even more. Now she was a warm feminine blanket with the occasional wet spot.

Martha, it seemed, was bent on extracting a maximum amount of snuggle. Bob cracked a smile. She earned it, yes she did. He joined her sigh and attempted to pull her closer, which was impossible, but it felt good trying.

He started to drift off, but what if he slept, and dreamed of Dianne? He willed himself back to the present. That would be unfair of him, yes it would. Well, he knew the answer to that, yes he did. Slowly his hand stroked to a rib and he lightly tickled.

Scritch scritch scritch.

“Rrrrr.”

Scritch scritch scritch.

“Phisct!”

Scritch scritch scritch.

Her eyes flew open, flashing. “Will you stop! I was almost asleep! I was like floating in a warm cloud!”

Bob chuckled. “But I’m not sleepy.”

She smiled. “Geeze, you were like all manly, sweaty and naughty, aren’t you even tired?”

“A little.”

“How about after a little nap? I am in good shape, but I’m not super girl.”

“Okay.”

She closed her eyes.

Bob waited a minute or two.

Scritch scritch scritch.

She growled, and then bit the offending arm. CHOMP.

“Ow!”

She giggled. “Serves you right.”

The pain was like a wakeup call, a switch. Bob shifted and pressed his sudden hardness into her.

“Oh my God, it’s hard again. Still. Wow.” She sounded both sarcastic and impressed, which Bob considered was about as good as it gets.

“Go ahead, grab it. I know you want to. It is calling to you. It’s going Maaaarrrrtha, Maaaarrrthhha, come play with me!“

Martha burst out laughing, no little girl giggle but a rich soprano of womanly notes. She actually snorted, but then grabbed him and started stroking.

Bob let his hands wander to her thighs to return the favor. Only, he encountered a wet spot that was warm, instead of sticky and cold. He withdrew his hand and looked at it. Sweat. Fluids.

Blood.

Martha paused and looked aghast. “Oh. I, uh,” she blushed red, almost as red as the blood on his hand. She bit her lip. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you first.”

Clarity burst into Bob’s mind like a solar flare. Some of the things she did, the way she acted, the childish things she said sometimes, it all made sense now, and he felt stupid for not recognizing it. But how was he to know? It wasn’t like he went out and deflowered virgins on a regular basis. Indeed, he had never been anyone’s first.

It was all too much, and he started to laugh.

She gave him an angry look. “You got part of my cherry on your hands and you’re laughing at me?”

Bob started to sputter, and soon was coughing. Then she bit him again. CHOMP.

“Ow!” In retaliation, he took his hand and smacked her butt, hard. It made a wet sound as he connected with flesh.

“Ew! I should bite you again for that! What are you laughing for?” She did not sound mad, though.

“You’re a silly moo.”

“A moo? A moo? Are you calling me a cow?” Her hand, still on his penis, squeezed hard.

“Hey hey hey, it’s just an expression, down girl.”

She looked at him, and got serious. “You’re not mad that I didn’t tell you?” Her eyes looked on the verge of tears.

“No. Sorry, Babe, I don’t sweat the small stuff. Even your, uh, small stuff.”

She giggled, breaking her dour, and went to get up. “Let me go get cleaned up.”

He grabbed an arm and pulled her back. “Martha, this is life. Life is messy. I want you just the way you are. I don’t want some pretty little fluffy bunny office girl who tries to do everything perfectly. I want beautiful you, just you. Blood and all, I want you.”

Martha looked at him, surprise written all over her face. “Oh Robert, that may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” She moved on top of him, and in one swift motion, he was inside of her, and she was moving up and down, slowly. She sat up, and her eyes went wide as she continued rocking slowly back and forth.

She moaned. “Robert…”

He grabbed her breasts. “I love you,” he whispered.

Suddenly her mouth was at his ear. “I love you too, I love you too.” She put her tongue in his ear but then said, “Open your eyes, I want to see your eyes when you come.” Her voice was husky and demanding, he had never heard a woman sound this way.

It was Bob’s turn to moan. Dianne, Dianne, I think you would like her, I think you would love this one, I know it, he thought, mailing his thoughts to the dead as if he was sending a piece of email. He opened his eyes and Martha was back sitting on him, slowly riding him, and she reached down and brushed away a tear, and she smiled. There was nothing but her eyes and her hot sex enveloping him, her big brown eyes drinking him in, and his mind emptied until there was nothing but her, nothing but Martha, nothing but now.

Well then. That’s pretty explicit, but, even without the back-story, can you, the reader, see why this scene would be necessary? Martha is stripping Bob’s fear of true intimacy just as he took hers along with her virginity. I have no plans on stuffing these two into a novel, but based on what I have thought up about their story, I could not close the door on the reader at any point except where I actually ended the scene. It’s raw and naked, and I tried to make every word count. I tried to make every word count, while telling the truth of it all.

As a reader, that’s what I want. There is a time and place for everything, but if you show me two deeply wounded people in a story about moving beyond a quiet existence to a life that has meaning, then the author cannot tell me sex doesn’t matter. Because in this instance, it does. It matters a whole lot. For Bob and Martha, it went beyond getting off. It went beyond even love. It was, at that point, their everything.

That’s life, and that’s what I want to read. It’s a story.