Seriously, I do. I had to write one this weekend and, even though it is about a page and a half long, I think I spent more time working on it than I did on the other twenty pages I wrote this weekend.
Every writer has something that is tricky for them to pull off. Some writers struggle over the beginning of a story. Others struggle at the end. Still others lose their way halfway through. Some can write an awesome love scene that doesn’t make you feel like you just read something out of Hustler and some write a scene that makes you wonder if you’re reading the screen play for a porno.
I, generally avoid writing them at all. I’ll hint. I’ll make references. I’ll use euphemisms. In the end, you’ll know that two characters had sex. You just didn’t get a play-by-play of the encounter.
This weekend, I found myself being forced to write the play-by-play. It was absolutely necessary to the story that things happen as they did. It was absolutely vital or else I’d have done my usual “spell it out but don’t give the details.” And yet, for all that I knew what was going down and for all that I’m usually good at describing action scenes, I can’t, for the life of me, figure out if I said too much or not enough.
Seriously, I had about eight different books open up and I was reading similar scenes from various authors trying to figure out just how in the hell they managed to pull it off without sounding like a Harlequin writer. I consulted Wizard’s First Rule (the scene in the Mud People’s Spirit House between Richard and Kalhan). I had Shalador’s Lady and Queen of the Darkness open. I browsed through Valley of Horses looking for the first scene between Ayla and Jondalar before I realized it was going to be way too extreme for what I needed. I even went through Game of Thrones before I finally said “fuck it all. Just write what happens.”
The scene works out to 600 words. I added a grand total of 20k words. This scene is like…what…3% of that? And it gave me more trouble than the other 97% put together.
I had this same problem with The Unexiled before I said “screw it. You know they fuck. I don’t need to go into it.” That was probably my biggest failure with The Unexiled and it came down to I hate writing love scenes but sometimes, they’re necessary. I just wish there were a way to improve at it that didn’t involve writing more love scenes. >< I've got at least one more to write in Twilight of Lanar'ya before it's finished. There may be one in the next book as well. I know there will be several in the third book and, lemme tell you, I've had to order myself not to think about it so I won't start stressing out over things that are two damned books in the future!
Ah well. Maybe I’ll get better at them. I just wish I knew how authors like George R. R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, or Terry Goodkind pulled them off without it sounding so damned foolish.
