Thoughts on including Adult-Rated material in your work.

[Codey Amprim]

So I've been wondering, how is adult material in fantasy-fiction taken by the community? Is it acceptable? Is it frowned upon? Should a writer be leery about including it in his work. And by adult material, yes, I do mean sexual encounters - but only the romantic types, not the horrific - I have no interest in such things, nor will I ever put such things into a work of writing.

So, are sexually explicit scenes acceptable by the fantasy community? I'm not talking about full blown pornographic writing, just intense romantic encounters... Same difference right? Or how about just hinting towards it? I know many things can be added that only more mature readers will understand. My works have enough, and will have more bloody battles, but I don't want to throw away the entire younger audience.

Your thoughts?

 

[sashamerideth]

We each have our own tolerance for what we want to write and read. I would meter it to what you are comfortable writing and reading. Bear in mind though that it takes a particular talent to write detailed intimacy without sounding boring, dull or just gross.

Edit : I have a work in progress with multiple partner pairings, both hetero and homo. I only hint at intimacy, I don't want to put off my readers, if I ever get them.

 

[Ophiucha]

I would say it depends on the rest of the story, and exactly how the scene itself is written. I've read sex scenes that are very flowing, full of the character's thoughts and emotions. They are sensual, but often a bit, well, fluffy. They are interludes that often can be cut, and the minimalist in me is always carrying around cartoonish scissors, looking for things like that to remove. It can add something, though. If you put it in the right place. Right before one of them could die, generally, with a bit of romantic desperation. Fits in right there, as long as the story wasn't aimed at kids or anything - you could get away with that in YA, even. When it comes to anything more explicit, though, it really does have to be just the right kind of story. The whole story should probably feel more 'adult'. It would really break the flow of a story to have your typical, overblown sword and sorcery story, or worse yet something relatively cheerful and full of teens, and then to jump into descriptions of a BJ. Really, make sure everything seems natural and fits in with the rest of the story. If the story is aimed at the right audience, uses the right language, has the right tone, etc. for a little more than "fade to black", then use it to serve your story well. If not, don't do it.

 

[The Blue Lotus]

The first draft of my third chapter had a detailed rape scene... the beta readers said that it belonged more in erotica than in a High Fantasy work so I paried it down to boilerplate she was raped gloss over and now even though I cut that out I am much happier with it.

Beta readers are your friends Use them wisely and take what they have to say as a collective seriously.
if 12/15 BR's say ewww... than you most likely have hit the same road I did with over sharing the details.

 

[TWErvin2]

It really depends. There is an audience for even graphic sexual encounters, just as there is an audience works without any encounters at all, and everyhere in between. Laurell K. Hamilton does very well, and she has a lot of graphic encounters. Her writing did not start off that way but developed that over time. She lost a lot of one following of readers but picked up other readers--enough that she's on like the 17th or maybe 18th or higher book in her Antia Blake series. A lot of urban fantasy has more than a bit of the sexual encounter content, such as Erica Hayes in her Shadowfae Chronicles.

It depends on what you're comfortable with and what you're good at writing.

 

[Philip Overby]

As The Blue Lotus said, if there is too much sex most publishers (who define the genre by what they sell) will not want to distribute it on a typically "normal" fantasy press. There's graphic sex scenes in a lot of fantasy now though. As long as you aren't going for pages and pages like Anne Rice pretending to be someone else, then you should be fine.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

What does it bring to the story? That is the question on what you need. Do people in fantasy stories have sex? Most likely, they still have children in most of those worlds. Do you have to be explicit about it? Totally up to you, but there are consequences to both. If you are, then it puts you more into the romance side (unless it is more pornographic style...but I'll assume it isn't) or just imply that it happened and then go on. If the people having the sex end up having a kid, then a mention that it is happening might be worth a brief mention.

I personally don't add anything explicit, but that's a choice I made to keep the option of having a broader audience. If there is some direct story relevance to it, then you might have to add it to get that across.

 

[J. Rosemary Moss]

My work is as much M/M or F/F romance as fantasy, so my target audience expects 'adult material.' I think you should figure out who your target audience is, what they generally expect in the specific genre they read, and then figure out whether you can (or should) play with those boundaries.

 

[Map the Dragon]

I've seen very little of this in the epic fantasy genre. The most prolific use of describing sexual encounters in any detail that I can recall is George RR Martin. I can't think of too many others. I don't think Martin is gratuitous in this use, but it is present and lends a certain reality to the work. He uses euphemisms like "his length" instead of "his penis", and never really goes overboard, but there are references to both male and female sexual organs fairly regularly in pattern with how regularly it might need to be discussed.

I have not made use of any sexual encounters in my own writing...if anything, a hint.

I am not against it by any means, but I think writers need to understand their audience and write accordingly.

 

[Ravana]

Speaking from the viewpoint of a target audience, rather than as a writer, I actually find most explicit descriptions of sex just plain boring. As a result, as a writer I tend not to use them.

 

[Thistlefizz]

I tend to agree with Ravana. If the explicit scene goes on for more than a page I tend to just skip it altogether. In my opinion, going in to fine detail about a sexual encounter just doesn't advance the story in any meaningful way. And a lot of people just get put off and uncomfortable reading it. And while making people uncomfortable isn't necessarily a reason in and of itself to not include a sexually explicit scene, it's definitely something to keep in mind.

 

[Wolfen]

I think that it adds realism in some cases. It mostly depends on your audience, really. With fantasy books like, say... Eragon, it isn't that appropriate, it being written by a child for children. However, some fantasy series do it very well. It adds a sense of realism, a sense that the world is alive. One series I think does this well is A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin.

 

[sashamerideth]

Well I have just written a sex scene, rather alluded to the idea that these two people were going to have sex. I am sticking to my guns and not being explicit, leaving most to the reader. I prefer it that way myself so that's how I am going to write it.

 

[CicadaGrrl]

On the flip side of what most people seem to feel about black outing or mentioning sex in passing, my characters tend to have pretty damn explicit sex. Tipping my hat to audience, my publisher's finally got me to stop using "cock" and "clit" and start making up silly euphemisms. Which I still resent. Yes. I'm writing fantasy. But I am writing CHARACTER DRIVEN fantasy. Sex is an important facet of human life, whether it is a moment of bonding in love, or an utter mistake. Skipping over what an important human interaction it is is, to me, as silly as having people kill each other with no emotion. It is part of your character arc. If you are going to have sex, give it it's props, and do it right. My professors used to tell me that the hardest thing to do is write a good sex scene. So pay attention and be honest with your characters as well as yourself.

 

[Hëradïn]

I like sex, most people are really prudish about it though, not as in they don't want to do it but as in they are afraid to talk about it. well guess what? PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HAVING SEX FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. if you can't handle a little description of a sex scene then honestly, what are you doing? grow up and gain some maturity. sex is part of the real world, that does not preclude it from being in a fantasy world.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

If I lead the reader to the bedroom door, then show them where the characters are going, then skip to the part where they are holding each other...would you know what happened in between? Most likely. If I were to write it out explicitly, then there would be little doubt what they did, and then you would know what happened very clearly.

For the overall, will the one with the sex shown be better than the one that doesn't? That will depend on the reader of the story and the value they have of having it shown to them. Writers take liberties too often sometimes and go down paths we'd wish they wouldn't. Three chapters of alien evolution tends to bore the crap out of the reader (yes, I still remember the boredom years later). Everything we choose to add to the story can have a price in what the reader thinks of the writer at the end. This makes a big difference in whether or not you will have that reader for another book or not. Some authers aren't bad, but when they do things like take time out to bore me, I tend to look to other authors in the future who haven't done so. It doesn't make the one author a bad one, but it does cost in trust, and in the long run, someone else gets my reading dollars.

 

[jackitsu]

I think it depends on how important the sex is to the story. If you have a character trying to bed another for a long time in a story, I always like a bit of fan service for the wait instead "Well, that finally happened... moving on". If something freaky that leads to further character development or advances the plot (like if, during sex, a woman bursts into a tentacled creature of the night) then its probably important to mention in detail. If the the story is sexually charged to begin with, like a prostitute, or more of the "sacred whore" revered courtesan thing, it might be important.

I do, as a reader, like when authors acknowledge sex and talk about it at least on some level. I'm not 12, and most of the characters aren't either, so conversations never seem to bother me nor do sex scenes. Its how explicit it gets that may give me pause, not so much that there are sex scenes.

But in echo, really, it is what fits you AND the story.