Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!
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March 2 question: Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not?
I write Young Adult books, and I'd been conflicted about writing romantic scenes. Scenes that would take my characters past the kissing stage. As an adult, I'd be silly not to believe that teenagers are experimenting on every level. Some more than others...
Books like John Green's, Looking For Alaska, and a few of Sarah J. Mass' books, to name only two fabulous authors, have gone well beyond kissing.
When I read Marie Lu's Legend trilogy, I was impressed how she penned an intimate scene. It was almost poetic, softening and veiling the act.
A couple of my books have gone beyond kissing. However, like Marie Lu and a few other YA books, I leave the specific details to the readers imagination.
As a writer what have you been conflicted with?
I'm writing my first YA novel and wrote my first kissing scene. It was hard. I like reading how other authors do it. I loved Marie Lu's Legend series and agree she did the romance scenes just right.
ReplyDeleteThose scenes are difficult.
DeleteKids have a vivid enough imagination as it is - wise choice.
ReplyDeleteThanks Alex
DeleteThat's a tough area, but I agree with Alex that their imagination will easily fill the spots...and that leaves you more pages for the main plot and sub-plots.
ReplyDeleteScenes where my MC has to bare their soul are usually hard for me to write, making them vulnerable almost has to make me vulnerable.
ReplyDeletei always leave those scenes to the reader's imagination.
ReplyDeleteRomantic scenes always put me in conflict.
ReplyDeleteI work on the less is better concept when it comes to sexy scenes. Let the readers' imaginations do the exquisite work.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a little subtle rather than laying it all out there.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like writing sex scenes in a YA novel would be really difficult, especially now with so much heightened scrutiny around what kids are reading. It would also be a great opportunity, though, to give kids examples of healthy, fully consensual activity when so many of them learn about sex from their friends or, worse, porn.
ReplyDeleteI don't much like sex scenes in general. They bore me when I read them, so I never write them. Some of my characters do go beyond kissing, but I never describe the details of it. Of course, I don't write for kids. I write speculative fiction, and my readers are supposed to be at least teenagers, probably older.
ReplyDeleteWhere to begin the story. Too soon or too late.
ReplyDeleteI try to write as though no one will ever see what I wrote, that way my character can be vulnerable in front of the reader. The more we show what people don't talk about the more people want to read about it:)
ReplyDeleteI tried a YA and couldn't do it. Too much pressure. The mom side of me wanted to stop every character before they did anything wrong.
ReplyDeleteYA sounds challenging, especially in this era.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I always maintain that less is more; and young adults of today have seen and heard so much more than we did when we were their age, anyway.