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Dialogue serves several purposes, but each purpose is
designed to one end: to advance the story.
Since there’s no shortage of excellent general writing
advice, I thought I’d focus today on a particular brand of dialog known as
pillow talk. Pillow talk is, of course, the dialog that occurs between your
protagonists during lovemaking. Pillow
talk gives you a chance to offer insight into the characters and their
complicated relationship – so it has to be both meaningful and sexy.
Discussing crime and murder is generally not an ideal topic
for pillow talk – unless you are trying to make a point about your characters
and their relationship. Two guys in law enforcement who have sex on a regular
basis but kid themselves that they are not in a relationship, might discuss
their case rather than anything intimate or personal, but in the ordinary way your
reader is going to be hoping for more in these scenes.
When human beings have sex with someone they love, they’re
vulnerable. Which means it’s a great time to insert romantic and heart-felt
dialogue. I’m not planning to discuss sex until later in the series, but it
seems like the right moment to observe that every sex scene should have a point
— beyond the obvious one. It should signal some change, some development in the
romantic relationship between our two protags. This is why the dialog in these
pivotal scenes is so crucial.
Your characters will — should — say things when they’re in
bed together that they wouldn’t say anywhere else. They’ll reveal things about themselves
through dialogue and action in those particular scenes that could only happen
in those particular scenes. Bedroom dialogue isn’t interchangeable with other
dialogue. It is sexier — earthy and emotional and naked — but it still needs to
be coherent.
I think the test of solid bedroom dialog is whether your
story still makes make sense if you remove that particular conversation. It
shouldn’t be easy to strip it out because, again, that dialogue is often going
to be a turning point. At the very least it should be an emotional turning
point. Certainly even if you took all the physical action out, the dialogue should
still make sense. Mostly.
You don’t need a ton of bedroom dialog, let me hasten to
add. Think quality over quantity.
And after you’ve written the dialog between your characters,
ask yourself the following questions: Does the dialogue still make sense (for
the most part) without the physical action: meaning, are these two characters actually
communicating with each other? Even without knowing the backstory or the characters,
is this dialogue interchangeable? Will the reader concur that she/he
is watching a turning
point in this relationship — learning something about the
characters and their feelings for each other? Could this dialog happen at
another time in the story?
A distinct voice in gay fiction, multi-award-winning author
JOSH LANYON has been writing gay mystery, adventure and romance for over a
decade. In addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and novels, Josh is
the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English series, including The
Hell You Say, winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT Fiction. Josh is
an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist
Kindlegraph / the art of research / writing male/male
romance / rejection and writer's block / building suspense / writing love
scenes / anti-piracy strategies / audio books / interviews with editors and
agents / using Calibre. 
13 comments:
Excellent post, Josh :). I especially appreciated the point that dialogue in a sex scene should be part of the overall flow of the plot. For me, pillow talk is a wonderful way to showcase the characters in an intimate situation. And it can be much more sexy than the bodily movements LOL.
Nice post Josh, its something I've been thinking about lately. I've read alot this last couple of weeks, mainly freebies of varying quality.
Pillow talk is only relevant or useful if it is real. So often it feels wooden or just too cheesy to be said outside of bad porn. Then it just throws me out of the story.
Josh and Clare you both write wonderful pillow talk, sadly not everyone does.
Loved this, especially the part about readers wanting to discover even in the midst of pillow talk.
Pillow talk I love. Dirty talk, not so much. I absolutely agree that your walls come crashing down when making love to the person who owns your heart. Magic.
Thanks, Clare. I agree entirely!
That's very kind of you, Jan. Sadly I must agree that what passes for pillow talk is often so bad silence might be better!
Thank you very much, Avery!
True! Dirty talk doesn't tell us anything about the characters beyond the fact that they're horny. It's a wasted opportunity.
Thanks for your comment, Kastil!
Kastil's comment is very interesting. Sure there is pillow talk and dirty talk but to me gritty pillow talk can be dirty AND revealing at the same time. I'm not talking pornography. I think there is sexually intense dialogue that can reveal a lot of what one character wants from another without going and staying hardcore throughout a scene. If done well, dirty talk can reveal a character's mindset and foreshadow future conflict (in or out of the bedroom.) Just my humble opinion, but there's a lot to be said for dirty talk. No pun intended. :-) Thanks for another great post, Josh.
Hey Josh, great post.
I totally love the idea that if you take that section of dialogue out, something should be missing from the story. Good test.
Not sure I agree that it's only people who are in love who are vulnerable when they're getting it on. I think vulnerability is always there. Even the person who is seemingly disconnected from the act, is seeking connection. Or perhaps acting unconsciously on the need to connect.
Do you have examples of author's you think do the pillow talk thing well? (I can think of people who do the exposition well but can't isolate for dialogue in my head. Guess we know where my memory goes when reading sex scenes...the pictures. )
True, DHM. If the conversation evolves past simple instructions and requests then it can be revealing and advance the plot. Like all dialog, that requires thought and skill.
True, J. But I didn't say only people in love are vulnerable during sex. ;-)
I don't agree that vulnerability is *always* there, though. Sometimes it's just about proving something, sometimes it's just about the physical act -- sex feels good, let's face it -- sometimes it's just about being too drunk/stoned/tired to consider what you're doing.
I think LB Gregg is someone who does a good job with pillow talk. Clare London comes to mind. Nicole Kimberling. There are plenty of writers who do it well, but I admit they don't instantly spring to mind. :-) As you say, the conversation is not the thing we actively take notice of.
I'm obviously late, so no one will probably read this. Anyway, I wanted to say that I love your articles.
I once wanted to be a writer too, but I was told I was not good enough and to stop deluding myself. I still love reading about writing though!
I totally agree that we're vulnerable when we have sex with someone we love. I never felt particularly vulnerable when I had a one-night-stand.
Afterwards I always wanted to excuse myself as soon as possible and go home and sleep *g*. But after sex with my SO I sometimes have this need to... talk. And I mean, talking about serious things, which I usually try to avoid. I don't know why, but it opens me up somehow. Maybe because I feel so relaxed and safe, that I have the strength to face reality. I know, it's weird. So I think too many authors waste the opportunity to deliver meaningful scene in order to deliver pointless porn. And most of those scenes are so similar to each other, that I got bored. And yes, I think every scene and dialogue should have purpose. It's fiction after all, not real life.
I'm not sure if it could be called pillow talk, but I really like this scene from All She Wrote, when Kit and J.X. talk before having sex. It's real, but not boring. I can remember this after all this time, so it means it was done right.
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