Perhaps the most important thing I can tell you about good sex scenes is that they should first and foremost be good scenes. All the elements I look for in a great scene—vivid writing grounded in the concrete and specific; gripping, convincing action and dialogue; the revelation of character; a ratcheting up of tension—apply no less to sex scenes. Likewise, sex scenes are just as vulnerable to the common pitfalls of any troubled scene: abstraction or vagueness, a lack of tension, a lack of momentum (i.e., a scene that does not develop character or advance plot), or stilted dialogue—just to name a few.

Yet the sex scene is a very special kind of scene—one that provides a unique opportunity to see characters at their most vulnerable—and they’re notoriously difficult to write. My work as a teacher, an editor, and a writer has afforded me the opportunity to read a great many sex scenes, each at different stages of completion. Here, I’ll tell you about what undermines the scenes I regularly encounter in, shall we say, “unrevised” fiction so you’ll know what to avoid, and I’ll outline some principles on how to transform a faltering sex scene into artful writing.

Determine if you really need a sex scene. First, make sure your sex scene is integral to the story. It shouldn’t be there merely to spice up a lagging narrative, or as a blatant attempt to titillate. Like all good scenes, sex scenes should be doing double or even triple duty. That is, a great scene is always about the present action—in this case, sex—and about something else. A student of mine once tried to portray the dissolution of a marriage. She knew she had bitten off an enormous topic, but she was smart enough to know that she had to focus on just a day or two from the couple’s life, and to show the dissolution through scenes rather than tell us about it in summary. The story was ably written, but everyone agreed that it just wasn’t doing much, that something vital was lacking. Over her next three drafts, the student was able to craft a brief, heartbreaking sex scene. The couple’s actions were rote and mechanical, done out of duty rather than desire, and their dialogue was believable but perfunctory. That did it. The scene was no more than half a page long, but it crystallized the inner workings of a crumbling relationship. By the end of the story, the author did not have to write a melodramatic parting scene. There was no need. Her artful sex scene had shown everything we needed to know.

Be concrete; be specific. Put negatively: don’t write in abstract or vague language. The novice writer loves and finds refuge in abstraction. It is far easier to simply tell or summarize rather than describe, or better stated, re-create events. This is what good writing does: it re-creates reality. With the very best books, we are so absorbed in the narrative world that we nearly forget we are reading—the writing is that good, the fictional events seem that real. One of the problems with abstract language is that it puts a significant barrier between the reader and the narrative. We are kept at a distance with language such as “I was cast into oblivion” or “Their bodies were awash in ecstasy.” Far better is to show us that ecstasy. Don’t be afraid to draw the camera’s focus in to a close-up: show us, in language that appeals to the senses, what’s happening between your characters. And this is as good a place as any to tell you that yes, by all means, if you write an erotic sex scene, you should be turned on by it. If you’re not, don’t expect us to be.

Don’t skip the foreplay. Let me quickly follow all this talk of concrete and specific detail by saying that your sex scenes need not be lascivious. Remember that your main point is a literary one—the scene is an intimate moment of character and plot development—and that the emotional drama is far more important than any physical act. Readers hunger for concrete, specific information that engages their senses, but this doesn’t mean you must provide a detailed, organ-by-organ account of your characters’ sexual activities. More often than not, this actually works against you: I’ve seen plenty of sex scenes that read like a boring anatomy lesson. Lastly, remember that one of the sexiest things about good sex scenes is anticipation. Sometimes, it’s better to provide just enough detail to whet readers’ appetites and then let their imaginations take over.

Watch your language. I’m not referring to abstaining from four-letter words…not necessarily. But what your mother told you is true: there’s a time and place for everything. One ill-chosen word or an inappropriate line of dialogue can quickly undermine a sex scene. Unless you’re going for humor, lewd language that comes out of left field probably doesn’t belong in a tender, romantic sex scene, and the opposite is of course true: I’ve seen raw, brutal sex scenes ruined by a moment of sentimental shmaltz. Always use language that’s appropriate to your characters, time period, and fictional milieu. (And really, it’s best to avoid sentimentality in any occasion.)

The more common mistakes I see involve clichéd language. Some of the terms writers use—usually for body parts or various sexual acts—are so overused that they’ve become downright comical. I don’t know about you, but I and most every other editor I know can’t read “turgid member” or “heaving/shuddering breast” or see nipples compared to cherries without snickering or at least rolling our eyes. Out of deference for your delicate sensibilities, I’ll refrain from quoting more explicit examples, but I’m sure you can imagine them. Always, always, say it in a new way.

Harder to resist, and not so immediately off-putting, is what I refer to as “breathless” language. Even if you’re writing for Harlequin, you should avoid language like “We became one thing/one body/one soul” or “I was carried to the depths of ecstasy/oblivion” (or its close variant, “I was carried out of my body” or “…to a place where meaning and sense were no more”) or the ever-popular “She lost herself in him.” There are several problems with this type of abstract, tired language, but perhaps the biggest one is that it’s so vague that it could belong to anybody. Language like this floats above the fray, and could easily be excised from the text and set into another book. Instead, give us a sex scene that can only be about your specific characters. No one sex scene will look or sound exactly like another. Cookie-cutter sex simply doesn’t represent reality.

Inhibition, inhibitions. Many writers are simply uncomfortable writing about sex. What should you do if you’re one of them? Well, once you’ve determined that a sex scene is necessary, go to your writing room and lock the door. If you write in public, make sure you get a corner table. Wherever you are, you don’t want your parents/kids/partner/random stranger interrupting you, or God forbid, peering over your shoulder. No one is allowed to see your first draft except you, and if you’re like me, even the thought of someone spying on your rough drafts is enough to make you reach for a beta blocker. Next, if at all possible, try and remove yourself from whatever the source of anxiety or inhibition is. (Mine looked like an alarming amalgam of my grandfather and my childhood Southern Baptist minister.) Banish that specter to the nether darkness where it belongs. It may help to think of yourself in purely mechanical terms: you are a craftsperson, and your job is to build a scene. A crucial, character-revealing scene that portrays a moment of intimacy and emotion and vulnerability. Now write and write and write again. If it’s awful, don’t worry—not yet. No one is going to see it, and if it’s really terrible, you can delete it.

And hey, if the magic just isn’t happening now, go easy on yourself. Sure, you should try and stretch your horizons, but the last thing you want is a forced, obviously laborious sex scene. If you try and try and it just isn’t working, there are other options. Perhaps your lovers can have an intense, intimate conversation, or engage in a passionate, flirtatious debate. And here is where the lesson on “foreplay” can be particularly useful. There is much to be said for a scene that paints a vivid portrait of desire and anticipation and then makes a graceful exit, leaving the details to readers’ imaginations. Some of the most memorable sex scenes in literature do so: the (in)famous hotel sex scene in Lolita (that’s Chapter 29, for those of you who want a refresher), or the moment in Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers when Mary and Colin kiss and embrace, then return to their bedroom to undress “in semidarkness,” or this oft-quoted passage from Madame Bovary: “[Emma] tilted back her white neck, her throat swelled with a sigh, and, swooning, weeping, with a long shudder, hiding her face, she surrendered.”

Look to the greats for inspiration. Early in this article, I described myself as a teacher, editor, and writer. But I will always be first and foremost a reader. Literature boasts an astonishing variety of sex scenes, and you’re sure to find inspiration somewhere along the continuum. Read the novels I mentioned above. Read the Victorians, who give us a glimpse of lovers glancing knowingly at one another and then cut away to white space (or that oh-so-telling set of asterisks). Try out the raunchy hilarity of Portnoy’s Complaint. Read the heart-wrenching sex scenes from The Corrections, the lush, Gothic sex scenes of A.N. Roquelaure (a.k.a. Anne Rice), Erica Jong’s classic Fear of Flying, the bizarre and funny sex from Jonathan Ames or Steve Almond, and Alan Hollinghurst’s masterfully written The Line of Beauty. Try out a couple of tawdry bodice-rippers just for comparison’s sake.

Then get writing. Show us something new. Maybe the scene will give us a flash of insight into a character or a situation that we couldn’t have received otherwise, or maybe this is the moment when something unexpected will be revealed, or maybe we’ll finally learn the motivation driving a particular character. Whatever happens, remember that a sex scene is never just about body parts and physical sensations. However steamy or restrained, your sex scene should reflect the full lives of your characters—their needs and desires, their unique life histories and personal experiences, their attitudes, their thoughts, their emotions, and of course, the relationship between them. More often than not, a great sex scene is based not upon what occurs between bodies, but what occurs between minds, hearts, and souls.

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