Patreon Online Writing Class | Writing “the Good Bits”: Sex Scenes in Any Genre with Guest Instructor Cecilia Tan
November 28, 2022— 8 to 9:30pm Eastern
Mary Robinette teaches or hosts writing classes, once a month, for her $25 Patreon supporters. The topic rotates, depending on what folks want to know about.
This month, Cecilia Tan will be our Guest Instructor, teaching us about writing sex scenes.
Sex scenes are a building block of fiction akin to fight scenes, car chases, family arguments, and other set pieces that a plot may require. If your characters are three dimensional, have human relationships, and aren’t explicitly constructed as asexual, then there’s always a chance they might end up in a sex scene. If you’ve ever wondered how you could write better sex scenes (or any sex scenes at all, if the concept feels intimidating), this class will delve into the craft of these scenes, with tools and techniques for making them work, as well as warnings and pitfalls to avoid.
Cecilia Tan is “simply one of the most important writers, editors, and innovators in contemporary American erotic literature” for her pioneering efforts to combine erotica with fantasy and science fiction, according to Susie Bright. She has been a longtime activist and organizer in the bi and BDSM communities and is a winner of the RT (Romantic Times) Lifetime Achievement Award. She holds a Masters in Professional Writing and Publishing and is the founder of Circlet Press, Inc., for whom she has edited over 100 anthologies of fiction, as well as the being author of many books, including the ground-breaking erotic sf/fantasy short story collections Black Feathers (HarperCollins) and White Flames (Running Press), and the Magic University series (Riverdale Avenue Books). Her short stories have appeared in Ms. Magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Absolute Magnitude, Strange Horizons, and tons of other places. She was inducted into the Saints & Sinners LGBT Writers Hall of Fame in 2015. Her upcoming series from Tor Books, The Vanished Chronicles, will be published Real Soon Now.
Structure (all times in Eastern)
- 8:00 pm Chat for 5 minutes as people get settled.
- 8:05 pm Begin recording
- 8:45 ish Open the floor for questions from the chat
- 9:00 ish Stop recording near the hour and switch to Q&A for any questions that you didn’t want to be recorded.
- Later ish MRK will open the breakout rooms for anyone who wants to stick around for writing or social time.
