Today, having decided that my best bet was to improve the glorious text of The Romantic Feminist, I worked carefully, as I have done since Monday, to improve the last 100 pages or so. In the process of this, I've added about 12 pages, done more work from Leo's POV and added a rather delicate sex scene. I spent a great deal of time over the latter - and I've seen "how it's done" - the trick is, I think, that everyone knows what the bits are called, and somehow using their proper names makes it sound a bit calculated. Therefore one has to make it clear what the objective is and then carefully describe what is being done with it and the characters' responses. If people find it erotic, fine, but that isn't the intention. I find it quite erotic, but that's because I'm writing about the kind of sex I like.
It is all too easy to use cliched words like plunge and thrust - and I stopped myself before I even typed them, but - how to do it instead?
I kept finding my mind filled with words like "thrilled" and "sensitised" which are either toodated/romantic or too scientific for the effect I wanted. So I grasped my trusty Roget's Thesaurus (which I almost never use for first drafts!) and looked for synonyms... at one point I wanted to say that an act of penetration was very quick and intense,,, but spent a long time trying to think of a noun that would describe an act of penetration that wasn't one of the usual ones... I was looking for synonyms for "visit" - but flipping through the pages glanced down and saw "voyage" - which gave me a nice little metaphor... not too extended which perfectly described (in my view) the half-satisfied/over-satisfied state one sometimes completes coitus in...
I must say, I really ought to use R'sT more often, just flipping through it at random one comes upon quaint phrases (my edition is very old fashioned - not updated at all). It is a delight. I do have a fairly good vocabulary - and when an English word don't (sic) come along, a foreign one is sometimes even better... or an Americanism. However, I think a trawl through Roget might give even more precision to my choice of words, as well as widening it.
It is all too easy to use cliched words like plunge and thrust - and I stopped myself before I even typed them, but - how to do it instead?
I kept finding my mind filled with words like "thrilled" and "sensitised" which are either toodated/romantic or too scientific for the effect I wanted. So I grasped my trusty Roget's Thesaurus (which I almost never use for first drafts!) and looked for synonyms... at one point I wanted to say that an act of penetration was very quick and intense,,, but spent a long time trying to think of a noun that would describe an act of penetration that wasn't one of the usual ones... I was looking for synonyms for "visit" - but flipping through the pages glanced down and saw "voyage" - which gave me a nice little metaphor... not too extended which perfectly described (in my view) the half-satisfied/over-satisfied state one sometimes completes coitus in...
I must say, I really ought to use R'sT more often, just flipping through it at random one comes upon quaint phrases (my edition is very old fashioned - not updated at all). It is a delight. I do have a fairly good vocabulary - and when an English word don't (sic) come along, a foreign one is sometimes even better... or an Americanism. However, I think a trawl through Roget might give even more precision to my choice of words, as well as widening it.
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