Over the last fifteen months I’ve been learning the pitfalls of writing about nookie.

I have struggled to maintain my interest in many book characters when faced with cringeworthy  descriptions of their intimate sexual activity with one or more of the other characters. I have sometimes laughed out loud at the writer’s use of clichés and overly graphic descriptions phrased so badly they end up devoid of  the erotic passion they sought to convey.  I smugly thought “I could do better than that”  but now I realize how difficult it is to find the right words.   I have not written an erotic novel but the story covers almost twenty years of Ellie’s life and she has more than one intimate physical relationship. I  used  a few brief accounts of her sex-life to assist in demonstrating her changing attitude towards men as she grows older but, as I work on the 2nd draft,  I am finding it difficult not to keep re-writing them.

I would be interested to hear how other authors felt when describing sexual activity in their first novel.