Behind Closed Doors/ Let's Talk About Sex

I grew up reading Harlequin's, where the sex happened behind closed doors. Now, here is a dilemna I know most writers face when creating a love scene. What to put in and what to leave out?

I read all the time and different authors handle SEX differently. Laurell K. Hamilton and Christine Feehan use descriptive sex in their novels. James Patterson (I mostly read the Alex Cross series) uses it some, but it is done tastefully.

When you are writing what do you do about sex? If you have a character driven plot, I'd say let the characters take you where they want. You can always take it out later if it makes you uncomfortable. It never hurts to write a juicy love scene, in fact it might help with connecting to your 5 senses. Think about it, when you have sex you connect with sight, sound, taste, feel and smell. If you write about it, you want your reader to feel it as if they were your character.

I leave out the steamy sex scenes, prefering to leave it up to my readers imagination. However, you can utilize the build up before in creating the mystery before your reader turns the page. This will help your reader to visualize what might be happening behind the scenes.

It is your decision to write what you are comfortable with, but remember sex sells. It always has and always will no matter how you choose to portray it. There are markets for all levels of sex, including the behind close doors variety.