Welcome Justin Ordonez!

Keep the Sex Steamy in Writing.

            Much like real life, writing has its moments when it hits neutral, then coasts on along. At first it’s hard to notice, you’re holding the same speed, still heading towards the same destination, and even when you start to lose some momentum, you tell yourself, “Yeah, but I still have plenty of speed, I can hold to the ending.” Ten minutes later, your broken down on the life of the road, and you have no idea how you’re going to end up where you need to go. This happens enough in writing when dealing with even the most commonplace of plots, yet it gets even worse when sex and relationships are involved, as most people struggle to keep their own relationships from falling in ruts, what chance do they stand in fiction?

            Well, I have good news for you. It’s actually easier to fix it in fiction.

            With writing, you always have this thing called retrospect, and unlike life, writing has clearly defined beginnings, middles, and ends in regards to a completed story. Real life could be over in a second. I might never finish this blog, for all I know, but I know all stories I buy will have resolution. This is why the best sex usually happens at the end of the movie. It is the result of the trials and the tribulations of the two characters working and growing closer together as the story progresses. The first sex usually happens somewhere in the middle, after a moment of danger or excitement, something to stimulate the “lizard” brain, so your characters forget who they are, where they are, and that being decent involves being cold and distant for some reason. Likewise, sex at the beginning may appear to be good, but it is always revealed to be bad. The relationship is a rotten one or one of the people involved needs to change.

            Knowing where you are in the story will do a lot to tell how your sex scene needs to work with the plot that is developing through time. The beginning is a time to show something that is working now, but needs to change. The middle is a time of transition, and being in transition, the characters take a risk they might not usually take. The ending is a time of resolution, and the sex will probably represent whatever transformation the character undertook.

            Applying this to my own story, Sykosa, I see these trends. My character is a teenage girl, and a virgin, so at the beginning, the “sex” is really just making out with her boyfriend. She enjoys it, but we find out she is unsatisfied. She wants her boyfriend to ask her to Prom, which he hasn’t done. It’s putting tension in the intimacy. In the middle, Sykosa experiences a transformative moment with Tom when he does ask her to Prom. Afterwards, feeling very close to him, they talk about their relationship, and throughout this conversation, both disrobe and hold each other nearly naked. Later that night, they attempt to have sex and fail, which is an important element to storytelling. It’s called the “sling-shot.” It involves pushing the story backwards in order to catapult it forwards. When Tom and Sykosa cannot make love like they had planned, the resolution at the ending is denied them. It adds suspense to the story. Will Tom and Sykosa make it as a couple? As the reader moves on, this failure catapults Tom and Sykosa closer together, and the next morning, more naturally than the night before, they do make love, and by the end of the book, they’ve resolved themselves to be committed to this relationship. 

            If you’re struggling with keeping your sex fresh, or if it’s feeling stagnate, ask yourself what stage of the transformative process your character is in, then juxtapose that to where the plot of the story itself is in that transformative process. If your character has completed their transformation, but your story is only two-thirds done, chances are the sex (and many other things) are going to feel strained or stale. What makes good sex is what makes a lot of good things: the correct ingredients mixed together, timing, and a little heat. Do it one way and you get cement. Do it another and you get sweetness.

Justin Ordoñez wrote a book called Sykosa. It’s about a sixteen year old girl who’s trying to reclaim her identity after an act of violence destroys her life and the lives of her friends. You can find out more about Justin at his blog, http://sykosa.wordpress.com. You can also find Sykosa, the novel on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007N709IG/

Sykosa (that's "sy"-as-in-"my" ko-sa) is a sixteen-year-old girl trying to reclaim her identity after an act of violence shatters her life and the life of her friends. This process is complicated by her best friend, Niko, a hyper-ambitious, type-A personality who has started to war with other girls for social supremacy of their school, a prestigious preparatory academy in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. To compensate, Sykosa has decided to fall in love with her new boyfriend, Tom, who was involved in the act of violence. Propelled by survivor guilt, an anxiety disorder, and her hunger for Tom and his charms, Sykosa attends a weekend-long, unchaperoned party at Niko's posh vacation cottage, where she will finally confront Niko on their friendship, her indecision about her friends and their involvement in the act of violence, and she will make the biggest decision of her life—whether or not she wants to lose her virginity to Tom. YA fiction for the 18+ crowd.

EXCERPT:

Everything is too complicated. It should not have to be. She goes behind the chapel. He goes behind the chapel. They make out. Simple, right? It’s not. Regardless, if even that must be complicated, then certainly the concept that she wants to go to Prom, thus he should ask her to Prom and then they should go to Prom is simple, right? It’s not. You see, he has this best friend, this confidante, this main focus, this everything—and her name is not Sykosa, but Mackenzie.

Or as you will soon find out: “M.” That’s what he calls her.

So, every day, she faces the fact that they are merely acquaintances. Two pigeons in a flock of nine hundred who dress the same, talk the same, and act the same. That’s okay. Pigeons are only pigeons because conformity is only conformity. It’s okay to be like everyone else so long as she is always herself. And that is the reason, because there is no other reason, why she makes out with this boy. Other than she likes it. Kissing is fun. She’s lying. There is another reason. Another trivial teenage doodad—when she talks to him, lame as it sounds, she feels like she is being herself.

Tom’s never understood this. He sees no issue in how she feels like a phoenix, but is only regarded as a pigeon—and not only a pigeon, but one pigeon in a flock of… Never mind, conformity sucks!

"… gritty, intense and definitely not a book I'll forget anytime soon! It was so differently written. I wouldn't have expected to fall in love with the writing style but I did. It practically made me get under Sykosa's skin despite getting a dose of the perspectives of the other characters and there were parts that were so lyrical." ~ On Books

www.facebook.com/sykosanovel
www.twitter.com/sykosanovel
www.goodreads.com/sykosa
http://sykosa.wordpress.com/

PRIZE INFORMATION

Justin will be giving away a $50 gift card to one randomly drawn commenter at the end of the tour.