Dear Author’s Poll - Do you skim/skip sex scenes?
This is an excellent question!
34% of her respondents claimed they do indeed skim or skip sex scenes. If you extrapolate the percentage to the general romance reading public, this is a significant number of readers. You can check out the post for yourself:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/
Reasons given were: too gross, too long, too boring, too acrobatic, too gratuitous, too unbelievable.
I have to admit I’m occasionally guilty of skimming or skipping. I recently purchased several books - print books via Amazon - written by some of my go-to authors and I skipped the sex scenes. Why? Well, as I commented on Jane’s post, if I’m skimming or skipping the sex scenes, chances are I’m skimming or skipping most of the book, primarily out of boredom. There is nothing more disappointing - reading-wise - than anticipating a new story or a new take on an old story, but instead discovering the same old same old has simply been repackaged, and that includes the same formulaic sex scenes.
Writing a sex scene is hard work. Writing a good sex scene is even more hard work. It’s a complex process and the way I see it, you have to be very involved in what you’re writing because context is everything. There must be a realistic reason for the characters to do what they do, behave as they do. And I believe that once the character commits to a man or a woman, the author must commit as well. My goal is to write a scene or scenes that do justice to my characters and will involve, enthrall, and entertain my readers. I think if an author just tosses in a gratuitous sex scene because they feel it’s required of them, the reader will recognize it and probably start to skip and skim. I’m a fan of fade-to-black or behind closed door sex scenes if an author isn’t comfortable doing the down and dirty. Really…it’s okay, just give me a good story.
So check out Jane’s post and leave me your comments. I would love to hear your answers - do you skim? If so, I really want to know why.
