I’ve had three separate conversations about this recently, relating to very different stories by different writers, so that’s a good prompt for a blog post. Famously, of course, Raymond Chandler said, when in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun. There are doubtless times when that will help, though overall, desperation rarely leads to good prose.

Even so, that man, his presence, his motives, the nature of his gun and its bullets, must still serve the essentials of the story. People, plot and place. Shooting or shagging, or their local equivalents, still always need to advance your story or tell us something important about your characters and their situation.

The first of those conversations was about ‘grittying up’ a story. There’s a good measure of violence driving this plot later on but, we wondered, would readers be taken by surprise, and not in a good way. There was precious little in the early chapters to make the reader aware of potentially dangerous undercurrents. Not that throwing an abrupt bar brawl into an early chapter would be any answer. There was no place for that in the story. After some consideration, verbal violence proved to be the answer, telling us something about this world and about key characters. Violence comes in many forms in the real world, so you don’t need to only ever bludgeon readers with characters hacking each other to pieces.

That said, when you do pit your characters against foes in a fist-fight or a fire-fight, you do need to get the details right. If this is outside your own personal experience, then you will need to do your research, and not only about the practicalities. Always remember such events are there to serve the story. Emotional responses are going to reveal so much about characters. This is where biographies and autobiographies become vital resources, giving insights into the ways real people have coped with extraordinary and dangerous situations.

The second conversation was about sex, specifically whether or not Our Hero should end up in bed with The Girl. That climax would certainly satisfy a lot of readers’ expectations. Only this particular story has spent over a hundred thousand words testing expectations in fantasy fiction that have become so apparently inevitable that they’ve congealed into cliché. One particular notion that’s being challenged is the idea that otherwise intelligent and sexually experienced people must unaccountably become slaves to lust.

So, no, we concluded, this narrative has no business ending in a night of passion. Now, that’s all well and good, but that means conveying the reasons for Our Hero and The Girl to go their separate ways which will work both for the story and for those readers who had come this far expecting a Happily Ever After in the bedroom. When it comes to sex, no one likes to be left unsatisfied on the pages or between the sheets. As with so many other elements of story-telling, knowing your tropes is important when it comes to sex.

The third conversation concluded that yes, sex was the way to go. This particular story includes a central, political marriage alliance, but there’s no place earlier in the narrative, either in terms of plot or pacing, for a lengthy courtship, negotiations, whatever. But this relationship is going to be crucial for subsequent events and how key characters respond. So we need real insights into these two people and their private personal relationship. We’re not going to see that if this pivotal chapter focuses on their wedding. A wedding is a production involving all sorts of people, and it’s an event where the central players are on show, presenting a public face. Also, let’s be honest, The Big Wedding is becoming something of a cliché in historical/fantasy fiction.

The wedding night though, that’s where these two are really going to get to know each other, in every sense, for better or worse. There can be precious few secrets between two people naked together in bed. They’re going to learn a lot of important things about each other, which will influence their future life together. For instance, they’re going to learn about each other’s prior sexual experience, because let’s remember ‘virgin’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘untouched by human hand’. Incidentally, the reader can also learn a lot about this culture and society from how its people approach sex. So from the writer’s point of view, this consummation offers a whole load of opportunities to serve people, plot and place in one chapter.

The flip side of that is the considerable authorial challenge of writing a sexual encounter that won’t make readers giggle or squirm, and not in a good way. There are oh, so many pitfalls when it comes to writing sex, starting with but by no means limited to describing the mechanics of Tab A into Slot B. It’s one of those writing tasks that can leave authors feeling very exposed as they search their own experience in order to realistically convey emotional and physical responses.

Add to that, in the majority of sexual situations, a writer’s personal experience is only going to take them half way. For those of us with very, very good friends of different gender and/or orientation to our own, this is generally the cue for a quiet night in with a bottle of wine and a very frank discussion. Then there’s what can be gained from reading other writers; the ones who can do sex well, and equally important, those who do it really badly. As always, spotting overused tropes and clichés becomes critical to avoiding throwing your readers out of the moment. Another resource is erotica, and in particular, reading what those writers who specialise in that genre have to share about the tricks of their particular trade.

Writing sex and/or violence is rarely easy, but doing anything worthwhile seldom is. Sex and violence are integral facts of human life, to a greater or lesser extent. If your fiction is going to have something worthwhile to say about our common humanity, you’re going to find yourself tackling this challenge, sooner or later, to a greater or lesser extent. With writing, as with sex and violence, thinking ahead will greatly increase your chances of a satisfactory outcome.