It’s a hazard of the profession: if you write romance, sooner or later, someone’s going to give you a jovial wink and say, ‘You must enjoy doing the research for your sex scenes…’

Privately, I wonder why people rarely ask me about the research I really do, about jobs and settings and how to hotwire a BMW. Sex is, when you get down to it, often quite a simple thing, physically. Unlike hotwiring a BMW, sex is something even molluscs can do. It’s the emotions that make it complex, and human, and rich, and resonant, and sexy.

Writing sex in a romantic novel is really all about the emotion. If the sex scene isn’t going to be gratuitous, something needs to change within the characters’ lives because of the act of having sex with another person. Sometimes sex can make things better – it can be an outpouring of love, and lead to a resolution – but more often, it makes things much more complicated. Usually, before I write a sex scene, I’ll know what the scene needs to achieve within the arc of the story, and that purpose will affect how the sex happens – the setting, the conversation, the props or focus or metaphors. The best sex scenes I read are the ones where the characters’ personalities shine through.

As far as the level of explicitness goes: I think it’s not a bad thing to shock yourself a little bit. Making love can be shocking, and you’re writing to challenge your characters, after all. Of course you’ve got to know your market and how open your reader expects the bedroom door to be. But make sure you use your setting and all of your characters’ senses, not just their senses of sight and touch – and beware of tired metaphors and euphemisms.
Reading good sexy books or watching a film starring a sexy hero can put you in the right mood for writing a sex scene. I’ve nearly worn out my DVD of X-Men 2, looking at Wolverine. Still, it’s research and it has to be done….

Julie’s latest book is Girl from Mars (Little Black Dress), which has the shortest sex scene she’s ever written.  But still, y’know, sexy.