I guess emotional investment is a big part of the problem. It's hard to remain entirely distant and neutral with a sex scene. And of course there's the difficulty of turning neither too technical nor drifting into the corny novel genre... And the protagonist of my story is totally inexperienced, and kind of worried, and thinks waaaay too much, and keeps interrupting to ask another world-moving question that kind of destroys the whole atmosphere. It's a miracle I ever got that scene finished (and it sucks. ... which is a bad choice of word considering the subject matter, so let's amend that to "it does not work well").
A ritual is simple. It's got a fixed frame that's easy to arrange. We all know the basic ritual setup, but there's enough freedom in the exact wording, and in the motions and all. And you can maintain a nice safe emotional distance which makes it so much easier to observe and describe.
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Date: 2008-11-21 11:54 am (UTC)And the protagonist of my story is totally inexperienced, and kind of worried, and thinks waaaay too much, and keeps interrupting to ask another world-moving question that kind of destroys the whole atmosphere. It's a miracle I ever got that scene finished (and it sucks. ... which is a bad choice of word considering the subject matter, so let's amend that to "it does not work well").
A ritual is simple. It's got a fixed frame that's easy to arrange. We all know the basic ritual setup, but there's enough freedom in the exact wording, and in the motions and all. And you can maintain a nice safe emotional distance which makes it so much easier to observe and describe.