Sexual Tension
So, this month’s column is brought to you by my very late-to-the-party obsession with Rookie Blue (a 2010’s police drama, set in Toronto, Canada, following five newly graduated police officers) and, specifically, the sexual chemistry between the lead rookie, Andy McNally, and her training officer, Sam Swarek.
Google #McSwarek. Watch the shorts on YouTube. Enjoy the Canadian accent. And his back. Thank me later.
What is sexual tension?
Anyway, you don’t have to buy into my love of Sam and Andy to understand the pull of sexual tension… just think about some of the greatest couples in movies and TV.
The Captain and Maria. Baby and Johnny. Scully and Mulder. Donna and Josh. Olivia and Elliott.
All that unfulfilled desire… delicious!
It is all that unfulfilled desire that creates sexual tension.
And a quick divergence here to say that when I say ‘sexual tension’ I’m not talking about sex per se. Even closed-door romances need to have sexual tension between their main characters.
All that delicious sexual tension is what keeps people watching (and rewatching) these shows. In fact, a 2020 HuffPost article has a whole argument about how unresolved sexual tension is the secret weapon keeping ratings high on various CBS crime dramas.
Sexual tension is also what keeps your reader turning the pages of your romance and, frankly, I think it is harder to put tension on the page than it is on screen. It’s something you need to really think about, and to layer into your work.
What creates unfulfilled desire?
As a #3 Harmony and #4 Restorative (ifykyk), this is a very difficult thing for me to admit (because I have much trouble writing it!) but it is CONFLICT that creates unfulfilled desire.
There are many other writers who do a much better job at explaining conflict than I will here, try Debra Dixon’s GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict. The Building Blocks of Great Conflict, or Sarah Maclean’s Mastering the Art of Great Conflict course.
For our purposes, what we want to think about here is the type of conflict. We all know that conflict is both internal and external – and both can create sexual tension. But it is internal conflict that will be your key building block for sexual tension. Those character struggles with their opposing desires and beliefs. Those are the things that drive character development and tension.
But while internal conflict is key, all those gnarly external problems in the world around our characters still have work to do, raising the stakes. It can be a way of pulling your characters apart but beware too much coitus interruptus from external forces. External conflict works to build sexual tension when used well, when it’s linked with internal conflict, but too many convenient external interruptions – whatever they are – can be frustrating to your reader (in more ways than one!)
What creates conflict (in romance)?
Lyss Em provides a simple recipe for creating conflict in romance, which made a lot of sense to me when starting to plot my latest. She says that your point of view characters must have:
- relatable, believable reasons for falling for someone; and
- relatable, believable reasons for resisting falling for that someone.
What creates relatable, believable reasons?
IMHO, the answer to this question is CHARACTERISATION.
The conflict in any romance is founded in the characters. Who they are. Their backstory, life experience, personality, strengths and weaknesses, and wounds. All those big and little things that make each of us who we are – those are the things that will govern how your characters relate to the predicaments in which they are put.
So, before, or when, you are writing, think about your characters, and how they will play off each other. Think about how a younger character might challenge an older one (or vice versa). How a lawyer might behave differently when compared with a landscaper, or a police officer compared to a pre-school teacher. What are your tropes, the tone of your setting, the power relationships, a character’s wants, desires, kinks. What’s their world view?
Your point-of-view characters must always be reacting to each other (think about this like actors do: action and reaction, listen to the other character, and don’t worry so much about the script) and why they act the way they do needs to be seeded in their backstory because – and while I can only attribute this to user DavesWorldInfo on Reddit – any emotional reaction in a scene happens, not because of what happens in THAT scene but because of all the elements that came before it.
Read that again. Any emotional reaction in a scene happens, not because of what happens in THAT scene but because of all the elements that came before it.
So, focus on keeping things – especially the important things – between your characters. The important things should be shared by your characters with each other (unless there’s a good reason for having that action done, or information imparted, but others). You want your characters interacting as much as possible – even if that interaction is remote (see, for example, The Flatshare. The characters are together, but they also aren’t!). Keeping them close keeps things intense. Fated Mates talk about watching two people fall in love inside a phone booth, and it’s a description I love. That intensity is also why the forced proximity trope works so well.
And, coming back to action and reaction, don’t forget to build those visceral reactions between your characters, the body language, the glancing touches, the silence and the loaded questions, the innuendo and suggestive language. This is the stuff (technical term!) that gives your characters’ relationship that fire. You need to find the words to describe that look in the Captain’s eye as Maria steps out of his arms after they dance, or that feeling you know caught in the pit of Baby’s stomach when Johnny announced that nobody puts her in the corner.
Other things to think about when building sexual tension.
- In contemporary Romancelandia, more so than most other sub-genres of romance, as much as there should be a good reason for your characters to have sex, there has to be a good reason for them not to have sex (see earlier point about coitus interruptus).
- Whatever the sexual interaction is… whether it’s the main course or just an entrée, the interaction has to heighten the tension and make your characters more something, whatever that is (it could be one or more of vulnerable, needy, committed, scared, trusting, or threatened, or something completely different).
- Where physical intimacy happens for your characters early, think about what conflict that might create for them. Sex can be just sex – but in romance it’s never just sex, so turn those screws hard on emotional intimacy. The physical stuff is great – but your characters are seeking something MORE, so how does the sex heighten that need.
- Last month we explored writing the senses – don’t forget to think about those when you’re writing all the feels. Put all that awareness and anticipation on the page so that your reader LIVES it with your characters. There are only a few better things than the tingle in your chest or the tightness in your belly that you get as your characters’ live out their HEA.
Let me know how you go with writing your #sexualtension @wordsbykc (Twitter) / @wordsbykristinecharles (FB)
And PLEASE find me if you want to talk Rookie Blue… being so late to the party, I have NO ONE to fangirl with!
This post was originally published in the Romance Writers of Australia Hearts Talk July 2023
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