How to Write Porn

or, How to Make Them Kiss

These characters need to bone. How do we get them from Point A to Point B(oning?)

Sex scenes, for me, work best under these circumstances:

• Physical or mental proximity, portrayed in a way that ascribes significance. Being locked in a tight space with someone is only a big deal if the characters see it as a big deal.
• Emotional, spiritual, or physical vulnerability
• Intentionality - at some point, the characters have to acknowledge the (sexy) elephant in the room, and consciously make the decision to have sex. But, Ancharan! you say, fluttering your comically long lashes - what about scenes of non-con? Or somno? Or masturbation? There's no mutual discussion of intent in (most) of those cases! - You can rest easy. I don't mean that they need to be hashing out logistics. All I mean is: at some point, he has to choose to start thrusting, you know what I mean?

Obviously, all of these rules can be bent or broken, but I usually find smut works best when I use all three. So what do they actually mean, and how does this work in practice?

This is a scene from my Naruto Hashimada fanfic, Moonshine.

The pale moonlight filtered through the curtains. Hashirama rolled over onto his side and stared at the faint shadows on the far wall. Each night was colder than the last.

Hashirama fell onto his back and willed himself to fall asleep. It didn’t work this time, just as it hadn’t worked the twenty or so times prior. Every time Hashirama closed his eyes, all he could see was Madara. He’d had this problem before – the night after their first meeting in the bar came to mind, the wild rush of the knife sliding through his fingers – but his old remedy of prayers and deliberate ignorance weren’t doing much to help him now. Hashirama couldn’t pretend he didn’t know why Madara lingered in the space behind his eyelids. Maybe the prayers weren’t helping to clear his mind because God was just as tired of his excuses as Hashirama was.

Madara’s fingers on the rim of his whiskey glass; the sheen of his lips where his tongue had chased after the liquor left there; his dark wool suit pulling at the hard lines of his body as he leaned towards Hashirama over the distance between their stools, the half-smile as he asked, “You worried?”

Hashirama groaned out loud and flipped over onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow.

Madara’s hair had been unbound in the bar. Hashirama’s fingers clenched against the cotton sheets. He wondered what it would be like to run his hands through that hair. He wondered what it would be like to pull it back, out of Madara’s face; to pull it down, and back, until the base of Madara’s neck was exposed, and Madara was forced to sink to his knees –

Hashirama wondered what it would be like to touch Madara, as if he was allowed to, as if it was Madara who’d stood next to him at the church altar. It was ridiculous, of course – but still, Hashirama wondered. What would it be like to come up behind Madara, to wrap his arms around him, to kiss him in the hollows of his collarbones? What would it be like to live in this dream world where Madara welcomed Hashirama’s touch, and reciprocated it?

Hashirama imagined Madara turning to him, warmth in the corners of his dark eyes, to reach out and pull Hashirama closer, to tangle their hands and their limbs, to use those dexterous fingers to unbutton down Hashirama’s shirt as he licked into Hashirama’s mouth –

Hashirama stifled a moan. His hips rocked against the bed.

Hashirama thought about Madara as he’d looked after their horse race, breathless and windswept, pipe dangling from his smiling mouth as he’d hung the tackle back on the wall. Hashirama thought about their brawl in the dining room, the tension in Madara’s shoulders as Hashirama pinned him to the bloodstained rug, the solid weight of his thighs as he’d wrapped them backwards around Hashirama’s torso – the strength of those thighs, what they would feel like around his hips, his arms –

Hashirama’s breath caught in his throat. One hand twisted the sheets under his pillow. If Hashirama hadn’t already been so sure that God wasn’t listening to him anymore, he might’ve prayed that He look away. But that night, the shuddering prayer that crossed Hashirama’s lips was not meant for the Lord. The name he breathed into the palm of his hand, heavy and hushed with reverence, was not God on High.

Under the pale shadow of the moon, Hashirama Senju quaked, and let himself come undone.

This scene has:

• Mental proximity (Hashirama can’t get Madara out of his head)
• Vulnerability (Hashirama is, for the first time in the fic, acknowledging the real reason he’s been so obsessed with this dude; he’s facing his own internalized shame about it)
• Intentionality (from the second paragraph, he’s already resigned himself to a sleepless night)

Let’s look at another example. This is a series of snippets from a longer Billford fanfic. It’s a much longer scene, so parts have been truncated.

The dream auditorium grew in size – or seemed to, at least – as Bill’s form stretched and warped, distorted at the edges; Ford’s eyes went wide as he scrabbled backwards.

His pupils went wide, too.

"Incredible."

[...]

“Bill,” Ford rasped, tapping on his thumb. “Let me down.”

Bill, a kindhearted and magnanimous god, obliged. Ford began shucking off his dissolving shirt almost as soon as his feet touched the floor – all the while, his gaze was tracking Bill. There was a heady look in his eyes, a rapturous, disbelieving wonder that Bill hadn’t realized he’d missed. It wasn’t fear, but it was a good close second.

[...]

Ford threw the remains of his shirt into a steaming pile and turned, somewhat unsteadily, to face Bill. Bending over to remove one of his shoes, he said, “So.” The shoe was tossed to the side, and Ford began tugging at the other, nodding at Bill’s fresh tongue – “What’s the special occasion for that one?”

Bill saw what was happening, here. Stanford Pines liked to think he was made of pure curiosity and decorum, but Bill knew better. Bill knew him better than anyone. Bill would know him better than anyone would, ever, in all of time and space.

“This one, Sixer?” Saliva pooled. Ford’s breath audibly hitched. “Why, it’s for whenever I meet a cheeky scientist who should know better.”

Bill surged for him. Ford, leaning against the table, barely had time for the terror to process as Bill’s claws caught him, dragging him close; the long tongue from the second segment unfurled, languidly, and wrapped around his waist, lifting him effortlessly, inexorably, to Bill’s open maw.

[...]

“You really are something special, Sixer,” Bill said. Legs caged him in; the world twisted, warping in ways that defied geometry, as Bill brought his maw closer to Ford’s face. “I really don’t think I’ve ever met anything quite like you.”

What do we see here? We see both kinds of proximity – Bill is showing off in this scene, so, mentally, Ford is completely focused on him; they’re in Ford’s dreams, so they’re physically close together. We see vulnerability – Ford is not consciously aware that this isn’t just a normal dream, so he’s more open to following his impulses than he might be in other circumstances; also, he’s physically vulnerable, since Bill’s a huge spider monster at the moment. We see intentionality from both of them – Ford, when he asks to be put down / starts taking off his clothes, and Bill, when he sees this invitation for what it is.

Let’s look at one more example. This one’s also Billford.

It's scientific curiosity that, one evening, in a void overshot with velveteen blues and warm purples, strung with distant stars, that Ford abruptly asked, “So, you only have one orifice?”

Bill froze, pawn hovering over the board, eye skidding up to meet Ford’s.

There was a short, tense moment of silence; no one moved. The glowing teacup in Ford’s hand was completely still, hovering between the saucer and his lips in a half-hearted, abortive attempt at nonchalance.

Bill leaned back in his chair, and the chessboard dissolved into nothingness. “Okay,” he said, conjuring in a bottle of whiskey with a flick of his wrist and upending it into his own teacup. “Let’s unpack that.”

Again, physical proximity in the Mindscape, but – more importantly – we also have mental proximity by focusing the conversation on Bill’s actual body. We have intentionality – fumbling, on Ford’s part, but he’s initiating the conversation regardless. We have that attention reciprocated by Bill. Continuing that scene:

“You’re not going to ask.” Bill suddenly filled his field of vision; radiant, all-encompassing, consuming. “You’ll never get around to asking, and, honestly, this coy 20-questions is starting to get old.” In the breadth of an instant he was back to his normal size – but he was directly in front of Ford, now, and the teacup was nowhere to be seen. “Let’s cut to the chase, huh?”

Ford’s back was ramrod-straight in his chair, leaning back as far as it would let him. “I have no idea what you mean,” he lied.

“You want to know,” Bill said, reaching for his hand, eye locked with Ford’s. “If there are any areas on my body that would count to what you’d consider ‘erogenous zones.’ You’ve been thinking about it for days.”

Ford’s mouth was dry. He said nothing.

Bill’s fingers wound through Ford’s. He sighed. “You’re going to make me do all the work here, aren’t you, Fordsy? Fine.” He pulled on Ford’s hand, bringing it to the base of his eye.

We get vulnerability on Bill's part, for a change – he’s initiating even closer proximity with Ford, he’s asking Ford to really find out what that one orifice do – and we know this is in a sexual context, because the fic has been discussing the definition of sex this whole time. (I omitted those parts for brevity, here. Go read the fic once it’s published, lol.) Finally, to meet the interest that both parties have expressed, we have intentionality – Bill takes Ford’s hand, Bill brings it to his eye. Ford gets a quicktime event to either have the smut scene or pussy out.

Some things that help “set the mood” – descriptions of sensations, particularly emotions and impulsive thoughts.

“I see,” Ford said. As soon as the words left his mouth, he was gripped with an intense desire to actually see – was this part of his eye socket functionally different than the rest, or was there something unique about it? Was it still an erogenous zone when the eye was a mouth? Did it have different stages of arousal? Was it -

“Slow down, Sixer,” Bill’s voice cut in, sounding strained. “One – ah, ahaha – one thing at a time.”

[...]

Ford, numbly, moved to comply. The drag of fabric over the sensitive skin of his cock was a sudden, heady thing – he was half-hard, and embarrassed, God, this was embarrassing -

I hope this made sense. Expect this page to get updated in the future. Feel free to send me an ask on Tumblr or something if you have any questions.