In our first installment, I gave you several suggestions on how to write a good sex scene for maximum impact. Here are a few additional tips on making your sex scenes just the right temperature:

Take your time. Psychologists and sex therapists know that real-life foreplay should last over 20 minutes for maximum heat, and foreplay in a romantic novel should involve just as much build up time to allow the reader to heat up as well. A great sex scene lasts longer than a page. Leading readers slowly through the anticipation and sexual tension is a smart move to keep them wanting more. Turning on the senses has a natural progression in any form, and jumping into bed to go from 0 to 60 in two seconds flat (or two paragraphs short) just isn’t good for anyone. Allow the attraction and scene to rise in level of sensuality for sex that gets the heart beating faster.

Use the mood to its maximum potential. The setting is very important to a sex scene and creates the mood for the situation of characters. Give the scene a place to happen and use your creativity to build setting into the anticipation. Pay attention to small details, such as glances, licking of lips, small murmurs, a breath or a brush of fingertips on skin, as well as the lighting, the sounds in the area, the feel of anything a character touches. Senses during sex are heightened, so your characters would notice these things that help bring the sensuality to vivid imagination and near life.

Watch out for too much realism. The act of sex itself really isn’t a pretty affair, if you think about it. Sex involves grunting, shoving, pushing, strange sounds, mess, and cleanup, as well as funny faces, awkward positions, leg or foot cramps, arriving at the moment too soon or not soon enough … You get the picture. A good sex scene focuses more on the before and build-up to the act, and leaves the rest aside. Gloss over the moments that take away from the heat.

Gauge if it’s good. Some smart advice on knowing whether a sex scene is a good one is whether you have to take a break while you’re writing it. Judge your own reactions to gauge how your readers will feel about your sensual scene. You should be able to feel your own body’s response as you write and each time you reread. If you don’t, then your sex scene is going to fall flat for others who read it too.

The type of sex matters. What sort of sex scene you write may determine how many people will read your novel. Vanilla sex with perhaps a touch of something special will reach a far wider audience than sex involving particularly racy tastes or uncommon acts. That type of sex will sell too, but it might not get the exposure the rest of the storyline of the novel deserves. Try to write your sex for the type of audience you want to reach.

Keep in mind that a good sex scene doesn’t even have to involve sex at all. You can have plenty of anticipation and sexual tension building up over a chapter or two with plenty of steamy foreplay. If you’re uncomfortable writing the specific act of sex, then skip it, and let the reader’s imagination handle that fantasy as you fast forward to the afterglow.