Update: Aliza is back to her bouncy, bossy usual corgi-queen-of-the-world self again.
In my revision/rewrite of DREAMER’S ROSE, I’ve come to the next place that needs a significant rewrite. Unfortunately, it’s one of those scenes. You know, where two characters first really get together. In other words, a sex scene. Not an explicit one; I don’t write those. It’s much more my style to sort of set up the situation, let things begin to warm up, and then figuratively draw the curtain and come back in the morning. You know, sort of pull out to a shot of waves crashing on the beach, like in the old movies. Still, there has to be enough there to let the reader know what’s not being said.
Difficult enough at the best of times. Much harder now that I’ve decided that this really should be a YA story. Not that I think sex should be completely ignored as if it doesn’t exist at all in YA stories. That’s disingenous and a discredit and disservice to the readers. They’re smarter than that.
It shouldn’t be thrown in without cause, just for the thrill of it, either of course. But where it belongs in a story, as it does in this one, it should be acknowledged. To an extent, the last third of this book doesn’t happen if this scene doesn’t happen, so I can’t just ignore it.
I think it requires a little extra delicacy, though, in an already delicate subject. It’s a difficult balance to strike.
As I sometimes do when writing difficult scenes, I’m reviewing other, published, well-regarded works for guidance. How did some of the authors I respect most handle similar situations? I’ve found my role model, I think, but not in YA literature.
The approach, if I can pull it off, will be to go mostly to internal dialog. To focus almost exclusively on the character’s emotions. It’s not going to be easy. I’ve already spent two days on the rewrite of this chapter and I’m not even up to the hard part, yet.
Meredith Mansfield, Author 