How to Write Intimacy

Characters needs to feel real

The first time I ever had my writing critiqued in a classroom, a fellow student said something that I did not expect.

“You’re very good at writing intimacy,” he told me, and the rest of the class, to my astonishment, nodded in agreement. Astonishment, not just due to his unexpected praise—which was of course a surprise and relief —but in truth, because I’d never actually thought about that before. I’d never considered writing intimacy, though it emerged, it seemed, without intention. Why is that, I wondered?

Because, I have since realized, it is the beating heart I am always seeking in a story.

Whether I’m writing it or reading another’s, I want to see someone being real with someone else, on the page. I crave it: that co-mingling of vulnerability and chemistry in fiction, and so ever since that class I’ve been trying to nail down how it is, exactly, that we can create this, as writers.

Try out these tips, and I don’t think you’ll go far wrong.

1. Firstly, focus on what your characters say to each other

Even when you’re saying nice things, I feel like you’re angry, she says. I never know what you want from me.
―Claire Daverley, Talking at Night

Conversation is the most important tool when creating connection and emotional bonds on the page. So much of how a character speaks—how they present themselves, or treat others—is revealed by how they verbally interact.

Dialogue can move story forward, drive pace, and yes, reveal things about your characters, but it is also teeming with possibilities for intimacy simply because it’s how people communicate. Our language—our self-expression—is precisely what makes us human. Try to capture exactly how people speak to one another, to convey that human-ness. Think about the idiosyncrasies that crop up in your own speech, when you know someone really well. Do you share nicknames, or in-jokes? Do you cut them off in frustration, or stop listening while they’re still talking? Think about what your audience can relate to.

In my debut novel, Talking at Night, for example, Will has a special name for Rosie that nobody else calls her: Roe. Tender and intimate, it shows that he sees a side to her that nobody else does. (By contrast, her mother is the only one to call her Rosemary, which is loaded in an entirely different way.) Indeed, throughout the novel Will is relatively monosyllabic, but on the odd occasion he’s impassioned to speak—and this is always in front of Rosie. To her, he is willing and able to reveal his inner world, though around others he remains guarded.

All this comes back to detail: the things your characters say, and the way they say them. Dialogue can reveal a lot about a relationship, but also make it believable for the reader. The best dialogue doesn’t feel like you’re reading a crafted exchange, but witnessing a real-life conversation. Is there anything more intimate than that?

2. Think just as carefully about what they don’t say

Intimacy does not just mean pillow talk, or close, loving conversation between friends and family. It means being real and raw with someone.
―Claire Daverley

Intimacy so often comes about by being honest with someone. Showing them the real you, or telling the truth about something painful or private. But in fiction, as in life, that intimacy needs to be earned. By the characters, sure, but also the reader. If we gave them all the information and unveiled our protagonist’s deepest desires immediately, or at a time that felt wrong or forced, that can dismantle everything. It can make a conversation feel false, or wooden. It can make characters seem like they’re reciting lines, rather than being their real selves.

This guide on writing dialogue in fiction should help give you some further pointers.‍

So, again—make them human. Get them to hold things back, until the opportune moment. Think about what your characters wouldn’t want others to know, from scene to scene. What they’d hide about themselves or lie about, even if it’s by omission. It’ll be all the more satisfying when the truth comes out—whether because they decide to share, or because something else in the narrative acts as an eruption and brings something, finally, to light. 

Because, of course, intimacy does not just mean pillow talk, or close, loving conversation between friends and family. It means being real and raw with someone. Your angriest self. Your most sad. Your loudest or meanest or harshest. Miscommunication, or withholding information, is a vital ingredient to creating believable intimacy because it’s so rare—impossible, even—that anyone would reveal everything about themselves, or their feelings. You, as the writer, have to reflect that in what isn’t said, if you want intimacy (and indeed, your characters) to seem authentic.

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3. Pay attention to the senses: sight, smell, sound, and taste

What colours and textures can you pull out? Are there noises filling the room? Silence? Laughter? What are your characters eating or drinking? Mining the senses helps create atmosphere, which in turn will colour the intimacy of a moment.
―Claire Daverley

Setting—the 3D space of a scene, and how you lead your characters and therefore your reader through it—is brought to crackling life by writing about the senses. Don’t just describe what’s on the page, but really immerse us in it.

This handy guide on creating settings, from Melanie Conklin, should help you get started.

What colours and textures can you pull out? Are there noises filling the room? Silence? Laughter? What are your characters eating or drinking? Mining the senses helps create atmosphere, which in turn will colour the intimacy of a moment. It’s not just about desire between lovers or their body language, but the minutiae all around them.

Some of the smallest details you notice about a person, place, or memory are highlighted by what you see, hear, smell, or taste. So notice things. Write them down. Because intimacy is not only created between characters, but bolstered by the places you put them in: the atmosphere you evoke.

4. When writing intimate scenes, give extra space to touch

For a few seconds they just stood there in stillness, his arms around her, his breath on her ear. Most people go through their whole lives, Marianne thought, without ever really feeling that close to anyone.
―Sally Rooney, Normal People

This sense gets its own standalone point because exploring touch in your prose is a treasure trove for romance and intimate moments. Describe the brush of a knee, or a fingertip. A hug-hello that becomes something longer. The anticipation for something more. This physicality doesn’t need to be romantic. Another example could be a shove backwards in anger, or a kick of a shin. Because as I’ve already inferred, intimacy doesn’t always show up as tender. Make use of skin-on-skin contact. Touch is known as a love language for a reason!

Which is the perfect segue, really, onto writing sex scenes; a hot topic (pun fully intended) amongst writers of relationship fiction. Are they totally necessary? Indulgent to include, or cowardly to skip? How explicit can you go?

My view is that there is no one size fits all: every novel is different, just as every love story is different. Don’t avoid crafting intimate scenes simply because you’re embarrassed, if you know that it would make the story stronger. If it’s a vital interaction to witness between characters, or could reveal something key to the reader, then write it. But equally, don’t shoehorn in the physical act because you think you should, if it doesn’t bolster the narrative. Perhaps there’s a more subtle way you can play around with descriptions.

My second novel, People in Love, required a sex scene because there needed to be a turning point where the safe-seeming nice guy, Robin, demanded attention. Turned reader’s heads. I cut it, at one point, but the novel was missing something without it: that heat, that yearning, that pivot—but with it, the dilemma of the love triangle balloons on the page, and Robin shows himself to be desirable. Not an underdog. The stakes heighten.

And if you still feel reticent or unsure? The best way to write a good sex scene is to read them. There are so many, all differing in style, tone, and techniques. Sally Rooney writes sex very differently to how Jilly Cooper portrays the act of passion, for example. And you may as well learn from the masters.

5. Remember: when writing romance, absence makes the heart grow fonder

A character does not cease to exist just because they aren’t in a scene, just as a loved one can still preoccupy your thoughts even if they’re not in the room.
―Claire Daverley

It’s an age-old cliché but a good one to remember here. Because life doesn’t happen only in conversations between people, or scenes between characters. Life goes on—story goes on—in the cracks in between. The scene exists even when you’re not reading. In the passage of time and crossover of experiences that don’t even occur on the page, or if they do, occur with only one of your characters while the other is elsewhere.

What does your character think and feel about another person when they’re not around? What reminds them of that person? Do they actively avoid thinking about them, or are they texting them, all the time? A character does not cease to exist just because they aren’t in a scene, just as a loved one can still preoccupy your thoughts even if they’re not in the room.

I still remember reading the scene from Noughts and Crosses when Sephy is clipping her toenails in the bath, her mind wandering to her old best friend, Callum. She’s supposedly moved on with her life, but this intimate image of her alone, in the tub, thinking about someone the reader knows she surely must be reunited with, is one of the most romantic moments I’ve ever read. So simple, yet so full of emotional depth.

From a children’s book, no less. And why? Because it’s universal. We’ve all known how it feels to miss someone. To have unfinished business. To think about them when they’re not there. To yearn.

That, to me, is the ultimate show of intimacy. Not what you say to them in person, not what you hold back, how you touch or interact with them—but how they play on your mind, in private.

You’re a Nought and I’m a Cross and there’s nowhere for us to be, nowhere for us to go where we’d be left in peace... That’s why I started crying. That’s why I couldn’t stop. For all the things we might’ve had and all the things we’re never going to have.
―Malorie Blackman, Noughts & Crosses

And if you put those details in your writing? It’s the most intimate insight you can give us in a story. An actual glimpse into someone’s heart.

Still yearning to perfect your own work? Try these extra writing tips on romance

• Need the basics before exploring romantic intimacy? Libby Page discusses how to write a romance novel, from building believable characters to crafting chemistry.
• Do you need character development tips to craft the perfect love story? Try Tasha Suri’s blog to help you build romance beyond the genre of romance.
• Simply looking for inspiration? We compiled our top 25 YA romance books.

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