The Novelry on Writing Podcast: How to Build Sexual Tension Between Characters

While sexual tension is most commonly desired in romance novels, chemistry between characters is an essential ingredient in any good story. Whether you’re writing an enemies-to-lovers romantasy or a thriller with a romantic subplot, adding yearning and anticipation can create steamy scenes that will make your reader swoon. Writing sex scenes can fall flat without the heart-aching build-up to the act. In this special Valentine’s Day episode of The Novelry on Writing, author and editor Georgia Summers and writing coach Libby Page offer five tips to create that sizzling feeling of excitement on the page. 

I think there’s something really gratifying about the near-touch and the near-kiss and the almost-this-happened, and I think in some ways that delayed gratification is what makes a sex scene so sexy.
—Georgia Summers

Introduction

[Georgia Summers] Hi everyone. I am Georgia Summers. I am an editor in the SFF department at The Novelry. I’m also the number one Sunday Times bestselling author of The City of Stardust. And I’m here today with Libby.

[Libby Page] Hi, I’m Libby Page. I’m the author of five romantic novels and I’m also a writing coach here at The Novelry.

[GS] Today, we’re going to give you five tips on how to heighten sexual tension in your novels. So, Libby, I think you’re going to take it away.

[LP] Yes. But I think first things first, it’s worth mentioning that, actually, even if you’re not writing sex scenes in your novel, it’s important to have sexual tension.

[GS] Yeah.

[LP] I think some writers can be quite scared about writing sex scenes, and there are all different ways of doing it, but this idea of tension between your characters is so important in a romance to really keep us turning the pages and wanting to see whether they get together.

Physicality and forced proximity

[LP] So, the first tip we’re going to talk about is physicality and forced proximity. To me, this means all the physical stuff. So really describing the character in detail, painting a picture, using all the senses so you really get a sense of them. And then forcing them to be close—you know, next to each other.

[GS] I think there’s something really gratifying about the near-touch and the near-kiss and the almost-this-happened. And I think, in some ways, that delayed gratification is what makes a sex scene so sexy in the end.

I keep going back to Pride and Prejudice, 2005 edition with Keira Knightley, and there’s a scene that everybody talks about, and it’s the scene where Mr. Darcy takes Elizabeth’s hand to help her into the carriage. And afterwards he has his hand flexed where he’s just like... He flexes his hand, and it’s so sexy—and it’s just the touch of a bare hand.

But I think that really speaks to the power of these really intimate moments, even if they’re not like explicit moments.

[LP] Exactly. I think less can be more, can’t it, sometimes?

[GS] Oh yeah, absolutely. And I do love, especially when it comes to fantasy—which is the area I work in—I think having the ballroom scene where you have to dance with each other or, you know, say you’re spying on somebody and you have to climb into a wardrobe together. That to me is like: Yes, perfect. Especially if they don’t like each other at the beginning, that’s also quite nice.

[LP] Yeah. And I think it’s about being aware of each other’s physicality. So even, say, if you’re going from an enemies-to-lovers storyline where you might actually really hate the character to begin with, you still have an awareness of... I mean, often it’s like you think they’re really hot even though you hate them.

And it’s just, you know, creating a mental image for the reader of their physicality and just that sense of when you’re just aware of where the other character is, and how far away they are, and the sound of their voice and all those kinds of things. I definitely would say using all the senses to create that picture can be a really good way of creating that tension.

[GS] Oh yeah, absolutely.

Specificity

[GS] Our next tip would be specificity. Now this is like... I would say this is my favorite word. I think it’s—

[LP] Quite a hard word to say: specificity! But it’s a good one.

[GS] And it’s so important. To me, I always feel it’s like:

• Why is it these characters?
• Why is it this book?
• Why is it not them and somebody else, or anybody else?

And I think when you really drill down into that kind of specificity and that sort of shared connection, what is it about them that brings it together?

When we talk about books and how much we love books, a lot of the time, we have all these elements that really amplify our reading experience, but when we’re talking about them, we talk about how much we love the characters and the characters together. So I think that’s where specificity becomes so key to the book and so key to heightening that tension.

[LP] And linked to that, this idea that what is sexy to one person might be different to another person. And I think it’s finding what is sexy for those specific characters. I mean, we talk a lot about the need to really know your character as a starting point for whatever you’re writing, but when you’re thinking about sexual tension, it’s another reminder that you really need to know them on a deeper level to know what’s really going to make them tick.

I think about the book Here We Go Again by Alison Cochrun, and the two main characters. There’s a scene in there that I think is a great example of sexual tension, where the two main characters, Logan and Rosemary, Rosemary doesn’t really think of herself as a kind of sexual person. She doesn’t really have this great sense of self and body image and she’s quite anxious and Logan gets her to take sexy photos.

I think it’s so great because it really digs into her. You know, this idea that she doesn’t think of herself in that way and she has low self-confidence. And so, the thing that really helps ease her out of that is to see herself in a different way. And that, I thought, was a great example of really showing how much the two characters know each other, showing how much the writer knows that character, and then creating that tension in a way that feels really believable to those two specific characters.

[GS] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I really love that. I really think that is the good thing about specificity. The thing that works is having that sort of depth of knowledge—both from you, the reader, understanding them, but also them understanding each other.

[LP] And I guess making it feel not generic, which is what we’re hoping for, whatever we’re writing.

[GS] Yes.

[LP] So, really getting into:

• The specifics of those two characters
• Their backstory
• What makes them tick
• How they feel about themselves
• How they feel about each other

All of that’s going to come into play when we’re thinking about sexual tension.

Dialogue

[LP] So, the next tip we’ve got to talk about is dialogue. This is thinking about how, when the characters aren’t even touching, how we can create this sense of tension. So I think of that real witty banter, the said and unsaid things. Some of my favorite authors for dialogue are Emily Henry and David Nicholls.

[GS] Yep.

[LP] And I always think it’s a great idea to look at books you really love the dialogue for, and really start analyzing it and taking it apart.

[GS] Oh yeah. I mean, Emily Henry just feels like the queen of that almost tennis-match dialogue, where they’re just hitting it back and forth, and then she doesn’t stop. I always feel like, with dialogue, sometimes you have that call and response. But she just does not stop. It keeps going.

There is a scene in Happy Place I think about all the time, which is when the two protagonists and love interests are in this room together. And they have this ongoing joke where, you know, he’s not really her friend; he’s friends with somebody else in the group. And they’re talking about it late at night and they’re both in this shared room together, and he sort of says: I don’t want to be your friend... And we know exactly what he’s saying. We know that he’s not saying...

[LP] It’s so much more.

[GS] Yeah. It feels to me like that’s where a lot of the tension goes, and not just what’s said, but also what’s unsaid. That really delicious reading between the lines.

[LP] And so many of these points link together. I think specificity and dialogue can go really well together. As an exercise, look back on a piece of dialogue, maybe from Emily Henry or another author that you really like, and think about how the conversation feels really specific to those characters. And that could be a really great way to show that connection between the two of them.

[GS] Oh yeah, absolutely. Another book I’ve really loved that I’m re-reading at the moment is Little Thieves by Margaret Owen. And the two protagonists, it’s a sort of thief and a prefect who’s intent on catching her, and they’re so mean to each other and it’s so delicious! But it’s because it has that specificity to it. And we know it’s not just any of these two characters, it’s these two characters needling at each other. And it’s very cute and it’s very— Yes, incredibly compulsive.

[LP] I’m intrigued to hear what you think makes good dialogue versus not-so-good dialogue to read. What do you find when you’re both reading and writing?

[GS] I think when everybody has their heart out on their sleeve, that can be quite difficult to be convinced by, because the truth is, we never say what we’re really thinking. You know, we’re always having those layers inside ourselves of:

• We’re saying something...
• How is this person going to react to this?
• What do we want from this person?
• What are we accidentally revealing about ourselves?

And I think, similarly, when characters don’t disagree on anything either—when they’re just like: Yes, brilliant, thank you. You know, I’m like: Hmm. Do you really mean that, though?

[LP] Yeah.

[GS] Doesn’t everybody have a little bit of a fight? And I think having that tension when you come into conflict, how do you resolve that conflict?

[LP] And that’s quite a good point. Because it maybe reveals one of our later points [laughing].

[GS] Oh yeah, it does!

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Setting

[LP] Should we move on to number four?

[GS] Yes. Setting. The other thing that’s really important is to consider your setting and how to use it effectively. Going back to my earlier point about, you know, what is it like in the ballroom if you’re in a grand fantasy setting, like, the ballroom is the place where everybody gets really beautiful and dressed up. And I think it’s maybe that sense of being in an extraordinary environment that allows people to sort of breach or bypass social niceties that they have to play by elsewhere.

[LP] I think the setting can feel in some ways like another character who’s kind of pushing these two characters, sometimes, into even more intense situations. So, I like to think things about like the weather, you know? How can you use the weather to really heighten the tension? You know, a sudden rainstorm: they both get soaking wet, they have to go and run for shelter together. Those kind of things.

I think about Emily Henry’s You and Me on Vacation (published in the U.S.A. and Canada as People We Meet on Vacation), where the two main characters get stuck in this swelteringly hot apartment and the air conditioning breaks. This adds a real physical intensity to what is already an emotionally intense scene. I think holidays generally can be great ways to build new opportunities for tension between your characters.

[GS] Yeah, I completely agree. It’s that extraordinary circumstance, that extraordinary situation. Another example I can think of is The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, which I loved. I think it does so many things so well. But one of the things it does really well, simply by using setting, is—for context—essentially about the question:

What if you could expatriate a nineteenth-century Arctic adventurer into the present day?

And he’s there, he has a handler who’s a woman, and they’re both flatmates, so they’re sharing a flat together. And of course, he’s a Victorian man. You know, does he even see ankles?  And now he has to deal with that really extraordinary circumstance, and you could just feel the tension implicit in that because it’s so... You know, it puts them in a position of tension. Just super exciting.

[LP] Yeah. Thinking actually a little bit more about holidays, it came to mind one of the scenes in One Day, where Emma and Dexter go on holiday together to Greece, and they think they’ve booked two rooms—going back to the forced proximity thing earlier, they thought they’d booked two rooms. Oh no! They end up in one room.

There’s so many opportunities, you know: she’s in a swimsuit, they’re seeing each other in less clothing, he puts suncream on her back, they go out for a meal and get a bit tipsy and talk...

[GS] Yes.

[LP] I think there’s something about being on holiday—that the usual rules don’t apply. That, I think, could be a great way of bringing characters together and really forcing that sense of tension.

[GS] Yeah, absolutely.

Conflict

[LP] So, we’re going to move on to our final tip now, which we’ve kind of touched on a little bit already, which is this idea of conflict. So, conflict: not necessarily meaning arguments, but it could  mean arguments, but just this idea of obstacles being in the way of the characters and how that helps heighten the tension.

A book that really comes to mind for me when thinking about conflict and stakes, and how that can heighten sexual tension, is Red, White & Royal Blue.

[GS] Oh yeah.

[LP] So this idea of the Prince of England falling for the First Son of America, you know. There are really real ramifications, wide-reaching political ramifications, of these two people getting together. They really shouldn’t be together. And that, I think, makes it so much hotter—that sense of, they’re not seeing eye to eye. There’s big things at stake.

What are your thoughts on conflict and creating sexual tension?

[GS] I feel like one of the nice things about tropes, for example, is that a lot of the tension is implicit in the kind of conflict they set up. So, for example, I think about forbidden love—well, there’s plenty of conflict in that. Or a marriage of convenience, where people who don’t maybe naturally love each other have to find a way to make it work.

Think about Bride by Ali Hazelwood, which is a vampire-werewolf romance—which I’m always a big fan of—and how amazing the tension is. Because they’re not supposed to like each other at the beginning. And then we watch them, you know, maybe fall in love a little bit reluctantly.

Something I was thinking of when we were talking before this was the ‘one bed’ trope, and I’ve seen some people talk on TikTok, for example, about the idea of the reverse trope. So, for example, it’s not one bed, it’s so many beds. [Libby laughing] And I think there’s something really funny about the inherent conflict in that, of having to go into a room and be like: Oh, we’ve got... We’re just two people and there’s like 20 beds in here.

[LP] What do we do?

[GS] Yeah! Like, do we pick beds further away? Do we get closer? Do we end up in the same bed despite having 20 beds?

I think they open you up to have a lot of fun with that kind of sense of conflict.

[LP] Going back to something you said earlier to do with dialogue, about how the characters can’t just agree all the time... I think putting them in situations where they are really at odds is a great way to really create that tension. Because what we’re trying to do in a romance novel is eke it out for as long as possible, you know? The reader hopes that they’re going to end up together, but we want to keep them guessing right till the end.

So, I’d say conflict is a way of really keeping the reader interested. You know, you want to have things in there where you think: how can they overcome this?  And that can really add to the tension as well.

[GS] Yeah. I think that sense of delayed gratification, it’s just... That, to me, feels like the most exciting thing. That’s why I think marriage or getting together happens at the very end of a book, because really, what we’re interested in is how they get there and how they find their way there.

[LP] And that’s really what we are trying to do with tension—keep the novel as interesting as possible so the reader doesn’t just go: Okay, well, we know they’re going to end up together. It’s really eking it out as long as possible.

That, to me, is what’s so great and so joyful about reading romance. It’s that real will-they-won’t-they. These two people who you really think should be together, and they have this chemistry, but they’re just not getting there yet.

[GS] Yeah. Absolutely. Alright! Well, this has been so much fun.

[LP] Yeah. It’s been great to chat with you. I feel like there’s so much more that we could say on this, but hopefully this has given everyone a little bit of a taster on some things to go away and think about. Thanks for speaking with me.

[GS] Alrighty. Bye, everyone.

[LP] Bye.

Closing words

[Louise Dean] Thank you for joining us today. We are so pleased to have you along for the writing journey, and we hope to see you on another episode of The Novelry on Writing.

If you’d like to learn more, visit us at thenovelry.com. From first draft to finished manuscript, at The Novelry you’ll enjoy one-to-one coaching from bestselling authors, live writing classes with award-winning authors and literary agents, and you’ll work with a publishing editor all the way for submission to literary agents toward a publishing deal.

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