Episode 71: Let's talk about writing physical intimacy

This week, Fable and the Verbivore dive into the subject of developing and building physical intimacy between characters.

In February 2020, we released podcast Episodes 15 and 16 which explored creating chemistry - both romantic and platonic - between fictional characters. We mostly focused on describing attraction beyond the physical by showing intellectual attraction, emotional attraction, and social attraction.

In this episode, we revisit writing romantic pairings to talk about a physical intimacy framework originally presented by romance author Linda Howard for showing a natural progression to intimate connection between two characters. Inspired by the work of Zoologist Desmond Morris’ on Intimate Behavior, these 12 stages start step by step from noticing someone across the room to having an intimate connection.

We look at the first 8 stages within this framework in some detail - from first laying eyes on someone to allowing them to touch your face or neck. We use some examples from books and movies to discuss a few of our favorite pairings and how romantic tension and connection was creating over time in those works.

Towards the end, we discuss how physical intimacy may be complicated by characters past experience or personal preferences and comfort level with touch. Fable mentions how the novel Six of Crows explores this concept in an interesting and thought-provoking way.

Next week, we will be back to unpack the remaining 4 stages.

We hope you enjoy listening this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Fable mentions episodes from last year where we discussed creating romantic chemistry outside of physical attraction. Those episodes are:

The Verbivore references a lecture about “The 12 Stages of Physical Intimacy” as presented by romance author Linda Howard. In this episode, we covered stages 1 through 8. Here is the link to an article discussing that talk: https://writersinthestormblog.com/2018/05/using-the-12-stages-of-physical-intimacy-to-build-tension-in-your-fiction/

Here are the physical intimacy stages 1-8:

  • 1 - Eye to body

  • 2 - Eye to Eye

  • 3 - Voice to voice

  • 4 - Hand to hand (or arm)

  • 5 - Hand to shoulder

  • 6 - Hand to waist or back

  • 7 - Mouth to mouth

  • 8 - Hand to head

The Verbivore mentions the BBC miniseries Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, but she actually meant North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. The scenes in question are between the characters Margaret Hale and John Thornton.

Books Mentioned:

Movies Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman