Shipping Will Be The Death Of My Work Ethic

I used to write a fair bit of fanfiction - much of which didn't make it to the interwebs due to a failure to be any good - and though I've had to put it on the backburner for a while, I still love to trawl the archives of fanfiction.net, LiveJournal and Twice Bitten (a lovely fanfiction archive specifically for cancelled Canadian show Blood Ties) to get my escapism fix.

I like most things really, so long as it's not PWP or too fluffy, but recently I've taken to reading shippers like some sort of lovestruck teenager, and the only explanation I currently have is that there are so many awesome couples being shipped out there at the moment that it's difficult not to get all swept up and swoony about them. I used to read general fics; now I'm a complete shipster. Someone please shoot me before I start waxing lyrical about Lost Girl's Doccubus, Once Upon a Time's Regina/Emma (for all the ihateyouiloveyouifancyyouKISSME! scenes), Rizzoli & Isles' Rizzles, Legend of the Seeker's Kahlan/Cara and The Secret Circle's Cassie/Faye, because I could literally be here all evening - and all I would do is talk you to a very femslash-y, often subtexty death. I love it so much that I even ship Katherine/Caroline though I don't watch The Vampire Diaries - it was basically a case of 'ooooh, they are somewhat attractive, are both vampires and a little badass. Why not?!'

The only problem with ship/femslash fics - and this is a big problem - is the sex scenes. I don't know why, but I've always been funny about how sex scenes are written, mainly because most of what you see on TV, for example the adpsjsglkasjghOMFG factor of Doccubus as of LG 2.06, is impossible to translate into language hot enough, unless said language was actually sizzling. It just loses something on translation, and is not helped by fanfic authors either a) getting a little too creative when describing various, um, parts (thus causing unintended hilarity) or b) just getting it WRONG.

You know what's sometimes a little sexier than writing about everything that happens in the bedroom? Writing about the events that lead up to it, creating a bit of reader tension, and letting your characters go into the bedroom - without you. A fair amount of fanfiction is, arguably, based on the escapist fantasies of its fans (not always in a sex-type way, of course), but the key to good fic writing in this regard is knowing how much flesh to flash. There's nothing that kills the magic of a romantic moment more than a poorly chosen word; you can have that one for free...