Oooh! Yes! I love kisses. Kisses are where it all starts ;).
Okay, first, remember that a kiss is much, much more than just lips. It is lips, but also tongues, teeth, eyes, faces, hands, noses, bodies, heartbeats, breath, voice- and most importantly, a kiss is emotions. A kiss without emotion is just wet mushy lips stuck together. Ew. Gross. The most important part of a kiss isn’t the how, but the who- because of the emotions between the two people.
Okay so:
lips- Lips can slide, glide over each other smoothly, or they can be chapped and rough and dry and get stuck on each other. They can match, top-to-top and bottom-to-bottom, or they can overlap, with one person’s top or bottom lip captured between the other person’s lips (yummy). If there is lipstick or chapstick there is lipstick or chapstick flavor, otherwise, lips don’t have a taste (can you taste yours?). Lips also can smack- the sound of two of them coming together or pulling apart, because they’re wet and warm and soft.
tongue- Tongues are always wet, and always warm. They’re very versatile. They can trace over lips, teeth, or another tongue. They can be smooth and graceful or teasing and flicking. When tongues are involved, there is drool. It’s only sexy when you like the person you’re kissing, or else it’s kinda gross. 😛
teeth- teeth can clack together awkwardly, or teeth can bite down sensually. A person biting their own lip is cute, a person biting another’s lips is sexy. A person biting gently is sensual, a person biting roughly is sexual.
eyes- Eyes can be wide open with surprise, half-lidded with desire, fully closed with pleasure. Eyes can gaze lovingly, lustfully, wistfully, hungrily, seductively- it all depends upon the emotions of your characters. Have them do whatever you like, but don’t leave them out- give them at least a mention!
faces- Faces are what the lips are attached to. Noses bump, cheeks flush, ears turn red, foreheads either wrinkle or relax. Kisses can leave lips, quite easily, and become kisses on chins, cheeks, noses, foreheads, ears, necks, throats. Kisses on noses or foreheads are cute and adorable, kisses on cheeks are sweet, kisses on chins, ears, and throats are very sexual. And a kiss on the lips can be all of those! ❤
hands- Hands are super-important. In order to describe a kiss, usually you want to also describe the hands. Where are they? Does one character have their hand behind the other’s head or back, holding them close? Are they on someone’s shoulders pulling them near, or pushing them away? Fingers brushing someone’s cheek or palms grabbing someone’s ass convey two very different kinds of situations, even if the kiss itself is exactly the same.
noses- Noses are annoying. They easily get in the way, especially for first kisses! People have to tilt their head to one side or the other, and if they don’t, noses bump. I’d only mention noses if a kiss is supposed to be awkward or uncertain or nervous.
bodies- bodies are either close together, or far away. Someone can be surrounded comfortingly by someone’s arms, or terrifyingly trapped by them. Bodies are warm or hot, they are calm or nervous, relaxed or tense. Body language says a lot. Is your character pulling away, or moving closer?
heartbeat- Hearts can beat fast or slow, and that’s about all they can do- but there are lots of reasons why they do! A heart can beat fast with fear or excitement or nervousness; a heart can pound with lust or race with terror or sing with joy. Hearts can glow, cower, or shatter. When you really want to drive the emotions of a character home, mention the heart.
breath- To me, the most consuming part of a kiss is the breath. The air that someone else has just breathed going deep into your lungs is very intimate. Lips and tongues don’t have a taste, but breath does. Each person’s breath tastes different, smells different, and surrounds a person differently than anyone else’s breath. Breath can be warm and sweet, breath can be hot and sexy, breath can be hot and frightening. It is something that is very present and should not be left out. A lot of writers leave breath out. And it’s so important; it’s the most intimate part of a kiss. Someone else is breathing into your lungs, and it’s either heaven or it’s hell.
voice- Voice conveys much, even without words. A voice can groan, whimper, gasp, moan, catch, whine, scream, sigh. Voice can convey emotion powerfully, and while some kisses are silent, usually they’re not.
emotion- Emotion is the most important- and the thing you try not to say. You want to describe it, through all of the things above, so that it’s perfectly clear what your characters are feeling, without you ever using the “feelings words”. If they’re in love, their bodies will lean close, their eyes will smile, their voices will giggle softly. If they’re nervous, their palms will sweat, their noses will bump, their voices will shudder. If they’re afraid, their muscles will be tense, their faces will grimace, their lips will not open. Emotion is the color that you keep inside your mind as you write; it’s the base line that drives the description behind everything else you say.
Wow, that was a lot! Gosh I hope it wasn’t too much! Keep in mind not every kiss has all these things- this is just a list of things to consider when writing a kiss, and based on how long of a kiss you want to make. Keep in mind that typing “they kissed for a long time”…that’s six words, it takes half a second to read, so that’s a short kiss! If you want a long kiss, you need long sentences that make the reader linger.
So maybe to start off, pick three things on the list to describe in your first kiss. Don’t try to do it all- that would be too much for even the most epic kiss. Just pick what’s most important to this particular scene, to these particular characters, and describe those parts along with the lips, and you’ve got yourself an awesome, emotional kiss. ❤
WONDERFUL details. tucking away for reference….uh…science.
i’m teaching a fanfic primer workshop tomorrow and here’s the generative activity i came up with. i thought i’d post it as a prompt generator if anyone’s interested
De-aged coffeeshop Au sounds utterly disastrous and I’m here for it.
Fantasy/magic self-insert I AM ALREADY WORKING ON THAT THANK YOU
This is something that bothers me a lot so I’m just going to rant about it now.
When John meets Sherlock for the first time, he somewhere in his late 30s or early 40s (I dont know his age, sorry). He has spent years in the army, with lots of men. My point? He’s not some teenager or someone in his youth, with little sexual experience when he meets Sherlock. He must have dated women before going to the army. And being surrounded by men, he must’ve known if he was attracted to them or not. In other words, he has spent enough time in the presence of both genders to know what he ‘likes.’
He has control over his emotions, he isn’t the kind of person who’d just say anything that comes to his mind when emotional. Like, when he’s with Ella after the Fall, though overwhelmed by grief, he keeps a tight lid on what he wants to say. Conclusion: He thinks before he speaks, no matter what the circumstances. If he’s about to say something he doesn’t want to, he stops himself immediately no matter how emotional the situation. Its like he’s trained himself to do it.
Whenever anything about his relationship with Sherlock is implied, he’s always either said: “I’m not gay”, “We’re not a couple”, “I’m not his date” and so on and so forth. In TEH, he tells Mrs. Hudson that he’s not gay and that Sherlock wasn’t his boyfriend, after she assumes that John’s getting married to a man. At Battersea, he’s really angry at Irene and yet he only says this when Irene asks if he’s jealous: “We’re not a couple.” And then “Who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes, but if anyone out there still cares, I’m not actually gay.” (Excuse me if the dialogue isn’t entirely accurate, I’m writing it from memory.)
Now, again, he has already spent years in the army, surrounded by men AND dated women. There is no doubt that he knows what his sexual preferences are. Its impossible to not know if you’re someone like John who’s spent so much time around different kinds of people. Him saying that people have girlfriends AND boyfriends, and then “it’s all fine” clearly says that he knows about all of this stuff.
So he knows that, when he says “I’m not gay”, it’s not the same as “I’m straight.” Never, ever, throughout the show will you see him saying that he’s straight. He knows that if he says that he’s straight, it implies that he only likes women, if he says he’s gay, it means he only likes men. If he says that he’s not gay (doesn’t only like men), and then doesn’t say that he’s straight either (doesn’t only like women), put two and two together and you get a very self-aware, bisexual John Watson, who knows what he likes.
He says he’s not gay when people assume his sexuality. At Battersea, Irene talks about John’s sexuality with such certainty which makes him angry so he says that he isn’t gay and so she shouldn’t assume his feelings towards Sherlock. In TEH, Mrs Hudson thinks that he’s with a man, again assuming John’s sexuality, which makes him angry and he again says that he’s not gay. He doesn’t deny his attraction to Sherlock, not once, he just says he’s not gay so that people will stop assuming his sexuality, which, understandably, would be infuriating.
We all agree that at Angelos, John was trying to flirt with Sherlock and find out about his sexuality. Even Sherlock thought he was flirting. John’s whole body language screams that he’s interested in Sherlock. Again, THAT IS NOT HOW A PERSON WHO ISNT AWARE OF HIS SEXUALITY ACTS. John flirts with Sherlock as if it’s no big deal. So for him, flirting with men, is normal. Which means he is interested in men that way and he knows it. He’s embraced it.
He calls Henry (THoB) a normal looking bloke, which isn’t something many straight men would do. Do I need to even talk about James Sholto? And then John even flirts with one of Magnussen’s men who finds the tyre lever with John: “Doesn’t mean I’m not excited to see you.” (HLV) The makers of the show put all this for some reason. They want to show John interacting with men this way to drive home the point that while he’s not gay, he’s not straight either.
The point of this whole thing is to ask everyone to please stop treating John as Sherlock-sexual, to stop acting like John has had some weird sexual crisis after meeting Sherlock. I’ve read it in so many places and it’s funny sometimes, but then most times it isn’t.
John Watson, while not as intelligent as Sherlock, is very smart and self aware. He knew he was attracted to men before he met Sherlock. Sherlock, though the love of his life, didn’t cause a great sexual awakening in John, nor is he John’s exception. If you think John doesn’t know about his sexual preferences, about what his “I’m not gay” statements and his failure to deny any of his feelings for Sherlock imply then you are giving him much less credit than is due.
Now I want to counter argue one point and one point only. You say you’ve read a ton of stories where this is not the case (john aware he’s bisexual), but if everyone only wrote it as you have just put it, nothing would be worth reading. Its called interpretations. Also Creative/artistic lisence. We write what comes to mind, or something inspired by someone else’s interpretations.
Do I headcanon the ever loving shit out of this? Yes! I agree with almost the whole post! But I can’t hold back from saying something when you call out writers or even artists for not writing John as you think. More so, saying we give him ‘much less credit than is due.’
Its not about conforming to this one idea our view of this character. Watching the show, how Martin Freeman portrays John is a very Bisexual positive view which, as a self identified bi female, is a huge deal and only one reason amung so many others of why I adore him, as both and actor and a person.
Point here is, please don’t try to guilt trip others, or try to force your beliefs of how things should be written/awknowledged/interpretated onto others. Again, I love the first 8 paragraphs of this post, but then you veered off and ranted not about the show or character, but about how he is portrayed by the fandom and individuals in it.
STETER WEEK 2018: SUGAR DADDY (with bonus daddy kink)
》》Stiles likes nice things, and he knows how to get someone to buy him those things. Peter knows exactly what Stiles wants out of this relationship, but he’s falling for his baby anyway. Maybe he’s not the only one with his heart on the line, however. After all, no one has made Stiles feel as safe or well understood as his daddy does.》》
Bootsrcool 