I'm writing a book, it is my main characters wedding night, she gets pregnant. How can I write the scene, without actually having to go into any real detail? I can do the lead up to it, but I don't know how to just say, 'And then they had sex' without just ... saying it. Any help??? Thanks in advance xx
If you don't want to write the scene then I don't see a reason to. If one paragraph ends with newly weds alone after a wedding and the next one starts with her being pregnant, I don't think you'll lose anyone in the transition. I'm sure there is an artful way to close the wedding without mentioning genitals and an equally appropriate way to break the pregnancy news. There are only so many ways to get pregnant, I don't think you have to spell it out if you'd rather not.
Yeah, I think if you lead up to the sex the reader may expect a sex scene if you are talking about describing kissing and them going to bed. I agree with Cursive. I wouldn't write about anything sexual ESPECIALLY if it is their wedding night, because then the reader will expect the scene I think. Use something to symbolize the sex like candles by the bed or dimming of the lights and then go to your next paragraph. Or pehraps you skip it altogether and the next paragraph after them getting married is them smoking cigarettes in bed and one of them saying, "Yes, yes, jolly good rogering we just had." Haha. Just kidding.
This seems a fairly common question. Readers aren't stupid. You can imply what happens and they'll get the idea, and I don't think it's true you need to write it if you've got the lead-up, either. It needs to have happened, it doesn't need to be on-screen. You can show the lights going out, you can use dialogue - 'She took off her shoes, and sat on the bed. "Come here."' You can change the scene to the next morning and show them naked in bed together. It's enough. You might get some ideas from this thread: https://www.writingforums.org/showthread.php?t=58321
I've recommended it before, and I'm recommending it again -- a book I've found helpful is called The Joy of Writing Sex and it's all about writing sex scenes in literary fiction (as opposed to in romance or pornographic stories). The key feature is to stay in the heads of the characters, and as they say, it is often recommended to just take the reader to the bedroom door. Plus, 'wedding night' is already chock full of connotations (even though many people don't actually end up having sex on their wedding night), so the sex might be implied already to a higher degree than it would in any other situation without your having to mention it at all. Of course, this all also depends on what kind of story you are writing and the relationship between the two characters. A 13 year old girl marrying a 40 year old man because she lives in a society where her father sold her to the man is different from two 20 year old high school sweetheart virgins, which is again different from two 40 year olds deciding to get married for financial purposes. And thanks for the chuckle from:
Lol. Just have them wake up together naked in bed. Enough movies use that device to imply sex and it works just fine. Just think how many times the sitcom Friends had their characters simply wake up naked in bed together! And if you don't think that's obvious enough, throw in a few comments about last night You could have them wake up, grin cheekily at each other and have one of them say, "Let's do it again!" And the response be, "Staying up til 3am wasn't enough for you?" The readers aren't stupid, they'll figure it out
You could jump forward a few weeks (if the story's timeline allows) and have the girl fussing because her period is late. Or have a scene (also a number of weeks ahead) where she is walking out of the bathroom with a pregnancy test in her hands.
