Thanks to Jennifer Weiner for her post on AI-romance novelist Coral Hart, which news I missed when it was in the New York Times a few days ago. The headline news is that Ms. Hart, a romance novelist who lives in S. Africa, has produced 21 romance novels using AI, and now aims to teach others this remarkable feat for between $80 and $250 a month. Apparently her program “can generate a book based on an outline in less than an hour.” So much for the quip attributed to Oscar Wilde: “I spent all morning taking out a comma and all afternoon putting it back in.”
Still, the secondary story to Ms. Hart’s achievement is the difficult truth that the LLMs she uses to create her romances aren’t very good at sex scenes. Hard to believe that a machine would have so much difficulty knowing how to craft a sex scene worthy of a romance novel—but there it is. Philip Roth is turning over in his grave.
Presumably filtered through Ms. Hart’s experience, the Times reports that “Grok and NovelAI produced graphic sex scenes, but the consummation often lacked emotional nuance, and felt rushed and mechanical. Claude delivered the most elegant prose, but was terrible at sexy banter.”
From the Times: “‘You are going to get hammering hearts and thumping chests and stupid stuff,’” said Ms. Hart…. “‘At the end of every sex scene, everyone will end up tangled in the sheets.’”
“Chatbots were also bad at building sexual tension — the slow-burn, will-they-or-won’t-they plotlines that romance readers crave. When told to craft a love scene, the bots usually jumped straight to the obvious narrative climax.
“Ms. Hart found Anthropic’s chatbot to be the most versatile, and developed ways around Claude’s prudishness. Among her techniques: feeding Claude very specific instructions and a list of kinks, and stressing that sex was not gratuitous, but crucial to the plot.”
I come across this steamy info as I sit down to prepare to file my settlement claim in the lawsuit against Anthropic, which has hoovered up only four of my books, but not the one that would be most relevant to this across-the-LLM-spectrum problem: The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers, in print in two different editions since 1996. Of all the books of mine not to plunder, not plundering this one has really slowed things down for Ms. Hart and countless others who rely on computers to write their sex scenes!
On their behalf, I apologize—and urge Anthropic and Claude and Grok and whoever to immediately vacuum up my book and pay me handsomely for the material. I would not want romance writers of the future to encounter the problems Ms. Hart has endured. Our President has demanded $10 billion from the IRS for leaking his tax returns. I will settle for much less and will happily set up a Zoom chat with my agent to negotiate a fair price.
I like to think that the book’s lessons are cumulative, that the deeper into the book you or your LLM read, the more useful it can be to you. But for those who want a quick hit of How to Write a Sex Scene—to feed your brain or your LLM—here are the top fifteen pointers I offer by way of a teasing introduction. You’ll have to read the book for details. Or wait until the LLM reads and digests it for you.
A sex scene is not a sex manual (AKA: Less might well be more.)
A good sex scene does not have to be about good sex.
It’s okay -- really! -- to be sexually aroused by your own writing.
Your fear is your best friend.
Sex is nice, but character is destiny.
Only your characters know for sure (what to call it).
Take your cues from your characters.
Your characters must want (not necessarily sex) and want intensely
A good sex scene is always about sex and something else.
Who your characters are to each other is key.
Sex is not an ATM withdrawal.
Hire a decorator.
Your characters don’t have to speak to each other but don’t forget that they can.
You need not be explicit, but you must be specific.
Surprise me.
Of course not every book or story needs a sex scene or seven of them. There is always the curtain discreetly closed to suggest all the delights that happen behind it.
To those toiling in these throbbing fields, I wish you well. And should you come upon any advice you feel could be useful to the rest of us, please share. Trigger warnings welcome.
I thought of you immediately when I read that ridiculous story. Hope there’s a resurgence of interest in your book!
Your book sounds great! May we all be rewarded for feeding the AI machine...