Toughest aspect of dialog for me...sex scenes

[Oz70NYC]

It goes without saying that all of my projects are dialog heavy. I like to have the narrative happen in real time, as well as have my characters express their emotions through dialog above all things. Makes them seem grounded and "real". That being said, the hardest aspect of narration/dialog for me personally is during sex scenes. We've all had sex before. Some of us still have it on the regular. In real life, there's hardly ANY actual dialog happening during sex, mostly grunting, groaning and moaning. So you can imagine the difficulty trying to carry a sex scene in a comic to make it entertaining...without making it unrealistically dialog heavy.

What I tend to do during sex scenes is rather than have active dialog happening, I'll instead either use what the characters are thinking during act or external narration of the character "reminiscing" about the experience from a past tense. Effective...but even so, it's quick to run dry of things to "say", especially for longer sex scenes. I'll sprinkle in some real time dialog...the grunting groaning & moaning...but I try to get the reader to really understand the context of the scene. My sex scenes in my mainline works always have symbolism to them...I don't just randomly through them in. I save that for the 1-shot erotic stories where the sex IS the story. But it's challenging. Case in point what I'm experiencing right now working on TLWL 13. The final scene of the volume is a raunchy sex scene that was built up over the course of previous panels. I'm using external narration and character thought for the dialog as I don't want the panels to be "empty"...but there's only but so much you can come up with.

Trying to brainstorm another method I could use to implement character expression is sex scenes. I'm open to any an all suggestions.

[SovietTiger]

Well, I'm in a bit in a pickle just like you, bc I'm creating my second comic. Still at the poses part.

I specialize in writing, so you know it isn't the same when you let the reader what to imagine, than showing stuff in a comic. I believe the same principles may apply to action scenes (bot sexy and not sexy), because you might lose your reader: I believe they should be somewhat short. If the scene cant or shouldn't be short I'd do same as you, giving thinking to a character or maybe to a narrator.

I grew up reading Batman's Knightfall saga (and I still have the books from the 90s, in Spanish) and I remember that the long action scenes are sacerce and most of them are short. When talking a long them, the tend to get cheesy. Imagine Jean-Paul Valley fighting Tim Drake over his style of being Batman while Bruce is gone... It's supposed to be a brutal fight, but in reality it gates a little meh.

By contrast, the first fight between the weak Batman and Bane, is very long, but there's almost no dialog, but Bruce remember stuff what happened and took him to that very fight. I think that's the way to go.

If there's nothing to be said at the scene, I think the briefest, the better.

I don't know any other method to keep reader's attention. 

[Oz70NYC]

With the sex scene with TLWL vol.13, I've opted with more of "internal monologue" style to carry the narrative of it. I find it a lot easier that way rather than actual character dialog. There is still real time dialog in the scene, but the monologue method seems to fit my overall narrative-heavy style.

[Trapp]

This is actually an interesting topic for me. I'm about to wrap up CNC Baby Extra 1 (or 3.5 as I originally called it) and there is going to be a lot of steamy action, but not really that much dialogue. I was speaking to @SovietTiger about this yesterday and he did make some very interesting points in terms of the narrative during sex, and in particular, the case of Dani. This opens a conversation as to what the psychological effects of sex would be for someone like her, but I think you'll enjoy the results of this. I make no promises but it COULD be ready by today, since I'm nearly done with capturing anyways.

[Morius]

I'm trying a technique that I like a lot, the narrator's voice. It's very common in Conan's comics.

[Trapp]

5 minutes ago, Morius said:

I'm trying a technique that I like a lot, the narrator's voice. It's very common in Conan's comics.

I really like the way this one looks, and Serena is just absolutely adorable as always!