I'm writing one of my first wlw smut and getting entangled with all of the 'she' and 'hers', especially with all the body parts moving around. Who's doing what to who, exactly??
Example: A touched B's hair. She purred as she worked through a particularly gnarly knot in her hair. Her face scrunched as she focused on her work.
And if I change to names it feels stilted.
Example: A touched B's hair. B purred as A worked through a particularly gnarly knot in B's hair. A's face scrunched as A focused on A's work.
And epithets... "the blonde", "the tall one"... Feels worse. (We don't talk about epithets?)
Do you have any advice on how to layer two characters with the same pronouns together when both are taking action in a scene? (Smutty action is still action 😉) or anywhere you've seen this handled exceptionally well?
Apologies if this has been answered - I tried to search first but came up empty. 🙏
I wanted to answer this because I come across this issue A Lot, and honestly, it's just a balancing game of dialogue and hopping the names in and out with the pronouns. And yeah—unless you have a REALLY good reason to do it, try and avoid epithets.
First of all, the names thing—it's not quite as stilted as you might think, so long as you've still got pronouns in between. Let's take a look at your example (I've given them names to make it easier):
Ali touched Bea's hair. Bea purred as Ali worked through a particularly gnarly knot in Bea's hair. Ali's face scrunched in concentration as Ali focused on Ali's work.
The first and foremost rule I can give you is this:
The pronouns correspond to the object of the sentence.
So let's take that second sentence and remove a name, stick in a pronoun:
Bea purred as Ali worked through a particularly gnarly knot in her hair.
So this can be confusing. Are we talking about Bea or Ali's hair? Granted, thanks to context from the first sentence we know it's Bea's hair, but it still feels a little off. We can use our second rule to fix this, though:
Focus verbs, adjectives, and actions toward the object of the sentence.
(Also a little sub-rule: The one that said the dialogue is almost always the object of the sentence.)
We can put that into effect by humanizing Bea to the reader, focusing their attentions on the person whose pronouns you're using. Let's stick a few words in for an example:
Bea purred, pleased, as Ali worked through a particularly stubborn knot in her hair.
If you help the sentence flow conversationally in the reader's mind, two important things are going to happen:
They're not going to get stuck on the pronouns, and
They're not going to notice how often you use the names.
It's like "said." You can only use so many synonyms for it before your work starts to feel like you're writing a thesaurus, not a story. And sometimes it's just embarrassing (see: '"Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn.' Yes, that's a real quote.)
But now we've run into a problem: in our next sentence, Ali is the active object, not Bea. If we use "she" to start it off, it's gonna sound like we're talking about Bea, not Ali, and then it's just gonna get confusing. So here's my third and final rule:
Don't always start with people.
What does that mean? Well, in every sentence in this example, we've started the sentence with a name or pronoun. But what happens if we switch it around, start our sentences with an adverb, adjective, or a noun? We could even embed dialogue (but remember to always start a new paragraph for dialogue said by a different person).
I'll use the third example sentence to show what I mean:
Intently focused on her work, Ali's face scrunched in concentration.
Face scrunched in concentration, Ali applied an intense focus to her work.
(Of course, that one sounds like you're leading into a commentary about Ali's focus.) Remember: as much as I've been saying "object of the sentence," they're not objects, they're people! If your reader is relating to them, if they're engaging in a back-and-forth with another character, if they're observing the world around them—the frequency of names vs. pronouns isn't going to matter as much as the story itself.
Prioritize the characters and the narration (from whoever's perspective you're writing it from). That delicate balance between names and pronouns will come a lot easier if you're writing about people, not whatever (or whomever) they're doing.
Because I'm extra, here's an example I've expounded upon for funsies. There's also a bit of sexual subtext to it, because, well, you asked about smut, didn't you?
Right. That was fine. Bea met her gaze for a few seconds, before lifting a brow questioningly. "Ah—"
"Can I touch your hair?" Ali blurted, then blushed, giving her a sheepish grin. Privately, Bea thought that was the cutest shit she'd ever seen.
"Sure. If you give me a style as pretty as yours." Bea winked, then grinned as the blush on Ali's cheeks only increased in intensity.
Not trusting herself to speak without stammering, Ali gestured to the chair in front of her, settling it so that its back was to her chest. She pulled another chair over and set it facing towards her, straddling the seat and leaning against its back. Bea raised a single brow, but acquiesced, sitting normally on the other chair to give Ali access to her hair.
Tentatively at first, then more confidently when Bea voiced no complaint, Ali began coaxing apart the knots in the curls before her. As she worked through a particularly stubborn tangle, she heard an unusual sound—Bea was purring, she realized, lips parting in shock. That was...
Well, it was kind of hot, actually, wasn't it?
They settled into a relaxed rhythm, Bea's purrs a gentle staccato against Ali's fingers, her own face scrunched in concentration as she focused on her work. She began to hum softly, just to give her voice something to do. In response, Bea slumped further in her chair, the volume of her purrs increasing. Just to see what would happen, Ali paused, smirking when she received a quiet grumble of displeasure.
I'm cutting it there because otherwise I'm just going to write a full-on scene about emotional development and vulnerability for guarded, snarky Bea and patient, blushing Ali. (Can you tell that I project onto my OCs?) If you reread it, you'll note a few times where the point of view changes, as well as the object of the she/her pronouns.
Both the reader and (more importantly!) you as the writer will feel more comfortable with the flow of your writing if you're connecting with the characters. Humanize them. Describe them. Help them feel, grow, and learn, and they'll do the same for you.
(PS: As an afterthought, my AO3—upon which there is one (1) explicit work with two lovers of the same gender (sukka)—is Zivqa, if you're interested. It isn't my best work, but in my defense I wrote it four years ago at three in the morning. Anyway, the pronouns are easy enough to understand inamongst all the, ah, action.)
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