Getting Past Writer’s Block on Monster or Sex Scenes
(Or: How to Unleash the Beasts and the Bodies Without Wimping Out or Writing the Same Old Awkward Garbage)
Let’s not sugarcoat it: Writing monster scenes or sex scenes is where writers choke, stall, or just plain freeze up. I’ve seen battle-hardened wordsmiths who can churn out a hundred pages of philosophical ranting fall apart at the first tentacle or trembling thigh. If you’re stuck staring at a blank page, sweating over the claws, the moans, the teeth, the shame, or the damn logistics, you’re not alone.
And you know what? You should be a little scared. Both monsters and sex, done right, are about risk, power, and surrender—whether it’s surrender to fear or lust, hunger or awe. If you want your scene to be more than a tired cliché, if you want to really move a reader (or a character), you’ve got to break out of your comfort zone and tap into something raw and true. This isn’t a how-to for the faint-hearted, and it sure as hell isn’t a fill-in-the-blanks scene generator. This is how you get past the block, into the pit, and back out with a scene that actually lives.
1. Why Monster Scenes and Sex Scenes Are So Damn Hard
It’s Intimate: Sex and terror are the only things that make most people feel truly vulnerable. If you write them wrong, it’s cringe or cartoon.
Weird Shame: Fear of what readers (or your mother, or your editor) will think. Fear of looking like a creep, or—worse—a hack.
Logistics and Language: How many limbs? Where’s everyone’s face? What’s the line between vivid and gross, or raw and ridiculous?
The Cliché Trap: The world’s full of limp monster attacks and sex scenes that sound like bad porn or soft soap ads. No one wants to read what they’ve read a hundred times.
Confession:
I’ve deleted more monster scenes and sex scenes than anything else. Sometimes they felt fake, sometimes too real. Sometimes I wrote something that made even me blush or squirm. The secret is, I finished them anyway, and sometimes those were the pages readers never forgot.
2. Step-By-Step: Getting Past the Block (And Into the Good Stuff)
A. Name Your Fear
What are you actually afraid of? Looking dumb? Being explicit? Not knowing the anatomy of a werewolf or a woman’s orgasm?
Write down your fears, then laugh at them. Most readers want you to go there—they want to feel something.
B. Warm Up—Don’t Start Cold
Freewrite a version just for you—go as weird, dark, gross, or wild as you want. Nobody else sees this draft.
Try switching point of view: write it from the monster’s head, or the person being devoured, or the lover’s internal monologue.
Scribble out the scene with zero dialogue, or with nothing but dialogue. Break the rhythm.
C. Strip It Down to Motivation
Monsters: What does it want? What are the stakes for both the monster and the “victim” (if there even is one)?
Sex: Who wants what? Who’s vulnerable? Who’s in control? Why now?
Get raw about motive and you’ll get real heat—or real fear.
D. Get Sensory, Not Cinematic
Ditch the Hollywood visuals. What does it feel like? The taste of sweat or blood, the drag of claws, the thump of a heart, the ache, the panic, the want.
Write the mess, not just the motion.
E. Use Metaphor and Specificity
The best scenes live in details and imagery: sharp breath, nails raking skin, the soft squelch of tentacle in mud, the slow burn of anticipation.
Don’t get lost in euphemism, but don’t make it all mechanics either. Find the line that fits your tone.
3. Ingredient Hacks and Survival Tactics
Write the Scene Backwards: Start with the aftermath—what’s broken, what’s satisfied, who’s changed—then write how you got there.
Change the Setting: Move your monster scene to a sunlit kitchen, or your sex scene to the back of a moving bus. See what shakes loose.
Dialogue Only Draft: Let the characters talk their way into or out of the act. You’ll find voice, tension, humor you’d never script otherwise.
Word Lists: Write a list of ten physical sensations, five smells, three unexpected sounds. Weave them into the draft.
Go Ugly, Then Go Beautiful: Write the most uncomfortable, brutal, or clumsy version first. Then the most lyrical. Your final draft lives between them.
4. Survival Strategies: How to Keep Going When You Want to Quit
Remind Yourself Who You’re Writing For: If it’s for you, go as raw as you dare. If it’s for the reader, make sure it lands—emotion, stakes, consequence.
Take Breaks: Don’t binge-write monster or sex scenes until you go numb. Let them breathe.
Read Out Loud: Cringe at what sounds fake, laugh at what’s awkward. Polish, don’t self-flagellate.
Accept That Not Every Scene Is a Masterpiece: Some are pure function—move the plot, build the world, test your nerve. If you finish, you’re ahead of most.
Confession from the Trenches:
The best monster scene I ever wrote was after a week of nightmares and a bottle of whiskey. The best sex scene? I rewrote it so many times I started to feel like a pervert and a priest, alternating. Both times, the secret was just to finish—even when it felt like digging your own grave.
5. The Dirty Reality: Monsters and Sex Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
Both are about transformation, power, appetite, loss of control.
Both are places where the masks drop, where your character (and maybe you) get honest.
Writing them well means risking embarrassment—and hitting something primal.
6. The Final Dare: Don’t Flinch, Don’t Fumble, Don’t Fake It
You want to break your writer’s block on monster or sex scenes? Stop worrying about “good.” Worry about “true.” Write through the shame, the awkwardness, the fear. If you do, you’ll find scenes that have claws, sweat, teeth, and heart—scenes that live long after the reader closes the book.
Because the best writing
isn’t safe,
isn’t bland,
isn’t polite—
it’s the scene that makes you
sweat,
tremble,
and finally
breathe.