4-Week: Writing Desire

Sexual desire is an ideal narrative accelerant: it propels plot, complicates characters, wreaks havoc, and reveals hidden truths. This is true whether the desire is met or thwarted. Whether it inspires passionate action or paralyzed yearning. Whether characters end up broken-hearted, blissfully fulfilled, or sick with longing for the next object of their desire.

In this class we’ll examine how writers, both contemporary and canonical, have crafted scenes of desire. We’ll consider the impact of sexual desire on imagery, point of view, and dialogue. Through a series of prompts, we’ll work on crafting desirous characters and refining and complicating their relationship to desire. We’ll look at the ways lust can move a story forward… or send it hurtling into the past. And we’ll analyze how writing sexual desire ultimately informs the way you approach writing any of the other myriad desires—for power, for comfort, for revenge, for everything anyone could possibly want.