I Give You My Body . . . by Diana Gabaldon

Author:Diana Gabaldon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

Excerpt from A Breath of Snow and Ashes

This is a rather long example—or, rather, examples—but included for assorted reasons.

1. To show the importance of emotion vs. physicality in a sex scene. This sequence would lack its impact if it dealt only with the physical details but likewise would suffer if it lacked those details.

2. As an object lesson in what you can do with a sex scene, other than titillate the audience. This is undeniably a sex scene, and it is—ultimately—doing what a sex scene normally does, in terms of uniting two characters physically (and sometimes emotionally). But this one is doing a great deal more than that.

3. To demonstrate the difference in viewpoint, via technique. The first scene [Example 7] is in Claire’s point of view and shows her strong emotions—but it also shows her distinctive manner of seeing and experiencing the physical world. Detailed, sharp, sensory: she’s even conscious of the strangeness of the smell of her house, despite a broken, blood-clogged nose. The way she perceives her surroundings is at once external and internal and therefore drags the reader into her consciousness and emotions and into the scene itself.

Then the scene shifts to Jamie’s point of view. His view—at this point—is completely internal. He’s not noticing anything about the room, the bed, what things smell like, the fact that his buttock probably still stings from the injection, or even the fact that he’s pretty drunk. He only focuses on Claire and what’s happening between them.

Because of this difference in personality and viewpoint, I used different techniques in showing them. Claire’s viewpoint uses fairly complex images, mostly founded in physical detail—though her emotion is noted explicitly, it’s also shown in action, as she throws her wineglass and upends the washstand.

Jamie’s viewpoint is expressed almost entirely in metaphor: If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle. He’s using physical language, but he isn’t talking about the physical details of the situation. Claire alludes to her emotion and shows it by her actions, but Jamie is thinking directly in pure emotions. This has the effect both of differentiating his voice from Claire’s and also of condensing and heightening the emotional content of the scene—which is appropriate, as they’re now in bed together, after the long lead-up to the physical encounter.

Both the characters and the scene climax in a brief, visceral burst of release and catharsis. (This is, in a way, an echo of the scene near the end of Outlander where Claire saves Jamie’s soul by summoning up a simulacrum of Jack Randall and allowing Jamie to finally fight back—sexually, as well as physically.)

4. To have a look at the close connection between sex and violence—and to note the necessity of considering the individual. Notice what Jamie says at the beginning of his scene: He’d meant to be gentle. Very gentle. Had planned it with care, worrying each step of the long way home. She was broken; he must go canny, take his time.

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