On some level I do know most sex scenes are about the woman being dominated i.e. letting the woman in that vulnerable position allow herself to be feminine.

I start with verbatim (literally copy and paste the delted bit into the current wip) and end up with the gist. If that.

But you’re talking ‘theme’ here. For some writers, their whole body of work repeats/explores certain themes. But there’s a problem if your readers now that the first kiss will happen on Xpage and it be ‘the hero steals a kiss/touches heroine’s breast, then she slaps him scene’. That’s a little too cookie cutter.

It’s not something I do so deliberately in “current” time(because I only work on one manuscript at a time). But I have been in the middle of writing one story, stopped to think about what I want to happen next in the story and I’ll remember a deleted scene from another book that might work. Now that I think about it, it doesn’t happen much with dialogue. Dialogue tends to be shifted within the same mss. I’ll cut it, the figure that it’d be perfect in another scene in the same book.

there’s only so many ways to describe someone. Or better, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt

Especially if there’s an article of clothing you find particularly appealing/sexy/comfortable. Chances are all your h/H will show up some version of that outfit.

I don’t usually recycle stuff like what someone’s wearing but if a thought or bit of narrative feels important, I DO save it. It can’t hurt. But I can’t consciously think of any time I’ve shifted a snippet from one work to another. Not that I NEVER have, I just can’t think of a time. LOL

LOL@Doppleganger. You know, there’s only so many ways to describe someone. Or better, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt

Oh, and the repeating myself thing–one of my fears as a writer. Just like I attack adverbs, words I repeat, I go after lines or character quirks I’ve used before.

Great post.

Exactly.

I just threw the lovescene example out there because there’d been some chatter about a month ago on another site/forum about an author (I don’t read) where every single scene in every book pretty much went the same way/same acts/same order of acts/same reactions. I think peeps even knew page numbers. lol.

I thought I’d picked a real stinker of a topic.

Or I really was the only one doing both of those things.

I think I have better luck using deleted characters/ideas in something new, than I do scenes/dialogue. It always works out that after editing the hell out of the dialogue/scene to make it fit the new story (and to bring it up to my current writing level), there’s precious little of the original left.

Although, if I used that scene/dialogue as a jumping off point, I can see the possibilities there.

On the repeats: Definitely keep yourself open to new stimulations re reading other media/entertainment, life experiences. I think i do that right now. so not sure what causes the doppleganger descriptions. Maybe I’m reading too much into it? It tends to be a couple of throw away lines, but it still kinda freaks me out, especially because I never see it right away.

I hope my sex scenes aren’t so cookie cutter from one book to the next, but I don’t know–in my mind they’re different folks so the vibe is different which (to me) makes the scene different.