Steps of Intimacy with Marie Dry!

This week we have author Marie Dry talking about Steps of Intimacy. She has a new book out,  Alien Captured (Zyrgin Warriors Book 5).

Ever since she can remember Marie Dry wanted to travel. She had had the privilege of living in Zambia, Morocco, and Spain and sees herself as a bit of a gypsy. Every few years she gets restless and has to be some place new.

She read romances since she was nine and was fairly young when she decided she would write the perfect story that had all the elements she looked for in a romance. In 1997 she decided to go all out with her writing and to get published. Being published by Black Opal Books is a dream come true for her.

There are several wonderful moments in her life that she would never trade for anything. One of them is meeting President Nelson Mandela and the second being published.

Connect with Marie Dry:

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Years ago when I still lived in Spain I bought a recording from the RWA. It was the talk Linda Howard gave each year at the conference on the twelve steps to intimacy. She also announced on that recording that it would be her last year that she did this speech. I was so disappointed because I would’ve loved to hear her speak when I managed to get to the conference eventually.

She based her speech on Desmond Morris’ book, The Naked Ape. Here is a link to an article about him. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/24/the-naked-ape-at-50-desmond-morris-four-experts-assess-impact

I would recommend reading his book.

Based on his book and the steps to intimacy he mentioned, Linda Howard crafted the twelve steps to intimacy. Anyone who read romance will remember not being able to put down her books and the amazing sexual tension of her earlier books. She has a lovely accent and I listened to the whole presentation in one sitting.

It is important to linger on these twelve steps and remember they don’t have to be in sequence, but they should be there. Anyone thinking back on their own courtship will recognise all these steps. Mary Buckham did an excellent course on the twelve steps to intimacy and I was lucky enough to be able to do it online. If she ever presents that course again jump on it. I am crossing fingers she decide to do a craft book on the subject. Her notes on this is one of my most precious posessions.

The first step is eye to body. That once over men and women or men and men or women and women give each other at first meeting. Take your time and linger at this stage and also remember to notice the kind of details that the POV character would. A poor farmer will not recognise Gucci shoes etc.

Second is eye to eye. That spark of interest in between the protagonists should be seen here. This is also an opportunity to subtly show details about the characters. Do they have eyes that sparkle with laughter, is there an underlying sadness?

Voice to voice is an incredibly powerful tool to show your characters, how they speak how they react to each other’s voices, how it sounds when the character is emotional or cold.

Hand to hand, step four is much more important than we realize. Men transmit pheromones with touch while women transmit it through the air. By the time your characters reach the stage of holding hands a lot of trust has been established.

Hand to shoulder is a public declaration that the relationship is progressing towards intimacy. At what stage do you allow your partner to put his arm around your shoulder?

Six is hand to waist and now your characters, trust and know each other and is ready for deeper intimacy. Don’t forget to linger at this stage and use it to express the character’s emotion about where the relationship is going.

Step six is face to face, in other words the kiss. Linger on the first kiss and describe the characters actions and feelings and the impact this has on the relationship and let it set the tone for what is to come.

Step eight hand to head shows an incredible amount of trust. The characters might run their hands through each other’s hair, touch their faces or even the back of the neck. Think about how safe you’d feel if a stranger should put his hand on the back of your neck.

The last steps are hand to body, mouth to body, hand to genitals and genitals to genitals and when the characters reach these steps they have progressed to the point where both agreed on intimacy. This intimacy has been established by the previous steps and if each step is present in a book the chemistry and attraction between the characters will sparkle.

The recording of Linda Howards talk? My computer crashed and I lost it and I’ve never been able to find it for sale again.

Alien Captured (Zyrgin Warriors Book 5)

In a bleak future, where government systems are breaking down and poverty and violence reign, on an abandoned farm in Montana, Susannah had a simple plan. She’d capture an alien, sell him to the resistance, and use the money to save her son.

Instead, Susannah had an arrogant alien trapped in a pit who acted as if she was the prisoner. He wanted to kill her dog and insisted she should care for the wound he sustained when he fell into the pit she dug to trap him. On top of that, she had no way to know if the resistance got her message. Every day that passed, she doubted her decision to hand Azagor over to the resistance.

But her son, her baby, was being held by people who considered him unclean because he was conceived out of wedlock—and time was running out.

Buy on:

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