Normally Oceania is up today but I dropped the ball on reminding her, so if she gets a post up, cool. Until then I thought I’d share an email I wrote to an aspiring author as the sage wisdom I’m passing down applies across the board to all writers.

The FIRST piece of advice I can give you is to simply write.  Put that ass in your chair, keep your hands on the keyboard and just write!  Writers write.

The question I’d ask is do you want this as a career or is this a hobby? It’s important to know because writing does and will consume a lot of time.  It can be lucrative as I’ve (hopefully) demonstrated and your only true limits are the ones you create for yourself.

Study authors you like, follow them, talk to us on facebook/twitter or other forms of social media.  Have a goal in mind with what you want out of publication.  I typically ask writers who come to me “where do you see yourself in 5 years as a writer?”

Learn all you can about craft and learn about marketing too.  Writing for profit these days is more about a damn good story being brought to YOUR audience, once you discover who they are.

Develop a thick skin.  I routinely rip authors new assholes because they just don’t get it.  The story they submit may have the structure and bones of a marketable book but if they won’t let me do my job and help enhance the story, it’s their fault for lackluster sales.  But that doesn’t mean they’re bard writers, it means they’re refusing to listen to guidance and letting ego get in the way.  But then there will be those editors (like myself) that support the author beyond belief but one less than stellar review will undo EVERYTHING I’ve done to build up that author’s already shaky confidence.  There will be people who do NOT like your work.  They don’t matter but the sting still hurts.  Even veterans like me.  There will also be a plethora of people who love your work and will badger you for the next book.  This takes time to develop.  But be patient.

Develop HEALTHY living habits.  Including food and diet, sleep etc.  I know WAY too many writers who are naturally self destructive and we’re all older and “should” know better but you know that saying about how long it takes to develop a habit?  We’re more impatient than most so 21 days seems like forever.  Plus we’re perpetually under deadline so there’s “no time to start a new routine.”  Your physical and mental health go hand in hand and will help fuel your muse.

The most important thing however, is that you write.

Only in erotica can the line “Come, Fido!” be problematic. Unlike some of the other Four Deadly Sins of erotica writing, bestiality is very hard to justify: with few exceptions, it’s not something that can be mistaken for something else, or lie in wait for anyone innocently trying to write about sex. This is unlike, for instance, discussing a first time sexual experience and have it accused of being pro- pedophilia. Bestiality is sex with anything living that’s not human: if it’s not living, then it’s a machine, and if it was once living, then it’s necrophilia.

A story that features—positively or negatively—anything to do with sex with animals is tough if not impossible to sell, though some people have accomplished it. However, there are some odd angles to the bestiality that a lot of people haven’t considered—both positive and negative.

On the negative side, I know a friend who had an erotic science fiction story soundly slammed by one editor because it featured sex with something non-human, technically bestiality—despite the fact that there is a long tradition of erotic science fiction, most recently culminating in the wonderful writing and publishing of Cecilia Tan and her Circlet Press (both very highly recommended). Erotic fantasy stories, too, sometimes get the “we don’t want bestiality” rejection, though myth and legend are packed with sexy demons, mermaids, ghosts, etc. This doesn’t even get into the more classical sexy beasts such as Leda and her famous swan, or Zeus and other randy gods and demi-gods in their various animal forms.

Alas, “someone else did it” doesn’t carry any weight with an editor and publisher, especially one that might be justifiably nervous about government prosecution or distributor rejection. Erotica, once again, gets—bad joke number three—the shaft: because erotica is up-front about the nature of its writing, alarm bells go off, unlike writing labeled scholarly or even pop-culture. Market something as erotic and the double standards start popping up all over the place.

On a positive note—as the already mentioned Cecilia Tan has proved—sex with aliens and mythological creatures has always been popular. Anthropomorphizing an animal and adding intellect or obvious will to a creature is a very safe way of touching on, or even embracing, the allure of sex with the unusual. The furry subculture is a close example of this, though they are very clear that this is not bestiality. It’s just a way of eroticizing the exotic, mixing human sexuality with animal features. As long as the critters being embraced are not real animals and can give consent, then protests and issues usually fall away. Fantasy, after all, is one thing, and there’s nothing more fantastic that dating a being from Tau Ceti V or something that looks like a raccoon crossed with Miss November, 1979.

There’s another feature of bestiality that can be explored but only until recently has been: the idea of role-playing. In this take on it, a person will behave like an animal, usually a dog, and usually submissive. In these S/M games, the “dog” (notice that they are never cats) is led around on a leash, communicates in barks or whines, drinks and eats from a bowl, and is generally treated—much to his pleasure, or as punishment—like a pooch: read it one way and it’s a unique power game, but read it another and it’s bestiality.

One thing worth mentioning, because some people have brought this up in regards to all of the sins, is the dream out. What I mean by that is simple: say you really, really want to write about doing some member of another phylum. That’s cool, but your chances of seeing it in print, or even on a Web site, are about slim to none. Science fiction doesn’t turn your crank so you say: “Got it! It’s a dream!” Well, I have news for you: a story that’s slipped under the door with that framing device, as a way of getting about the idea of a real bestiality story apparent, especially when it opens with “I went to bed” and ends with “then I woke up” is a pretty damned obvious excuse to write an un-sellable bestiality story.

With a lot of these erotic “sins,” whether or not a story comes across as being thoughtful or just exploitive and shallow depends a lot on how much you, as the writer, has put into the concept: something done cheap and easy will read just that way, versus the outcome if you invest time, thought, and—best of all—originality. Good work really does win out, and even can wash away some of the more outré’ erotic “sins.”

This year has flown by hasn’t it? And in a week or so it’ll all be over and we’ll be on our way in 2012!  What are you looking forward to as a writer of erotica in the coming year?  What sales techniques will you use or have you learned from WriteSEX that have or will help you sell more books?  And lastly, looking back, are you a stronger writer now than you were at the first of 2011?

The answer is probably a resounding YES!  That being said, we’ve had a long year despite how fast it flew by.

Publicist Deborah Riley Magnus launched The Author Success Coach

Jean Marie Stine of Sizzler Editions gained 14 new authors for our Intoxication line

M. Christian and I attended the very first Erotic Authors Association Conference in Las Vegas on behalf of Sizzler Editions as editors of quality erotica. And back at the beginning of the year, WriteSEX taught for Savvy Authors.

We’re teaching again only this time it’s for Lowcounty Romance Writers of America.  January 5th-29th, M. Christian, Oceania, Debbie Riley Magnus and I will be online teaching the business, tricks and techniques to a successful career in writing erotica.  Details can be found here.  Those are just a few of the accomplishments we’ve had overall from the WriteSEX group.

Lots going on and a lot more planned for 2012.  I would like to be the first, on behalf of all of WriteSEX to wish you a happy holiday season and blessings for the New Year!

* * * Permission To Forward Granted and Appreciated! * * *

January 2012 – WriteSEX: Defining Erotica

Presented by Sascha Illyvich and WriteSEX
Dates:  January 5 – 29, 2012
Deadline:  January 3, 2012
FMI: http://lowcountryrwa.com/online-workshops/#JAN4

Course Description:

Sascha Illyvich, with the help of M Christian, Oceania, Jean Marie Stine, Ralph Greco, Deborah Riley Magnus and Thomas Roche, are going to explore the daunting aspects of erotica in all its forms.  Once a week we’ll discuss every aspect of writing sexy fiction from what makes a story erotic even if there is little to no sex involved.  Writers of all genres will come away with writing tips that will benefit their careers.  We’ll cover author marketing, what defines a story as erotic, things new writers need to consider and the business angle of writing erotica.

Every week we focus on a different aspect of writing erotica.  Our other authors will do own introductions.  Some of them have a rather unique way of letting you know who they are!  I’ll be covering writing style in general for starters.  For this class, we’re going to take our lessons deeper in plot, audio and marketing so that the author comes away with a more comprehensive understanding of the erotic business, be it romance or more adult oriented.

Instructor Bio:

Sascha started writing twelve years ago, releasing poetry and an occasional short erotica story before focusing on kinky erotic romance in various subgenres.  His books have been listed under the Road to Romance’s Recommended read list, as well nominated for the CAPA.

He is also the host of the Unnamed Romance Show on Radio Dentata and continue to write for Renaissance E-books, and Total E-bound.  Readers can find his work, plus free reads at http://www.saschaillyvich.com

He is also part of the WriteSex Panel, a blog group that’s defining erotica for writers in any genre! Find us at https://writesex.net

You can register for the following on-line class through January 3.  Each class is $16.  FMI: www.lowcountryrwa.com/online-workshops/

Or email Online Workshop Coordinator, Veronica Alderson, alde02@knology.net using the Subject line: LRWA ONLINE WORKSHOP.  To subscribe to LRWA Online Workshop monthly mailing list, LRWAonlinecourses@yahoogroups.com

Thank you.

Veronica Alderson,
LRWA Online Workshop Coordinator
LRWA Treasurer

Cheers, Veronica

www.veronicaalderson.com

Love defies all odds…even death

Slay Me Tonight – 2009 East Texas RWA Southern Heat 2^nd Place Winner

2009 MARA Fiction From the Heartland Finalist

Once in awhile someone will ask me “What, if anything, is verboten in today’s permissive, literate erotica?” The answer is that pretty much anything is fair game, but there are what are called the four deadly sins: four subjects that a lot of publishers and editors won’t (or can’t) touch. These by no means are set in stone, but they definitely limit where you can send a story that uses any of them. So here, in a special series, are theses sins, and what—if anything—a writer can do with them.

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Of all the four deadly sins, the one that most-often cramps the style of many erotica writers (i.e. “pornographers”) has to be the use of characters that are below the legal age of consent. The difficulties are multi-fold: every state and/or country has different definitions of both what consent is and the age that anyone can give it; very few people have actually lost their virginity when legally able to give consent (and having everyone in a story or book being twenty-one when they first have sex is just silly); and there’s the scary potential that if you use a lot of characters below twenty-one you can look like a damned pedophile—and even get prosecuted as one.

Innocent scenes or even background like “he lost his virginity at seventeen” can be problematic, if not terrifying. While the likelihood is extremely remote, there still remains a chance that some Bible- thumping idiot from a backwater burg where consent is twenty-one could buy a copy of your work and then extradite you to said backwater to prosecute you for child pornography. It really has happened and could happen again. What really sucks is that they don’t have to win their case to ruin your life: not only is suspicion as good as guilt to many people, but the legal costs alone are guaranteed to bankrupt anyone but Bill Gates.

So how do you avoid the wrath of Bubba from backwater creek? First of all, it really depends on how the story is written. While there’s a chance they might go after you for that simple “he lost his virginity at seventeen” line, it isn’t a big one. But if you do decide to write— and manage against all odds to sell, or at least publish—something that reads like a glorification of juvenile sexuality, your odds go up considerably. As with a lot of things, context and focus have a lot to do with it: anything sinful can be written about if it’s done well and with an eye towards a finely crafted story with real emotion and dimension. James Joyce was banned, but it didn’t stick because it was art, and not Catholic Schoolgirls in Trouble.

Still, it’s always better to be safe than sorry, especially since there are very simple techniques a writer can use to keep the law off his or her ass, or just keep a nervous editor or publisher from getting even more nervous. One of the simplest ways to avoid being accused of profiting off underage characters is to blur the specifics of the character’s age. If I write, “he lost his virginity in high school,” it could, technically, be argued that the kid had been held back for four years and had his cherry popped at twenty-one. No age, no underage. I’ve often been in the position where I’ve had to ask the author of a story to remove an exact age from a story to avoid just this issue. Most authors, once they understand the concern, are more than willing to make little changes like that.

Another place where age can slip in is through description. For example, if I say boy, that usually implies someone younger than a man, therefore below the age of consent. But if I use the word lad, the line gets fuzzy. Hell, I could say, “he was a strapping young lad of fifty summers” and get away with it. You can’t do the same with boy—though of course you could say “young man.” It’s all subjective.

Of course, you can use boy in dialogue—as it could be a sign of domination or affection: “Come here, boy, and lick my boots.” The boy in question could be sixty and graying. In one of those weird sexist twists of language, by the way, girl is not quite as loaded, as girl is frequently used to describe a woman of almost any age. Go figure.

Back to the high school thing: I don’t want people to think you have to be incredibly paranoid to write erotica—but it is something to keep in mind. The Man (or even backwater versions of same) are hardly going to haul your ass off for just one line or just one story, but if someone goes go on a crusade, they sure aren’t going to arrest the cast and crew of American Pie (or anything like it). You, maybe—them, definitely not.

Like all of these erotica-writing sins, the person who worries the most about these things isn’t the Man or the writers, but the editors and publishers. Distributors are notoriously nervous around certain kinds of content, and these jitters are passed right down line to the publishers, and then to the editors.

Just as there are editors and publishers who are too cautious, there are others that don’t care one whit, or even take pride in pushing as many envelopes as possible. You name the sin and they’ll do it. While this is great, and deserves a hearty round of applause, it can also mean that if you write something really out there—even if it’s something you think a market would like—and it gets rejected, you’re stuck with a story that no one will ever look at. It’s just something to keep in mind.

The answer to this confusion between the careful and the outrageous applies to most questions regarding markets for erotica:

• Read the publication
• Check out the guidelines
• Ask questions, and…
• Don’t argue

I always remember this one person who sent me a story for a book I was editing, with an arrogant little note saying it was okay that the characters in his story were nine, because his story was set in Ancient Greece and the age of consent back then was eight. One, that was rude; two, I wasn’t going to take anything with characters that young; and three, I didn’t make the rules, the publisher did. I couldn’t have taken the story even if I thought he was the next James Joyce. I didn’t even read the story. I just rejected it.

In short, while it’s not realistic—if not stupid—to insist that characters be legally old enough to have sex, it is a factor a writer should keep in mind. Write what you want to write, but the instant you make that decision to try and share what you write with the rest of the world, be aware that you’re probably going to have to compromise or work within certain limitations.

It might not be pretty, but it’s part of life—just like losing your virginity.

“The assassin readied himself, beginning first by picking up his trusty revolver and carefully threading a silencer onto the barrel.”

That reads right enough, doesn’t it? You look at it and it sings true. But it’s not. Not because the assassin is a product of my imagination but because, except for one very rare instance, silencers cannot be fitted onto revolvers. So every time you see Mannix or Barnaby Jones facing off against some crook with a little tube on the end of their revolver, keep in mind that it has no bearing on reality.

What does this have to go with smut writing? Well, sometimes erotica writers—both old hands and new blood—make the same kind of mistakes: not so much a revolver with a silencer, but definitely the anatomical or psychological equivalent.

People ask me sometimes what kind of research I do to write erotica. The broad answer is that I seriously don’t do that much true research, but I do observe and try and understand human behavior— no matter the interest or orientation—and add that to what I write. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some (ahem) fieldwork involved.

I’m very lucky to have started writing erotica here in San Francisco. If America has a sexual organ, it’s here. Good example: do you know what the most-attended parade is in the US? Answer: The Rose Parade in Pasadena. No surprise there, right? Well, here’s one: do you know the second most-attended parade? It’s the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Trans-gendered Day Parade. There are 500,000 people—some gay and some not, all cheering for love and sex. It’s more than mind-blowing; it’s truly inspiring. It also shows how sexy this burg is. I should also mention the Folsom Street Fair: 400,000 leather- and latex-clad men, women, and genderqueers thronging through seven blocks of the city.

Sex is not just in the atmosphere here; it’s also a tradition. The Institute for the Study of Human Sexuality is here, and SFSI is here. SFSI stands for San Francisco Sex Information, a completely self- funded sex information and referral system. It works like this: after 52 hours of training (doctors get only something like 15), volunteers are qualified to go on the switchboard and answer questions from all over the country on any aspect of human sexuality without judgment, bias, or giggles. If you call (415) 989-7374 one of these volunteers will answer whatever you ask, or put you in contact with another group who will. It’s a wonderful service and an invaluable resource. You can also check them out at www.sfsi.org.

It’s easy to make the assumption that you’re well informed, but the fact is we are being bombarded by prejudice and simply inaccurate information all the time. The media is getting better at depicting sexuality, but they still have a long way to go. Way too often I’ll read a book, watch a movie, or flip channels, and groan at some cliché being perpetuated: all gay men are effeminate, all lesbians are butch, S/M is destructive, polyamorous people are sex-addicted, older people don’t have sex, couples always orgasm together—the list goes on and on. Many of these things are done out of laziness—but others are repetition of what the creators honestly believe are true.

It’s a very hard to unlearn something you’ve always taken as truth, and even harder to recognize what’s in your personal worldview that needs to be reexamined. My advice is to assume, especially in regards to sexuality, that everything you know should be looked at again. If you’re right, then the worst you can do is perhaps add a bit more to your knowledge, or get a different perspective. But if you crack open a book, or blip to a Web site, and find yourself going “I didn’t know that,” then feel good rather than bad: by doing that, and adding it to your erotic fiction, you’ll help perpetuate accuracy rather than bullcrap.

One more thing you could do is help people. We don’t like sex in this country. Sure, we sell beer and cars with it, but we don’t like it. We’re scared of it. Living in this world with anything that’s not beer and car commercial sexuality can be a very frightening and lonely experience. Too many people feel that they are alone, or what they like to do sexually is wrong, sinful, or sick. Now I’m not talking about violent or abusive sexual feelings, but rather an interest in something that harms no one and that other people have discovered to be harmless or even beneficial. If you treat what you’re writing about with respect, care, and understanding, you could reach out to someone, somewhere and help them understand and maybe even get through their bad feelings about their sexuality—bad feelings, by the way, that more than likely have been dished out by the lazy and ignorant for way too long.

In other words, especially in regards to erotica, you should be part of the solution and not the problem.

When people write of erotic fiction and bad taste, they usually aim their poison pens at purveyors of writing who prove themselves from page one-and-a-half to be foul-mouthed and boorish savages whose idea of a seductive setup is a pizza boy asking, “Did one of you cheerleaders order extra sausage?”

But that’s not the topic today. This article is the second in my six-part series (you do the math, Bruce Willis) on the senses in erotic writing. Last time around I talked about the delights of the schnozz. Today it’s the mouth that concerns me — I’m writing, literally, about taste.

For a genre where so many book blurbs offer “gustatory delights,” “mouth-watering offerings,” and crap that’s “lip-smacking good,” supposedly, one would think we eroticists would have far more common with food writers than, in fact, we do. The connection between food and sex is nowhere more evident than in the way that erotic books are marketed, far more than in their content. While erotic stories about food are a solid aesthetic sub-genre, it’s also true that even erotic stories apparently unconnected to food per se require some kind of vivid description of taste to truly bring the reader in to the moment — during oral sex, for instance, or even a kiss, or a romantic meal at a zillionaire’s mansion before the orgy starts, or in the moments of burn following a shared Scotch consumed before balling fervently in a dive bar bathroom.

Erotic stories rarely get the vivid descriptions of taste that would do them justice. That doesn’t make them bad stories at all — erotic tales have a lot of fish to fry, in sensual terms, and not knowing what the character’s fourth margarita tastes like probably isn’t going to inhibit the reader’s appreciation if the point is to get the characters into bed together. But at some point in most erotic stories more than a very few thousand words, someone is tasting something where most of us have only a vague idea about what it tastes like — a body part, body fluid, leather boot. It may not get described at all, which is fine for most stories, or writers may use some stock phrase that doesn’t really tell the reader anything. Taste is a tool in the writer’s tool kit that is not always critical — but provides endless creative possibilities once you really start thinking about it.

The description of sensory pleasures in general is one of the hallmarks of vivid writing — and in erotica, the sensual details can set you apart from garden-variety Alt Sex Stories fare (which I do not mean to badmouth, mind you) and writing that is truly evocative. Most evocative descriptions of sexual encounters contain some reference to taste, and for most of us, taste is a key ingredient in real-life sensuality. Food and sex are inextricably connected, and taste and sex still more so.

Yet if you google “taste in erotica,” you get some hits that are at best distantly connected to the topic at hand, like a Nyotamori restaurant in Denver called “A Taste of Erotica,” Nyotamori being the practice of eating sushi off a naked female (or, presumably, a naked male, though I’ve never heard of that). There are any number of books that promise (and, in some cases, deliver) the connection between the sensuality of taste, in the literal sense, and the sensuality of, you know, sensuality, in the euphemistic sense.

Many very good erotic stories engage the senses at the kind of level that’s expected from the very best food writing. Sex writers can learn a lot from reading very good food writers — and surely the reverse is also true. Many anthologies have sought to mine the connection between food and sex, and not just for their marketing copy.

In fact, I contributed to one of them recently, the anthology Torn, edited by Alison Tyler, in which I waxed philosophic for some lengthy pages about the musky taste of the Cherokee Purple strain of heirloom, from the point of view of a character who doesn’t like tomatoes.

Now, my reason for making the character not like tomatoes was twofold. First, it created tension between the two characters, since the other one really liked tomatoes, and in fact grew them in great quantities. Thus, the experience of taste became a dominant/submissive exchange between them. But my second reason was that, by not liking tomatoes, the viewpoint character was forced to experience them with a certain lack of expectations. Tasted in an erotic context, tomatoes proved way sexy, and the endless variations of different varieties at different points of ripeness proved fertile ground for what I found to be a deeply sensual experience (writing about it, that is). Since I don’t usually write about food much, this was particularly cool; like the main character, I was experiencing something for the first time. Or, if not for the first, at least without the jadedness that comes from having done things the same way a million times.

What’s more, I like tomatoes a lot. But I also turn out to be mildly allergic to certain heirloom varieties.

Therefore, tomatoes carry a certain charge of danger,  a certain taboo appeal…just like the other tastes one might encounter in erotica.

The best thing about writing erotica is that as one does it one also gets, ideally, to learn about writing everything else. Every sensual detail brought into a story helps the reader connect with the characters and the fictional world you’ve created.

Recently, a woman whose erotic stories have been widely anthologized wrote to say her day job was killing her, she needed to quit and write books for a living, and could I tell her what sold best these days? With a few changes, the following what I replied:

Could there be a worse time to need to write for money? I might have advised (nonerotic)  scifi/fantasy or Harlequin a few years ago; they are the easiest sales to make to the big publishers and get nice advances, but the big publishers are all scrambling to catch up. Writing eBooks, certainly can earn some you money, but like all other publishing, the big sales are in categories, that’s because readers have their favorite categories and buy literally 90% of their books in that category or categories.

That said, grinding out category fiction can kill you.

And with any kind of books, it takes so long for royalties to mount up, because of systemic reporting problems. For example, we are too small to pay advances, and most distributors report sales to us at 30 days after the end of a month to 60 days to 120 days after. When we issue the Jan sales report in Feb, what it reflects, is not sales made in Jan, but sales we received reports of in Jan – which would be Nov., October, and even Sept sales. So when we pay royalties at the end of a quarter, they basically consist of 1/4 sales from the actual quarter, and 3/4 sales from the previous quarter.

Biggest sellers overall among ebooks: romance, erotica, success/self-help of all kinds.

Bestselling romance categories: erotic romance. Bestselling erotica categories: bondage and erotic romance. Bestselling subcategories: heterosexual erotic romance; male dom, female sub bondage from romance to pretty hard.

Then, to be one of the top sellers, it takes writing a lot of books and a very active and attractive website and/or blog with free stories, story samples, etc. (meaning contests, blog tours, and lots of other stuff). A good way to get an audience to your site/blog is post stories or hot scenes complete in themselves on Literotica.com, the free erotica website.

Our bestselling author, who writes strong bondage but often with romance, has written around 25 books over the last eight or so years, and currently earns about $28,000 through us. He works very hard to promote his books on the web.

Beyond this, everything is up in the air in publishing, sales and advances right now, with publishers in NY in a panic trying to figure out what the shape of publishing will be and what to sell. And a sinking economy. Of course, sex does sell, so there’s that.

Those are the basics, there are too many nuances to put in writing.

All the above notwithstanding, I always personally advise writers to write what they love.

Even before writing about the sex in a sexy story you have to set the stage, decide where this hot and heavy action is going to take place. What a lot of merry pornographers don’t realize is that the where can be just as important as the what in a smutty tale. In other words, to quote a real estate maxim: Location, location … etc.

Way too many times writers will makes their story locales more exotic than the activities of their bump-and-grinding participants: steam rooms, elevators, beaches, hot tubs, hiking trails, space stations, sports cars, airplane bathrooms, phone booths, back alleys, fitting rooms, cabs, sail boats, intensive care wards, locker rooms, under bleachers, peep show booths, movie theaters, offices, libraries, barracks, under a restaurant table, packing lots, rest stops, basements, showrooms — get my drift?

I know I’ve said in the past that sexual experience doesn’t really make a better smut writer, but when it comes to choosing where your characters get to their business, it pays to know quite a bit about the setting you’re getting them into.

Just like making an anatomical or sexual boo-boo in a story, putting your characters into a place that anyone with a tad of experience knows isn’t going to be a fantastic time but rather something that will generate more pain than pleasure is a sure sign of an erotica amateur.

Take for instance the wonderful sexual pleasure than can come from screwing around in a car. Haven’t done it? Well you should because after you do you’ll never write about it — unless you’re going for giggles.

Same goes for the beach. Ever get sand between your toes? Now think about that same itchy, scratchy — very unsexy — feeling in your pants. Not fun. Very not fun.

Beyond the mistake of making a tryst in a back alley sound exciting (it isn’t, unless you’re really into rotting garbage), setting the stage in a story serves many other positive purposes. For instance, the environment of a story can tell a lot about a character — messy meaning a scattered mind, neatness meaning controlling, etc. — or about what you’re trying to say in the story: redemption, humor, fright, hope, and so forth. Not that you should lay it on so thick that it’s painfully obvious, but the stage can and should be another character, an added dimension to your story.

Simply saying where something is happening is only part of the importance of setting. You have to put the reader there. Details, folks. Details! Research, not sexual this time, is very important. Pay attention to the world, note how a room or a place FEELS — the little things that make it unique. Shadows on the floor or walls, the smells and what they mean to your characters; all kinds of sounds, the way things feel, important minutiae, or even just interesting features.

After you’ve stored up some of those unique features of a place, use special and evocative descriptions to really draw people in. Though quantity is good, quality is better. A few well-chosen lines can instantly set the stage: an applause of suddenly flying pigeons, the aimless babble of a crowd, rainbow reflections in slicks of oil, twirling leaves on a tree, clouds boiling into a storm … okay, that was a bit overdone, but you hopefully get my gist.

Once again: location is not something that’s only important to real estate. If you put your characters into an interesting, well-thought-out, vividly written setting, it can not only set the stage for their erotic mischief but it can also amplify the theme or add depth to the story. After all, if you don’t give your writing a viable place, then a reader won’t truly understand where they are — or care about what’s going on.

It can be very weird being an editor as well as a writer. It’s definitely a kind of schizophrenia, being on both sides of the fence at once: spending the morning rejecting other writers’ stories and then crying myself to sleep when it happens to me. Schizophrenia? Actually it’s more like a kind of sex — bad sex: mornings fucking someone, and then getting fucked myself. Kind of appropriate for smut writing and editing, no?

While I could on for pages and pages about why certain stories don’t make the cut for a project, I’d rather deal with something more … mundane for now — but something that has recently been on my mind. In other words, manuscripts and cover letters.

While I completely agree that good work will always win-out, there is a certain amount of packaging that is needed to get the work to the editor so that it arrives with a smile and not a grimace — and, speaking from experience, sometimes a frown or a grin can be the difference between acceptance or rejection.

Manuscripts are not resumes. The trick with resumes is to catch the eye, to get yours stand out above the rest. Career counselors often recommend bright colors and tricks to get the potential employer to spot a resume in a pile of potentials — but manuscripts are exactly the opposite. With a manuscript you want the work to be the only thing the editor notices — not that you printed the story on bright red paper, or that you used a teeny-tiny font. Anything that gets in the way of the editor reading what you written is a strike against you. Now no real editor will reject a story just because you didn’t know about Standard Manuscript Format (more on that later) but if reading the story is a chore — or you neglected important information with the submission — you might look to be too much trouble to deal with. Remember, there are usually dozens of other stories sitting on that editor’s desk, just waiting to be easier to deal with or read.

By the stories I’ve been getting I think I’m a bit of a fossil — I still put my stories in a Standard Manuscript Format. It’s basically very simple, but I like it both as a writer and an editor because it gives all the important information needed to read a story, and contact the writer, in one neat package. In short, it’s courier 12 point, double spaced, throughout the story. Italics are indicated as an underline (an old practice, I know, but have you tried to read italics that have been printed on an old printer?). On the upper left-hand corner of the first page goes my real name, my address, phone, and email. Across from that, on the right side of the top of the first page, it the word count of the story. Centered, below that, is the title of the story and (usually) my pseudonym, “M. Christian.” On the left side of the header on every other page after the first is my pseudonym, the title of the story, and the page number.

Even though it sounds simple you’d be surprised the number of stories I get that don’t have any of this. The name and address, etc., is obvious — it’s how the editor reaches you if he wants your story, or (sadly) doesn’t. You don’t need to put your Social Security Number, by the way, as the editor will only need that if your story makes the cut. Even if it’s already on your cover letter (or email), definitely put it in your manuscript as well — you’d be surprised how often stories get separated from their cover letters. The word count is very important — it gets me annoyed, for example, to get a story without a word count and then not realize that it’s way too long for the book I’m working on — after reading through most of it. So put in a word count, for sure — rounded to the nearest hundred, by the way.

Unlike some editors I know, I like cover letters — they can tell a great deal about the person I might have to work with (if I accept the story). A good cover letter should be brief, pleasant, professional, and include a SHORT listing of where you’ve been published. If you haven’t been published, please don’t say that — some editors have an anathema against virgin writers. I don’t know about other editors, but I hate just getting a url instead of a list of credits — even in an email submission. I have crappy web-access at home and have been annoyed way too often by websites full of prancing kittens and java flames when all I was looking to see if the writer was a pro or not (obviously not).

My advice if you’re stretching the guidelines a bit for a submission (say the word limit is 4,000 and you have something that’s 5,000 or so) is, above all else, be polite. Recognize you’re pushing the limit of the book, and apologize if that’s not appropriate. I remember one fellow who sent me something that had underage sex in it — and then arrogantly argued that since the story took place in ancient Athens, and the age of consent back then was nine, it was appropriate. Well, obviously it wasn’t — as the publisher, not the editor, is the one who usually sets those rules. I couldn’t have taken the story if I’d wanted to.

Just a few more things: email is a necessity nowadays, so make sure you have a good, consistent one. There’s nothing worse than trying to reach someone for an acceptance — only to have the message bounce. The same goes for your snail-mail address. I recommend a good Post Office box or mail drop — sometimes editors can take years to get back to you with the good news or bad, and if you move and can’t be found … well, how will you get the contract?

That’s the basics: the pragmatic facts of life in regards to packaging up your work. Now get out there, have lots of fun, write terrific stories, and send them out. I wish you the very best, and that the editor you work with will see your submission as great work — and not as that weird manuscript with the pink type, the rude cover letter … and where the hell is the word count?