Sascha Illyvich

Happy New Year Writers!

Jan 122012

Hi Folks,

How has your new year started off? Have you made writer resolutions for more sales, more releases, more books to be read? Or are you swamped like I am even though it’s only the first week of the year? LOL!

My biggest news right now is that The Playground is released through Decadent Publishing! The 1Night Stand series is apparently very popular and when I met Kate Richards and Valerie Mann at Erotic Authors Association Con in Vegas last year, they convinced me to write something for them.

One of the biggest factors writers need to realize when they start writing a new book is the time commitment to it . Usually I cover craft on WriteSEX but I think we should talk a little on the business side of things too for this article. In a previous Authors Promoting Authors blog post I had talked about research and looking at things from the standpoint of ROI on TIME invested in a book. Being efficient is key when writing because as we’ve covered before, true wealth can be had by a writer but it takes a LOT of work and so few writers actually amount massive wealth. I pointed out eh importance of education on topics such as BDSM or psychology in the APA blog so that once you sit down to write a story, you don’t have to stop and research, thus breaking your train of thought.

After all, train of thought in writing gets the words on the paper. But if you have to stop and look up the term SAM, maybe you don’t know what it is and have no sense of which websites are reliable, so more time spent on research, which affects plotting and character development in the long run. Everything as a writer that you do should be measured in terms of return on investment.

You are a writer, an artist yes. but the truth of the matter is, many of you have this goal and desire to be a decently paid if not well paid author and the only way to truly meet that goal is with proper planning, self discipline and keeping your ass in the chair and pounding out the words. Oceania, our Audio Goddess, did a post last year on deadlines and writer’s block that I think will help from time to time. Continue with your education to learn what works and what doesn’t.

So, set your goals, write them down! Put them someplace where you’ll find them a year from now.

Sascha Illyvich

Happy Holidays From WriteSEX!

Write Sex 2 Responses »

Dec 232011

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!

WriteSEX teaching to LowCounty RWA January 5th-Jan 29th

Scheduled Workshops 1 Response »

Dec 152011

* * * 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, [email protected] using the Subject line: LRWA ONLINE WORKSHOP. To subscribe to LRWA Online Workshop monthly mailing list, [email protected]

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

Writers Point of View for Stories – Who Gets to Talk?

Sascha Illyvich 4 Responses »

Nov 102011

Who gets to talk?

Readers get attached to characters they care about and have built relationships with, just as in reality. Kill off a favorite character from your reader base and you’d better believe you’re going to hear about it! Alter that character’s world somehow and again, you’ll get feedback. But what if the hero and heroine both have something to lose? Then what do you do?

Cover for Sascha Illyvich's 1NightStand story by Decadent Publishing

Refer back to length of the story. Who has the greatest loss, and the greatest gain? Write from THAT one character’s POV and ONLY change scenes if word length allows for it and only if that character’s journey makes us feel something universal.

I recently read a story where head hopping occurred so much because the writer thought to write scenes like we see in TV. Take Burn Notice for example: We have Michael Westin, (The hero) Fiona (Heroine) and all the side characters, most notably Sam, the drunk former CIA op who we get to see frequently. POV switches don’t really occur much because the story is narrated by Michael Westin, but when we do get those changes, Westin is still narrating. That works because people need to see a lot of visuals and TV/movies allow for those shifts to occur. The average attention span is not that long.

But FICTION writing doesn’t. You’ll end up with unsmooth transitions, annoying head hopping issues that make the reader THROW YOUR BOOK THE FUCK AWAY!

In FICTION, y

ou do two things. You show the reader what YOU want them to see; otherwise they’ll see something else. And you make the story smooth. By sticking to word limit/reason for changes, you’ll eliminate guesswork in your plotting.

Some writers can get away wit

h multiple POV changes. Sherrylin Kenyon for example can, she has a built in audience that somehow doesn’t care about the change from the H/H to Ash or Stryker. So does Laurel K. Hamilton, but because she writes in First Person POV, she doesn’t have that ability. But if she wrote in third person, she could afford to change because she’s ESTABLISHED. Chances are that you’re not them. (And if you are, thanks for reading my article!)

Christine Feehan does an excellent job of keeping the POV between her hero and heroine. So does Richelle Mead. And Rebecca York. Those authors are authors who don’t write what I do, but I learn from them because they’re where I hope to be someday.

To reinforce the key points, I’ll leave with my two rules for simplification.

Tell the story from the character’s POV that has the MOST to lose
Use word length 20k = 1 character. 40k, 2 characters. 60k-100k+=3 and ONLY three.

The obvious exception would be if you have a reason for a secondary story such as the one used in Back in Black by Lori Foster where she had the main conflict going on and for what I felt was literally a second story all it’s own, but was tied together neatly by the author. That will be a different post though, when we break into deeper POV and more on storytelling craft.

That should simplify things in your stories. Happy writing!

Sascha Illyvich

http://www.saschaillyvich.com

Listen to The UnNamed Romance Show Mondays at 1 PM PST and Thursdays at 3 PM PST on www.radiodentata.com – hear from Sascha as he shares his work along with interviewing the hottest authors in today’s romance

Writing Point of View Part I

Sascha Illyvich 5 Responses »

Sep 152011

Do you know which POV your story is told in? Do you know the correct Point of View your story SHOULD be written from? If you answer first or third person POV, you’re obviously being a smart ass. Let’s rephrase the question, shall we?

What character’s point of view should my story be told in?

There, this defines the question better. And the answer is simple. The main character’s POV. But what if you have two characters? Presumably a Hero and a Heroine, since this is Erotic Romance I’m mainly covering, let’s stick with that assumption. What if you have a villain? Do we tell any part of the story from that character’s perspective?

This was a question I received frequently when I taught How to Write From the Male POV and create better Heroes. It’s actually a universal question for many new writers of erotic fiction. Erotica authors wonder which point of view to write the sex scene in. After all, much of erotica has a very personal feel to it as the point is to arouse, as writers, is it not?

Many writers assume that during major scene changes, the perspective should change. They’re half correct. A lot of writers suggest that we need to know about the villain if there is one, and that character should get a say too. Again, they’re half right.

The truth is, POV is simple. Tell the story from the Point of View of the character that has the most to lose.

What do I mean by that? Let’s break it down. In a typical romance novel, we have the hero and heroine and a plot that runs something like this:

Hero meets Heroine (hey you’re hot)
Hero and Heroine end up in bed (light cigar/cigarette)
Argument separates the two (God he’s a jerk/she’s a bitch)
And in the end, something happens that is greater than both the Hero and Heroine’s issues that makes them examine their beliefs and realize they need the other.
Let’s figure this out (I need you/I love you)
HEA/Happily for Now

Throw in a villain and that character’s appearance should be before or during the cigar in the above example. Considering that much of today’s erotic romance is paranormal or urban fantasy, there is a bad guy waiting to kill off both Hero/Heroine. Add secondary characters and it makes things more confusing for the writer.

Erotica is roughly the same formula but the Happily For Now or Happily Ever After ending is optional.

So what determines whose point of view the story is told from? This is also easy. For the story to flow without head hopping, let’s use a simple rule of thumb (courtesy of Morgan Hawke www.darkerotica.net)

IF the story is under 20k, you simply need ONE character where the event happens to THEM and ONLY them.

IF the story is under 40k, then we have an event that affects two characters.

IF the story is under 100k, we have three characters who get a say, usually because the villain is the one doing shit to the world/universe—including the H/H.

Now that we’ve narrowed that down and fixed the potential to head hop all over the place, thus eliminating characters that are central but not integral for POV purposes, we’re left with the one question:

Who gets to talk? And we’ll cover that technique next time I have the blog.

New Contributor – Stella Price on World Building

Stella Price 1 Response »

Aug 252011

This month we introduce our newest contributor to WriteSEX – Ste lla Price. Stella is half the duo of Stella and Audra Price, award winning romance authors who construct characters, worlds and more that draw the reader in. She’ll be joining us at DragonCON 2011 on Friday Night as we host the WriteSEX Pane l. Her first article on world building follows.

World Building. Most think it’s just for epic fantasy, or even dark fantasy. As a paranormal romance author, world building is, as they say, 9/10 of the law. Without it, characters are not believable, nor is the story in general. In my coming posts we will talk about suspension of disbelief, character development, and building a world from the ground up, but for now I want to talk about the necessity of world building, in any story setting.

Fantasy, Paranormal, Horror, Historical, contemporary, BDSM… Name a genre and it’s quite possibly the most important element because this is what sets your stage, and what hooks your reader. Without a believable situation and background, it really isn’t a story.

In work, even if you’re working from a contemporary setting, it’s the details that matter in making your book believable and unique. You cannot write a story without details right? Well details are a major element of world building.

World building, when done correctly, and not half assed, makes your story richer, full of depth and allows the reader to be immersed in the story you created. As an author, you strive to engage your reader on a level deeper than a letter to penthouse, right? Without the connection you can be damn sure that next story you put out won’t be on the reader’s auto buy list.

There are levels to world building. Light world building, where the author uses already accepted places, subjects and morae’s to make the reader feel at ease, and just adds details to enrich the experience. Then there are those that do it with a more heavy hand, where they take ideas already in play and twist them into other things, be it alternate history or alternate universes, and then there is the extreme of building the world from roots to the sky. None of these are wrong, and all have their pros and cons.

Light world building is what you see a lot of in Para romance. They use the contemporary setting, and then focus on the characters and their societies to build up the mythology. Kresley Cole with her Immortals After Dark series and Gena Showalter with her Lords of the Underworld series are prime examples.

A more heavy hand twists to alternate history, or alternate universes, and focuses on the characters and Society like the lighter hand does, but puts emphasis on the background and events that brought about the current status quo. Allison Pang’s Brush of Darkness is a great example of this as well as Lia Habel’s forthcoming Ya Dearly Departed and Meljean Brook’s Iron Seas books. These books rocked alternate histories and timelines, to give the books depth and dimension.

Extreme world building, Like Gail Martin’s Summoner Series or Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series is the very top of the world building ladder. You see this most in High fantasy and Scifi, but it is slowly making its way into the mainstream of romantic fiction with series like Michele Armstrong’s Settler’s Mine series. I look forward to seeing others.

It’s your duty as the author to know what kind of world building you are capable of, so that you don’t short change your readers or your story. Getting into a groove with your writing is paramount and the sooner you realize where you sit in the world building arena the faster you will realize just how important it is to your work.

Stella Price
Award winning best selling author
www.stellaandaudra.com

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SHOULD YOU QUIT YOUR DAY JOB – AND WHAT IF SO WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE?

Jean Marie Stine 7 Responses »

Aug 112011

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.

Writing from the Opposite Sex in Erotic Fiction

Sascha Illyvich, Scheduled Workshops No Responses »

Jul 212011

In honor of the fact that starting August 15^th I’ll be teaching Male POV and Creating Better Heroes for anyone who signs up through Orange County Romance Writers of America Chapter, I’m going to give away a partial lesson from the Male POV course for the WriteSEX crowd.

It’ll be abbreviated but I’d like you to take time and think, and think hard about the characters you write. If you’re a woman in erotica or erotic romance, this is especially for you.

Author Gender seems to be the biggest problem many writers face when creating characters and it’s just necessary! I’ve been cross gender writing for years and the biggest compliment I’ve received was regarding how well I had my editors fooled when they finally spoke to me. When asked how I write the other gender so well, I replied that observation was my biggest tool used to help me identify. Look around you at TV, newspapers, music. If men aren’t being portrayed as tough and rugged by the media, then they’re portrayed as angry and aggressive. Or as one reader pointed out, men are stupid and buffoonish.

In reality, some of them are just that. But the majority of men are just like the majority of women. They’re human beings and to understand them may not be something we need concern ourselves unless we’re creating real life characters.

Authors have to be objective in their portrayal of their characters! Men aren’t aggressive and angry for no reason at all (most anyway!) but unless we dig further into the depths of the man’s mind, and his soul, we’ll be lost forever in testosterone!

Before we start, I’d like for you to throw out EVERYTHING you’ve EVER HEARD by any other romance author regarding men unless you KNOW that romance author has a penis. Or had a penis.

I say this not to tear down those writers, but to set the record straight. The first thing I want you to understand is that man and woman are NOT equal. Well, we’re equally stupid at times, and equally smart at times. And some of us are equally attractive, others are equally ugly. (Just calling a spade a spade!) but as a whole, men and women are not equal. Hell, not all men are equal.

Example: I am very strong for my size. (Thin and tall) But paranormal author Stephanie Burke’s husband is 6’7 and weighs three times more than I do. He’s pretty built too. Strength-wise, we’re unequal. Dennis is clearly stronger than I am. I’m okay with that too.

The point is that externally or physically, which is what I believe we’re talking about when it comes to this notion of equality. We are not equal.

INTERNALLY on the other hand…well that’s partially what you’re taking this workshop for. I believe after we’ve finished our week that we’ll see a LOT of similarities between gender.

Next time we’ll cover a little more on the Way of Being, but for now, you can sign up for Male POV through the OCCRWA site

The course runs August 15th to August 28th. For non RWA Members fee is $25, $15 for RWA Members I believe.

New Sale and a best of

Oceania, Sascha Illyvich No Responses »

Jul 072011

For those expecting our lovely Audio Goddess Oceania, she’s off this week and for one more round while she handles some personal business. There are nine of us and from time to time it’s bound to happen that things come up.

So first, I’m going to mention my recent sale to Total E-bound in hopes that A: it peaks your interest and B: It helps me drag out a blurb. That’s right, there is a lesson here and a new one at that, though only a short one.

You see, when you tell your readers you sold a book to a publisher, they undoubtedly want to know what the book is about. Is it a new genre for you? Or a different sub genre like paranormal romance when you normally write contemporary romance stories? Or are you continuing a story line from a previous series? Either way, once you tell the first reader, they’ll get excited but if you repeat the same thing to over 100 readers at 98 different times it gets pretty tiring.

So you go for the quickest explanation possible. Case in point: My puma story tentatively titled Burning for Derrick has a very Burn Notice like feel but the sequel will feature Max, Derrick’s brother who IS a cross between Max Myers of ACC Cigars and Michael Westen from Burn Notice. People understand that even though most of my friends don’t know Max. Once I say Burn Notice, they’ll get a reference point and I’ll only need to mention how I’m working in Max’s love interest.

But this isn’t the story I sold. It’s in second draft mode. But it gets the wheels thinking on how to craft that blurb for the story so I can tell the publisher this will sell because of the blurb. That is the goal, after all.

The traits of the story in question are thus:

It’s a menage. Both males used to be lovers but morals divided them, yet they unknowingly share the same female lover.

It’s paranormal: Both males are wolves, the heroine is a witch.

It’s GLBT – both males are into each other and the woman, equally.

I used the big themes of the story there for sales purposes. This lets me play with the big concept. Get it? Now I can try to pull out the plot.

The wolf packs in Albuquerque NM are dying from an incurable sickness and only Iolite has the resources to research the illness. Being of human origin with wolf blood gives her an advantage but her two lovers are the ones who can really help as they are full blooded wolf shifters. If they could just settle their differences long enough…perhaps the three of them could come up with a solution to what is killing off both their packs.

Does that grab you? It’s a rough start and ignores the romantic conflict. But as I said, this is a short lesson.

As promised, a recap of recent Oceania posts as audio is an important medium. Look at the success of “Go the Fuck to Sleep” for proof.

Writing Is____

Forgive Me Father, I must have Sinned

Audio Books – Break On Through to the Other Side

Those are popular posts for a reason. Until next time…when we return with Deborah Riley Magnus’s post…

Using the Character Arc in Plotting

Sascha Illyvich 4 Responses »

Jun 022011

If we take the plot advice from Morgan Hawke and continue with our writers education, we’re at the part now where we describe the character arc. This is the particular point of any story at holds interest because it keeps your attention. But what is the crux of the story?

According to Morgan’s post here we know that stories are about change. The hero and heroine must face inner demons and come out stronger after they’ve fought their obstacles. Think about it. In erotica this is a little less downplayed because the plot is focused on the characters getting together but in longer pieces, novella length and up, there is some sort of change going on. How exciting would the story be if the plot looked like this:

Hero and Heroine spotted each other.
They fucked in every possible way, position, with all sorts of toys.
The end.

Might be fun for a few minutes and it might be worth a good laugh but how about this plot instead:

Hero and Heroine meet
They fuck only to realize that each has their hangups about certain sexual positions and toys. (Oh noes!)
ENTER CONFLICT
Hero and Heroine separate despite the great sex and connection
Something puts them back together
They fuck more and realize that in the end they cannot stop fucking but they HAVE to get past their hangups.

Morgan talks about the seven stages of Grief and she uses that arc a LOT. Why? Because working off the emotion of angst we have something that gives us CONFLICT. Since our stories, be they erotica or erotic romance in my case, are about emotional connections, we need conflict. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that all fiction stories are truly about emotional conflict. Think about some of the classic non erotic stories like Huckleberry Fin or anything Shakespeare ever wrote. The stories are about people. And people are NOT emotionless robots (mostly) but we have to have a vested interest in them, otherwise why bother with them?

I will disagree with one point Morgan makes ONLY in the sense of character development. I believe our stories are about growth, not change.

Think about change like this: One moment I’m wearing my blonde hair down to the floor, the next it’s chopped back to an inch in length, spiked and dyed blue. And I’ve stopped listening to metal in favor of elevator music. That is change.

Growth is a teenager with angst over his father’s “unfair” treatment only to realize as a man that his father was trying to teach him lessons. The idea is simple: The underlying resentment caused pain that must be dealt with and in a teenagers mind, but in the mature person’s mind that resentment is analyzed and understood.

Going through the seven stages of grief started from Angst at a situation, person or incident gives us a backbone to our stories. Using that same bit of angst in our sex scenes helps add depth and flavor to draw our readers in more. It gives them something to connect with and a reason to keep reading.

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Sascha Illyvich

Happy New Year Writers!

Happy Holidays From WriteSEX!

WriteSEX teaching to LowCounty RWA January 5th-Jan 29th

Writers Point of View for Stories – Who Gets to Talk?

Writing Point of View Part I

New Contributor – Stella Price on World Building

SHOULD YOU QUIT YOUR DAY JOB – AND WHAT IF SO WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE?

Writing from the Opposite Sex in Erotic Fiction

New Sale and a best of

Using the Character Arc in Plotting

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Sascha Illyvich

The latest stories by WriteSEX Authors

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