Write SEX - The Definitive Guide to Writing Erotica

That Dead from the Neck Up Feeling

Oceania No Responses »

Feb 172011

by oceania monroe

this is my week to contribute to Writesex.net
and even though i am writing this on valentine’s day
there isn’t a sexy anywhere in my tired old body

it is 2 1/2months since i had running water in my kitchen
over 4 weeks with limited electricity

do you know what running extension cords from all over the house just to make a cup of coffee
or washing dishes in the bathroom sink

but editors
publishers
agents
they dont want to hear it
really! i meant hear it in my case (audio you know)

and more importantly Sascha Illyvich
doesnt want to hear it
… put away the bullwhip Sascha
i ambeing a good girl really

this weeks installment presents 10 tricks to getting past that i am dead from the neck up feeling

if you are a writer
you write
not for the money
we all hope we can make a living off our words
but you write because you have to
you jones if you dont
and the withdrawal isnt pretty

still deadlines and quotas still need to be met
and if you’re running on empty and you just cant find another sentence in you what do you…

here are some of my favorites
1. cut up a bag of onions- it gives you a reason to cry and a good cry will release up the pent up feelings of frustration
2. take along walk and talk to your characters you may look odd talking to yourself walking down the street but hey who cares it’s not like your taking a california sanity test for a gun permit
3. write a list of dirty words then shout them out loud.This is best done in the shower
4. pull out your favorite sex toys and have some fun
5. call up your favorite sex “toy” and tell him or her what you’d like to do to them
6. stack up a bunch of pillows and beat the hell out of them
7. pull out a copy of vogue and draw double chins, thick fat thighs and love handles on all the skinny models
8. rent a silent movie and make up captions- cant find one – watch an old movie with the sound off and make up a new story line.Doing this with a friend can be fun
9. write gibberish – yep- fill a page with pure gibberish I DARE YOU it’s harder than you think!
10. go soak in the tub – while you’re neck deep in hot water call a friend and play word association games

All this may seem silly but really what you’re doing is giving your tired brain a little down time.

So what tricks do you use to get back on track and meet a deadline? I would love to hear yours! Just email me at [email protected]

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Promote Thyself!

Write Sex No Responses »

Feb 102011

And the gods of publishing spoke.

The earth rumbled and the lightening struck. All the peoples of the writing land quivered with fear and aw. And the gods said …

“Stand all ye writers and be counted! I say unto thee one and all, those of the laptop and those of the desktop, those sparrows of the tiny Twitter and lurkers of the massive writers conferences, teachers and students of the word and mid-list authors everywhere I say unto you all … PROMOTE THYSELF!”

And when the word comes down what do we all do? We panic, we pull out our hair and tear our clothes and we whine. There’s nothing like a good whine, I always say. But soon enough, we’ve all had enough whine.

Like a garden of beautiful blossoms, fantastic advice has popped up everywhere to guide us. Magnificent, excellent advice. It abounds and the sea is swollen with suggestions for website designs, blogging opportunities, platform planks (and the nails to hold it all together). What non-fiction writers and self-published authors have known all along is suddenly the law of reality for all.

PROMOTE THYSELF!

But, try real hard not to get lost in the raging pulse of great advice. Don’t drown. Take it little bits at a time; there are a million ways to cook a chicken. The key to a perfectly roasted bird is the same as the path to a perfectly executed promotional plan … patience, clarity, understanding the tools and using them well. Winging it just won’t work.

Don’t go off half-cocked (oh, another poultry pun) and blanket the world with unfocused press releases or emails to spam your (soon to be no longer) friends to death. Don’t sweat over seeking ill-defined speaking engagements or stapling posters on every telephone phone pole in sight. Your face with the scrawled words, “Have you seen this writer? He/She is starving! Please buy his/her book!” won’t actually do it.

PROMOTE THYSELF!

Do it carefully and unfortunately, in order to do it at all, you must first (yes, here it comes) … KNOW THYSELF … and (uh-huh) TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.

Know yourself, know your skills, know your abilities and know your limitations. If you don’t have the time or energy to run all over asking if you can sign books at all the tri-state B&N locations, think about hiring an assistant to help make all the arrangements. If you can’t figure out how to reach every newspaper in the northeast, hire a company that does the press release flight for you. If you can’t figure out where to start, hire a publicist. If you can’t afford a publicist, there are a hundred books, classes, clubs and organizations to show you how to proceed. Being a writer is a business, and few businesses are successful just because they opened their doors.

PROMOTE THYSELF.

If you’re not published yet, make your presence known. Who knows, the gods of publishing may reach down and touch you. Then where will you be? Unprepared, that’s where. Put together your business plan right now. Outline what makes you … the author … as valuable a product as the wonderful book you’ve written.

PROMOTE THYSELF

KNOW THYSELF

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

Now, I need to go baste the chicken.

Life Ain’t Easy For a Boy Named Bonaparte-Luis Henderschott

Thomas Roche, Write Sex 3 Responses »

Feb 032011

I’ve written so much at this point that I can’t be counted on to come up with names for a story all on my own. If I picked the first name that came into my head each time, every character would be named “Ben Tyler” or “Jake Davis” or “Jessica Miller” or something.

To pick my character names, I need piles of baby name books; I need Google Translate; I need actuarial tables.

All of this may be to my detriment. Making up names is easier than writing, so maybe this is just my way of procrastinating, like blogging or resorting all my paperbacks by the second letter of the title. And it certainly can take as much time as I let it — often more. For me, character naming can take on a life of its own.

The result of all this procrastination is that I’ve been told that I have a facility for coming up with colorful names. To be sure, my exceptionally bizarre character names like Irma Precht, Spunky DeShanski and Douglas “Woppo” Chamberlain come to mind when I choose to pat myself on the back for my writing talents — but just as many readers find my more esoteric character names annoying. I’ve been told things like, “I just couldn’t pay attention to the story because I was wondering why anyone would name their kid Arwycke.”

But coming up with completely bizarre character names is one of the few pleasures left to me in my old age, so at this point I can’t stop any more than I could stop breathing.

Still, it’s far from natural. When a story’s really pumping along, the last thing I want to do is stop and come up with a character name — or even the name of a company, hotel, or small town. That’s why my early works were laced with characters named things like “Jake Martin” and “Susan Green,” and occurred either in nameless big cities with streets called “Center Street,” “West Street” and “South Street,” or in towns called things like “Walkerton” and “Smithville.”

It’s only after I got to be more of a seasoned writer, and discovered baby name books, Excel and the data banks of the U.S. Census that I started really going ape shit when it comes to character names.

Many writers believe that the character and place names shouldn’t distract from the story. I basically agree, but for me, in some ways character and place names ARE the story. I love life at least partially because of its randomness. At least once a week in my reading, I encounter someone’s name that makes me go, “WTF? A Persian guy named McMurphy?” or something of the sort. Every time you learn someone’s name, you learn something about them. Names are evocative and illusory. They tell a story in and of themselves.

But many writers feel that the story names tell should be a non-story so that the story-story can stand out more strongly. To them, calling a character “Horse Badorties” would be ludicrous. A character named “Kilgore Trout” would be merely distracting.

I can’t say I disagree with them — and bizarre character names are more effective in satiric or humorous works, certainly. But I find those same writers who oppose unusual character naming conventions on the grounds that such names call attention to themselves aren’t always standing on the most solid of ground. They’re often the ones whose characters are named “Veronica Traynor,” “Bowden Blackheath,” and “Treat Scarborough.”

Seriously — this is supposed to be an erotica and romance writer’s blog, so I can’t let this one drop. Having had, for most of my reading life, little interest in romance novels — but respecting them wholeheartedly as an art form — I recognize that characters named things like “Devlin Raffterty” are expected in the genre as surely as characters named things like “Jack McCarthy” are expected in the international-thriller genre, and crime novels feature characters named things like “Burke.”

I would never expect a romance novel not to have main characters with names that stir my quest for adventure and, of course, love. But too often the names of romance novel characters go way overboard, without the satiric intent that drives a name like Kilgore Trout. I don’t know if it’s just my perception, but it seems like the names of romance novel heroes and heroines — and here I include paranormal fiction — have been getting ever more bizarre and outrageous since genre fiction started its migration to ebooks.

I’m not saying don’t name your broad-chested erotic romance novel hero “Dionysus Rapture” — just be aware of what you’re doing.

To be certain, there’s no reason to agonize over names if you don’t want to. There are plenty of people named “Jim Parks” out there, so it’s plenty realistic, if your characters are American and have essentially European names (which may or may not mean they’re of European descent) to name your characters something that won’t stick out in the reader’s mind.

But, speaking for myself, if I just picked the first name that came to mind I would call everybody some variation of something like “Tess Williams,” “Brock Proctor,” or “Lou Sinclair.” They would all sound like standard-issue dime-novel characters. That’s not a bad thing, but it doesn’t inspire me.

Personally, I’d rather haul out the baby name book and pore over it for a few hours looking for just the right name.

Hell, it’s easier than actually getting down to writing — am I right or am I right?

PSEUDONYMS: WHEN TO AND WHEN NOT TO

Jean Marie Stine, Write Sex 4 Responses »

Jan 282011

WHEN NOT TO USE A PSEUDONYM AND WHY

When Bjo Trimble (justly famed as the “woman who saved Star Trek”) advised author and editor Ted White that she was thinking of using a pseudonym on a science fiction novel she was writing, told her bluntly, “Don’t. An author’s name is his or her stock in trade. It is what you want readers to be thinking of when they are at a bookstore looking for a book to read. The easier you make it for them to associate the name with a real person, the easier you make it for them to remember the name in the future.”

Ted White, then, was all for a writer using their real name rather than a pen name that would conceal their identity. It seems to work. When I go to the bookstore these days I am looking for Cathy Reichs, James Lee Burke, or the new Peter Robinson. All are real people with real names.

There are notable exceptions to this rule. Mark Twain, for instance. But there is not much confusion. Mark Twain lived so much of his life openly as Twain, that I would not be surprise if you, too, didn’t think of him first as Twain and then as Clements.

Clearly, this is not an absolute rule. None is. There exceptions. But consider carefully before deciding to make exceptions. Nothing less than your future writing career is at stake.

Consider: Suppose you create a pseudonym and then after writing several books change your mind and decide to come out as yourself and start writing books under your own name. Unless you are writing a completely different type of book now and will not be appealing to your former readers, you will lose some large percentage of your original audience, the one you developed for your pseudonym, and never gain it back. Changing horses in midstream like this is counterindicated.

WHEN TO USE A PSEUDONYM

There are three major justifications for using a pseudonym, when it may be and probably is to your advantage to hide your identity behind a made up name.

The first is that using your real name on something tgat could cost your job or customers – in short income. You could be writing a series of thinly disguised books about real people you know or work with, who would fire you or stop patronizing your business if you published it under your own name. Or, it might be works that exposed secrets of, or made fun of, your industry, job, or profession, where the results would be the same. For that matter, if you are in a profession that takes it self seriously, like banking or academe, and you seem to be writing what your bosses and colleagues consider frivolous, like pulpish mystery thrillers, it could be seen as lowering your gravitas, and you might find yourself eased out the door. Or some other variant where putting your name on the book would place you in serious jeopardy of serious financial loss.

The second major justification for employing a pseudonym rather than your actual moniker is that it would cost you friends or loved ones. This is almost always a case where you are writing about friends, family and acquaintances, and presenting things they have said and done that are embarrassing, unattractive, or that even show them in a very bad light. Things that if written under your own name, and read by mutual acquaintances, would very likely lead to the person you were describing being recognized by everyone, causing the subject of the piece humiliation and likely generate furious anger at you as well.

The third is that you are writing something so inflammatory that that it might put you in danger of losing both job/income and your family/friends. These days that often comes down to erotica. Writers living in small towns, or whose friends, families and associates are conservative in bent, are making s sensible choice when they put a pseudonym on their works. Of course, in a sophisticated city like San Francisco or New York, the effect might be the reverse, and being known as someone who writes erotica may enhance the luster of one’s reputation. Whatever the reason, today, unlike the 1960s and 1970s, many authors proudly put their own names on their erotica.

Sometimes writers producing stories and books on more than one genre will use their true names for books in one genre and a pseudonym on books intended for a different genre. At one time it was considered that if a person was going to write mysteries, and say westerns, that mystery readers would avoid books by someone who also wrote westerns because they would think the author was not really serious about mysteries. And that readers of westerns would disdain anyone who wrote contemporary mysteries with urban settings because they would feel that a writer who could do that well could not possibly capture the authentic feel of the old west. Today, however, that seems to be changing. Increasingly, readers seem willing to accept what are called crossgenre writers, who excel at producing stories of more than one type. Elmo Leonard is accepted as both a western writer and a mystery novelist, while a number of major fantasy novelists are also accepted as authors of credible, realistic mysteries.

I will have a few words to say about choosing pseudonyms in my next post.

Emotional Survival Kit

Write Sex 12 Responses »

Jan 202011

Please read this if you just had something rejected:

It’s part of being a writer. Everyone gets rejected. Repeat after me: EVERYONE GETS REJECTED. This does not mean you are a bad writer or a bad person. Stories get rejected for all kinds of reasons, from “just not the right style” to a just plain grouchy (or really dumb) editor. Take a few deep breaths, do a little research, and send the story right out again or put it in a drawer, forget about it, remember it again, take it out, read it, and realize it really is DAMNED good. Then send it out again.

Never forget that writing is subjective. My idea of a good story is not yours, yours is not his, and his is not mine. Just because an editor doesn’t like your story doesn’t mean that everyone will, or must, dislike it as well. Popularity and money don’t equal quality, and struggle and disappointment don’t mean bad work. Keep trying. Keep trying. Keep trying.

Think about the rewards, about what you’re doing when you write. I love films, but I hate it when people think they are the ultimate artistic expression. Look at a movie – any movie – and you see one name above all the others: the director, usually. But did he write the script, set the stage, design the costumes, act, compose the music, or anything really except point the camera and tell everyone where to stand? A writer is all of that. A director stands on the shoulders of hundreds of people, but a writer is alone. Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Austin, Shakespeare, Homer, Joyce, Faulkner, Woolf, Mishima, Chekhov – all of them, every writer, created works of wonder and beauty all by themselves. That is marvelous. Special. That one person can create a work that can last for decades, centuries, or even millennia. We pick up a book, and through the power of the author’s words, we go somewhere we have never been, become someone new, and experience things we never imagined. More than anything else in this world, that is true, real magic.

When you write a story, you have created something that no one – NO ONE – in the entire history of history has done. Your story is yours and yours alone; it is unique and you, for doing it, are just as unique.

Take a walk. Look at the people you pass on the street. Think about writing, and sending out your work: what you are doing is rare, special, and DAMNED brave. You are doing something that very few people on this entire planet are capable of, either artistically or emotionally. You may not have succeeded this time, but if you keep trying, keep writing, keep sending out stories, keep growing as a person as well as a writer, then you will succeed. The only way to fail as a writer is to stop writing.

But above all else, keep writing. That’s what you are, after all: a writer.

****

Please read if you just had something accepted:

Big deal. It’s a start. It’s just a start. It’s one sale, just one. This doesn’t make you a better person, or a better writer than anyone else out there trying to get his or her work into print. You lucked out. The editor happened to like your style and what you wrote about. Hell, maybe it was just that you happened to have set your story in their old hometown.

Don’t open the champagne; don’t think about royalty checks and huge mansions. Don’t brag to your friends, and don’t start writing your Pulitzer acceptance speech. Smile, yes; grin, absolutely, but remember this is just one step down a very long road.

Yes, someone has bought your work. You’re a professional. But no one will write you, telling you they saw your work and loved it; no one will chase you down the street for your autograph; no one will call you up begging for a book or movie contract.

After the book comes out, the magazine is on the stands, or the Web site is up, you will be right back where you started: writing and sending out stories, just another voice trying to be heard.

If you write only to sell, to carve out your name, you are not in control of your writing life. Your ego and your pride are now in the hands of someone else. Editors and publishers can now destroy you, just as easily as they can falsely inflate you.

It’s nice to sell, to see your name in print, but don’t write just for that reason. Write for the one person in the whole world who matters: yourself. If you like what you do, and enjoy the process: the way the words flow, the story forms, the characters develop, and the subtleties emerge, then no one can rule what you create, or have you jump through emotional hoops. If a story sells, that’s nice, but when you write something that you know is great – something that you read and tells you that you’re becoming a better and better writer – that’s the best reward there is.

But above all else, keep writing. That’s what you are, after all: a writer.

No Muse Is Good Muse

Write Sex 2 Responses »

Jan 132011

No Muse Is Good Muse

So it’s another one of these columns where I will speak less about the specifics of SEO writing then the approach I think best suits the working writer, or the one who wants to work. Whatever it is you’re doing, SEO work (writing copy with specific keywords for search engines) editing or if you’re lucky enough to make fiction writing your main gig, I think it behooves a writer to wait for his or her muse.

A muse, if one exists (and I have a hard time believing in the concept) ain’t gonna put food on your table. If you are a writer, write. Stop blogging about writing, stop tweeting or twatting about it, stop professing to people that you write and you have the great American novel on your hard drive awaiting completion. Please do me, your family, friends and fellow writers a favor…just fucking write!

If you have a job that will pay you to move those stubby little digits across a computer keyboard and the job is paying you what you feel is a honest wage, then you best get on the job and start writing, cause the worst thing to be is a writer waiting for inspiration while money passes you by. Be inspired all you want, feel the vibe and the verve and the shuck and jive, stand on your head if you have to, but one need remember this writing thang we do, especially if one is writing stuff like SEO copy, is a job. Negotiate a good pay, stay off your twitter-really nobody cares how many followers you have, it doesn’t give your meaningless existence any more weight-and write.

The only way I ever got the jobs I did or the one I presently have is by working. I either worked directly to solicit the job, or my name was given to someone from work I did previously, or what little rep. I do happen to have I got by…yes, say it out loud with me kids….by working writing!

The nuts and bolts of SEO writing I can sum up for you right here, right now…either find or have your employer give you the keywords he or she want to get into the copy, write clear and concise copy to your employers specification, put those keywords in the copy judicously, have the copy make sense and make sure to stay on your point in the words allotted. Don’t stuff keywords by keeping the ratio pretty well even through-ut your paragraphs and you’re mostly there.

But none of the paragraph above will mean doodly unless you…that’s right, say it with me again kids…unless you write. Unless you work. Unless you get up off your ass (or sit down on it), turn off the PDA, close the Facebook account-believe me if you log on an hour from now you’re not going have missed a blessed thing-and welcome the muse called commerce and do your job. You’re a writer right? Writers right. If you think for a millisecond that what you do is really all that more important than anyone else’s job, that you are on the fast track to inspiration because you do something ‘creative’, that you’re any more special then the dude that picks up your garbage, then do me a favor, go on your Twitter account and tell all your friends. They believe they are just as special

For the rest of us slobs, I say, keep writing.

Welcome to 2011!

Sascha Illyvich 1 Response »

Jan 062011

Can you believe that it’s been a year since we started this blog? I’ve been so lucky and blessed with the company I’ve been keeping here, started new projects with some of them, worked with others for a more prosperous career and ultimately helped a ton of you to become better, more educated writers. The purpose of this blog was and is simple: Educate the writer on the craft of writing erotica in any form, be it a little hint of smut here or a lot of sex there.

When I chose the players, I had an idea in mind. Not only did I want to partner with other professionals, but I wanted to bring something different, a powerhouse of well rounded talent that you the writer would benefit from. Becoming a successful writer isn’t just about writing a great story. It’s never been just about that. Though that IS the secret to making money, right? Just cracked the formula, didn’t I?

Sort of.

A great story is one that not only reads well, is written well but reaches a broad audience. Using the proper words to create images in the readers mind helps define your style as a writer but it also gives you potential for an even greater opportunity to capture market share. We’re not competing against one another, but rather working towards a common goal of enjoyment and entertainment, albeit sexual in nature. Some of us want a little romance, others want a little kink, and still others are uncertain until they’ve been exposed to your work.

Having stories that fit an audio market capture that all important sense many of us miss out on. It’s important to understand what audio erotica is and why we’re talking about this.

A need to be varied and flexible with story craft is important too. So is the desire to crank out fresh material.

All of these things plus the rest of the previous blog entries all come down to one thing in the end. You, the author. What IS your author platform? What is the hook, line and sinker you’re going to use once you’ve written that great book to sell it to a publisher? Are you familiar enough with the marketing aspects of basic blogging so that once the work is released, you can effectively market it?

The problem for most new writers is still that they have trouble wrapping their heads around all of the above mentioned things. That’s why we’re here. WriteSEX adds value to your platform, helps your career grow. If you’ve questions, we’ve more than likely got answers.

Because a world without questions, only has answers. I will resume story craft on my next post. For now, we’ve solidified a unique group with well over 100 years of combined experience in writing. And it’s my sincere belief that 2011 will be the year of the writer.

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Happy Holidays on behalf of WriteSEX!

Oceania, Sascha Illyvich No Responses »

Dec 172010

It’s that time and normally this is Oceania’s spot but she asked me to step in for her due to us being swamped with work commitments through the end of the year. I’d like to take this time to do two things.

First, I’d like to check in on you, the readers, to find out how you’ve been liking the blog so far and what you think we should cover in future topics. Tell us what’s been your favorite part of WriteSEX. Leave comments, subscribe, share with friends, have a party! LOL!

Second, I’d like to wish you all happy holidays and promise that our regular rotation will start up again on January 6th, exactly one year from when we launched this blog. Coming in 2011, we have more on the way in adding value to your writing so stay tuned here every Thursday!

Sascha and WriteSEX

Placeholders, Question Marks and Stuff in Brackets

Thomas Roche, Write Sex 1 Response »

Dec 092010

If you’ve done much fiction writing, it’s probably happened to you. You’re cooking along on a story or a novel, describing things as they happen. Then all of a sudden…you hit a brick wall. It’s not that you don’t know where your story goes in story terms — it’s that you don’t know how to describe what needs to happen next. I’m not talking about plot or story structure; I’m talking about scene-building and sensual details.

Let me give you an example. I recently wrote a novel that required me to know what it looked like, felt like and smelled like in about 40 different locations — on boats of one size or another, different areas of different ships, on the high seas off the east coast of South America vs. the west coast of Africa — etc. etc. etc.

The sensual details of a narrator’s experience are, to me, what are both most important and most pleasurable in the process of writing — especially writing long-form fiction like novels.

For me to enjoy writing a scene about being in the hold of a Bengali container ship, I need to have a sense of what it’s like there. My viewpoint character’s very tangible reality needs to become my reality. And yet this asshole insisted on doing crap I’d never done and going places I’d never been.

What a prick!! You believe the brass ones on this joker?

Sure, I can go back and find the memoirs of a Bengali sailor, if they exist; I can find an article about what it’s like to be on a ship; blah blah blah. I can do all of those things — but if I do them in the middle of my writing day, then the fiction doesn’t get written. Especially when I’m on a deadline, I simply can’t do all the research that is suggested by a plot that’s boiling over. That’s a sign that the plot is going swimmingly. Unfortunately, it’s also a huge pain in my ass.

This is one of the things I find most challenging about writing long-form fiction. If I’m doing it right, I run up against stuff I don’t know how to do. Some things are easy. Interpersonal stuff? Easy as pie, Bubba. I’m pretty good at imagining what it would be like for a middle-class, educated goth chick to confront her mother about her upbringing and say “You never loved me!” blah blah blah. I know what a shitty dive bar in Fresno smells like.

But as for what it feels like to jump out of a Coast Guard helicopter into storm waters off Santa Barbara, or crawl through a cave half a mile underground? I haven’t the foggiest.

People who have never written ten words of fiction, people who are seasoned fiction-writing professionals, and everyone in between, will tell you that the way to deal with this problem is to “Make it up.” That seems as obvious to them as they feel it should to me. Makes sense, right?

But “make it up,” to a fiction writer, has infinite permutations to it. The entire job description consists of “make it up,” so telling me to “make it up” is like telling a surgeon to “operate.” If you feel qualified to tell me that I should “make it up,” then you write the New York Times best-seller. Go ahead…I’m waiting.

“Make it up” is the hardest thing in the world for me when i don’t have a natural reference point for an experience. For me, with my style of composition, one detail depends on the detail before it. What kind of entrance a Bengali container ship has from the main deck to the deck below determines what it feels like to be there, to go through the entrance, to find a bunch of zombies puking green muck on you and howling, “Brains!!”

It’s awfully hard to keep a narrative flow going when you have big fat chunks of nothing in your writing. The details are not just critical in creating a finished piece of prose. To me, they’re critical in writing the next sentence. In order to get a flow going, I need to know not just whether my narrator’s boots make a clunking sound on the deck of the container ship, but what kind of clunking sound they make. I have to practically be able to hear it, and to smell the wind off the ocean as well as the dead bodies floating in the bay.

Thankfully, I’ve never smelled a San Francisco Bay choked with dead bodies — and I sure as hell hope I never do. There’s a lot of imagining and some not-imagining (aka, “research”) in figuring out just what it would smell like. If I haven’t done that before I sit down to write, I run into the potential problem of not knowing what to put down on the (virtual) page.

Of course, you can always write the “bare bones” of the action and leave the details to future rewrites, right? Easy! Easy as pie!

Yeah, I tried that.

The result? Sparkling prose. Stirring literature. Pathos! Excitement! Drama! Question marks! Stuff in brackets!

I’d end up typing whole paragraphs that looked something like this:

We ran across the ??steel?? deck and found the ??hatch?? and took the ??spiral stairs?? to ??Deck 4??, where we knew we’d find a ??med kit?? we could scavenge for ??thiopentone?? [They find zombies hiding somewhere in the nooks and crannies of whatever a bengali container ship has on its second deck [[how are decks designated on container ships again?]]]. Then the engines began to ??throb??…

Isn’t that thrilling and exciting prose? Personally, I’m on the edge of my seat. When can I expect my Pulitzer again? Actually, I think I’d prefer to win the Nebula first — then the Pulitzer. Can you just send it to my agent’s office? Thanks.

Sure, that’s not what the publisher or the reader is going to see, but that’s hardly the point. The point is, it’s no goddamn fun to write.

Maybe you’ve encountered this problem in your own writing. It could be virtually any situation; it’s the thing that brings your narrative to a grinding halt, because you’re not sure how to describe what happens next.

The only way to get through it is to get through it. The best technique I found is to make everything up — to the point of making up more details than are necessary. I superimpose other experiences that I have had — or feel like I might have had — on top of the ones I haven’t.

For me, the thing that works better rather than writing paragraphs packed with placeholders and question marks is writing fiction packed with sensual details that are complete and utter bullshit. I know a Bengali container ship doesn’t smell like the cargo hold of a C-5, but I’ve been in the cargo hold of a C-5 and I’ve never been in a Bengali container ship.

The lesson, for me, is that going back and taking out inaccurate details is a hell of a lot easier than adding ones in over question marks and crap in brackets.

For me, whether in fiction, fantasy or reality, the sensual facts of an experience are the things I retain — sights, smells, sounds, tastes, feelings.

Yes, I do — in most cases — want these to be accurate in my final draft.

But when it comes to a first draft, those details don’t need to be accurate. They just need to be compelling.

The conclusion? “Use question marks, brackets and placeholders at your peril.” Here endeth the lesson.

Guest Post from the Coffee Crew: What Reviewers Are Looking For

Guest Blog 2 Responses »

Dec 032010

Do you write erotic romance? Have you ever wondered when you’re working on your book what it is that reviewers are looking for? Even if you don’t think so much about that until it comes time to send your book in to reviewers, I’ll bet you think about it then.

The truth is that for the most part reviewers are looking for the same sorts of things that readers are. When a group of reviewers was interviewed regarding this topic, these where the things were the things they said they were looking for to give a good rating and review.
• A solid plot. Erotic romances that are just one sex scene after the other without any real plot are in reviewer’s eyes no better than porn.
• An emotional connection between the lovers. While it does not have to deep and abiding forever love, reviewers are looking for that emotional connection. If it’s not there, then the book may receive a lower rating.
• Stories that build the anticipation. Reviewers aren’t necessarily looking for the book to open with a sex scene as you might think. Instead, they are looking for that build-up to the sex scene(s), that anticipation of what is to come shown by the words and the physical expressions of affection such as kisses and touches. This is not to say that there aren’t good erotic romances that start out with a sex scene, but without the other elements mentioned in combination with at least a few paragraphs or pages of build-up to that scene, as a writer you are skirting the fine line between erotic romance and porn.
• Another thing that came up in the interviews was that m/m erotic romances seem to be the best at conveying the emotional connection between lovers. That being said, as a writer, even if you don’t write or enjoy m/m romance, it behooves you to check some of these out and employ the same techniques with your own stories. Reviewers want to see more well-written m/m erotic romance, and more erotic romances where there is the same type of dynamic between lovers as exists in many m/m erotic romances.

There were also a few things that reviewers really, really didn’t want to see when it comes to erotic romance, according to the interviews.
• Sex for the sake of sex. When an erotic romance writer writes in sex scenes just for the sake of having them rather than using them to help move the storyline along, then this can be a real turn-off for reviewers.
• Extreme BDSM practices such as knife play, people being kept like animals in cages, and BDSM situations where it is obvious abuse is happening and or the BDSM is not consensual. This is not to say that reviewers don’t know the difference between safe, sane and consensual practices such as wax play, bondage, voyeurism, or even leading someone around on a leash for example, and the more extreme practices as mentioned above, because many do. However, according to the interviews, reviewers have read books where these extreme practices that were more about adding a shock value than furthering the storyline, were added, and they didn’t like them. The scenes were often poorly written and showed that the writer did not understand the heart of BDSM, and that the writer did not really do any serious research. These types of scenes tend to lead to lower ratings on reviews and are a turn-off to many reviewers.
• Stories where a character who is obviously a main player is treated as if they are an afterthought or don’t matter. This was mentioned a couple of different times during the interview process. One example given was a f/f erotic romance where one of the lovers had no name in the story. To the reviewer it was as if the writer were saying that this character didn’t matter. Another example given was a story where there were two male lovers and one female.

The author made it clear that the men were “in love” but while they both had sex with the woman, she was treated by the men as if she didn’t really matter. It made the reader wonder why the woman was even in the story if she could not be added in as one who was loved or at the very least cared for.

So, now you know what reviewers are looking for when they read and review erotic romances, as well as, what they w ould like to see more of in the future. Reviewers are an excellent barometer for what readers are going to like as well. So, if reviewers like your books, then chances are, the readers will as well!

Thanks to the Coffee Crew at Coffee Time Romance & More for answering the endless survey questions!
Special thanks to author, Regina Paul, for taking our information, making sense out of it, and for creating this wonderfully cohesive article.

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That Dead from the Neck Up Feeling

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Emotional Survival Kit

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