Sascha Illyvich | Write Sex

Editor Time Tables in Erotica

May 032012

One of the things I’m hearing from authors is the waiting time between submission and the actual time for publication. E-pubs are taking far longer than they used to and some authors, especially the newer ones or the ones with more of a following are having a hard time dealing with it. Even in erotica, release dates can be up to six months long, as can acceptances of stories submitted.

The reason? Let’s look at some numbers.

For a company like Sizzler Editions with 200+ authors, let’s assume 30% of those authors are regulars who contribute frequently, sub to us on a regular basis of once every few months. Each book goes through the same process by a SMALL editing/approval team, starting with the initial submissions editor and finally leading up to the publisher for final approval. Based on that figure, that’s 60 authors who write regularly, submitting stories ranging from 30k to 100k. If I as an editor of the Intoxication line have a portion of those stories sent to me, say half, that’s roughly 30 stories over the course of a few months. Not a large number BUT, editors aren’t just editors, they’re people. They have to evaluate the stories, see if they can be worked with and molded, then forward the stories up the chain o command. This can take a few minutes, a few hours or a day or more depending on backlog.

The editing itself on ONE book may range from simple mistakes to the more complex. I as an editor don’t edit for plot, unless the plot is majorly screwy and it’s going to prevent a good review. At another publisher I write for, they have three editors, a line editor, a copy editor and a final line editor to catch as many mistakes as possible. Right now, I do all that for my Sizzler Authors.

Imagine now piling up several books on one editor and then the continuous flow of creativity writers have, combined with the rest of the process.

Book gets edited, then there are the final edits and last minute changes/fixes, then there’s cover art design, formatting and finally turning the MS in to the publisher.

Even the larger e-publishers are still small in manpower, and at the end of the (usually long) work day, there is still much to do. As e-publishing has grown, so have the demands on the people at the companies to churn out quality fiction. Erotica is no different.

That by the way ignores the emails to authors, emails to publishers and oh yeah, did I mention I’m a writer first?

The BEST way to capture an editor’s attention in erotica is simply to write a damn good, clean, tight story. The more stories that come across my desk requiring less work make it easier for all of us to do our job and release quality e-books to the voracious reading public. Study the guidelines by each publisher and make sure you understand the sorts of stories they’re looking for before submitting. If you don’t understand something, feel free to email us. Yeah, it slows things down but we’d rather deal with an issue up front than have to slow down everything in the middle of the cycle.

Sizzler Intoxication Guidelines can be found here

In the end, we’ll both be happy, albeit the patience game sucks. As relations develop with your editor, things can be moved around depending on a number of factors such as sales, enthusiasm for marketing the book, and of course, time spent editing.

The Press Kit – Yes Even For Erotica Authors

Sascha Illyvich No Responses »

Apr 202012

I’m wearing my editor hat for this post.

When an author starts to acquire publishing credits, the first thing an agent, new editor or someone with power will do is look for the author’s press kit. We need to know what you’ve done, how you’ve done it and what that’s done for your career. It m ay seem a little old fashioned, but the importance of an author press kit cannot be emphasized enough.

Let’s break down the press kit.

For any author, the following documents should be present:

1Page – the one page that you hand out at conventions and send to organizations you approach for teaching/speaking engagements
Backlist – Your complete, up to date back list of publishing credits, books released
A professional photo – No stupid shit poses please. You’re putting your best face forward
Covers of last three releases
3rd person author bio

That’s it! It should also be zipped in .zip or .rar format and easily found on your website.

Yes, social media and web 2.0 make it easier for any editor to google you and find your results but you’re not doing this for me, the editor. Not entirely. You’re doing this because even as a smut writer, you’re still a professional. You’re still looking at this from a career standpoint and coming off as someone who takes their career seriously will differentiate you from the others in your field who don’t do these simple things.

The 1 Page and back list come in handy often when you’re doing promotions by the way. The back list comes in handy when your readers ask what else you’ve done or where you’ve been published and. Giving you a quick reference makes it easier to make a quick sale when you can pull up a file, copy and paste a link or send in an email.

The author bio is obvious, a short, 100 word or less bio of who you are that includes recent publishing credits and facts about you. Mine is up at Sascha’s Secrets.

The 1Page is a document that shows overall accomplishments in your career. WriteSEX contributor M. Christian and I use a dual column layout that details basics such as the facts. I’m an author of X amount of stories (btw 39 for me!) and beneath it, editing credits, WriteSEX credits, teaching gigs, what I can do for you and finally, some reader accolades.

What if you’re lacking in credits? Look, really look, at your career and what you’ve done. Have you freelance edited for someone else? That counts. Do you have anything in your author platform you can utilize? Put that down.

The Press Kit is the one staple that helps you more than you think.

Oceania will hopefully return soon to WriteSEX but in the meantime, we have exciting changes coming up on the blog.

From the Editor – Selling the Book via the Sexy Excerpt

Sascha Illyvich No Responses »

Apr 052012

One of the things I get asked as an editor is how do I effectively market and sell my book? In other words, what’s the best use of my time as an author? Unfortunately, this isn’t a short answer but it is an easy one. From an editor’s perspective, we acquire books based on how good a story can be told, how well the writer’s skills are and lastly, how the story can make us (the publisher and author) money.

The easiest tool any author has in their arsenal is the excerpt. Yup, you saw it. It’s really that easy. Once a story is polished and the author has seen their corrected galleys, they should feel free to chose an excerpt that meets the needs of their audience. This being WriteSEX, and an erotica based audience, we want to see SEX! Yes, adult content, sex, two (or more) bodies building up the anticipation of a climax we believe is going to happen.

In erotica – sex IS the plot.

In other erotic genres -sex FORWARDS the plot

That being said, we want to pull out a selection of text from our stories that sets the scene. If the story is erotica, we want to see as much of the buildup to the sex scene as possible without giving away the climax. Why? Because looking at one handed readers and getting them off doesn’t equal a sale if you do it in the excerpt. It’s like clip sites in pornography, you show me the money shot, why do I need to bother with the back story? Or anything else for that matter?

Take fore example an upcoming release “Treasure’s Gift.” It’s a FFM menage story for Decadent Publishing coming out soon. The blurb:

Treasure has always had a thing for Mark, her best friend. When he drops in unannounced, she’s glad until she realizes his workload is keeping him occupied when the only thing on her mind is jumping him. With the help of a very sexy friend, she uses the one thing designed to make Mark slow down and take notice. What will he do at the temptation of two beautiful women?

Sounds pretty simple, right?

Well here’s the excerpt I used originally:

Mark looked at Treasure, wishing he could just fall asleep in beautiful pools of her eyes. Or swim naked with her.

His cock hardened uncomfortably in his trousers. Could Treasure feel his arousal?

Did she know the depths of wickedness he’d love to explore with her?

He fought a yawn from the overbearing heat and length of his flight. Closing his eyes, he leaned back in the chair and let out a breath. The hectic schedule his travel required of him would exhaust anyone.

The fact that his property was in Kingwood, he had to fly into Houston Intercontinental and then drive all the way back to Sugarland where Treasure lived added to his building fatigue, but hell, he’d do anything to see her standing before him, looking at him with a hidden mischievous grin and her hands on her hips. Nipples would ache for him and jut out proudly while her oh so kissable lips moved.

“I’ve got all sorts of ideas, babe.”

“I’m sure you do,” she nodded. “Just come to bed when you’re done.”

She walked away, ass swaying from side to side with each step she took. Hands reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head before she disappeared, leaving him with a view of tanned skin, no bra and the need to slake his own primal needs tonight.

“Damnit!” Mark knocked back the drink and slammed the glass on the table. He certainly didn’t look forward to the next few weeks of very long Saturdays despite being so close to achieving his financial goals. Not if Treasure intended to taunt him with hints at her naked flesh.

He had to do something about his raging erection. Maybe a cold shower. Or maybe a long, hot shower featuring Treasure stepping into the large tub with him, setting her delectably round ass against his cock and coating his dick in her juices would…

Sadly, Mark showered quickly, ignoring his hard on. He dressed in pajama bottoms, a tank top that showed off his muscular arms and pale skin. Bedtime included a nightcap, a large one designed to knock him out so he’d sleep without dreaming of Treasure’s body blanketing his while her pussy milked the life out of him.

Mark slumped back in his chair, head hanging forward. He took a sip of bourbon, let the liquid burn his throat before he took another longer swig. Sitting up, he looked over the now neatly organized stack of papers

“Treasure?”

His lips curled upward.

The bedroom door opened. “Mark,” The soft lilting of her voice reignited the spark of arousal.

Mark set his glass on the desk and waited. “Yes dear?”

“It’s bedtime. Come to bed.”

She sounded needy. Another man would have missed the subtlety of want in her voice. “I have things to do before bed first.”

“Then I’ll come to you.” Her voice dripped with unmistakable husky lust.

Mark arched a brow.

A moment later, Treasure appeared before Mark wearing a black see through teddy that flowed out at the bottom with lace trimming and barely reached the top of her thighs. A scrap of lace hid both nipples and obscured his view of her sex. Dirty blonde hair fell around her shoulders in loose curls, bouncing with each step she took towards him. Hands started at her shoulders, smoothed down her arms, over full breasts and down her round stomach until stopping at her hips. Treasure stuck one leg forward, took a tentative step closer to Mark and stopped mere inches from him. “Well?”

His jaw dropped. He blinked several times to make sure he was seeing right before focusing on her expression.

She frowned. “You think I’m fat. I knew it.”

“No!” He stood and took her hands in his. His stomach tightened from the contact while his cock stirred against his pajamas. Blood pumped faster down south and his mouth went bone dry. “No, that’s not it. It’s just…just…wow Treasure. I’ve dreamed of this for years.”

“What do you intend to do now?” She tilted her head and her mouth curled into a wicked grin.

We’re left wondering if he’s really going to go forward with it like a man should, or if he’ll play an idiot and turn down his best friend. I could have used a longer excerpt to show you but again, that’s not creating demand for the reader to want to know more. Hopefully in the excerpt above I’ve convinced the reader to buy the story.

The excerpt should not only match the desired audience but should be LENGTHY depending on story size. Treasure’s Gift is only 5k in length, whereas my previous 1NS release from Decadent was 11k, and my excerpt was almost 2k. The rule of thumb is simple. You want to create as much want in the audience for your story as possible by keeping them ENGROSSED in your world for as long as possible, then pull the plug, leaving them with only the desire to buy your book.

I’ll cover more next time on Excerpts.

Growing Your Market in Erotica

Sascha Illyvich 6 Responses »

Mar 182012

Images copywright by owner, NOT writesex

The biggest thing authors, both old and new, have to deal with is growing your audience. If you’re old guard and established, take a look at your career level and ask yourself if you’re comfortable with where you’re at or if you’d like more growth. By this I mean do you wish to expand your audience (and your royalty check) and make a bigger name for yourself?

If you’re just starting out, can you grow your audience quickly?

Well, yes and no. The biggest challenge any author I know has is trying to figure out how to expand their readership without resorting to practically giving away the product. I’ll never support the artist mentality of being poor, broke, starving, sober and happy. It doesn’t pay the bills. But what does?

We’ve covered enough plotting and scene structure of a story, plus a plethora of other things in this blog to date that should help the author write solid marketable stories. Jean Marie has covered the factors that make an author successful from an erotic publisher’s standpoint and we’ve gone over other aspects of craft. By now you can write a story, novella or novel that a publisher should consider buying. But the biggest mistake most authors make in marketing their sold products is in how they go about marketing.

From a typical author’s standpoint, there are the following options:

Online chats
Facebook and Twitter
Blogging and Blog Tours
Business cards
Convention attendance

Online chats tend to be a waste of time, social media is a skill many do not possess, blogging and blog tours require tons of time spent writing posts that balance the close of a sale and the content management designed to keep readership up, BUT done successfully they work.

The last two require an outpouring of funds from the author, which is not always a smart move since it doesn’t make financial sense. If you’re talking about a low level convention such as last year’s Erotic Author’s Association Convention in Las Vegas, we’re talking air fare, hotel fare, convention fare (they stupidly didn’t wave fees for their speakers) and food. If it’s a more upscale and established convention like RWA Nationals, we’re talking hundreds of dollars if not more for just air fare and hotel PLUS convention fees. At least the folks at EAA kept the entrance fee fairly accessible.

If your royalties don’t justify going, then don’t. MONEY FLOWS TO THE AUTHOR, NOT AWAY. This is why I’m so against self publishing, because from a financial standpoint it makes NO sense. Yes there are exceptions, but they’re rare. It may not be about who has the most money at the end of their career but how much does it suck to know that nice $500 royalty check you made last month got sucked in one fell swoop by a convention that historically proves a low return for authors?

So what IS the secret for growing your audience?

I hesitate to reveal it because it really is THAT simple. Most people can’t grasp simple ideas, they seem “too easy.”

In an earlier post by Jean Marie Stine, she talked about reusing content across multiple sites and publishers, thus maximizing your income and keeping your time spent in proportion to monies earned. Yes this isn’t so easy to do with novels and novellas but short stories are what attract the reader to you initially. In the same vein, aren’t you writing short stories or taking your characters from the worlds you’ve created and writing short stories featuring them? If so, the free erotic story markets are your friend.

: Madison’s Cure and Other Erotica

Readers on sites like Literotica.com are voracious, many of them come back to the site to check it multiple times a day. Their favorite author or authors may have thrown up a new story, a new chapter, a continuation of some sort or who knows! The stats speak for themselves however. In the first month I posted a short story from Madison’s Cure and Other Erotica: A Best Of and found myself with 23,000 hits on that story. I followed up with a few more short stories and learned better the tricks for keywording a story to draw the attention of the reader. This taught me how to write better promo blurbs for when I had later stories published.

The point is, using the simple tricks to avoid spending money while improving time spent will over the course of your career help grow your name.

Happy New Year Writers!

Sascha Illyvich No Responses »

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

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.

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.

Character Devleopment in the Four Act Structure

Sascha Illyvich 6 Responses »

Apr 142011

In the last blog post we talked about the four act structure for novels in general. I promised I would cover how to write and use of the four acts in erotica/romance novels and how to apply it. We’ll take one of my longer stories as an example writing tip.

To react is to behave negatively and BE CONTROLLED by the situation. To respond is to behave positively and CONTROL the situation.

A reminder:

ACT ONE – INTRODUCTION
Here we meet the characters, get into the basics of our conflict

ACT TWO – CONFLICT
The main issue is slowly brought to light and dealt with using the characters old ways of being.

ACT THREE – THE REVERSAL
In this act we give the characters what they think they want, rather than what they need. We also make things more difficult in order to FORCE new behavior on our characters.

ACT FOUR – RESOLUTION
The characters learn lessons and change their ways of being to resolve the core issue.

First off, I used the words react and respond at the end of the previous post. The plot arc covers this as our characters go from reacting to an event to responding. The difference is simple. When plot and character arc happen to the character, initially they react, meaning they let the situation control their feelings and emotions. Behavior occurs with an old way of being. In my Male POV workshop we cover this concept of being, extensively but for now understand that just like us, our characters have a predefined tape in their heads. In our first act and throughout the story until we reach our black moment, our characters are going to react the way they normally would, despite having new information and a new way of being. This, in conjunction with conflict will ramp up tension for the reader and make them continue to read. This is especially true if we’re writing erotic romance where the plot has a strong focus on sex between the hero and heroine. The sexual encounters are where passion is explored and where emotional conflict comes out as characters think their way through their previous actions, think for the future of any relationships and continue to react to events in the first and maybe second sex scene.

In the middle sex scenes, characters have experiences that maybe didn’t go as they planned or were used to. They begin to question things and this is where the conflicts start to get heavier. As more pressure is put on our characters in the middle of the second Act that drives us towards conflict, they start to see that their old ways of being no longer work with the same results and something new needs to be done. But what?

This is where our black moment has the most impact. Our characters are lost both emotionally (depending on plot) and perhaps physically. The arc we’ll explore in another post will discuss character development in greater detail but for now, understand that there should be a shift in behavior on both parties. The point of view character starts looking at a new way of being to a situation. Thus, responding should occur during the climax and resolution of Act Four.

My next post will focus more on the character arc. Until then, stay tuned for Ralph Greco and our SEO adventures!

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