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In regards to the last of erotica’s sins, a well-known publisher of sexually explicit materials put it elegantly and succinctly: “Just don’t fuck anyone to death.” As with the rest of the potentially problematic themes I’ve discussed here, the bottom line is context and execution: you can almost anything if you do it well—and if not well, then don’t bother doing it at all.

Violence can be a very seductive element to add to any genre, let alone erotica, mainly because it’s just about everywhere around us. Face it, we live in a severely screwed up culture: cut someone’s head off and you get an R rating, but give someone head and it’s an X. It’s kind of natural that many people want to use some degree of violence in their erotica, more than likely because they’ve seen more people killed than loved on-screen. But violence, especially over-the-top kind of stuff (i.e. run of the mill for Hollywood), usually doesn’t fly in erotic writing. Part of that is because erotica editors and publishers know that even putting a little violence in an erotic story or anthology concept can open them up to criticism from all kinds of camps: the left, the right, and even folks who’d normally be fence-sitters—and give a distributor a reason not to carry the book.
One of the biggest risks that can happen with including violence in an erotic story is when the violence affects the sex. That sounds weird; especially since I’ve often said that including other factors are essential to a well-written erotic story. The problem is that when violence enters a story and has a direct impact on the sex acts or sexuality of the character, or characters, the story can easily come off as either manipulative or pro-violence. Balancing the repercussions of a violent act on a character is tricky, especially as the primary focus of the story. However, when violence is not central to the sexuality of the characters but can affect them in other ways it becomes less easy to finger point—such as in noir, horror, etc—where the violence is background, mood, plot, or similar without a direct and obvious impact on how the character views sex. That’s not to say it isn’t something to shoot for, but it remains one of the harder tricks to pull off.

Then there’s the issue of severity and gratuitousness. As in depicting the actual sex in sex writing, a little goes a long way: relishing in every little detail of any act can easily push sex, violence, or anything else into the realm of comedy, or at least bad taste. A story that reads like nothing but an excuse to wallow in blood—or other body fluids—can many times be a big turn-off to an editor or publisher. In other words, you don’t want to beat a reader senseless.

But the biggest problem with violence is when it has a direct sexual contact. In other words, rape. Personally, this is a big button-pusher, mainly because I’ve only read one or two stories that handled it … I can’t really say well because there’s nothing good about that reprehensible act, but there have been a few stories I’ve read that treat it with respect, depth, and complexity. The keyword in that is few: for every well-executed story dealing with sexual assault there are dozens and dozens that make me furious, at the very least. I still remember the pro-rape story I had the misfortune to read several years ago. To this day, I keep it in the back of my mind as an example of how awful a story can be.

Sometimes violence can slip into a story as a component of S/M play. You know: a person assaulted by a masked intruder who is really (ta-da!) the person’s partner indulging in a bit of harsh role-play. Aside from being old hat and thoroughly predicable, stories like this can also fall into the “all pain is good pain for a masochist” cliché, unless, as with all things, it’s handled with care and/or flair.

Summing up, there is nothing you cannot write about: even this erotic “sin” or the others I’ve mentioned. However, some subjects are simply problematic in regards to sales potential: themes and activities that are loaded with emotional booby traps have to be carefully handled if the story is going to be seen as anything other than a provocative device. The affective use of these subjects has always been dependant on the writer’s ability to treat them with respect. If you have any doubts about what that might be, just imagine being on the receiving end: extrapolate your feelings as if one of your own personal traumas or sexual issues was used as a cheap story device or plot point in a story. Empathy is always a very important facility for a writer to develop—especially when dealing with sensitive or provocative issues.

In short, if you don’t like being beaten up, then don’t do it to someone else, or if you do, then try and understand how much it hurts and why. Taking a few body blows for your characters might make you a bit black and blue emotionally, but the added dimension and sensitivity it gives can change an erotic sin, something normally just exploitive, to … well, if not a virtue, then at least a story with a respectful sinner as its author.

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Like bestiality—and unlike underage sexuality—incest is a tough nut: it’s not something you might accidentally insert into an erotic story. Also like bestiality, it’s something that can definitely push—if not slam—the buttons of an editor or publisher. Yet, as with all of these “sins,” the rules are not as set in stone as you’d think. Hell, I even managed to not only write and sell an incest story (“Spike,” which is the lead story in Dirty Words) but it also ended up in Best Gay Erotica. The trick, and with any of these erotic button-pushers, is context. In the case of “Spike” I took a humorous, surreal take on brother/brother sexuality, depicting a pair of twin punks who share and share alike sexually, until their world is shattered (and expanded) by some rough S/M play.

As with any of the “sins,” a story that deals with incest in a thought- provoking or sideways humorous manner might not scream at an editor or publisher I’M AN INCEST STORY. Instead, it will come across as humorous or thought-provoking first, and as a tale dealing with incest second. Still, once it comes to light, there’s always a chance the story might still scream a bit, but if you’re a skilled writer telling an interesting story, there’s still a chance quality could win over the theme.

Unlike bestiality, incest has very, very few stretches (like aliens and myths with bestiality). It’s very hard to stumble into incest. In short, you’re related or you’re not. As far as degree of relationship, that depends on the story and the intent: immediate family relations are damned tough to deal with, but first cousins fooling around behind the barn are quite another.

Even though incest is pretty damned apparent in a story, that doesn’t mean the theme or the subtext can’t be touched on. Sometimes the forbidden or the unexpected lying under the surface can add depth to a story: a brother being protective of his attractive sister, a mother shopping for a date for a daughter, a father trying to steer his son’s sexuality, a daughter’s sexual explorations alarming (and enticing) a mother or father’s fantasies, and so forth. Technically, some of these dip into incest, if not the act then at least the territory, but if handled well they can add an interesting facet to an otherwise mundane story. It’s a theme that’s also been played with, successfully, for centuries. Even the myth of Pygmalion—a sculptor falling in love with his creation—can almost be considered a story of incest, as the artist was a parent, then a lover.

Conversely, incest can dull a situation when the emotions of the lovers involved become turned: as an example, where a person begins to feel more of a caregiver or mentor than a partner: the thought or even fantasies around sexuality with the person being cared-for or taught start to feel inappropriate. Conversely, someone might enjoy the forbidden spice of feeling sexual towards someone they’ve only thought of as a son or daughter, mother or father figure. This is also an old plaything for storytellers, the most common being a person looking for a partner to replace the strength and nurturing left behind when they grew up and moved out—or, from the new partner’s point of view, the shock in realizing they have been selected to fulfill that role.

As with any of these “sins,” fantasy can be a factor in being able to play with these themes. Having a character imagine making love to their mom (shudder) is in many editors or publishers eyes the same thing as actually doing it—but accepting and using the theme in, say, play-acting, where the reality is separated because the participants aren’t related in any way, is more acceptable. As with under-age play, S/M and dominance and submission games can also use incest as a spice or forbidden theme—especially in infantilism games, where one person pretends to be an abusive or nurturing parental figure. Once again, play versus reality (even imagined reality) can work where normally no one would dare tread.

The bottom line, of course, is whether or not the story is using this theme in an interesting or thought-provoking way, or just as a cheap shot. If you have any questions, either try and look at the story with a neutral eye, or ask a friend you respect for their opinion. But I wouldn’t ask your parents.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The most important thing however, is that you write.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Low and behold, writers’ work is being undervalued. What a surprise!

Unfortunately from the ads I read on Freelancers Marketplace and in Craig’s List (God knows why I am still looking for work on Craig’s List, I should be looking for killers, right?) the prices for what we do have not increased, if anything they seem to be going into the toilet. Attempting to stay humble in the SEO writing I do, trying to consider myself as well as the work as simply work and nothing to get my panties all in a twist about (and if it’s a Tuesday you probably can catch me in panties) I really don’t ever gauge anybody with the prices I ask and if anything seriously all jobs that come my way, since being a freelancer you really don’t have much of a choice.

But some of these salaries,$3 per a 500 word blog, for instance? Are we kidding? There is a fine line between selling yourself and selling yourself short. I know we all need the work, I know lots of people claim they can shoot out weekly blogs, review and renew existing SEO copy or create new, but let me assure my little droogies, not everybody can do this work and those of us who can should not be treated as if we are just like everybody else, treated like it didn’t take a while to nurture these skills we have, treated like it doesn’t much matter if we work for slave wages because, let’s face it, we’re just lowly writers.

The web is the great wasteland kids, though it might make us some money and see us manage a one-handed chat or two. Everybody comes on, every puts their band’s music up on Facebook and every thinks they can write or at the very least can hire just any ole writer to do any ole job…and pay nothing for it. You don’t have to think you are ‘all that’ to demand a decent day’s pay for your work and you certainly don’t have to accept pay that undervalues you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

  1. Tell the story from the character’s POV that has the MOST to lose
  2. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Last time I had the blog we talked about developing a creative personality for the mind in writing short stories

Publishing the hottest in classic and current erotica and erotic romance

The following is a high-octane problem-buster that will make child’s play of even the hardest brain-stumpers and grind down to a manageable size even the most insurmountable dilemmas. It is a development of ideas pioneered by Tony Hodgson, and others.

It’s based on the well-established finding from psychological research that the more different perspectives we bring to a problem, the more ideas we are likely to generate and the more complete our perceptions of it.

You’ve heard of seeing the world through ‘rose-colored glasses’, which cause one to see only the sunny side of things.

Imagine the effect of seeing the world through ten different pairs of colored glasses — one for each hue in the rainbow (and each different spectrum of our mental processes).

Regardless of how difficult the dilemma, you’ll have found the answer long before you’ve tried on the tenth pair. By examining a challenging circumstance through each set of ‘colored glasses’ (each different mental perspective), we achieve a complete, rather than a partial, view, and engage our minds to consider it far more deeply.

 

 

Here are the TEN COLORS

*White – cognitive, the way our mind functions when we are learning, thinking, increasing knowledge or understanding.

* Grey – factual, the way our mind functions when we are absorbing information, scanning for important and critical data.

* Yellow – opportunistic, the way our mind works when we view possibilities from a sunny cheerful, optimistic, positive point of view, and see how we can capitalize on and make the best of events and situations around us.

* Black – critical, the way our mind functions when we are serious, skeptical, analytic, seeing the potential problems on the road ahead.

* Green – creative, the way our mind functions when it sends up the shoots of fresh, new imaginative, creative, innovative new ideas.

* Brown – practical, the way our mind things when we are being down to earth, thinking things through logically, incrementally, objectively, within existing systems and assumptions.

* Blue – holistic, the way our minds work when we are looking at the big picture and engaged in strategic planning.

* Orange -molecular, the way our mind works when we are attempting to throw light on the individual parts of something, either to identify or place them.

* Violet – directive, the way our mind works when we are thinking about crucial aims, objectives, decisions, when we have arrived at a turning point or crossroads, and have to make a gut-level choice about what it is we truly want.

* Red – Opinionated, the way our mind works when we are offering our own view or seeking the views of others, and either arguing our position, debating another, or melding the two together to achieve a greater understanding or consensus.

Next time we’ll cover the last lesson from me on Developing your Creativity

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