I’ve sort of touched on keeping an eye out for story ideas before, but it bears exploring a bit more. Keeping your work fresh is more than a little important for any writer, especially for smut authors.
For me, stories are everywhere – and to be honest I don’t think I’m special. It’s all a matter of keeping your eyes open, but most importantly PLAYING with the world around you.
It should be obvious that in order to write about the world you need to know something about it, but what a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that sitting in a coffee shop, scribbling away in a notebook while you ponder the imponderables of human nature isn’t likely to yield anything usable. Getting your hands dirty, though, will.
By that I mean really exploring yourself as well as other people. Look at who you are, why you do what you do – both emotionally as well as sexually. The same goes for the people around you. Spend some time really thinking about them, there motivations, their pleasures, or what experiences they may have had.
Dig deep: ponder their reactions as well as your own. Sharpen your perceptions. Why do they say what they say? What do people admire? Why? What do they despise? Why? That last question should almost always be in your mind – directed outward as well as inward: why? This depth of understanding, or just powerful examination, is a great tool for developing both stories as well as characters.
Along with studying the world, pay attention to good work no matter where you find it. A lot of writing teachers tell students to get intimate with the classics – which I agree with, but also think it’s equally important to recognize great writing even when it’s on the back of a cereal box. Read a lot, see a lot of movies, watch a lot of TV – and pay attention when something good, or great, comes along. Don’t dismiss anything until you’ve tried it. Examples? Romance novels, comic books, documentaries, sitcoms, cartoon shows, old radio shows, pulps, westerns, and so forth. There’s gold all around you, if you dig around enough.
Not for the fun – playing. Look at that guy sitting over there, the one by the window: Heavy, messy hair, chewing with his mouth open – easy to peg him as lonely, creepy, or even seriously perverse. Easy is a shortcut, easy is dull, easy is lazy. Instead try seeing him as something completely different than your initial assessment. Maybe his mind is lovely and musical. Perhaps his touch is gentle and loving. Who knows, maybe he’s a sex magnet – with more boyfriends/girlfriends than he knows what to do with?
Say you’ve stumbled on a particularly good book, show, series, or whatever. Great, bravo, applause. Now write something like it. Who cares that the show will never, ever look at your story, or that the medium is long dead. Do it anyway. Get into the habit of automatically either writing your own version or fixing what you see as a flaw in the original.
I love coming attractions, the trailers for movies. Watching them, I always make up my own movie based on what I’ve seen. Sometimes it’s better – at least I think so – sometimes not, then I look at what the director did better than I did when the flick finally comes out.
Playing and watching, studying, that’s the ticket. If you keep your mind sharp, notice details, and examine yourself and the world around you as well as challenging and playing with story ideas, then writing a story for a very specific Call for Submission or for some other strange project will be easy and your story will be original and fresh.
Last time I blogged here at WriteSEX, I had a number of lovely responses. Kate T asked if I’d blog about euphemisms, and that will be my next blog, for sure. But right now I thought I’d dive into Vague’s question, which Vague boiled down to, “what is your priority when writing: plot, character, or sex?”
My first instinct when I saw this question was to answer that, in terms of mainstream publishing, the author’s priority must be plot and character over sex. And yet, even as I typed that response, I thought about a number of characters (published as urban fantasy) for whom sex and character and sex and plot are so entirely inextricable as to complicate such a knee-jerk response.
A second problem with my initial response is that it sounds a bit like the Hollywood actress who insists she will only show her ladybits in order to “enhance a character.” On the one hand, this excuse is just that: an excuse. As such, it suggests that sex and sexuality deserve, or necessitate, an excuse. It implies we need to apologize for or defend our naked bodies. On the other hand, this excuse also implies that there’s a universal scale for determining “character” and its “enhancement.” I respect Halle Berry as an actress, but after all the fuss she made over showing her tchochkees, Swordfish didn’t strike me as the most impressive of vehicles.
Another problem with my initial response is that it cuts out my own role as the author of my characters. As a literary academic, I mostly agree with New Criticism’s Reader Response theory, which states that all we have, as readers, is the text in front of us. We should never attempt to “read” a text in terms of what we know about its author’s biography.
As an author, however, I know damned well that I made a lot of choices that boil down to what I wanted to write about. And I wanted to write about sex. I like to read about sex, I like to have sex, I like to talk about sex, and I think that my whole hedonistic philosophy about the importance of healthy, healthful sex in our lives helps define who I am, as a person. I like to think of myself as a short, zaftig D. H. Lawrence of urban fantasy, but without the obsessive need to use the word “loins.” Or “inchoate.” Or “inchoate loins.”
Anyway, my point is that I–Me! Nicole Peeler! That author you’re not supposed to notice!–wanted Jane to have healthy sex, and by that I mean sex that was unapologetic and frolicsome, but also safe and completely consensual. Jane thinks about her health–both physical and emotional–before she indulges, but when she does indulge, she’s unrepentant. After all, she’s a woman grown who knows what she wants.
And that’s what we do, as authors. We make choices. But these choices then have to make sense, which means we have to make them make sense. Jane lives in a tiny community in Maine. Why would she end up such a sexual savante? That question was easily answered by her mom’s behavior–sex is in her blood; the pursuit of sex has been her example. It also helped me flesh out Jason’s grandparents. I made them two louche ex-hippies who would be comfortable educating Jane and Jason in healthy sexuality. I also upped the ante with Jason’s character. Without spoiling anything, she has a sort of idealized “Blue Lagoon” upbringing with her childhood best friend and sweetheart. Because of their similar circumstances, they mature together physically, intellectually, emotionally and sexually, and their sexual lives together are as inextricable as their friendship and their maturation process.
To put it another way, I, as the author, had to think through the choices I made and make them seem like inevitabilities rather than personal preferences. I wanted readers to see Jane as being the way Jane is because she’s Jane, not because Nicole Peeler enjoys proselytizing about sex. Jane had to live, and breathe, and appear to make her own choices on the page. So, yes, sex was one of the “ingredients” that went into making Jane True and Tempest Rising. But my job, as the author, was then to balance the rest of the recipe so it worked, as a whole.
So was my choice and its execution effective? It was certainly a risk: some people don’t like reading sex in their UF (and have told me so) and others don’t like reading non-Romance sex. In other words, they don’t like that Jane is attracted to Ryu but not “in love” with Ryu (and have told me so). While I’m sad these readers don’t see joy in Jane’s sexuality, I do not control people’s preferences, so these critiques are easy for me to dismiss. Not least because of probably one of the best series of comments I’ve received on Jane, from a reader in Alaska. I was very happy to hear from this reader how she’d enjoyed Tempest Rising. But when she told me how she gave my book to her sixteen-year-old daughter because she thought Jane’s sexuality set a good example for young women, I was floored. I’m not ashamed to admit it: I totally burst into tears.
In conclusion, it will be your choice whether you write sex and how you make that sex natural to your plot and character. Authors are puppeteers. If we decide we want our puppet to bow, we must figure out how to move our fingers in order to make him do so. Unlike puppeteers, however, we have to do so without revealing the strings that attach us to our creations. Our choices must be “invisible,” camouflaged by layers of character, plot, tone, syntax, setting, and all of the other elements that make mere choices into entire worlds. The choice to use sex must be considered, and it will have repercussions for your writing and for your audience. But what a layer of complexity sex brings: so much nuance, action, subconscious and conscious desires, a wellspring of fantasy to tap into, and a kind of tension that can’t be matched, I don’t think, in any other type of interaction or expression.
So why not sex up our dossiers? I’m glad that I did. And I think Jane is glad, too. 
Last time I had the blog, we talked about eroticizing setting with description. Now we’re going to focus on what readers look for in any form of erotic novel: Character. I’ve learned everything there was to know about character from my mentor, Morgan Hawke. Remember when we’re talking character here, we’re talking solely about what sells, not necessarily what works for your niche readers. That is for you to figure out. For this blog, we’re going to share what works to create those characters that arouse not only our hearts and minds, but our genitalia.
The first thing we obviously tackle for character is description. What do we envision when we start putting pen to paper? What if that vision is hard to come across in our minds? The easiest way to create characters is to steal someone else’s! Use what’s popular in movies and TV. While that seems like cheating (it is) we still have to figure out a few key things.
1. Are we creating PLOT driven stories
2. Are we creating CHARACTER driven stories
Let’s focus on Character for obvious reasons. When I suggested modeling your character after Movie/TV characters, I did this on purpose. For example, with Hugh Jackman in mind, we now have what he looks like and even some background. Does his character fit our story? He probably does, a little.
But the characters must go through trials and tribulations in order to grow and reach that desired ending.
To add erotic elements to the character, we need a mate for them. In all fiction we’re talking about creating tension between the two characters. This is done through their actions. If you’re out on a date, what actions do you use to attract the attention of someone who has caught your eye? What does that tension feel like?
When we put those feelings and actions down on paper, we’re using them in action tags to describe them to come across as we intend for them to.
In this scene from “Whiskey Spread” we have Morganna, an older woman is attracted to one of her long time customers.
She stepped back into the bar area but took a quick step back out of sight. Nicholas was sitting at a seat by the window and there was a brunette with him.
Her heart sank. Her reaction to seeing him with some other woman.
The brunette leaned forward on her elbows, waving her hand through the thick cloud of smoke coming from Nicholas’s cigar.
His hair hung down the length of his back and caught the light off the fixture above so that reflected a deep blue so dark it looked black. His charcoal gray shirt fit snuggly over broad shoulders and was tucked into navy colored slacks. Her describing him.
Morganna licked her lips, felt her nerves ready in anticipation of goddess only knew what. Morganna’s response, a typical action that might elicit an erotic response as the reader has been SHOWN something.
Then she took a glance at the brunette sitting across from him nursing a…cola?
Was she his girlfriend?
Sizing her up, Morganna stepped out from behind the spot she was in.
Lastly, we’re left with what Morganna’s intended action is.
The highlighted parts are up to us to throw in. This gives us not only a better scene, but deeper characterization without having to spell everything out. Morganna’s actions of licking her lips, something many men find arousing. Following it up with an appropriate action drives the story. What will Morganna do? Will she let her body control her lust? Or will her lust control her body?
There is an order of actions things occur in also but we’ll cover that in another article. Until then, enjoy WriteSEX and stay tuned for the lovely and talented Dr. Nicole Peeler
by oceania, www.sensualwords.com
I had to laugh when i read Dr Nicole Peeler description herself as the odd (wo)man out. If she is the odd one out then i must be from mars because I create audio erotica. Long before podcasting became the hot commodity it is now I was creating, recording and publishing audio erotica for retail outlets and for adult entertainment sites.
This career started as a lark and like M.Christain I never thought I could write erotica, not until i tired it. And I never knew i had the guts to record it until I got to the studio.
i stepped outside my comfort zone
and the boundaries of what others considered acceptable
at that time
audio was considered a vehicle for poetry, children’s stories and music. Certainly not for erotic stories.
audio strikes a cord that is hard to ignore.
Through a story
using my voice
I can be anyone…
anyone at all!
white
black
red
old
young
the imagination of the listener and the inflection of my voice let imaginations go where they must.
It’s intoxicating.
it’s powerful!
I can understand why Audre Lorde,
the black lesbian poet called the erotic,
power
and women so empowered
“dangerous”.
I am dangerous because i write using that power!
and like a politician i wield that power by touching my audience with the spoken word
using audio for a medium
it is like being that dirty bad girl
the one that enjoys sex too much
is a bit too easy
and has too much fun
with audio
they have to hear my words
and the subtle undertones that say to them
don’t be afraid of your inner self
the one that understands this life’s blood
and stop trying to control things
like the nature of my line breaks
i know that from reading this post
you saw the change in styles
and your fingers are itching to redline
add punctuation
capitalization
common sentence structure
but step outside your comfort zone
and read it as i do
a break where one takes a breath
it might drive editors insane
but for audio
for me
it is
essential
it allows me to feel the words
see if they ring true
this is the way i work
it might not be for everyone
but the one powerful string that unites all writers, especially the writesex group, is that we push boundaries, upset the apple cart, and go where we are not comfortable in order to break our own limitations and become better writers.
Even though audio erotica is my preferred addiction, i use audio when i create stories that will be text only, i use it for agreements and contracts and mainstream articles.
When i mentor others I ask them to read to me. What surprises me is how many writers are shy when it comes to reading their work.
after all if you can’t hear a story in your head
then how will you get it on paper.
if you become paralyzed when putting voice to your words
then perhaps audio is the tool for you
I love this tool
the voice
it’s free
and
most everyone has one
and in using it
you can avoid the pitfalls that many writers fall into
the reuse of phrases
and clichés
because people especially writers
when working on a piece
skim the written word
you cant do that when saying the words out loud
the listener, will hear if the reader is in tune with his or her character
if emotions ring true
if a passage is written badly
audio is a litmus test
and one that i highly recommend
Oceania for writesex.net
by Thomas Roche, www.thomasroche.com
A while back in this blog, M. Christian encouraged writers of any stripe — but especially erotic writers — to spread their wings and try new themes, genres, and styles.
Christian wants you to flex your literary muscles — better yet, work the hell out of them until they go rubbery with lactic acid. I think it’s damned good advice from a literary and creative standpoint. In any single instance, this strategy could make you a better writer and give you some interesting work to pimp — or it could leave you scratching your head and saying “Okay, that didn’t work.” As an overall strategy, it’s guaranteed to make you a better writer.
And the exact same thing is true about sexual taboos. Break them, and you’re guaranteed to get a rise out of yourself. Shatter them, and you’ll change the way you think. Run smack dab into a taboo that scares you — something that “squicks” you — and you’ve found something to fuel and uncomfortable moment in front of your computer. Sometimes those moments are the most inspirational; they lead to new turn-ons, new ideas, new stories, new imagined erotic situations. Maybe you’re lucky and even find something you think you simply can’t write about — or don’t think anyone should write about. In that case, you’ve potentially found the most fertile creative ground you’ll ever discover.
Or it might just make you feel creepy for a few days. That said, the experience of writing something that doesn’t work, like trying to write a western and having it crash and burn, will also make you a better writer. The overall trajectory of a writing career, in creative and artistic terms is almost invariably marked by two steps forward, one step back.
Before we go any further, I should do exactly that and take a step back. Let’s define two words I’ve already used, both of which are important. “Squick” is a word used in the BDSM community to describe that feeling of, “Ew.” Everyone has something that squicks them — with Dan Savage, it’s poo; with me it’s clowns, just for starters. In the BDSM community, some common squicks are needles, knives, age play, bodily fluids. At a BDSM event or a play party or in writing BDSM erotica, getting “squicked” means you leave the room, stop reading, or stare in mingled fascination and disgust.
The second important word, “taboo,” is so misused that I want to define it, courtesy of Wikipedia, the arbiter of either all things or nothing, depending on whom you ask:
“A taboo is a strong social prohibition…relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and forbidden based on moral judgment…Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society.”
As a horror writer, I set out to write something that frightens me and, ideally, will frighten my audience. As an erotica writer, I set out to turn myself on, and hopefully turn on my audience. Both genres often rely on transgression of some sort — the breaking of taboos — to provide the fuel and conflict. Whether it’s a happy straight couple feeling each other up in a lingerie changing booth, or a serial killer stalking people through a Louisiana swamp, with both horror and erotica, in my view somebody’s probably doing something they’re not supposed to, or you don’t have a story.
That’s why my philosophy of pushing boundaries is so important to my own personal writing process. Finding the inspiration to write is, for me, a profoundly personal act; to find my own taboos, to learn to work with them, I’ve had to delve into weirdness and get a hold on things I never would have considered sexy.
For me, when I was about 21, the most intense taboo I had was writing about sex between men. That freaked the fucking hell out of me; I was aware from the outset that this experience was about internalized homophobia. I wrote some gay porn anyway — for a not-very-good reason because I was far more financially poor than I was homophobic, and someone was paying $100. It went swimmingly. I grew up and got less homophobic. I write (mostly) straight erotica now, but the experience of writing completely transformed my experience of sexuality.
Or, your taboos might be disturbing not just to you but to other people. Some years ago I wrote a story called “Death Rock,” told from the point of view of a woman whose boyfriend wants her to play dead; in the heart of this necrophilia fantasy, I utterly creeped myself out. Over the years it’s proved to be one of my more commented-upon stories.
But there are risks in writing about taboo; I’ve written far more “taboo” stories that have never been — and never will be — published than I’ve written ones that’ve seen the light of day. Writing about what disturbs me can be such a cathartic act that I often end up with a mess; other times, I end up with something that is so reprehensible and bizarre that I could never see sharing it with the world.
Do these cathartic moments produce marketable stories? Almost never. But they’re important. To me, at least.
For me, the most satisfying part of writing fiction is the catharsis I’ve heard described as “vomiting onto the page.” The most intense experience of catharsis I ever have is when I sit down and think “What am I freaked out about today?” and then “vomit” out a thousand, two thousand, three or five or eight thousand words about it.
You won’t read those stories any time soon; they never see the light of day.
And I don’t sleep particularly well on those nights, for one of about a dozen reasons — ideally, for several of them. But in the space of fifteen minutes or three hours, in exploring my own taboos, I’m changed — utterly changed.
And for me, that’s kinda the whole point of writing in the first place.
By Jean Marie Stine: Publisher of Renaissance E-books and Sizzler Editions
In January 2010 Amazon.com announced that, for the first time ever, ebooks had outsold print books during the previous December.
It was an epochal announcement. It was not only a first for Amazon, it was a first ever for the entire publishing industry. The long-heralded era of the ebook had finally arrived.
Although print books continued to outsell electronic books over all, the tide was clearly turning. Meanwhile, sales of ebooks were booming at Sony’s own ebook store, as were sales at B&N’s new ebook store.
These sales were fueled largely by the availability of a new generation of ebook reading devices that could wirelessly download books from ebook stores, and several of which, notably Sony’s newest iteration and the new Nook from Barnes & Nobel, were multiplatform, capable of reading ebooks in a variety of formats.
Amazon claimed to have sold 200,000 units of the Kindle well before the holiday shopping season, while Sony reports having sold over 300,000 of their ebook reading device, and B&N recently said that the Nook was the single bestselling item at their site over the holiday shopping season. Between these three companies, then, about one million or more ebook reading devices will have been sold to readers by the end of 2010.
Meanwhile all kinds of apps for buying and reading ebooks on “smartphones” – as well as laptops, ipods, various palm held devices, and the newly emerging tablet-sized computers – are turning almost any portable device that will read or transmit any kind of digital data into an ebook reading device.
That means there are many times more ebook reading devices and people reading them than ever before, and ebooks have a growing market that should continue expanding for years to come.
Again, that market is still tiny compared to print books. 3000 to 5000 copies is a big initial sale for an $8.99 ebook (unless by Dan Brown or some other giant of the print bestseller lists) while the initial sale of, say, an $8.99 paperback is more like 60,000 to 100,000 copies.
As I know from talking to writers at various conferences, writers of popular ebooks in popular categories, especially if prolific and capable of writing a new book every month or two, can earn $30-40,000 per year. Some even more.
What are the most popular, bestselling ebook categories? In no particular order: Business/Self-improvement, science fiction/fantasy, romance, and erotica. Everything else is distant second.
Of these, erotica is unique in a very important way. You can go into a bookstore and buy business/self-improvement, romance, and science fiction. But you can’t go into 90% of all bookstores and buy erotica.
Why is another whole magilla we don’t have time to go into deeply. In part, it has to do with the vulnerability of chain stores (which are 90% of the market) to pressure from conservatives and religious groups. Which means chains aren’t going to carry erotica in the south, certain Western states, and any moderate-sized towns in any state with a conservative slant. That severely limits the bookstores chains can carry erotica in to all but the biggest and most cosmopolitan cities and some decidedly liberal college towns. Considering the logistical nightmare of having a category of books that can only be shipped to a few stores, and worries about such a book accidentally being shipped to a store in, say, Alexandria, Louisiana, it’s easier for chain booksellers to just say “no”.
Deduct from the independent bookstores those that are religious (a very sizable chunk) and those that cater to specialized markets like fishing, handicrafts, etc., and you can see that all that would be left would be one or two bookstores in each of the biggest cities – and a few college towns.
Some erotica collections and anthologies do get published in print form and reach those one or two bookstores in each big cities and those few college towns But they are mostly from smaller, independent presses and, sadly, the current economic depression has impacted the small print publishers of erotica heavily, with many going out of business and others cutting back on new releases and even cancelling contracts they had signed for future books.
Clearly if print was the only market for erotica, it wouldn’t be worth discussing the subject at all.
Over on the internet, however, among ebook publishers, sales and the market for erotica are booming.
There are a lot of reasons the market for erotic ebooks is hot right now.
First and foremost is, as noted above, you can’t get them anywhere else.
Equally important is the anonymity of ebooks. They can be purchased over the internet and downloaded immediately to the privacy of your own computer or electronic reading device. No standing in line at a brick and mortar bookstore where a book’s title might be a dead give away of your secret kink to the person behind the counter or a friend you found unexpectedly standing alongside you in the checkout line.
Also erotic ebooks are priced competitively with regular supermarket paperbacks (most erotic ebooks selling for $6-7.99).
There is another reason erotica sells so well in ebook form. People who read, say, an erotic novel, read more than one a month. Females and males, we all know, read erotica to get off. Once they have read an erotic book a couple of times it loses its potency and they need a brand new book to help get them off.
That means there is a near endless demand for new erotic ebooks.
So, for anyone interested in writing erotica, as a career or part-time, the present is a very exciting and rewarding time to enter the field.
It is safe to say that, due entirely to the internet and the rise of ebook publishing, more people are making more money writing erotica than at any previous time in history. And even with all the authors already writing in the field, there is still a greater need for good new writers than ever.
Jean Marie Stine
SizzlerEditions.com
FLEXING
I’m astounded sometimes by writers who will only write one thing and one thing only: straight erotica, mysteries, science fiction, horror – you name it: their flute has only one note. They might play that one note very, very well but often they neglect the rest of the scale. Not to go on about myself, but my own moderate accomplishments as a writer are the direct result of my accepting a challenge or two. I never thought I could write erotica – until I did. I never thought I could write gay erotica, until I did. Who knows what you might be great at? You won’t know until you try.
A writer is nothing but pure potential, but only if that potential is utilized. If you only like writing straight erotica, try gay or lesbian. The same goes if you’re queer: try writing something, anything, that you’d never in a million years think of doing. Maybe the story will suck, and that certainly does happen, but maybe it’ll be a wonderful story or teach you something about your craft.
Challenge yourself. If you don’t like a certain genre, like Romance, then write what your version of a romance story would be like. You don’t like Westerns? Well, write one anyway: the Western you’d like to read. Of course like a lot of these imagination games you don’t have to sit down and actually write a Western novel. Instead just take some time to visualize it: the characters, setting, some plot points, a scene or two. How would you open it? Maybe a tumbleweed blowing down a dusty street, perhaps a brass and black iron locomotive plowing through High Sierra snow? Or what about the classic Man With No Name staring down a posse of rabid outlaws? Who knows, you might be the best Western – or mystery, science fiction, gay, lesbian, straight etc. – writer there ever was, or maybe you’ll just learn something about people, about writing. Either way, you’re flexing, increasing the range of your work.
This flexibility isn’t just good in abstract: look at the books being published, the Calls For Submissions, and so forth. If you only like to write stories that one are particular style, flavor, or orientation, you’ll notice you have a very, very limited number of places that would look at your work. But if you can write anything, then everywhere is a potential market. Write one thing and that’s exactly how many places will want to look at what you do. Write everything and you could sell anywhere.
In other words: try! If you don’t try, you won’t know if you’re any good. Some writers only do what they know and like because they don’t want to face rejection, or feel they’d have to restart their careers if they change the one thing they do well. I don’t believe any of that. If you can’t handle rejection then writing is not the life for you. Getting punched in the genitals by a rejection slip is part of the business, something we all have to deal with. As far as a writer’s career goes, no one knows what shape that’ll take, what’ll happen in the future. Planning a job path in writing is like trying to roll snake eyes twelve times in a row: the intent might be there but the results are completely chaotic. In the same way a simple little story can turn out to be the best thing you’re ever written, an unexpected experiment can end up being a total artistic change.
Playing with new themes, genres, and styles is fun. Experiment on the page, in your mind, and who knows what’ll pop up? Go to a bookstore and pick up something at random, read the back cover, and then spend a fun couple of hours imagining how you’d write it. What style would you use? What kind of characters? What settings? Even sit down and write some of it: a page, or even just a paragraph or two. It might suck, but that’s the risk you always take trying something new – but it also could open a door to something wonderful.
M. Christian
www.mchristian.com
www.meinekleinefabrik.blogspot.com
www.frequentlyfelt.blogspot.com
In many ways, I’m the odd (wo)man out here at WriteSex. After all, I don’t write erotica or even romance. I write the Jane True series: mainstream, mass market urban fantasy for Orbit Books, a publisher famous for its Sci Fi/Fantasy rather than its sizzle. Here’s what I write:
So why am I here?
One reason is that, while I don’t write romance, I do write sex. Urban fantasy is a fantastic genre in that it’s like a pick and mix: authors of urban fantasy get to cobble together whatever elements of fiction they like, as long as somewhere, somehow, they have some mixture of the “real” world and some element of the supernatural, paranormal, or magical.
When I started putting together my world, my version of UF, I knew that one of the elements I was definitely going to utlilize was sex. Not romance, per se, but I knew I was definitely going to have sex. The reason being, quite frankly, that I think sex is important. And not merely because I’m a lascivious little wench; it’s also because of my philosophies regarding sex.
Before you roll your eyes, let me assure you that, when I say “philosophies,” I mean philosophies. For one of the other reasons I was asked to participate in WriteSex is that I am a Ph.D. in English literature, whose academic background includes the conjunction of sex and power in contemporary British and American fiction.
As any literary theorist can tell you, sex has never been just about pleasure: not in life, and certainly not in fiction. Humans have sex for so many varied, complicated reasons, most of which we can never understand, nor even know exist.
That said, as thinkers such as Freud, Lawrence, and Nietzsche understood, we reveal so much about ourselves in the ways that we conduct ourselves, sexually; how we communicate about sex; and how we think about sex.
So when I sat down to write my first book, it was important for me to write about my protagonist’s sexuality because my whole book is rooted in her character. Of course plot is important, but Tempest Rising is as much character study as anything else. I couldn’t bring Jane to life without including her unique view of sex and sexuality.
And yet, as I’ve said, this book was published to be shelved, as it says on the spine, in either Fantasy or Horror, not in Romance. So, when it came to writing about sex, I had to make a lot of interesting choices, and defend those choices to myself and others, along the way.
These issues, and why I make the choices I make when writing sex for mainstream publication, are what I’m going to be talking about in my future blog posts for WriteSex. I’ll talk about such topics as how much is too much (learned that one the hard way); why none is too little for me, personally; building, or reducing, character through depicting sexuality; and there will definitely be something on the Dreaded Euphemism: or, “When a Lotus Blossom Should Remain Just a Lotus Blossom.”
Sound good? Let me know if there are other issues you’d like me to address and don’t be shy. I am here for you.
Nicole Peeler
My name is Sascha Illyvich and with the help of M Christian, Oceania, Jean Marie Stine, Dr. Nicole Peeler and Thomas Roche, we’re going to explore the daunting aspects of erotica in all its forms. This blog will discuss every aspect of writing sexy fiction from what makes a story erotic even if there is little to no sex involved. Writers will come away with writing tips that will benefit their careers. We’ll cover author marketing, what defines a story as erotic, things new writers need to consider and the business angle of writing erotica.
I’ve been writing for almost ten years, starting out with erotica before I made the transition to erotic romance. I’ve written everything from the 100 flasher to the 100,000 word novel and am with two very successful publishers. I have a few stories with other publishers; teach courses on BDSM to romance writers as well as my famous Writing from the Male POV course which has been a success with local RWA chapters. I write full time and host the UnNamed Romance Show on Radio Dentata Mondays at 1 PM PST.
Every week we’ll focus on a different aspect of writing erotica. Our other authors will do own introductions. Some of them have a rather unique way of letting you know who they are! I’ll be covering writing style in general for starters.
Beginning with technique, I’m going to break down what makes a story erotic and how we craft those scenes that leave us squirming in our chairs. Let’s start with the story idea.
We have basic components to every story.
Characters – Who the story is about
Plot – which happens TO the characters
Setting – Where this all takes place
Conflict – Part of the plot that makes the story interesting. This is really the driving force behind the plot.
In ANY given setting we can add erotic elements. Let’s define what makes an element erotic.
Word Web defines erotica as Creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire.
This definition is a little harsh. Let’s pair it down a bit.
Erotic: the act of being stimulated sexually through the senses of taste, touch, sight, smell and audio.
With this broader definition, we can now begin to understand that our brain is our largest sex organ truly as what arouses me will differ from what arouses you, but our bodies respond to the stimulation the mind finds erotic.
In a scene, we have setting. With characters, we have actions. With plot, that’s a little more complex.
With the scene, we can utilize descriptions by just giving enough detail to create a picture in the mind of the reader while giving them license to view it their way. Since our stories in any genre don’t rely precisely on location in most cases, then we want to limit our scene descriptions. The mind focuses on what’s right in front of it anyway.
Meaning, the mind focuses on the characters and their interactions. Tell me, do you pay attention to the breeze in summertime OR do you pay attention to the cologne/perfume wafting towards you from the attractive person that caught your eye?
The day may play back in your memory later on when you’re telling your friends but the real question is going to be about the person, not the scene.
Next time we talk, we’ll go into the characterization part. There is a lot to be said about characterization so that will take up a few parts. I leave you waiting for next week’s installment with our next fabulous author!
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