Tips For Writing Better Erotica =============================== Hello there. I've always meant to type even a quick little guide of pointers about how to write about your own fantasies. The reason for this project is that over the years I've bumped into people in email or chatting who enjoy my stories and when I ask them if they write the average response is that they'd like to but are afraid that it wouldn't be any good. These tips aren't just for writing stories that you want to share publicly online, but also tips for writing steamy, personal fantasies in email...since the two styles are completely different. Even if you don't plan on writing anything, reading this will give you some insights as to why I write the way I do. But I'm only in my twenties still, so I'm hardly an authority on writing. These tips come in no particular order of importance and they also won't be for everyone either. I'm not telling you what to do, just giving you some outlines since my own writing is far from perfect either. But I am very glad that you've enjoyed my stories so far. So thanks for your support. Actually, I'm going to start with the most important tip. Passion. The fantasy you write about absolutely needs to be about something that drives you wild and excites you. If the fantasy it's all based on doesn't make you tingle then you'll find writing it is more like work than play. If it's an uphill struggle to write it and you have no fun then there's not much point to it, unless of course it's a fantasy you're writing to please someone, in which case their enjoyment is the big payoff. The other reason that passion is vital to an exciting story is that if you're writing about some fetish or other sexual act that you don't enjoy in real life, then it will look clumsy in your story. And if it doesn't look clumsy, then it might appear undetailed or will reflect your personal distaste by the tone you write about it. Goals. I suppose every writer has a goal for why they're writing in the first place. My own goals are that I want to be liked, even a very small audience of friends who look forward to my next story and the one after that. The other goal I have is to see if I can write a story so well that the reader is compelled to touch themselves, even briefly if not all the way to the point of orgasm. I'm all about the pleasure, which is why I'm not in any position to earn any awards. That is the goal of some though, to be respected by other writers and to win some kind of writing award or to even get published. None of those are bad goals, however I have to warn you that trying for those three things will change the flavour of your final story as well as put a greater amount of pressure on you to be successful. I suppose that's why I'm more of a hobby writer, since I write when the mood takes me or when a fantasy occurs to me. So at least think about the reason you want to write. Time. This is linked to your goals. If you're looking for an award, you're going to need to spend a lot of time on the keys. For some people it's going to be several days of typing and revising. Others will spend weeks. Personally, I just catch a wave and ride it out, wandering and stumbling my way through the story without even known myself what's going to happen in the next paragraph. All of my own stories are unpolished rough drafts, I punch headlong into writing it without looking back up and only spend between two to four hours. Not many people will be able to write that way though but my advice for both people writing fantasy emails and also beginner authors is to make a "one sitting" rule. Meaning that you should try to write as much as you can in one session and if you find that you have to quit for the night but aren't finished yet, then maybe try to wrap things up as the end of a chapter. The reason for this rule as well as my suggestion to make continuations a new chapter is because when you sit down again to write more you'll find you've lost the momentum or mood of what you were writing so the story will sound awkward until you get back into the groove. The reader will often pick up on these contrasts since your mood will be different and that will affect the words you choose and the amount of your personal passion you put into it. Subject. The best way I've found is to write my true self into my stories, that gives me a connection to the fantasy that unlocks extra passion. However, some people prefer the distance of using characters because they don't want to be associated with having the fantasy in question or else they feel uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. These might be the sort of people to say things like, "I have this ummm friend...yeah a friend...and they told me a story about how they..." There's no preferred method for point of view but if you really want it to be personal you're going to have to take a big gulp and throw yourself into the mix, even for just one story so you can see the difference in your own writing. Your subject will also tend to be something you've fantasized about but haven't done, or something you have done that you want to base a story on, or maybe your story is about something exactly detail-for-detail about something that happened to you. Again, try them all if you'd like, find your own preference. Personally, I don't write about real encounters because for myself I feel it's a "kiss and tell", but perhaps you're looking to share something so juicy that you just can't keep it to yourself. It's all good. Grammar. One warning I'll address because I've actually seen this posted before, but don't write something that looks like this: "Then she come to me, say Babee be good 2 me or i go 4 some1 else" There's a lot of problems with what I just wrote there, but the capitalization isn't actually one of them...some people don't use capital letters or don't capitalize "I", so don't worry about it if you don't feel like it. However using numbers to represent words makes the reader feel like they're decoding a pager message and hardly sets the proper mood for them. If it's your grammar that isn't very good then don't beat yourself up over it...ideally you'll want to try to improve it to the level you see in movies or on TV, you're aiming for common grammar moreso than college-level here. And if English isn't your strongest language, don't worry about that either. You could write it in your strongest language and either post it that way or else have someone translate it for you, and hey if you write a really hot story in broken English, nobody is going to care how you wrote the sentences. If the reader is sufficiently excited they won't remember the correct use of "it's and its" or "you're and your" anyways, so don't get trapped by rules if you're uncomfortable with them. Spelling you should try for though, which includes typing the wrong letters. The sentence, "I wanna fuck you bad!" sounds completely different if you mistype the last word with a D instead of a B making the last word reads as "dad" so that's why spelling can be important. But if you need to sit with a dictionary open the whole time you're typing then that's no fun for you either. If you want to write a fantasy using "no big words" then go for it, knock their socks off with passion instead of your words. There's no right way of doing it. Lingo. Vocabulary is very important. It invloves thinking about who your audience is going to be, or who you're writing the fantasy to in email. Everyone has their own personal tastes. I'll show you what I mean in this experiment. You don't have to say these words out loud, but each one evokes a different feel and you'll probably prefer at least one, hate a couple, or maybe have others that I didn't type. Here we go, words for the penis: Penis, cock, rod, manhood, throbbing lovemuscle, dick, organ, prick, member, loverocket, throbber, boner, python, meat... Dang there's hundreds but you see what I mean, word choice makes you feel different things and some rub you the wrong way. I've even had a couple of women who were totally excited by the word "cunt" but I never use that word in my posted stories since it rubs most women the wrong way. So think about your audience when you're writing, but don't feel you have to limit yourself. If you're like me, then the thought of who all might be reading this will drive you nuts. So what I do to counteract that is to imagine I'm writing this to just a single person or even that I'm writing the story to the dreamlover I've created in it...which is very close to writing to your diary. Hey, on that note if you feel you'll be most comfortable writing your fantasy as a diary entry, go for it, what makes you feel the best will also work wonders for a reader. Confidence. This one is so hard to gauge. Overconfidence comes off as bragging. And being too self-conscious changes the texture of your writing, too, though isn't a bad thing. So don't worry about confidence in your own writing abilities too much. You'll always get better the more you write, so even a small paragraph intended to excite someone is a good start. Be flirty. Be funny. Be quirky. Be awkward and clumsy. Hey, it doesn't matter so long as you look back and say to yourself afterwards, "Wow...I really wrote that!" So get your creative juices flowing and everything will come in time. Point of View. There's no real right and wrong in this area and don't be afraid to switch your point of view as long as you don't mix them in a single paragraph if you can help it. The major ones are first person, third person narrative, and omniscient. First person means you're telling the story from your own eyes using your own senses and thoughts. First person doesn't mix in what other people are thinking or what's happening in the next room where they can't see. Simple enough. Third person narrative means you're telling the story as a witness, it may have your own opinions but doesn't tell what other people think or feel. Third person also means that the story isn't written from the viewpoint of anyone involved in the action. To write the fantasy from the perspective of your lover's eyes is still using first person. Now with omniscient, anything goes. Omniscient is almost always from the view of someone who isn't involved in the story and tells the thoughts and feelings of everyone in the story. If you blur the point of view boundaries, no one will severely complain about it, however if you shift point of view too much it disorients the reader who is often trying to put themselves into the shoes of one of the characters. So try not to "harsh their buzz" and you'll get some really good positive feedback. Sensuality. To make a real impact, try to cover as many of the senses as possible. Make it real. Try to imagine how the breeze feels coming in the window, what does the air smell like in the room where the lovers are, how bright is the lighting, what texture are they feeling with their tongues and fingers, how do things taste, are they hot or cold, what do things sound like in your fantasies. So it makes a huge difference as to whether you say "I rub oil on you" then to go into the specifics like this: I rub the slippery oil between my slick fingers, warming it with my hands before I touch you. The softly flickering candlelight works magic with the subtle aroma of the coconut-scented oil. I lick my lips as my fingers slide across the sweet bumps of your nipple as I trace your other areola with my tongue and sample their sweet flavour. See what I mean? Adding in the senses makes your story sensual which enhances the pleasurable effect it will have. Oops...sorry if I got anyone turned on back there. Ummmm next topic although I'm suddenly in the mood to finish that fantasy... Plot. Let's face it, do you really need one? I'm just kidding but if you take a look at porno movies you see the ones where you just want to lean on the fastforward button and get to the juicy stuff. If you've ever watched classics like "The Masseuse" or some of the late night movies on cable then you know what I mean. Those stories aren't winning any awards but they feel the need to add a whole lot of filler between the sex scenes when no one really cares. This isn't to say that plot is useless, I'm just saying that you don't need a Stephen King 100 page teaser before the good part. Also if your erotica is more plot than action, you'll attract a different crowd. There's no right and wrong here, I'm just telling you my personal preference. Some of my stories are also designed around the idea that the reader is already feeling frisky when they click on the story to open it. However, it's usually the case that they want to be seduced deeper into the story before they start thrilling to the action. I mean when they start reading they know they're seeking sexual excitement, but that doesn't actually mean they're fully ready to pounce when you begin. However, if you're writing for us guys then usually we're ready to rock by the second sentence. Just kidding...I think... Sexuality. Women and men write completely differently. This is tied to the way that each gender (in general) thinks about sex and what flashes through their mind during orgasm. Most guys have standard visualizations during orgasm and sex...they're fantasies about sex and body parts mostly, if they veer from that then it's to think about fantasies or an emotion. However, from what I've sexual knowledge I've been fortunate enough to glean from women, during orgasm their visual mind flashes on many non-sexual things as well as abstracts...like falling leaves, the colour pink, a broad smile...things like that or even more extreme. Or have I just been meeting the exceptions to the rule? My point was that the sexual mindsets are different which also makes the tones of their sexual landscapes different. You also need to think a little bit like your desired audience to give the story greater impact...but that ability will come in time. The sexual landscapes seem to meet between the two genders when it comes to pure, all-consuming lust, so the lustiest part of your story will literally be its climax. A lady writing to a guy should try not to make it as "flowery" unless the two share an emaotional relationship in which case it will add to the depth of meaning in the words. And a guy writing to a lady should avoid jumping straight to the sex if possible. I know I've been guilty in some of my stories of starting them off with a bang and working it up from there, but in general a guy needs to warm a lady up first. So again, keep in mind who your reader will be. And yes, I realize that guys writing guys and ladies writing ladies totally change the rules and give you more freedom to write the way you naturally would like to, and write something you yourself would enjoy reading. Even if you're a virgin or inexperienced with sexuality, the way you write a fantasy will be completely yours...just like a fingerprint, unique even though almost everyone has fingerprints. Descriptions. Never underestimate the power of adjectives and adverbs. If you write "he stuck his cock in her" then we all visualize it a bit, but don't feel it. Also that doesn't even suggest where he put it either. So try adding in some descriptive words to make the same statement look like this "he slowly slipped his hot, throbbing cock inch-by-inch into her already-dripping pussy until he felt it clutching up and down his length and started a deep pumping". OK, show of hands...who got excited reading that second example? Don't worry about knowing where hyphens and commas go and letting that make you leave out good descriptions. So just relax and visualize the scene a little bit or else focus closely on some details to make your writing better. For instance, was that dripping pussy barely wetting the shaft or was it juicy enough to be dripping down his balls? Or was that cock ridged in a way that delighted her with each bump and ridge entering her? Or smooth in a way that made her suck in a single long breath from the constant sensation of it sliding into her without the little variations the ridges make in those sensations? They seem like such small details, but don't you find that you're really starting to consider things like that about the scene now? And that was just a single sentence, so imagine how much better your story will be if you flavour it all the way through with descriptions! Also you have adverbs to describe the actions. Was the pumping slow and intense? Hard and deep? Fast and shallow? Those can all be used as good adverbs that give a different feel to the one-line scene in the example. So suddenly a single sentence has become a whole story because of the way it was written. Things like that can be used to spice up an email when you don't have a lot of time to sit down and write them a full story. Which brings me to... Emails. Writing someone in email can be a lot different from the way you'd write a story for a public audience, or maybe even differ from the way you'd write a story to that same person you're emailing. You don't always have a lot of time to type out a story, but you want to get them turned on and excited or tell them how excited you're feeling even with a lack of free time. I do backflips for even something in my email as simple as "I'm feeling horny for you", so imagine my delight to open my email to find a fantasy or mini-story inside. If you're pressed for time, you can write a one-line story like we did above or else you can sum up your excitement with something that looks like this: "I'm sitting here typing to you tonight, but wishing you were sitting on top of me, leaning back against my chest with your silky lips locked around my twitching shaft, while I thumb your nipples and softly whisper all of these things into your ear instead of typing them to you." I've never actually written that in an email before, but there's a special lady I feel that way about everytime I write to her. Whew! So imagine how great it would be to open your email and read something as hot as that. Now tap into that excitement and put something juicy into your email when you feel excited and sexy. You'll find that you might even unlock some vital part of storywriting by doing this. Everytime that I intend on doing a little light teasing in my email, I find myself launching into a full screen (or several screens) of hot, steamy fantasy. So maybe you won't write unless it's specifically to someone in email. Or perhaps your first breakthrough to writing will be when you try your hand at writing a spicy hot email to someone. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface with each of these areas, but I've kept you sitting there long enough. Perhaps I'll make another writing guide sometime in the future. I'd like to. I'm really curious about whether this little guide will help you to start writing or to write better fantasies. I'd like to think that I've helped though. Thankyou for your time and hopefully you'll soon be delighting someone out there somewhere soon. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm in the mood for writing a story that's really sexy... Take care.