The End of Innocence
This article originally appeared on the Erotica Readers and Writers Association website
My first erotic stories were explicit fantasies written
to please a lover. The characters were idealized versions of
our selves. The only plot dynamic was the inexorable building
of sexual tension leading to our mutual release. These tales
had an intensity that still melts me to a puddle of lust
whenever I reread them.
My first novel was a compendium of all my favorite BDSM fantasies.
The heroine was younger, prettier, more athletic and more sexually
adventurous than I was, but otherwise we had a lot in common. She had
red hair, which I've always craved. She was a software engineer, like
me. How many of those do you find in erotic novels, after all?
The exotic setting was assembled from my own experiences. The male
protagonist was as tall and commanding as my own Master, but thinner,
more mysterious and more extreme. The overarching theme was the main
character's awakening to her submissive desires, mirroring
(emotionally at least) my own personal awakening. The plot rushed
forward at breakneck pace from one overwhelming sexual encounter to
the next, and resolved itself by having the heroine choose a life of
permanent submission - a concept that I've toyed with in imagination
many times.
I suspect that many writers of erotica began, like me, by exposing and
exploring their own favorite scenarios of desire. The resulting
writing often is often searingly sexy. The author has poured his
or her personal libidinous imaginings into the story, with all the
accompanying emotions. Readers pick up on the emotional truth, and
react to it.
There's a kind of innocence to this type of confessional erotica.
The author is far more concerned with self-expression than with
craft. Self-disclosive stories usually have little suspense, few
complexities. The focus is on the fantasy. These stories are
direct and intense. They hit you in the gut, or perhaps more
appropriately, in the groin.
After a while, though, those of us who keep writing come to realize
that sophisticated readers of erotica (whatever that means) want more.
More than just the same fantasies, however exciting, recycled over and
over. More varied characters, beyond the embellished images of the
writer and his or her real or ideal lovers. More varied and ambitious
plots, with the sort of obstacles and conflicts that build narrative
(as opposed to sexual) tension.
If we're concerned with satisfying this kind of reader (and some
writers are not), we try to take more conscious control of the
writing process. We push the id into the back seat. We read how-to
books on plot and characterization and self-editing. We join
workshops and take writing classes.
The result is often a far more skillful and elegant story: more
challenging, more suspenseful, more complex. All too often, though,
these new stories are less arousing than our original naive
fantasies. Somehow, we've lost the spark.
How can we move beyond our own personal turn-ons and still write
erotica that makes our readers hot and bothered? This is a question
I've been wrestling with myself for the last few years. I've come to
believe that to write convincing and exciting erotica, I somehow still
have to tap into my personal fetishes and fantasies. At the same time
I have to twist or transform them enough that that I am not writing
the same story over and over again.
One trick that I've used is to
swap the point of view. If most
of your stories are from the perspective of the man in a heterosexual
duo, try viewing your story through the woman's eyes. If you're
personally turned on by the notion of a man going down on you,
imagine, and describe, what
his thoughts, feelings and
sensations might be. Write his experiences, as you imagine them. If,
like me, your core fantasies revolve around submission, consider
writing the dominant role. The emotional dynamics and the physical
activities are still there to excite you, but the revised point of
view can result in surprising and arousing situations and
reactions. For example, when working on my story "Incurable Romantic"
(originally published in
Confessions: Admissions of Sexual
Guilt, edited by M. Christian and Sage Vivant), I realized
suddenly that a dom could be as frightened by the total devotion and
trust of his slave as he was aroused.
A second strategy I can suggest:
extract the emotional essence
of your fantasy, and transfer it to a different environment or
scenario. What do I mean by this? The arousal that comes from a
fantasy may be a physical reaction, but it derives from the emotions
that your fantasy evokes. Why is notion of anal sex exciting? For me,
there are two arousing elements: the violation of taboos, and the
perfection of trust in allowing penetration in such a delicate
region. So, to avoid boring my readers with
yet another
surrender of anal virginity to a dominant but caring master, I'll try
to take those emotional components and work them into another story,
with different physical activities but the same emotional dynamics.
As a reviewer recently commented, my story "Perception" (originally
published in
Hot Women's Erotica, edited by Marilyn Jaye Lewis)
incorporates the essential emotions of a
BDSM scene (fear, trust, and surrender) without including a single
whip, handcuff, or groveling honorific.
My third strategy is to
use analogy. Think about some fetish
article or activity that excites you. Imagine how you react to the
presence of that item or exposure to that activity. Then try and
transfer those emotions to a completely different item or scenario. In
"Fire" (from my single-author collection
Fire),
I tried to describe the guilty
pleasure, the compulsion for secrecy, and the obsessive need for
escalating intensity that I experience, but transferred to a
character whose fetish is burning buildings.
These strategies are successful in varying degrees. Sometimes, I try
too hard. I think too hard, instead of letting my subconscious speak
its truths. My first novel, burning with my personal lusts, is still
my most popular, even though when I read it now, I cringe at the
clichés.
I suspect that the most skilled writers of erotica are those who can
arouse themselves by imagining by a wild variety of circumstances and
activities. The more broader our sexual imagination, the more
convincing our erotic writing will be.
Last month, I wrote a fantasy story as a gift for my Master's
birthday. It included the standard elements that turn me (and I hope,
him) on: the charismatic, insightful, sexually outrageous dom; the
reluctant, fascinated sub with the plump nipples; the sub's gradual
realization that submission to the dom is her true path to pleasure
and even enlightenment. It used newly extreme toys and implements
that I'd never attempted to write about before. It included (I'm
embarrassed to say!) actual quotes from our past interactions. It was,
in some sense, pure pulp, intended to arouse.
At the same time, the story was more than just a sex scene. It had
a plot, a timeline, major and minor characters. It even included
literary allusions to amplify the theme.
Once you've lost your innocence as a writer, you can never go back.
My Master loved it.
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