How do YOU write erotica?

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Feb 26, 2014
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Hi everyone. I've been a lurker on Literotica for a couple of years now (under another name), and I've decided to make the transition from audience to author.

I just thought I'd introduce myself and take the opportunity to ask a question that's been bugging me.

My user name is MyGuiltySecret. Originally, my secret was that I read erotica. Now it's that I'm trying to write the stuff (and the two stories that I'm working on at the moment are incest-themed, so another secret that I don't want the outside world to know is that I find the idea of incest hot). Having said all that, you can call me John, since that's my name.

I've written lots of short stories in the past (mainly SF and a bit of horror). Never been published, but I do have an interesting array of rejection letters.

Anyway, I've started writing erotica, and I'm finding the process a lot harder than I expected!

So, here's the question: how do you, as an individual writer, go about writing erotica? I've read loads of the howto posting on this site, but I'm more interested in the techniques of the writer rather than the writing, if you see what I mean.

What methods have you found that work for you?

Once you've had an idea, do you let it swill around in your mind for hours/days/weeks and then actually write the story in one glorious thrash? Or do you write in several sessions, building the story up scene by scene? Do you write it beginning-to-end, or in separate out-of-order chunks?

And what about editing? Do you just spellcheck and hit submit? Do you edit as you go along? Or do you do multiple passes over the story, improving it a bit each time?

Outlining. Do you bother or not?

What sort of mood are you in when you write? Does being hot and bothered help you write hot sex scenes, or does being more detached and even clinical help you find the right words?

My own writing process is still developing, but at the moment seems to go like this. First pass is for the 'plot', writing how the characters get into bed in the first place (or the kitchen, or over the boss's desk or wherever), and the ending. I use pseudo-XML tags like <blowjob here> or <lots of fucking> as placeholders for the actual sex scenes. I do another pass to fix wording and typos, then write the actual sex scenes. Then I make another pass to add detail and descriptions - sights, smells, sensations. Then one last pass to fix any repetition. (While writing, I use words 'cock', 'cunt' and 'cum' far too much, and I have to figure out which ones to replace with synonyms). By this point, the damn story has stopped being sexy to me at all, so it must be time to ship it out!

So, is this anything like your workflow? Complety different?

Let me know how you do it. I'm dying to hear!
 
Usually I know the story from beginning to end before I start typing. It may take me several sessions to finish the story as typing for any length of time is somewhat tiring.

However, there have been stories that just pop into my head that I rush to finish in one sitting.

With all stories I "finish", I put them aside for a day or two, sometimes up to a month while I work on something else. Then I go back are re-read them, doing edits on grammar, punctuation, left out words, miss-used words, etc. I might even add or subtract sentences, paragraphs, sections from the story, while adding other sentences, paragraphs and sections. Sometimes I might move any of those around within the story.

Then it sits for a few days. Then I re-read it again. Make any changes that appear wrong or out of place, give it one final read through and submit.

On longer stories I might use an outline just to keep me on track as characters have a habit of taking their own path through the story.
 
One story sat in my head for years. I tried to write it, and failed, until I gave up control and let the characters write it themselves. They needed editing, of course.

Otherwise, no specific formula. Many of my posts have been adaptations of written journals, where I didn't much have to worry about plot, just action. I'm writing more plot-driven stuff now. I dream up a basic outline, then again the the characters write themselves. I also write essay-like pieces, which are structured differently, and songs, which are totally different.

In a nutshell: Different approaches lead to different outcomes. Try them all.
 
One story sat in my head for years. I tried to write it, and failed, until I gave up control and let the characters write it themselves. They needed editing, of course.

I had a story I started and got to a point than just became to emotional for me to continue...it still sits on my hard drive, untouched, unread, it is one I will never finish. (It's wasn't an erotic story for publication here)
 
For short erotic stories: No outline. I start out with a concept or a situation that I want in the story. It could be Pastor makes a mistake at his church Halloween party. One of his young female flock has the same costume and body type as his wife. Or a lecherous store owner gets a young girl drunk..or an older woman loses her bra in the community wash and young college guy finds it.

Ofter I get my idea down...then I just start writing...introducing the characters...their situation and spend the first part of the story getting them to that situation...then I just keep writing. It usually ends up being a story with a beginning middle and end. I through on, what is for me anyway, a good or twist ending just like any short story.

After I've written that all the way through, I do a spell check...everything. And then I start at the beginning of the story and go through it sentence by sentence and add or rewrite sections or better dialogue or whatever. After that I send it to my editor here on lit. you need one of those! She looks at it and sends it back to me. then I re write it again going with her feedback and post. That's it.
 
Since you ask :)

Once you've had an idea, do you let it swill around in your mind for hours/days/weeks and then actually write the story in one glorious thrash? Or do you write in several sessions, building the story up scene by scene? Do you write it beginning-to-end, or in separate out-of-order chunks?

I write from start to end. Sometimes - very occasionally, - I will write a specific scene because it just needs to come out of me and I know exactly what needs to happen, and having it written means I can better formulate the path to that scene. For example, I've already written the last scenes of the Ingrams Stories. I know exactly where that is going, even though I've got three other stories to write between now and the end of the series - I just needed to know I've got that ending written (JR Rowling did the same for Harry Potter, by the way.)

Most of the time though I go start to finish.

Generally my stories are around 40-50k words, and if I was writing every day, it would take me a couple of weeks. Since I'm not, it takes longer.

Generally I have an idea, I write an outline, and then depending on my internal need to get on with it, I start writing. Sometimes it starts from an environmental thought - "What would happen if someone broke up with you on Jumbotron at a baseball game? How would that come about?" and then morphs into a plot.

Sometimes, it's a plot that I then have to fit into an environment - "Under what circumstances would a good man who is moral and hates cheaters be forced to push his wife into an affair, and what would it do to his psyche if he did?" - I would then have to generate a situation where that might happen.

I do find that because I take my time on the writing, often idea's I had for something else suddenly get incorporated into what I'm doing. Another example - I'm about 12k words into the sequel to Live from the Game (for some reason this story resonated and people are constantly asking for a sequel) - the actual story plot is something I had wanted to do for a while, and all of a sudden I realized it would be perfect for this situation, so I modified what I was going to write to use the idea's I'd had a while ago - it actually fits together quite well. But that only works if you take your time and don't write it all in one go.

I do write from an idea though. I have something specific I want to write about, or a specific idea or plot. I never just sit down with a blank word doc and think "I think I'll write something". I have a specific idea that my stories come from - with Live from the Game, it was about how public an affair can be, and the use of the Jumbotron at a live event. With Out of Love, it was about how far a group of people would go to try and repair the damage their own lusts have wrought. Ingrams is just a juicy idea and I don't really have a compelling point to make over that. I just wanted to write something that had spies in it and nasty sex.

Recently I was in Vegas, and I went to the show at the Luxor where the girls dance topless, and I thought at the time, "What must it be like to be married to one of those girls? What kind of man would you have to be to make that work?" and at some point I'll develop that into an actual story. But I won't start writing it till I have plot in mind - pure environment is not enough, and I wish lots more of the Lit Authors thought that way, because So Much of what's here has no plot, not point and is just there to be there.

EDIT - one thing worth pointing out is that, for me, the hardest bit to actually write is the sex! The thing is, there only so much variation on the actual act you can do. At the end of the day, Tab A goes into Slot B. Making that interesting and not something that everyone else has already done is actually much harder than you might think. I try and do it by making the reason for the sex be different, and to explore the different kinds of sex out there.

The ingrams stories, for example, has a different 'theme' for each story. The first was about control and the dynamics of a suppressed D/s situation, and what happens when both parts of a couple are the D side.

The second story is about meaningless sex - how far can you go and it still be meaningless? What happens when some one offers meaningless sex, but has their own agenda behind it?

The third story is about what happens when you are repeatedly betrayed and you do not have a hot ex girlfriend / whore / bar tender to pick up the pieces, and you don't go off and write a best seller or whatever. It's about retreating from the world, but still trying to be part of it.

And what about editing? Do you just spellcheck and hit submit? Do you edit as you go along? Or do you do multiple passes over the story, improving it a bit each time?
I did that for my first story and learned very quickly that a few of the writing precepts I had adopted were wrong. Also, I learned that no matter how much you may think you've gone over it and got all the gotcha's - both syntactically and story flow wise - you haven't got them. You need other eyes on the story before you publish it, if only for someone to say "Why didn't anyone call the police?" which would have completely stopped your story in it's tracks, but you didn't see that because you are too close for that.

One thing I think I can safely say is that if you constantly reading and re-reading and doing repeat passes on what you've just written, you'll never finish anything. Write it and don't look back and finish it. Do the passes on a finished text, not an unfinished one. We will all write stuff we don't like at some point, but focussing purely on that means nothing else gets written. A writer writes. He doesn't spend all his time iterating. There is a time and place for that, but it's not As you are writing.

Editing wise, you have to decide if you just want syntax editing, or a story editor. The two are not the same. One person will just correct your grammer, the other will go "This person really doesn't ring true" or "This plot point doesn't fit. What if..." or "Where did that phone come from?" or "You know that banks have policies in place to stop exactly this from happening, right?"

I have an editor that pretty much hates my stories in terms of what the story is I choose to tell, which in some ways is great, cos she's never shy about pointing out what she doesn't like and what doesn't work - best integrity checker imaginable, even if it's somewhat depressing when I think I've written something good, give it to her and get back a list of everything she found wrong with it, and the end line "But then I dislike these kinds of stories anyway".

You do need an editor though. There are lots here who will do it for free. Take advantage of that.

Generally I do four passes. Initial writing. Then a syntax pass, and obvious corrections. Then a dialog pass, where I look at what's being said, why, and try and decide if there are less mechanical ways of people talking.

Then I'll do a pass where I add small stuff that I think is missing. A thought someone may have, a small side story, an extra bit of info that explains why the car's tires were bald in the first place. Mostly it's the addition of someone thinking though.

Then I'll read it again, correct anything that's come up, and then feed to the editor.

Generally I'll do one more pass after editing, just to see if the editor has thrown up anything I need to address (and there _always is_, usually in dialog or in the need for more explanation of something specific), then it's Press That Submit Button.

Outlining. Do you bother or not?
I do it, but mainly because my stories have a plot and are often complex, and I will often walk away from writing for a couple of months when the muse leaves me, and I need to know where I was, where I was going and what I intended when I pick it up again.

Also, with an outline, I know if the characters are getting off plot. I, like many authors, am amazed at how often my characters aren't responding like I thought they would, and sometimes the plot goes off a bit because they just won't do what the plot needs them to. With an outline, I know when that is happening, and I can decide to let them go off in the direction they seem to need to, or if I need to pull them back and re-do the bit I am writing.

Quite a lot of the shorter stories here don't need this, to be honest. But if you doing a chapter story or anything complex, a small outline probably wouldn't kill you. It's really up to you and how much you can carry around in your head for how long.

What sort of mood are you in when you write? Does being hot and bothered help you write hot sex scenes, or does being more detached and even clinical help you find the right words?
I definitely have to be in a 'writing' mood. Sometimes I find I stall on a story and have to put it away - the second story of the Ingrams series has been sitting at 15k words for about three months now and I really need to pull my finger out and get on with it. But sometimes I have to push myself into the mood.

But since I'm not paid for it, I don't mind not writing for a bit and just letting it sit. Remember, this is a hobby, despite what the comments on Lit will try and tell you.
 
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I'd recommend the services of a good editor, or - at least- a reliable beta reader.
 
1. First I think of what kind of story I want to tell. Then I think of the theme, and the vibe (ie is it a story about a slut? Depraved sex? A loving story? Tender?)

2. Then I think of how to tell the story, meaning what the scenes are. Who the characters are. What makes sense.

3. I think of each story like a tv show. Meaning, there's a beginning, a middle, and the end has the big sex scene for a finale.

4. I don't bother outlining. Sometimes I just write without knowing with the actual story is going to be, I make it up as I go along, but I keep in mind what the theme of the story is.

5. Mood doesn't matter in my opinion.

6. The key is to keep writing. Eventually you'll discover your own style. Best of luck.
 
1. First I think of what kind of story I want to tell. Then I think of the theme, and the vibe (ie is it a story about a slut? Depraved sex? A loving story? Tender?)

2. Then I think of how to tell the story, meaning what the scenes are. Who the characters are. What makes sense.

3. I think of each story like a tv show. Meaning, there's a beginning, a middle, and the end has the big sex scene for a finale.

4. I don't bother outlining. Sometimes I just write without knowing with the actual story is going to be, I make it up as I go along, but I keep in mind what the theme of the story is.

5. Mood doesn't matter in my opinion.

6. The key is to keep writing. Eventually you'll discover your own style. Best of luck.

So you already have an end in mind or is it just a general sense of where it should end? I have a general sense...like John ends up having sex with his babysitter, but how, why and what happens after that....that's the mystery until I write the story and actually get to the end.
 
As soon as my muse makes me aware it has a story in mind I can sit down and write it. I write from beginning to end. No, I don't outline.
 
So you already have an end in mind or is it just a general sense of where it should end? I have a general sense...like John ends up having sex with his babysitter, but how, why and what happens after that....that's the mystery until I write the story and actually get to the end.

I'm usually the same way.

Usually I build a story around a scene.

For instance, a lot of people have an Office fantasy, the thought of a secretary and employee getting it from her boss.

So I start off thinking, who is the girl? What's her story? Why does she put up with her bosses behavior? Then once I have some idea of that, I'll start writing, sometimes with plot details, sometimes not.

I fill in the blanks along the way with what comes naturally. Because sometimes when the characters say or do certain things, the plot points opens up by itself.
 
Isn't it interesting how differently writers come to their task. if I had a story completely in my mind before I started, I would be too bored to write it. Usually I begin with a character and a situation, lets say a man of 62 has lost his wife to long difficult cancer. I begin to write him and he takes over, simple as that. in this particular case he decided he wanted to run away to Florida for awhile, so I went on line and picked a place, unusual one. Found an R V sale, a really cute inexpensive one bought one (in fantasy) but in actuality found the RV and the look of it and the price, found the campground, rented a car, was on my way to park it at a RV park When I saw a cool restaurant, stopped there and met someone and the story was off and running. This was kind of unusual, but for me I just write them and let them go, they create themselves.

In another case I decided to create a deserter from the Civil War, A Yankee. Well, one has a Yankee, what does one need next? Ta Da A rebel, wrote him, wrote how the met, one injured, one dazed and wandering, for months the y wandered and everywhere they went I had to go look up where they were taking me and what it looked like and what year it was, etc. How did the riverboats go, how much did they cost, how long would it take o get from louisville to St. Louis, by horse, by train, by steamboat. How much money was a lot? and so on. my characters can be demanding, but i give them free rein.


As for the sex part, i my case it comes from a vast actual experience, but can also be researched if you do not limit yourself or your characters, You must be brave and stout hearted, if two people can do it to and for one another, you must let your characte do it, so you must find out. How does a man orgasm, a woman, what does anal feel like? all this, it is a bold, daring adventure. Come along for the ride!
my advice let them go, they will become people before your very keyboard. Than if they piss you off too much, you can always be like Stephen King and kill them off.
 
Another thing:

Sometimes I just have a premise I like, and then I start writing, without knowing the plot points.

For instance, I recently wrote a story (for next month) in which a novelist mom writes her first erotica, and eventually finds herself using her son for inspiration.

I liked the idea, but I had no plot points, I just started writing. The first dialogue scene was with the mom and her manager, and the scene ended with the mom looking through her window and saw her son swimming in the lake. So naturally, the next scene is that she would go out and swim with him (still non-sexual at this point) and they would have a friendly conversation in which she reveals she's going to write an erotic novel.

From there, a story eventually grew. I just took a scene by scene. However the scene ended, it pointed to the direction for the next scene. Before long, a story is complete, without ever having used an outline or per-determined plot points. It makes writing fun because it's unpredictable and you can use your imagination more.
 
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see, for me, that's exactly what the problem is with quite a lot of what is written on Lit.

There's no plot or story perse, it just meanders around. And that's because the author sat down to say "I'll just write something".

If you don't have a story in mind or a plot point to revolve around, or have something to actually say, then 90% of what gets written might as well not have been. It's just...there. Like so many stories on lit that have no point whatsoever, but are just...there. So the author can say he wrote something, and get some hot sex in it.

Now that's not to say that people shouldn't be free to write whatever they want, or however they want. Of course they should. Writing a story for the sake of writing about hot sex isn't a bad thing at all.

But what you _do_ end up with, is Lit as it is now, which is a macrocosm of the internet in general, where 95% of it is utter crap, with 5% being gems of value.

<shrug> It's all personal opinion of course.
 
I think a story can meander around to the point where it becomes a story.

For instance, if you look at a movie by Paul Thomas Anderson, they're genius. He makes genius movies, with great scripts. But there aren't many traditional plot points. You just follow characters around in their daily lives. If you break those movies down by scene, there isn't much going on. But as a whole, you have a complete story which revolves around peoples lives.

I think the same can be true for erotic stories. You can follow characters around in their daily lives until you care about them, then it leads to sex.

But of course, this only works if the writing is good. That's the only way you can get away with that.
 
There's no plot or story perse, it just meanders around. And that's because the author sat down to say "I'll just write something".

Not just "something," but something with so many words that everyone will think it must be good. :rolleyes:
 
I think the meandering might work in movies (I don't watch them, since reading subtitles is annoying, so not sure if it works or not) but personally I can't read something that does that. There has to be something advancing the plot or I find another story. Lots of random action will not do in its stead, either.

That isn't to say a writer needs to have the plot in his/her head when they sit down to write. But it has to be there when they send it off to be read.

In my opinion :)
 
I think a story can meander around to the point where it becomes a story.

For instance, if you look at a movie by Paul Thomas Anderson, they're genius. He makes genius movies, with great scripts. But there aren't many traditional plot points. You just follow characters around in their daily lives. If you break those movies down by scene, there isn't much going on. But as a whole, you have a complete story which revolves around peoples lives.

I think the same can be true for erotic stories. You can follow characters around in their daily lives until you care about them, then it leads to sex.

But of course, this only works if the writing is good. That's the only way you can get away with that.

LOL. Wow, we absolutely have different opinions on Paul Andersons movies, that's for sure:)

But that's ok - if we were all the same, how boring would life be?
 
I get the ideas I want to weave together. I sketch out the plot in pencil on graph paper, complete with the drawing in the 7th grade literature book of the structure of a short story. Sometimes I know all the pieces, sometimes I don't. Then I figure out who the characters might be. Sometimes I'm not even sure of their genders until I'm a couple thousand words in. Kink comes last. Gotta see what the story wants.

When the plot unfolds enough, I return to my sketch to see if all the elements are falling into place. Does it have a hook? Is there enough conflict to make it interesting? Any symbolism emerging?

In a long story I will sketch out each section this way to make the action rise and fall throughout the story.

Every once in a while, I just sit down and write. Not often though. That wouldn't satisfy my need to overthink things. :D
 
I think a story can meander around to the point where it becomes a story.
<snip>
I think the same can be true for erotic stories. You can follow characters around in their daily lives until you care about them, then it leads to sex.

That's about how my first-person picaresque journals go. The protagonist chronicles their encounters and adventures, mostly sexual. In my RON and DEX and ALAN postings, and the new RUTH series, I just follow their activities and thoughts. I see this same technique in a number of well-regarded tales here, collections (not series) where the same character meets people and gets fucked.
 
For me it's all of the above mostly depending on time, If I have an idea and no time I will just type the idea out and then at some point come back to it, If I have time I can take the idea through the whole way or at least until things are fairly well set.

I have used outlines but rarely end up where the outline does, my stories tend to be driven by my mood when working on them.
In "A real Bitch" I wanted to write a blackmail themed story, when I started I had a strong BDSM theme in mind, during the writing I had a conversation with a good friend who is very much into canine roll play and I found that the story bent in that direction.

I usually write a chapter or several pages 5000 words or so and then take a break, when coming back to writing I will run spell check (Something that I need to do because I am the worlds worst speller) then I will read what I have written to do two things one get back into the story, and do a quick edit.
After I have completed I will run spell check again and set it aside for a few days.
When I come back to it I then do a full edit before sending it to my wife for her critique and edit. She is a great editor because she doesn't like most of the fetishes that I write about.

As a side note most of my characters, come from real life are based on real people. I think this helps with my writing and with character development.
 
My situation was similar. I found literotica months ago & the site inspired me to write my own stories. So far I have three stories on the site. As for how to get started:

1) For your first story, If you have a favorite category that you read often on this site (Celebrities, Incest, Anal, etc.) choose your favorite category and set your first story in that realm. This way you can use some of your favorite stories as reference material. Take apart your favorite story & try to figure out what your favorite parts of it were and why. Was the author super-descriptive? Did he/she slowly build the sexual tension up to an epic climax?

2) You need a pearl of an idea or premise to start. For example, say you love Christina Hendricks & her fantastic boobs and want to base your story on her. Think of scenarios that you would think are hot and would like to see her in. Do you want a scenario where Don Draper fucks her brains out on his desk? Do you want to see her dominated? Maybe her young, virgin cousin that she hasn't seen in years is in town for the weekend?

3) Decide on telling your story in 1st or 3rd person. Stick to one. I found out the hard way on my first story. One of the major complaints in the comments were that I bounced back & forth between them (I guess that's a no-no.)

4) I don't write an outline ahead of time. I just start writing. I tend to get sexy ideas while I'm writing which ends up leading the story.

5) When I write, I try not to be repetitive. For example, say I'm writing a paragraph about an anal scene. I won't use the same words twice. I will alternate between, ass, heart-shaped behind, tush, sphincter, and etc. Same thing when it comes to being descriptive about a specific body part. I would bounce between glistening, taut, curvy, muscular, jiggling, perfect, and etc. The thesaurus function is a lifesaver.

6) Try not to write dialog that doesn't feel, "Real". Let's say you're writing a brother/sister story. It never feels realistic if they call each other sis, or little brother directly. I can't think of any time in my life that I ever called my siblings sis or big brother. The readers are not morons. I understand how some writers want to hammer home the point that it's incestuous, but they can do it in a way that doesn't come off as forced. Instead of: Olivia asked, "will you lick my pussy, big sis?" You could instead try something like: Olivia begged her big sister to go down on her glistening pussy.

7) Don't try to speed up the sex to such an unrealistic pace that it no longer seems plausible that they would fuck that quickly. Example: Margaret walked into her new supervisor's office to discover him masturbating. She rushed over to deepthroat his cock.

8) Prior to submitting your story, I would recommend reading it over at least three times to catch any spelling mistakes. If there are some things that you are not sure about or are not working, create a thread in the Editor's forum for help.

9) Grow a thick skin when it comes to reading comments about your stories. There will be some that will give constructive criticism without being total assholes about it. Unfortunately, there will always be a couple of anonymous posters that will tear you a new one, but I doubt that they would have actually bothered to read your story. Then you have the posters that are not anonymous that leave shitty comments. I tend to see if they have posted their own stories before tearing right back into them.
 
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Once you've had an idea, do you let it swill around in your mind for hours/days/weeks and then actually write the story in one glorious thrash? Or do you write in several sessions, building the story up scene by scene? Do you write it beginning-to-end, or in separate out-of-order chunks?

It usually rattles around in my head for months, if not years, with a lot of evolution during that time, before I start writing anything. When I do start writing, I have a plot outline in mind, but often I'll end up diverging from that outline - I get to a certain point and realise that what I originally had in mind isn't consistent with the way the characters have evolved, or the structure doesn't work with the mood I'm trying to convey, etc etc.

I write slowly and have other time commitments; when I was working on a series I'd manage about 6k words a month, written in dribs and drabs here and there. This does make it difficult to maintain plot and mood continuity, so I'll usually re-read the preceding bits to get back into the flow. Usually I write in the same order it's going to be read, but sometimes I modify that - e.g. if I'm writing two different views of the same scene, I don't want to be writing them weeks apart even if the reader is going to see them at different times.

And what about editing? Do you just spellcheck and hit submit? Do you edit as you go along? Or do you do multiple passes over the story, improving it a bit each time?

Multiple passes, mostly as part of the "re-read" process. I also get my partner to look over the finished story.

Outlining. Do you bother or not?

As above, I always start with an outline even if it's just in my head, but I don't feel obliged to follow it if something better comes to mind partway through.
 
I have two types of plot bunnies. The ones that spring into my head all the time. Usually inspired by something I see. And others that build a little slower, but are more intense.

When I am thinking of writing a new story I lay there just before I go to sleep and run them through my head and its

"Hmm, no, no, what?., jeez, ....oh!"

Once I hit "oh" then that's the one I start.

Mow generally all I have is a sexy image of a couple and not even sure who they are. Could be a brother/sister could be a cougar/cub, could be a couple but once that image is locked on it all unfolds.

I write with no outline and a basic idea of what I want. Once I start typing it seems to tell itself
 
Wow, I could bleed a lot of ink to describe the many fold ways I write, but my usual way is to have an idea of a thing I want to accomplish. For example I may want to write a description of a woman performing fellatio. But I need story, so I begin backing up to how they got there, who they are, the setting, and so on. Or the obverse, I have all that and try to see if they end up having sex.

Like others I dredge my experiences to fuel the stories, idealizing, perfecting, re-telling reality so it becomes better fiction. I struggle with dialogue, I know what real people say does not translate to writing and what sounds great when read would be weird if spoken, but I keep trying to get better. I am still working at where to begin a story and when to let it end. I am a perfectionist and I imagine my stories far better than my "talent" lets me craft them, but I aspire and keep experimenting.

So how do I write? I enjoy the process and sometimes I find I have cut a diamond from an otherwise unremarkable bit of stone. I wish I had an editor, reliable beta-readers, more time to read books on writing, take a class, go to workshops, actually write, I wish, I wish, I wish, I get frustrated and try to quit, then I just write again. Flaws and all.
 
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