Unable to write anything else than erotica

MrIllusion

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May 4, 2014
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42
Hello,

I write a lot of erotic stories, have been for decades now. But even though I'd really like to write other types of short stories (fantasy in my case), I just can't manage it. I just don't find the energy, the drive to do it. I sit down in front of a blank page and even though I have a story in my head, I just can't put it down...

Just wondering if some of the authors here have experienced this problem.
 
I started writing a suspense thriller once. Got one chapter in and went back to erotica.

What's worse though, is that even though I have started a few hundred stories, I haven't finished anything in a decade...
 
Just wondering if some of the authors here have experienced this problem.

I've had the reverse problem when writing a good story. Sometimes I need to force sex into it to make it erotic.

I wonder if you could do something like write your story with the erotic content, then edit it out at the end. Actually you could probably do that with some of your existing stories to see what the effect would be. The story is likely to be pretty short when you're done.
 
I've been seriously sex-lite in the last couple of chapters of SOTM. It's what worked for the chapters.

Really, Fantasy is the only place I can get wrapped up enough in the story to skip the sex, though. If I tried to write anything real world without sex, I'd be bored in 3.5 seconds.
 
When I started writing prose last year it wasn't intended to be erotica, it just had a lot of explicit scenes in it. Then when I found this site I realized some of my work would fit here.
 
I've had two fantasy novels in my head for 15 years. All attempts at getting them on the page have failed. There are bits here and there but nothing coherent.

When I started writing erotica, I managed to write several short stories very quickly, then a novel, and I'm now writing my third novel in the space of two years.

I have a few theories why.

The first is simply that I have slightly less perfectionist tendencies when it comes to erotica. I'm under no illusions that I am anything special as a writer but that doesn't matter because as long as I like what I've written, I figure my audience will as well. So I put myself under less pressure and just write what I feel like.

Secondly, my erotic fiction is set in the real world present day. That means I don't get sidetracked with world-building the way I did when I was trying to write fantasy fiction. If I wrote a non-erotic work set in the real world I might find I made similar good progress, but that doesn't appeal to me.

Thirdly, erotic fiction is simpler. My fantasy ideas involved a huge cast of characters, but my erotic stories are usually about only a couple, or a small handful of people.

And lastly - sex is a good motivator. Writing about sex and sexuality helps keep my interest and makes me want to continue to the next part, and get all the fun stuff down on paper and out there for others to read.

As to whether I could write non-erotic fiction now I've spent a couple of years writing nothing but erotica - well I tell myself I could, but I don't have the same motivation, especially as my erotica already has an audience, whereas I'd be starting from scratch with the other stuff.
 
I've had two fantasy novels in my head for 15 years. All attempts at getting them on the page have failed. There are bits here and there but nothing coherent.

When I started writing erotica, I managed to write several short stories very quickly, then a novel, and I'm now writing my third novel in the space of two years.

I have a few theories why.

The first is simply that I have slightly less perfectionist tendencies when it comes to erotica. I'm under no illusions that I am anything special as a writer but that doesn't matter because as long as I like what I've written, I figure my audience will as well. So I put myself under less pressure and just write what I feel like.

Secondly, my erotic fiction is set in the real world present day. That means I don't get sidetracked with world-building the way I did when I was trying to write fantasy fiction. If I wrote a non-erotic work set in the real world I might find I made similar good progress, but that doesn't appeal to me.

Thirdly, erotic fiction is simpler. My fantasy ideas involved a huge cast of characters, but my erotic stories are usually about only a couple, or a small handful of people.

And lastly - sex is a good motivator. Writing about sex and sexuality helps keep my interest and makes me want to continue to the next part, and get all the fun stuff down on paper and out there for others to read.

As to whether I could write non-erotic fiction now I've spent a couple of years writing nothing but erotica - well I tell myself I could, but I don't have the same motivation, especially as my erotica already has an audience, whereas I'd be starting from scratch with the other stuff.

All good points I agree with. My erotic stories are about the erotic; they're not about something else, with erotic segments added in. So once I've come up with the "kink" I want to write about, I don't find it hard to come up with characters and the central conflict, and it's easy and fun to write.

I've made a stab at another non-erotic work but am not very far along. I hope to make more progress soon.
 
I wonder if you could do something like write your story with the erotic content, then edit it out at the end. Actually you could probably do that with some of your existing stories to see what the effect would be

I was going to suggest exactly the same approach myself. There is a famous writer who, if my thinking is correct, wrote a simple story about boy meets girl; boy loses girl; they get back together and have a family. Then the writer, I believe, added a lot of sex and bdsm and it became a best seller making the writer, at the last count, over £100,000,000. The writer’s name is E.L. James.

So you could follow the suggestion in reverse. You could also follow the suggestion of trying it with your existing stories. Perhaps to combat the possible shortness in length you may be able, with a slight change of storyline, to combine two or more stories. You never know you might then find it possible to write non fiction in the normal way. If you don’t try you’ll never know.
 
i've wanted to write non-erotica for years with no success. i once got as far as writing the first chapter of a horror novel that i had plotted out and knew from start to finish. when i actually sat down and did write, the first chapter was at least 50% off the wall sex. i gave up after that.
 
I'm deeply afraid of this myself. Right now, all this ero stuff is just on the side, but coming up soon, my life's going to need to pick a direction to go in. Good news is I am writing, drawing, publish, etc, a webcomic right now that has absolutely no lewd stuff in it whatsoever, but that's no guarantee for the other things I'd like to write.

Writing erotica is surprisingly easy, given that it's fueled on one of the most basic human desires (lust/love). Writing the other stuff? Good luck. The mind is willing, but the soul is weak.
 
Hello,

I write a lot of erotic stories, have been for decades now. But even though I'd really like to write other types of short stories (fantasy in my case), I just can't manage it. I just don't find the energy, the drive to do it. I sit down in front of a blank page and even though I have a story in my head, I just can't put it down...

Just wondering if some of the authors here have experienced this problem.

I reckon that if you write a good story, you should get a good story regardless of whether it's erotic or not.
So, try writing a sexy story, and edit out the raw sex, perhaps ?
 
What you can try is writing longer build ups to the sex, then write something happening to the characters after sex. 'Real stories' can have erotic content, so work a story around the sex.

With each story try and build more and more around the characters and eventually you'll find you're getting more story based.

Worth a shot.
 
Hello,

I write a lot of erotic stories, have been for decades now. But even though I'd really like to write other types of short stories (fantasy in my case), I just can't manage it. I just don't find the energy, the drive to do it. I sit down in front of a blank page and even though I have a story in my head, I just can't put it down...

Just wondering if some of the authors here have experienced this problem.

If the drive, not the idea, is the problem, then it's a case of, what are you going to get out of the story?

Before I tried to teach myself how to write smut, I wrote novels that had no sex in them at all. It was hinted at, but it wasn't part of the story (thriller/action/sci-fi). I enjoyed the thrill of the pace of those novels when I was writing them, of setting challenges I had to solve, of the character conflict.

I would say, the endorphins gained from moving characters towards sex, can be gained from moving them in and out of conflict.

At the heart of any good story IS conflict. The world building in fantasy is great, and has its own merits, but it sounds to me as if you need a rush while you're writing (as I do), and your current ideas aren't giving enough of that to you, for you to concentrate on completing them.

So. Pick two characters, figure out why they hate each other, but still have to work together, (doesn't need to be sexual opposites), and see if you can create drama that gives you that same body high spike as writing sex.

That'd be my advice, based on my own experiences here of abandoning novels in place of messing about with porn. :D
 
Hello,

I write a lot of erotic stories, have been for decades now. But even though I'd really like to write other types of short stories (fantasy in my case), I just can't manage it. I just don't find the energy, the drive to do it. I sit down in front of a blank page and even though I have a story in my head, I just can't put it down...

Just wondering if some of the authors here have experienced this problem.

Not tried, to be honest. I can read plenty of non-erotic stories written way better than I ever could.

Erotica for me is exploring the side of me that no-one else could be bothered with.
 
Not tried, to be honest. I can read plenty of non-erotic stories written way better than I ever could.

Erotica for me is exploring the side of me that no-one else could be bothered with.

You're good at what you write. Haven't you thought of writing anything that isn't mostly erotic?
 
As I have sometimes said before: I'm not sure why I write here.

My non-erotic stories are (generally) a notch or two better than the 'erotic' ones. But the process - my process - is not that different. I start with an idea, sketch it out, develop some characters, tweak the story, smooth out a few of the bumps, put it in a warm place to prove for a few days or a few months, and then get it out and tweak it again. The test - for me, anyway - is in the characters. Are they believable? Do I care about them? Can I be bothered loving or hating them? Will I cheer them? Will I boo them? Do I think that someone else might give a damn?
 
You're good at what you write. Haven't you thought of writing anything that isn't mostly erotic?

Thank you.

No particular desire to, at this time. Exploring the sexual edge is the point of it all, for me. There are other things I do that bring in the bucks. It's self indulgence really, part of growing old disgracefully.
 
Some things are a real challenge. It depends on whatever you're willing to do and good at.

I can write most anything, except erotica. I can do erotica, BUT I have to write out something that leads to it and write it into whatever else I'm doing. THEN I pull the erotic/sexual details and separate it from the rest.

I have to feel it and experience to some degree. Which I have. Doing erotica as a stand alone is a tremendous challenge for me. I tend to over-romance it in that sense. It has to blend somehow. I have to feel or envision the chemistry.
 
You're good at what you write. Haven't you thought of writing anything that isn't mostly erotic?

I agree. I've read some of electric's non-erotica, but it's not really labeled as such. I like what I've read so far.
 
I agree. I've read some of electric's non-erotica, but it's not really labeled as such. I like what I've read so far.

Now I'm intrigued. What's an example of my non-erotica?

Not everything's happy ending stroke, I grant you that, but I thought everything had at least a little je ne sais quoi.
 
I started writing a book that is fantasy, something along the lines of The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe. Not exactly that but that would be the closest thing I could come up with.

The intent was to keep it timeless. I tried to use place names and people names that were not necessarily from this planet and also not in our current time frame.

It started out well but then I began picking it apart, realizing mistakes I had made that were not necessarily mistakes but things that tied it to this world or time frame.

I think I have about 4 chapters written and then it fell flat. Not really sure where to go with it after that.

I also go through periods of time where I get too busy to write or I just can't think of a thing. And other times? I can't stop writing.

My main type of writing isn't necessarily even erotica though. It's poetry. And a lot of that I write for myself or other specific people. I do have some erotic poetry though. Perhaps one day I will post some here.
 
I wax and wan on erotica.

Right now I'm pretty wax on...er...heavy into erotica. Last year I was heavy on the non-erotica stories.
 
You just gotta find something your passionate about to write. The true trick is trying to keep the story going. Take Telfer and his series "Three square meals" he is about to break 100 chapters of the story he's writing. He's written that much and people still find it an addicting story to read. I mean look at how many comments each of the later chapters accumulated. To me when each chapter of a story accumulates 100+ comments i find it as impressive as hell. The reason i think he manages to pull it off is because by the end of the chapter the one who reads it can't help but ask "WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!"
 
You just gotta find something your passionate about to write. The true trick is trying to keep the story going. Take Telfer and his series "Three square meals" he is about to break 100 chapters of the story he's writing. He's written that much and people still find it an addicting story to read. I mean look at how many comments each of the later chapters accumulated. To me when each chapter of a story accumulates 100+ comments i find it as impressive as hell. The reason i think he manages to pull it off is because by the end of the chapter the one who reads it can't help but ask "WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!"

I just checked, and he's had 316 comments for a story with just over 31,000 views. That's amazing. I have some stories with a lot more views, but the maximum number of comments is 57. That's incredible reader loyalty. I guess I have to check it out.
 
Thanks for all the replies and interesting ideas.

I can't imagine writing an erotic story with a non-erotic "base" and then have to add it later on. The ideas that come up are purely sexual from the get go.

And lastly - sex is a good motivator.

I agree. Maybe that's why I can't sustain non-erotica stories (pardon the pun).

What you can try is writing longer build ups to the sex, then write something happening to the characters after sex.

I could try, but some of my stories (at least the more serious ones) are already long enough...

Maybe it's just that the ideas I get for my non stories simply don't grip me enough to compensate for the lack of sexual motivation...

Or maybe, just maybe, I just have way too much sexual energy even after I spend some though my healthy sex life with my wife! :)
 
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