How did you learn to write erotica?

[desecration]

I use voice-to-text and record what I say when I masturbate on methamphetamine.

(Is writing erotica different from writing anything else? You study the masters, think about it, then give it a try. At that point it's like the scientific method: hypothesis, test, synthesis, editing. Or something like that.)

 

[Athalia]

How did I learn to write erotica? One story at a time.

It's a long process, but it doesn't have to be an arduous one. Think if that old saying about eating an elephant... you do it one bite at a time.

Write what you want to read. That was my motive. Maybe others won't like it. But maybe they will. You'll never know until you put it out there.

A took a couple of "creative writing" courses in college, but not much came from them, as I was given an author's work and told to emulate that style in a story of my own. (Why this was supposed to spark creativity is something that I never grasped, except that the instructor considered these steps to be crucial to the development of one's personal style.) Most of my pastiches were pretty bad. The only one that I thought might be decent was "Endymion," a re-telling of a Greek myth. After some re-writes that discarded the euphemisms that I had to employ back in the day, it ended up among the stories on this site.

I haven't been as productive on this site as I used to be, for two reasons:

First, I've already used most of the scenarios that I find erotic, and I don't want to end up writing the same story over and over again.It's only when I think of a plot that I haven't used before or seen elsewhere that I get interested in writing it. (Examples: "The Path of Pain" and "The Pond.")

Second, the overall quality of the writing has improved over the last decade, and I find myself not wanting to write a story that somebody else has already done better.

 

[desecration]

A took a couple of "creative writing" courses in college, but not much came from them, as I was given an author's work and told to emulate that style in a story of my own.

An experienced, well-published author told me once: stay away from all creative writing courses, since they teach work process and not mental process.

Her advice was the James Joyce method: go to a library and read widely, read eclectically, and then start practicing because you're going to have to write at least one unpublished novel before you're ready to write one that you'll be happy having published.

 

[HeyAll]

I learned by reading.

This is one my the biggest influences on my writing:

https://www.literotica.com/s/with-moms-help

-- Straight to the point

-- No wasted details

-- Characters have a purpose and reasoning

-- The build-up has lots of escalation

-- The plot pushes the escalation

 

[oggbashan]

An experienced, well-published author told me once: stay away from all creative writing courses, since they teach work process and not mental process.

Her advice was the James Joyce method: go to a library and read widely, read eclectically, and then start practicing because you're going to have to write at least one unpublished novel before you're ready to write one that you'll be happy having published.

Back in the 1990s I attended two consecutive creative writing courses. Most of those attending needed instruction on how to write anything, even a letter. I had to demonstrate the use of a word processor since many hadn't even used a typewriter.

But the first course was a disaster. The tutor started off by asking how many of us had had anything published. Two had written letters to the local newspapers. I had written several dozen. But when she asked me, the last, I admitted that I had written and had published several textbooks, many articles for technical magazines and academic studies. What I wanted was 'creative' writing which I hadn't done. The tutor was embarrassed. She had a 'commended' in a local writing competition. That was her total published work.

She kept saying 'Unless [Og] knows better..."

I didn't really get any advice on creative writing but I found the exercises for the 'creative' part very easy. I could tell a story verbally and writing one down was just a question of time.

But she recommended the local writing competition and most of us managed an entry. Our tutor entered too.

I came second for fiction and third for poetry. No one else on the course, including the tutor, was even mentioned. After that I had to leave the course because the tutor said there was nothing she could teach me.

It wasn't true. I joined the following year's 'advanced' course with a different tutor and learned a lot about points of view, plotting, etc. The new tutor understood that I had been writing factual stuff and wanted tuition on writing fiction and telling stories which is a different skill.

 

[KeithD]

I was already writing when I started writing erotica. I was writing in the mainstream, though, and at a time when, with a few exceptions, the bedroom door was expected to shut as you wrote developing sex scenes. At some point, I just stopped closing that door to the reader.

 

[rainbowbite]

I love the some of the stories on Literotica. Some of the authors on here are really amazing with their writing style. I have always been envious of that ability. I've been thinking about writing my own story (involving my wife with other men) but I dont know where to start. I have a general plot but dont know how to work in the detail and dialogue that I think makes a great story. I would love any help or guidance from any of you skilled writers out there.

I read a lot and just started writing even if it was awful. The more I wrote the easier it became. Working with an editor has helped me a lot with story structure.

 

[Zootonius]

Interesting question. I just completed my 1st story and am starting a 2nd. What I first learned was from reading other people's stories. I thought about what I liked and didn't. Which let to the question, "how would I do it?"

I think the genre is hard, actually. Plot and character development or steamy scenes? Or both. I've read a few stories that managed to make a page turner, that you want to know how the story turns out. That's what I'm still learning. (That and the discipline of proof reading)

 

[rjordan]

I think the genre is hard, actually. Plot and character development or steamy scenes? Or both. I've read a few stories that managed to make a page turner, that you want to know how the story turns out.

Many times when I'm engrossed in a good story, a long sex scene annoys me and I quickly scroll through it to get back to the story. It's surprising (not really) how often the sex scene is completely superfluous and nothing is really lost by ignoring it.

Normally, a writer would delete anything that doesn't advance the story, but countless sex scenes puff up most of the stories on Lit.

rj

 

[SamScribble]

Having re-read the question - How did you learn to write erotica? - I should amend my earlier answer.

I didn't learn to write erotica. At least I didn't learn to write the kind of erotica that most Lit readers seem to be looking for. I learned to write short stories sometimes sprinkled with vaguely erotic scenes and characters.

When it comes to writing about Sonny Jim taking a long bumpy car ride with his mother sitting on his lap, I'm afraid I'm a total failure.

 

[Lifestyle66]

...I've been thinking about writing my own story (involving my wife with other men) but I dont know where to start. I have a general plot but dont know how to work in the detail and dialogue that I think makes a great story. ...

As others here have said: Just start writing.

But it is probably easier to write from experience. So try writing about a sex scene or event you have experienced with your wife, with or without other men. Write an outline of the scene, then write details as they come to you. Read it, and think of more details to add.

Decide on the Point of View. I find it easiest to write in the first person, as in "I saw this...", "I heard that...", or "I felt this way..."

Once you can write a reasonably good story about something you know and saw, then branch out to add scenes you can imagine.

If you have shared your wife with another guy, then just describe how it started, and what happened. Reread it, and add more details until you think it's worthy of another reader/editor to review.

 

[yukonnights]

Many times when I'm engrossed in a good story, a long sex scene annoys me and I quickly scroll through it to get back to the story. It's surprising (not really) how often the sex scene is completely superfluous and nothing is really lost by ignoring it.

Normally, a writer would delete anything that doesn't advance the story, but countless sex scenes puff up most of the stories on Lit. rj

This strikes a chord with me; My first story published fourteen years ago here was really just a sex-scene with minimal set-up.

My current in-progress story is just the opposite; It's a detailed story with very few sex scenes. In fact, I became so engrossed in the story and I'm now pondering where to add some additional sexual content … which is likely going to be in the HEA ending once the happy couple settles in at their new ranch.

What that implies to me is that the more one writes, the more one reads up on fiction writing techniques, the more one reads other author's stories — the better that author becomes.

 

[rjordan]

In fact, I became so engrossed in the story and I'm now pondering where to add some additional sexual content … which is likely going to be in the HEA ending once the happy couple settles in at their new ranch.

The late Norm McDonald used to have a short bit about the worst Olympic events. One of them was where a guy would run a 100 yard dash...and then fish. Sort of a biathalon which is skiing and shooting.

Sometimes sex stories remind me of that. The author writes a decent story, then throws in a sex scene, because erotica.

rj

 

[TadOverdon]

I just worry about the sex scenes.

 

[lovecraft68]

I just worry about the sex scenes.

These days they're what hold me up, I flow through the story then stall with the sex. 12 years 185 e-books many with multiple sex scenes....how many can you write without feeling like here we go again? That's how I feel these days at times

 

[TadOverdon]

These days they're what hold me up, I flow through the story then stall with the sex. 12 years 185 e-books many with multiple sex scenes....how many can you write without feeling like here we go again? That's how I feel these days at times

Yeah, that's why I worry over them.

I spend a lot of time writing dialogue and narrative that I'll cut out later. I do it because it often flows easily, much more so than trying to find something new in what Little Alex called "the old in out, in out." But editorial choices have to be made, and I wind up cutting it way back. I reflect in discouragement that if I just cut-and-pasted the blowjobs from one story to the next that most folks who read it might not notice or mind.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Learned how to write erotica?

I don't write erotica. I write Sci-Fi or Fantasy where people happen to fuck on occasion. Or very often.

That might explain why I rarely get praise for my sex scenes.

:-D

 

[SimonDoom]

As far as dealing with "the sex scene" is concerned, I have my own way of dealing with that. I'm the opposite of Blind_Justice, who says he doesn't write erotica but writes stories that have sex in them. I write sex stories. The sex (or sexual experience of some kind) is the point of the story. So, as I see it, the whole story is the sex scene. The buildup is part of the sex. When I think of it that way, where the sex is the culmination of a continuing experience rather part 2 of a 2-part buildup/sex story, it gets easier for me to write, because the "sex scene" is the completion of what came before rather than just a sex scene.

A way to do that is to get the "sex" going right away. Plant the seeds. Foreshadow. Create the tension, the sexual desire and need, and what the characters want and don't have. The sex scene becomes more about resolving the early tension than it does about putting A in B, which, admittedly, gets repetitive to write over and over. The A in B stuff becomes the vehicle through which the story resolution is conveyed, rather than the other way around. I think it's easier, and much more interesting, to write when I think of it that way.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

i didn't. it's all in flux.

 

[Lifestyle66]

... When I think of it that way, where the sex is the culmination of a continuing experience rather part 2 of a 2-part buildup/sex story, it gets easier for me to write, because the "sex scene" is the completion of what came before rather than just a sex scene. ...

It depends on the plot. I'm writing the series about a couple becoming swingers. While the sex scenes may be important (and I'm admittedly not very good at writing those yet), the sex isn't the culmination of the conflict, but rather a cause. The conflict is in how the husband and wife react to what they are seeing in their spouse.

 

[Brutal_One]

Write from your perspective

When I started writing erotica it tended to come easily as I could think about scenes that I fantasised about which provided characters and plot. It was then just a case of writing the details of the scene I had in mind. Another technique I use is to write the story but add images from Google search. I can find images of characters, how I imagine them to look, how they are dressed, what the location is. That scene is then vivid in words and pictures. I can then write a text story that describes the images. Even the sex scenes I imagine.

In summary it starts in your imagination - the scene, the place, the characters, the conversations and the sex scenes. Then using both words to describe and images that detail the scene.

The key is to write first, get it down, then you can tidy up with grammarly for grammar (the free version is probably sufficient).

That in general is my process. It tends to mean I am a panster rather than a plotter although for a longer story it works in the same way but now you can sketch out each scene very high level and again write each scene as a chapter which builds to the full story.

Brutal One

 

[shakna]

One more voice for the "by writing" crowd.

My first ever erotica was "Indebted" in February of this year. That was the first time I'd ever written a sex scene in anything. Fast forward to today, and I've just finished a 700-ish page novel in "Toofy" that had a loyal following. You can track my growth by my profile's chronology.

In-between were dozens of unfinished things. Some of them were tweaked and stolen from for other things, others might yet become things, but most of them are just crap. Writing is creative, which means that the process has some unpredictability to it.

Pick a thing. Make a thing. Publish a thing. Move on to the next thing. Grow.

 

[Neverlander]

Personal inspiration

I would agree with much that has been suggested here. To it I would add the encouragement, "Let your fingers do the walking." If that hasn't gotten the message across, one might offer as a heavier hint the randy version of "Walking and chewing gum at the same time."

 

[Boota]

I had just started letting people know that I was writing mainstream stuff and let them read some of it. Several women I knew started asking me if I ever wrote any erotica. I had never even read any erotica. I did a Google search, found Literotica and did some reading. That was my only exposure to written erotica before I wrote my own. I wrote one story, posted it here, and sent out links. That was pretty cool because not only did I get a great reception from the women I wrote it for in the first place, I got a lot of nice compliments on it through Lit and other avenues.

What was kind of interesting for me is that a lot of the responses I got before I could post a pic of myself on the board assumed that I was a woman. I guess Boota isn't a name that they thought was gender specific enough.

I think what I've learned about writing erotica by actually doing it is that writing the mechanics of sex is just not very interesting. Before I looked up Literotica I assumed that written porn was pretty much just that. The mechanics of it. Once I saw that it wasn't it really opened a creative door for me. I'm not writing erotica these days, but I've got a really fun, twisted, erotic horror story brewing that will have to see the light of day at some point.

 

[TxRad]

Boota? Is there a time warp going on in the Lit servers? First Rumply and now you.

Good to see ya.