How do you like your characters & situations?

[MsQuote]

Safe sex is something the reader already knows about, and ignores. Readers dont come for lectures, we arent Michelle Obamas.

Readers want fantasy material, and wanna know how to make the fantasy happen IRL. Our job is to make the instructions interesting and plausible.

You're right about same sex. I don't take the "condom break" mostly because it disrupts the flow of the story and to a great degree, who doesn't think about how nice it would be not to have to wear one?

It's funny that "Fifty Shades of Grey" got some accolades for making a point of Christian Grey slipping on a rubber every time he slung his dick out. I get it, especially since that book/series was written for the mommy crowd. I think it also helped set up as CG to be a safe and romantic character that women could fall in love with.

 

[SaucyEroticProductions]

Two ways for us, really.

Either we/i love pushing the boundaries of what is possible and like to write about fantastic situations, different worlds and characters one can imagine meeting/encountering.

or

I like to bring it closer to home, put the reader in a situation where he/she thinks that it could totally happen, or that the character could totally be "real."

Our recent contest entry was actually the first time for me when i really...mixed the two - even if just in a minor way.


Personally, i don't have a preference here. I think as long as the writing is good, i can enjoy both ways .

 

[patdown]

I tend to think about someone I have known in the past and maybe haven't seen for ages and imagine a situation developing around them. Sometimes it's just one, two or more people who you pass on a given day and they trigger some scenario. I might read someone else's story here and it with a plot twist it might inspire something with characters I didn't know what to do with.

Often I like to use those characters in second, third or more stories but have them in different situations. What starts as a couple, becomes a bi threesome or a gay or lesbian story down the road. I do that rather than just replay a story a second time.

I do try to make stories believable in the "normal" world. And considering some things you hear about that stretches pretty far.

Almost always I start a story because I have the right characters but often don't have a way to put them together, or I have the conclusion to an encounter but have trouble filling in the middle. I make a conscious effort to write from both the man's and woman's perspective. Some stories flow better and seem more believable if a woman writes them. To try not to be too repetitive I try to finish and submit different kinds of stories and from different perspectives in bunches. Nobody else might notice but it keeps me thinking.

 

[woodcotton]

I like my characters with an age or racial difference and the narrative to have situations of confused discovery. My first story (submitted but not approved) featured age difference (24 & 42, Latina) and pathways in a woodland. Looks like my second story will be one that i've been mulling over for a while and will be a fun story featuring Angela Bassett and Christina Hendricks set in stark white interiors.

Writing erotic fiction is still new to me but I know what I like and I feel the only thing hobbling me is lack of time and experience (one and the same i suppose).

 

[TinyBeth]

To me, that question enters into the realm of asking if we, as authors, have an obligation to educate while we write. I have a lot of unsafe sex that happens in my stories. For example: I can't think of a single story I've written where a condom is used. I don't think that's any different than pulling a 1st time sub into a bondage situation without an identifiable safe word. Besides, as authors, we get to pick and choose the details were share. It's well within our rights (as storytellers) to choose not to describe every detail.

For me condom use in a story is about realism. The committed long-term couple in "His Annual Visit" didn't but I made a point of having the guys use condoms in "Psychology of a Groupie," I don't know any musicians stupid enough to mess around unprotected. None of them want to chance disease or worse still end up paying child support out of what little they make. I know some people think condoms break the flow of the story, but I just couldn't do it. It didn't ring true so I tried to make the condoms not distract.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The point I was trying to get at in my original question as to situations where is it or isn't not OK to place a character in an incredibly dangerous situation ... like a female sub in bondage with a partner she doesn't know or as never seen? I had someone make a comment about placing a female sub in a first-time bondage scene without a safe word even though the element of trust-building was pretty apparent, or so I thought.

For me it depends a bit on whether the risk is likely to be obvious to readers. I assume most readers these days are aware of STI prevention issues so I don't worry too much about that, but I was unwilling to make the same assumption about cable ties. (My character IS being safety-conscious, but I couldn't fit all of that into the story without breaking the flow, so I added a short note at the end.)