Not enough sex in my erotica?

[FortySixtyFour]

Pornography has many draws over erotica, but at least one enormous flaw, to quote Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne; the reader will suddenly lose interest in porn and gain an interest in wiping up jism. As such, when I set out last year to try my hand at my first writing project, I resolved to try writing erotica rather than pornography, that is - a story containing sex and building on sexual themes rather than a story predominantly focusing on sex.

Now I'm not knocking pornography, and I won't make any claim that what I write is some higher class of smut. Honestly, I scarcely consider myself a writer, more of a dabbling enthusiast. I feel that the readers kind enough to leave me comments are dissatisfied because they're expecting pornography and instead finding erotica, and erotica too tame or tasteless for their palate, to boot. That is to say, I have six or seven chapters going without sex and no explicit sex planned for another four or five more at the least.

Is this acceptable as erotica? Or am I wasting everyone's time writing a story going nowhere?

 

[sr71plt]

I make no attempt to separate erotica and porn in my stories. I just write a story I would for the mainstream and when they get to the sex scenes, they just have graphic sex. I give no thought to whether what they are doing is erotica or porn--I let the characters decide how steamy it gets.

 

[BurningMonkey]

The answer depends largely on what you want from your writing.

The writers of bodice-ripper romances churn them out by the dozens, in some cases by the hundreds, and make lots of money and have myriad throngs clamoring for their next work. But their stories are formulaic, predictable, sometimes downright schlock.

The writers of truly literary works reap critical acclaim and praise from those who recognize truly good writing...but hardly ever get read.

Ask yourself: Why am I writing? Sure, it's nice to be read--what writer doesn't want that?--and nice when people praise what you've written. But who's reading it, and are they the sort of people whose praise you want? And are you willing to change your style or format or write something you don't really feel just to pander to the crowd?

Write what you want, what you feel. If that doesn't meet someone else's expectations...oh, well. There are other writers who will fill that market. If you feel you're crafting a good product, if you feel good about your work, then you're not wasting anyone's time.

As I once told another member of Lit, "Yes, I'm a writer of 'smut', but I want to write the best possible smut I can."

 

[Gorza]

You have to write for yourself, and also realise that you write for a readership. There is a category here for romance, where the focus is far more on relationship building. Erotica does require sex, but that is an elastic term: a lot of flirtation, teasing and even foreplay can be great. Even still, the reader of erotica expects most of the character to fuck most of the time. We can argue back and forth the divide between porn and erotica, but I don't think it gets anyone anywhere. If you have a great extent of writing without sex, you can easily fail to meet your readers' expectations. If there's enough flirtation and suggestion, you might be able to tag them along, especially if your writing is good, but you're setting yourself up for a fail doing too much of this. If 'romance' works for the non-sex chapters, then post those chapters to that category, and then perhaps lodge the sex chapters as 'erotic couplings'. That way, your readers know what to expect.

 

[rjordan]

I make no attempt to separate erotica and porn in my stories. I just write a story I would for the mainstream and when they get to the sex scenes, they just have graphic sex. I give no thought to whether what they are doing is erotica or porn--I let the characters decide how steamy it gets.

Yes, and let the reader decide what they like about it.

There are many stories where I get so engrossed in the story, I skim or entirely skip graphic sex scenes. They take me out of a good story. I doubt the author intended sex scenes to have that affect. Less is often more here.

rj

 

[BurningMonkey]

The bottom line is this: Are you trying to write a sex story. or are you trying to write a story with sex?

The answer will determine what you do. When I write, I decide which one I'm aiming for, and go for it. If a "story with sex", then I don't shy away from graphic descriptions when the story arrives at that point; that's what in my mind qualifies as "erotica'. But the sex doesn't define the story.

If a "sex story", i.e., a "hot stroker", then I write minimal connective pieces in between the graphic sex scenes. And that in my mind equates to "literary porn."

I like both, I write both, and let the reader--if there are any--decide what they like.

 

[rjordan]

You have to write for yourself, and also realise that you write for a readership. There is a category here for romance, where the focus is far more on relationship building. Erotica does require sex, but that is an elastic term: a lot of flirtation, teasing and even foreplay can be great. Even still, the reader of erotica expects most of the character to fuck most of the time. We can argue back and forth the divide between porn and erotica, but I don't think it gets anyone anywhere. If you have a great extent of writing without sex, you can easily fail to meet your readers' expectations. If there's enough flirtation and suggestion, you might be able to tag them along, especially if your writing is good, but you're setting yourself up for a fail doing too much of this. If 'romance' works for the non-sex chapters, then post those chapters to that category, and then perhaps lodge the sex chapters as 'erotic couplings'. That way, your readers know what to expect.

Have you ever seen a commercial novel tagged that way? Seriously, can you imagine picking up a mainstream novel with a category listing on the title page of each chapter of the book?

I find it annoying when a single piece is scattered over several categories. But worse than that for the author, if a chapter is in a category I never read, I won't find it. I'll just assume the author lost interest in the project as often happens with multi-chapter stories here, and isn't writing it anymore.

rj

 

[BurningMonkey]

Have you ever seen a commercial novel tagged that way? Seriously, can you imagine picking up a mainstream novel with a category listing on the title page of each chapter of the book?

I find it annoying when a single piece is scattered over several categories. But worse than that for the author, if a chapter is in a category I never read, I won't find it. I'll just assume the author lost interest in the project as often happens with multi-chapter stories here, and isn't writing it anymore.

rj

Ah, but if you like the author and go to their profile page, you'll find all of their works.
And if you label them "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2", then it doesn't matter what category each chapter is slotted into; the entire work can be found and read.

Agreed, it's a bit of a PITA, but... *shrug* it is what it is.

 

[FortySixtyFour]

Thank you for the help, everyone! Thinking back, I probably should have filed in a romance category rather than an out there one - Mind Control, since it's more the former than the latter. It honestly didn't occur to me, because when I started writing this story a year ago, I was submitting it to MCStories. It was only recently one of my readers there emailed me suggesting I try submitting here as well.

tldr; I should have paid more attention to which category suited my story best, I think.

 

[lovecraft68]

Stay with what you're doing, your audience will find you. I write a lot in incest and there is a faction there for 'mom's hot why not' pure porn, just fucking right off the bat for no apparent reason, incest for the sake of it.

I don't write those, I write long stories full of conflict building up to the crossing of the line.

When I first started I had some people saying 'too long' took forever etc... but now? I have a huge following who enjoy my style to the point that when I did write a stroky porn one this summer(Mom likes porn too!) I took heat from my regulars

So just write what your vision of erotica is and the readers will come to you.

 

[FortySixtyFour]

Stay with what you're doing, your audience will find you. I write a lot in incest and there is a faction there for 'mom's hot why not' pure porn, just fucking right off the bat for no apparent reason, incest for the sake of it.

I don't write those, I write long stories full of conflict building up to the crossing of the line.

When I first started I had some people saying 'too long' took forever etc... but now? I have a huge following who enjoy my style to the point that when I did write a stroky porn one this summer(Mom likes porn too!) I took heat from my regulars

So just write what your vision of erotica is and the readers will come to you.

Haha, I like the way you think, but I don't think I have the talent for that. And even if I did, I don't have enough time in my days to get much of any writing done, so I have just six short chapters finished in this whole past year. It'd be easy for even a reader who enjoyed my particular gimmick to forget about me.

 

[lovecraft68]

Haha, I like the way you think, but I don't think I have the talent for that. And even if I did, I don't have enough time in my days to get much of any writing done, so I have just six short chapters finished in this whole past year. It'd be easy for even a reader who enjoyed my particular gimmick to forget about me.

Then just take pride in knowing you wrote your baby your way.

 

[Hypoxia]

Are many highly-regarded stories on LIT with little or no explicit sex, or long stretches of story with none. Readers have various expectations. Some want strong stroking material several times per page. Can't please everyone. One of my highest-ranked stories has many fucks but also fair amounts of glossed-over sex -- and I got a complaint about that. One complaint. I guess the vast majority of readers did not mind.

As mentioned, write what you like. If you like to pander, fine. I do at times -- but I also like to be startling, annoying, snarkily funny, and sometimes merely exploratory. Too much or too little sex? Just whatever feels right.

 

[FortySixtyFour]

Are many highly-regarded stories on LIT with little or no explicit sex, or long stretches of story with none. Readers have various expectations. Some want strong stroking material several times per page. Can't please everyone. One of my highest-ranked stories has many fucks but also fair amounts of glossed-over sex -- and I got a complaint about that. One complaint. I guess the vast majority of readers did not mind.

As mentioned, write what you like. If you like to pander, fine. I do at times -- but I also like to be startling, annoying, snarkily funny, and sometimes merely exploratory. Too much or too little sex? Just whatever feels right.

When you're writing something that has a slow buildup to the sex, do you post a disclaimer warning readers they might not be getting their jollies off immediately? I've had several people comment suggest I do so, I had never even thought of it when I was formatting my chapters to submit.

 

[Hypoxia]

When you're writing something that has a slow buildup to the sex, do you post a disclaimer warning readers they might not be getting their jollies off immediately? I've had several people comment suggest I do so, I had never even thought of it when I was formatting my chapters to submit.

Following the lead of some highly-regarded LIT authrs, I *do* post prefatory disclaimers warning of stuff readers might not like so they can stop reading now, please. And warning of delayed gratification. And warning that the story might not be totally accurate. Et cetera.

 

[GoldenCojones]

Is this acceptable as erotica? Or am I wasting everyone's time writing a story going nowhere?

Yes, IMHO, this is completely acceptable as erotica. I believe that "Erotica" is broad enough to apply to an expansive range of writing styles, topics, etc.

That said, I don't write what I consider to be Erotica. Sounds way too high brow for me. I write porn.

But I'm thinking of writing a story that could be considered Erotica. So who knows.

 

[Gorza]

Have you ever seen a commercial novel tagged that way? Seriously, can you imagine picking up a mainstream novel with a category listing on the title page of each chapter of the book?

I find it annoying when a single piece is scattered over several categories. But worse than that for the author, if a chapter is in a category I never read, I won't find it. I'll just assume the author lost interest in the project as often happens with multi-chapter stories here, and isn't writing it anymore.

rj

Who's talking about 'a commercial novel' here? There are many multipart stories on Lit that have chapters in different categories. With some of these, the overarching story is more of a setup in which different cameos can take place. Then you might truly have a 'group sex' chapter, a 'exhibitionist/voyeur' chapter and so forth. Having different chapters in different categories might look untidy, but it make sense on Lit for some multiparts. It is, in fact, easy to read from chapter to chapter of a multipart even if the chapters are in different categories. 'Mainstream novel'? I think you make a category error!

 

[NaokoSmith]

Welcome to the Authors' Hangout. Don't trail your feet over the side of the boat when the trolls are trolling! Don't post stories in Loving Wives without consulting TXRad who offers out his shark-proof suit at a preferential rate.


When a story has several chapters, they are listed at the side of the other chapters so it's easy to go onto the next even if they are in different categories. I am about halfway through a werewolf story which I deliberately wrote to be posted in different categories, as an exercise in writing an online rather than paper novel - where readers could move between sections more creatively. (I will go back to it soon!)

A lot of very successful writers on here post stories which imply rather than describe in panting sweaty detail sex. BrambleThorn has some superb stories which are suggestive rather than explict, such as the eerie The Wasp of St. Judith's. (My review here.)

Some writers do put a disclaimer saying there won't be hot heavy sex scenes, however as you post more chapters, you'll find people know what your work is like and will go to it if they are fans and skip it if not. (Apart from the 1-bombing trolls of course, LOL.)

Make sure you post a link to your stories - best place is in your signature, as we are very lazy here and often won't bother to click on your name, try to find your submissions list ... oh WTF, I want another cup of decaff coffee, never mind reading that newbie's work

 

[FortySixtyFour]

Thanks! The categories and tags system is a little new to me and I'm sure I'm not taking full advantage of it just yet - I only put the tag "drama" on my chapters for now. Hopefully the displeased readers won't read on through further chapters if they're let down by the early ones already? My fourth chapter's in submission process limbo right now, but I know that when I posted the fifth on another site I got some angry emails about it and lost a few readers then as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still writing this for mostly for me, but sometimes the criticism can get under my skin and kill my motivation to write when I get off work. I've on the other hand also had very patient readers who've been supportive, and I don't want to let them down.

And as for posting a link to my work.. haha. Maybe when I'm a decent writer, far, far into the future. I'm feeling right now that the less attention my work receives, the less humiliating it'll be. I'm 90% positive that what I'm writing is wish-fulfillment trope tied to clichés with run-on sentences and flat, inconsistent characterization. Honestly, the more other stories I read on here, the less confident in my own work I am, haha.

 

[YDB95]

I have occasionally had comments that complained of "not enough sex" in my stories, or even that they felt more like sex-education lessons than erotica. But I have 22 H's and two W's that suggest most readers don't agree.
There will always be complainers. Don't let them get you down!

 

[jsmiam]

Consider adding brief authors notes at the top, advising the reader what to expect. Each click of the back button by someone not interested saves reader and author some time. It's a nice courtesy to provide, and might help your ratings too. Target marketing, basically.

 

[slutindianwife]

very interesting

 

[stev2244]

For me the sex scenes are never the important part. They are mostly interchangeable anyway and don´t contribute much to the plot in many cases.

When I write a story, I sometimes perceive writing them as a chore. I use some placeholder ("sex scene"), so I can continue with the plot. When I´m done with the story, I add the sex scenes because I feel they are expected here. But my stories are not ideal for wanking anyway, mabe I should leave them out completely and just warn the reader about it.