Sci-Fi Erotica Writing Advice or Recommendations?

[OddLove]

Does anyone have any advice for writing a soft sci-fi erotica? Or recommendations of soft sci-fi erotica I could check out?

I have an idea I want to fully discover, but it would only work in sci-fi. And I've never written anything sci-fi so I'm trying to understand what that looks like.

For example.

How often should the story describe the environment?

How much should the story explain the technology?

 

[AlinaX]

SciFi readers here enjoy detail, so if you have a story to tell, don't be shy. But please resist the instinct to explain all before getting into the story itself. Tease the reader with details and gradually reveal the world.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think tastes will differ a lot on this. My view tends to be that a little goes a long way and you should give just the detail that's needed for the story. But some really love what I call the tech porn. Either way, I agree with Alinax: let the details out through the story, not in a big info dump. Reveal your world as the characters interact with it.

 

[Voboy]

I did a well-received SF piece. My guiding principle was that I would assume people in the distant future would have most of the same quirks and foibles they have now, just with far more technologies available to them. I never really explained those technologies; I pretended my readers were living in that future universe, and reading about things that had already happened using effects and technologies already known.

I love SF, but not "classic" SF; in my mind, the best thing George Lucas ever did for us was to make space travel dirty, clunky, and mundane. I strove for that kind of ethos in my stories.

Take a look, if you wish.

 

[NotWise]

Does anyone have any advice for writing a soft sci-fi erotica? Or recommendations of soft sci-fi erotica I could check out?

I have an idea I want to fully discover, but it would only work in sci-fi. And I've never written anything sci-fi so I'm trying to understand what that looks like.

For example.

How often should the story describe the environment?

How much should the story explain the technology?

My approach, if writing a series or long story, would be to immerse the readers in my world. Future technology is magic, so I wouldn't spend much time describing it.

For a shorter story, I'd spend my effort on the characters and action. I'd not spend a lot of time on the setting, and no time on the technology.

My "soft" sci-fi example would be "The Third Ring," which you can find in my catalog (link in my signature).

 

[SyleusSnow]

After reading nothing but science fiction growing up, I finally tried writing one: Freya and the Space Hippies. It went okay.

So now I've written one science fiction story, I'm qualified to speak with authority

I agree there's no need to go heavy into exact technology details. Look at Star Trek - lots of tech, little detail. Focus more on details of the society and characters. Especially in a short story.

But really, a question like this is kinda huge. Beyond the basics, there are sub-genres in science fiction and other considerations. Youtube has tons of good writing advice channels... including for science fiction. Here's a few I found helpful:

Reedsy How to write Science Fiction
Story Grid: How to Write Fantasy and Science Fiction
Science Fiction Genre Characteristics
Not Youtube, but LitReactor: How to write science fiction

 

[Areala-chan]

My solo Sci-Fi effort thus far has been quite well received in the ratings and comments department. It's also a lesbian story, so I dunno if anything would translate for you, but it's in my signature if you want to check it out.

 

[Comshaw]

I did a well-received SF piece. My guiding principle was that I would assume people in the distant future would have most of the same quirks and foibles they have now, just with far more technologies available to them. I never really explained those technologies; I pretended my readers were living in that future universe, and reading about things that had already happened using effects and technologies already known.

I love SF, but not "classic" SF; in my mind, the best thing George Lucas ever did for us was to make space travel dirty, clunky, and mundane. I strove for that kind of ethos in my stories.

Take a look, if you wish.

Yeah, I never bought into the Star Trek idea that they did away with poverty and crime in the near future (300 to 600 years). It's going to take humankind thousands and thousands of years to get to a point where they will do that, not hundreds. Why? Simply because humans are humans and there will always be a section that want to rule EVERYTHING or have as much as they can. And neither one of those mindsets are conducive to taking care of the ones down yonder. Until humans evolve into something else (IF we survive as a species and not kill ourselves) that kinda' thing ain't gunna happen on a wide scale.

My approach, if writing a series or long story, would be to immerse the readers in my world. Future technology is magic, so I wouldn't spend much time describing it.

For a shorter story, I'd spend my effort on the characters and action. I'd not spend a lot of time on the setting, and no time on the technology.

My "soft" sci-fi example would be "The Third Ring," which you can find in my catalog (link in my signature).

I go with the idea of describing the effects of and not the tech that makes it happen. A quick mention of "quantum drive engines" or a "fold generator" is enough to explain instantaneous travel. I have a story in progress that mentions a "quantum entanglement ansible" as instantaneous communication across space.

The thing is, what you first said, if you can get them immersed in your world, most aren't going to the whys of things and will accept the story premise.



Comshaw

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Agreed with the above. Some advanced science is generally needed, but going into huge detail is generally not useful. In Star Trek, we are just shown warp speed (to present physics impossible) and left to accept it. In Dune, it’s the Holtzman Effect, giving shields, null-grav and so forth. James Blish’s Okie series needed ‘spindizzies’ for FTL travel. The key thing for success is the ability to write them so as to cause happy suspension of normal beliefs on the part of the reader.

Afterthought. Another useful tip above is that people remain people. Emotions are the same (excluding Vulcans, of course) and the science just provides depth to the setting.

 

[ronde]

Agreed with the above. Some advanced science is generally needed, but going into huge detail is generally not useful. In Star Trek, we are just shown warp speed (to present physics impossible) and left to accept it. In Dune, it’s the Holtzman Effect, giving shields, null-grav and so forth. James Blish’s Okie series needed ‘spindizzies’ for FTL travel. The key thing for success is the ability to write them so as to cause happy suspension of normal beliefs on the part of the reader.

Afterthought. Another useful tip above is that people remain people. Emotions are the same (excluding Vulcans, of course) and the science just provides depth to the setting.

I agree about going overboard on technology. If you sift back through sci-fi over the past, you'll find that the authors did the same thing. Jules Verne didn't write a dissertation on how the Nautilus worked. He just wrote that it did. The rest of the story was about the interactions between the characters involved. Edgar Rice Burroughs did offer an explanation for how Tarzan was raised by the "great apes", but left it at that, just as he did most of the details he could have included in the story. Instead he wrote those "details" into the initial chapters of the story and left the reader to believe or not believe. The rest of the story is about the people involved, what they did, and why.

To me, if a writer writes the interactions between genuine people with all the common traits, fears, and hopes genuine people have, readers will go along with a brief explanation of technology even though it's obviously impossible for the time period.

 

[Kitty_so_frisky]

Does anyone have any advice for writing a soft sci-fi erotica? Or recommendations of soft sci-fi erotica I could check out?

I have an idea I want to fully discover, but it would only work in sci-fi. And I've never written anything sci-fi so I'm trying to understand what that looks like.

For example.

How often should the story describe the environment?

How much should the story explain the technology?

Do describe any significant features of the environments, especially if the characters will be interacting with it in some way. Explain what the technology does, but don’t bother going into detail about HOW it works, unless one of your characters personally developed that technology.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Having written four scifi/fantasy stories, I consider myself an expert.

Three stories only went into "Star Trek" detail. The fourth explained the tech in depth, mainly because it was new to the world and the failure was central to the plot. I also changed the names of common items and times to give a sense of not-earth. (https://literotica.com/s/the-leinyere-farmers-daughter)

 

[TheLobster]

My guiding principle was that I would assume people in the distant future would have most of the same quirks and foibles they have now, just with far more technologies available to them.

Your guiding principle is one of my biggest pet peeves about most of sci-fi stories out there. I hate how practically all of them are just lifting contemporary humans, as they are now, and dropping them in some futuristic settings with interstellar travel and other nigh-miraculous technology. It makes sense zero sense that throughout all that technological progress, there has been practically no change in mentalities and attitudes. Our history is the best evidence how ludicrous that is; just think what was considered average, expected and normal in the society several hundred years ago compared to now.

My "favorite" example of this is all the kvetching about the central premise of the movie Passengers, and how it's flying in the face of the contemporary concepts of consent. The fact that main characters belong to a civilization where it's pretty normal to go off to distant star systems by going to decades-long hibernation and leaving behind everyone and everything they known is apparently completely irrelevant to how their morality and sexual mores "should" work

Yeah, I never bought into the Star Trek idea that they did away with poverty and crime in the near future (300 to 600 years).

But we did it already, right now! To a first approximation, there is almost no one, even in the developing countries who could be considered "poor" by the standards of 600 years ago. The level of safety you can expect in more developed countries is also pretty much tantamount to crime being nonexistent. Not everything is sunshine and roses, of course, but neither it is so in Star Trek; there's plenty of corruption on many levels of the Federation, for example.

Anyway, more to OP's point...

In soft sci-fi, the technology is just window dressing. It is used to create the overall vibe and provide plot devices when you need them. Just like magic in fantasy, the most important quality you need to imbue it with is internal consistency. Imaginary tech can be made to do anything but once it's established what it does, you cannot just change it on a whim without justification or in a manner that feels cheap and "too convenient." If there is to be a plot twist that requires an unforeseen and creative use of previously explained tech, it has to be presaged, like through some off-handed mention, so that readers don't feel it's arbitrary when it actually happens.

I second the advice that doing a full-on exposition early on might not be the best idea, especially when we haven't even seen the characters yet. There is a balance to be struck, however, between just dripping details of the environment as needed and doing a big info dump early on. The former can feel cheap and arbitrary if it's done too abruptly, because readers can get the impression that you are just making up stuff as you go along. The latter can get boring if it's long, and particularly if it's just dumped into the narration; a common way to avoid this is to work in a situation in-universe where things have to be explained, such as through an character who's an audience surrogate, unfamiliar with the setting.

 

[THBGato]

My solo Sci-Fi effort thus far has been quite well received in the ratings and comments department. It's also a lesbian story, so I dunno if anything would translate for you, but it's in my signature if you want to check it out.

@OddLove you should definitely read "Dead Space". It's brilliant.

 

[StillStunned]

Your guiding principle is one of my biggest pet peeves about most of sci-fi stories out there. I hate how practically all of them are just lifting contemporary humans, as they are now, and dropping them in some futuristic settings with interstellar travel and other nigh-miraculous technology. It makes sense zero sense that throughout all that technological progress, there has been practically no change in mentalities and attitudes. Our history is the best evidence how ludicrous that is; just think what was considered average, expected and normal in the society several hundred years ago compared to now.

With sci-fi and fantasy, I think you can go one of two ways: the first is to create a world with plenty of recognisable elements, but make the people strange and fantastic, the second is to make the world wonderful and exotic, but make the people normal.

The more you have going on in your world, the more important it is for your audience to be able to identify with the characters. They need something to hang on to, some point of reference. It might not be realistic, but then again, I don't think that's the point of much sci-fi. Unless you're going the Heinlein route of exploring strange societies and mindsets, mostly the genre is about exciting adventures, not the psychological makeup of the characters.

 

[PennameWombat]

Of my 52 published stories here, 13 are in SF&F, and largely on the 'SF' side of that. Another 5 are in NonHuman and 3 in Erotic Horror, these straddle the 'SF' and 'F' boundary. As a summary, I'm not trying to write 'hard' SF. I do aim to be reasonably accurate with technology where I need to be but having the societal and personal impacts the primary focus. Of course, these are also meant to be erotica, it's the people (and the Bots), and their fucking, I care about.

The stories fall into a few series, such as the "Mel's Universe" stories, listed on my author page. These are a reimagined recent alternate history (from the 1960s on Earth, but starting earlier elsewhere), rolling out through so far the 1980s. There are two threads that start: Adrift in Space and Chronicle: Mel & Chris Ch. 01. (Both of these picked up from prior stories not explicitly SF&F and described in the forewords.) The first is about aliens kidnapping my MC, and the latter is about the unfolding alternate history set off by that kidnapping. Tech, such as the high level discussion of how a self-sufficient satellite can work, is covered in the former. The latter is showing as 'our' 1980s begin to interleave with 'their' 1980s as due to various reasons the aliens technology 'leaks.' The 'Dark Forest' (if you know, you know) idea has also lurked but it's essentially an Easter Egg for those familiar with the idea.

Although I spent time studying artificial habitats, fusion, quantum computing, AI, and orbital mechanics, none of those are the focus. They come up when they need to come up but I don't give expositions on how, e.g., the fusion tech the aliens have exactly works (although if you compared it to what they do in "The Expanse," you wouldn't be far off.) I do describe their biology a fair amount, as it's, uh, important.

One Night in Las Vegas and Hog in the Ground Day are two different views of possible post-apocalyptic futures. What happened and how the people who survived did so, and the impacts of issues such as genetic bottlenecks due to loss of population come up. And how those bottlenecks affect ongoing sexual relationships.

My 'Mermaid' stories are A Mermaid Christmas (near future) and A Christmas Miracle on Dewdrop (far future sequel). The former on Earth, the latter on an Earth-like planet many light years away. Gets into genetic engineering and various methods of slower-than-light interstellar travel (no FTL), but again, the technology serves the stories. Another theme here is oral transmission of culture, as the merpeople on Dewdrop lack metalworking and written works. Not because they don't know about them, but because their environment isn't conducive. Thus singers and story tellers have big roles.

My 'Bot' story is AI Era: Bots Are People Too, looks at bots hitting the boundary of being able to pass for human. The bots also appear in a couple of other, non-SF&F stories, in supporting roles.

Although it's not in SF&F, Through the Woods is in Anal, but it's SF in that the setting is either not Earth, or in a very alternative Earth. Although the tech is a bit, it's more the setting and environment that make that clear. It's always been reasonably highly rated, so shows you can roll in SF features in such a setting.

 

[onehitwanda]

How much should the story explain the technology?

As little as you can get away with to advance the plot.

How often should the story describe the environment?

As little as you can get away with to advance the plot.

Neither the technology nor the environment are the core of the story. Given the choice of J Random Foxley spending the first 100 pages explaining why THEIR galaxy-spanning civilisation is different, or Iain Banks writing two sentences saying something like "The Ship decided that it was bored, that its humans were tiresome, and so it decided to orbit the volcanic moon for a standard period or two while the crew got down to some serious, dedicated carnality"... well, give me more of option 2 please, because I immediately know:

1. It's a space-faring civilisation
2. It's a post-singularity setting
3. It's going to be amusing.

Option 1 makes me yawn and, sometimes, throw the book - into the

 

[TheLobster]

Given the choice of J Random Foxley spending the first 100 pages explaining why THEIR galaxy-spanning civilisation is different, or Iain Banks writing two sentences saying something like "The Ship decided that it was bored, that its humans were tiresome, and so it decided to orbit the volcanic moon for a standard period or two while the crew got down to some serious, dedicated carnality"... well, give me more of option 2 please, because I immediately know:

This actually alludes to an important point: you have to decide who your audience is going to be. If you can assume a certain degree of genre-savvy, then a cheeky prelude like this definitely works. Otherwise, you might want to spend a little more time sketching premise, for the benefit of readers who don't immediately recognize every trope and will, in fact, turn one-eighty if the sign on the door says Beware of the leopard.

On Lit, my hunch is that standalone stories in SF&F are generally read by people who know what they're getting into. Introducing SF elements to an otherwise more mundane story would be trickier, though, and so probably requires more care as to not leave your readers behind.

 

[Voboy]

Your guiding principle is one of my biggest pet peeves about most of sci-fi stories out there. I hate how practically all of them are just lifting contemporary humans, as they are now, and dropping them in some futuristic settings with interstellar travel and other nigh-miraculous technology. It makes sense zero sense that throughout all that technological progress, there has been practically no change in mentalities and attitudes.

Fine by me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I don't think human motivations, attitudes, senses of humor, interpersonal behaviors, or cognitive misjudgments have changed much at all over time. I have zero doubt that humans migrating across the Beringia land bridge 15,000 years ago were already telling fart jokes.

Greek and Roman motivations and concerns are very intelligible to us, despite 3,000 years of technological development. I don't see why that wouldn't occur 3,000 years into the future, either.

 

[AlinaX]

"Well, there go the mammoths. Nice one, Ern."

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I have zero doubt that humans migrating across the Beringia land bridge 15,000 years ago were already telling fart jokes.

"Humanity has the stars in its future" - Isaac Asimov

 

[TheLobster]

Fine by me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I don't think human motivations, attitudes, senses of humor, interpersonal behaviors, or cognitive misjudgments have changed much at all over time. I have zero doubt that humans migrating across the Beringia land bridge 15,000 years ago were already telling fart jokes.

Greek and Roman motivations and concerns are very intelligible to us, despite 3,000 years of technological development. I don't see why that wouldn't occur 3,000 years into the future, either.

Are you really finding it so easy to empathize with people who:

• found nothing wrong with the idea of insolvent debtors submitting themselves to lifelong servitude as the today equivalent of a household appliance
• considered it beneficial for very young boys to be on the receiving end of homosexual, pedophilic relationships as part of their upbringing
• saw it as necessary and proper to eliminate the "weak" children, by whatever arbitrary measure, to safeguard the purity and strength of their society?

I believe you might be confusing the actual reality of the ancient Greek and Roman societies with the heavily fictionalized & whitewashed depictions that are so prevalent in the popular culture. Contemporary stories set in ancient times are still contemporary stories; they have little to do with reality.

Indeed, you don't even have to go as far back as 3000 years. Try a little over a hundred, for example, and look at the woman suffrage movement. It can be traced back directly to the widespread adoption of technological advancement such as refrigeration or laundry machine, which freed up the average woman's time to consider higher pursuits than merely keeping the household running. Nowadays, we can hardly imagine the world without those inventions and the societal change they wrought.

I can't see how you could think that extrapolating the same phenomenon centuries into the future wouldn't lead to a world inhabited by radically different people. Most SF works fail to capture this, which is honestly somewhat understandable. They are just contemporary stories, too.

 

[Areala-chan]

I don't think human motivations, attitudes, senses of humor, interpersonal behaviors, or cognitive misjudgments have changed much at all over time. I have zero doubt that humans migrating across the Beringia land bridge 15,000 years ago were already telling fart jokes.

I remember there being a project coming to light about eight-ten years ago where there was a push by archaeologists to catalog all the graffiti they found excavating Pompeii on a website so others could study it without needing to visit the dig personally. In Latin, it all sounds exotic. When translated into English, it turned out to be people bragging that they keep pooping in one specific location, insulting other guys' manhood, proclaiming their sexual conquests or love of a specific individual, defaming a shopkeeper over the quality of his wares, and pointing out where you could get the best value (in both alcohol and women) for your coin.

Some things never change.

 

[SimonDoom]

I can't see how you could think that extrapolating the same phenomenon centuries into the future wouldn't lead to a world inhabited by radically different people.

I think it depends on what you mean by "radically different people." To my way of thinking, culture and technology and standards of living have changed, but people haven't changed that much. We're hardly different genetically from what we were 1000 or 3000 years ago. That means we have all the same impulses, jealousies, lusts, fears, desires, etc. that motivated people way back when.

I don't think the Romans were different from us, in this way. I think they were pretty much the same. They just didn't have electricity.

The difference with projecting into the future is the possibility of our getting involved in genetic engineering and controlling our own evolution. It's possible human beings may not exist in 200 years because we will have engineered ourselves into something else. But if that's true it's a horizon past which we can't really see or predict anything, and it's understandable to me that authors would prefer to assume that we're basically going to be the same old human beings, but with different and better technology.

I remember the line from the Star Trek episode Space Seed where Khan, from the 21st Century, tells Kirk, from the 23d Century, "How little man himself has changed." That might very well be trued if we pass laws against substantial genetic engineering of the human race.

 

[onehitwanda]

I remember there being a project coming to light about eight-ten years ago where there was a push by archaeologists to catalog all the graffiti they found excavating Pompeii on a website so others could study it without needing to visit the dig personally. In Latin, it all sounds exotic. When translated into English, it turned out to be people bragging that they keep pooping in one specific location, insulting other guys' manhood, proclaiming their sexual conquests or love of a specific individual, defaming a shopkeeper over the quality of his wares, and pointing out where you could get the best value (in both alcohol and women) for your coin.

Some things never change.

I remember reading somewhere that they've found scrawled Demotic graffiti within the pyramid of Khufu (or possibly in the quarries that the stone was sourced) that that says things like "Pmersh's team are a bunch of donkey fuckers, Phan's team are the best stonemasons"

Also, the greeks were vandals.