Why did you start writing erotica? Why do you continue writing erotica?

[John_Vandermeer]

As a long time reader of erotica I started writing when I started feeling a rapidly diminishing return to reading the next story. I felt like it was getting repetitive. And what would make it better, getting closer to the stories I wanted to read, with characters I wanted to read, focused on aspects I wanted focused on, could only happen if I wrote the stories myself.

Once I got started, there are several forces that keep me going.
(1) Getting better, whether it is by quantifiable or non-quantifiable criteria. Lit provides a venue for quantifiable criteria like all the stats. Then there is the non quantifiable stuff: you knowing--regardless of the external feedback--that it is a better story line or more elegant writing.
(2) Once you have started a story, or come up with an idea, a sense of duty and loyalty to your characters. If started, their stories must be finished. If not yet started, their stories must be told. For me, that is particularly true with my FMCs, who I feel are a bit imaginary girlfriends. KInd of like a Pygmalion complex.
(3) Once you have put yourself out there, there is also some (lesser) duty to your readers. Especially as they begin to accrue. What brought them to you is flavor of story that is uniquely yours. If you stop they will be ok, there are plenty of adjacent flavors. But yours is unique and will be gone.

What about you?

 

[John_Vandermeer]

I've always been hypersexual and writing has always been one of my healthier outlets for that. It gave me a safe release for the urges and interests that didn't result in my husband constantly being exhausted and it kept me from feeling neglected by him when he wasn't in the mood (It really sucks when it feels like you're the only one initiating and you already have hang ups about being a burden to people).

Being hypersexual and needing a healthy outlet is definitely a very persuasive reason.

 

[alohadave]

I'd had this idea of being a writer for several years, but not actually starting to do it. So last Oct I sat down and started writing. I have plenty of downtime at work, so I could concentrate on it.

I'm still very much a beginner, though I'm working on getting better.

 

[Voboy]

I had a nagging idea one day (as I ran, actually, through a park past a public restroom) that I thought would make an entertaining story, a story I would enjoy reading. So? I wrote it.

It's done fine.

Around the same time, and more in keeping with my "usual" writing method, I had a flash image: a man cumming so hard that it splattered about seven feet up a wall. The image amused me. So I started asking myself how that would happen. Then I invented some characters to act out what I'd imagined. And the rest is history; that story is doing fine, too.

I continue because the ideas keep coming. The contests and events help, in challenging me to think of ways to include ideas I ordinarily wouldn't bother with. I believe my quality has declined over the years, however.

 

[TxRad]

I started writing out of boredom on a job site with problem. Now I write to shut up the kinky voices in my head. Those have alwasys been there but now they are louder and more aggressive.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I wanna say… 2009? I was bored and already writing table top literary collaborations with my best friend and other English nerd friends. I spent a lot of time on collaborative roleplaying websites (Avidgamers, Acornrack, invisionfree) and more often than not genres and plot lines delved into erotic paths. It was a fantastic stimulating and creative outlet for me as a teen with zero interest in human contact… super safe and non threatening so long as you avoided the creepers and catfish lurking around to lure unsuspecting youth to their doom.

Being a rather organic sort of writer I preferred putting more attention into characters and world building, so for a long while I took a break from writing erotica, and only wrote fantastical fiction. I still kind of prefer non-erotic writing but I’ve been pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone, especially as a published author.

 

[stickygirl]

I started writing because I needed to get ideas out of my head and onto paper. I had a break of several years and wrote some more. I don't know if I'll write erotica again because I feel I've said everything I wanted to, for the time being anyway.

 

[PeytonMirabelle]

Because I have been writing fantasy and science fiction for years. I wanted to branch out and try something different. Writing romance and erotica exercises a different set of writing muscles, so to speak.

And to some degree writing about sex is a universal human experience. In a generational and cross-cultural way it's relatible to almost everyone, so it's a very easy subject to find an audience for.

And damn it, sometimes I'm just horny and want to think about sex. Writing about it stokes the fires ... My spouse is the beneficiary of such efforts.

 

[oneagainst]

Always have invented stories but... Covid. There's something about facing a potential global meltdown that just makes you say: fuck it. So, I put singing down... a guy walks into a woman's hotel room with a chastity belt in his bag.

But point 2 kept it going... a sense that you can't just leave them there, you need to let them keep going and see how their lives unfold. When I'm done with the Wonderland saga, I might publish in HowTo on the process of evolving it all (that's HowTo, @NoTalentHack ). It's certainly something that once it got started there was no walking away from it.

 

[Red_Owl]

Started play a E-game called Succubus Covenant and realized I'd wanted something like it. Sex and good world building/story in the same package. After I read something that one of the admins on the games discord wrote which let me discover this site. After reading some story suggestions I gave it my own try. I keep writing because I enjoy making a story that includes the erotic but doesn’t have a story/world that revolves around it. I'm more motivated know as I've gotten some fans here and there, and realized I'm not the only one that enjoys my stories.

 

[Dearelliot]

Maybe started in late 1980s...because the BDSM stories I was reading weren't that interesting, so I tried to do better. A BDSM paper bought some of my typewritten stories for a penny or two a word, so I was happy.
Then life got busy and hectic, and I didn't write for a few years so now I'm back at it. But at my age writing isn't as easy as it used to be...memory problems.

 

[ElectricBlue]

There's another parallel thread where I've just posted a link to my first piece of erotica, here on Lit.

My first long story was started almost straight after that one, running out to 23 chapters written over five months. During that time, I was regularly flying back and forth between cities as my mum was dying, so there was clearly some deep processing going on. Sex and Death, I guess, the most powerful forces the mind goes through.

Then I wrote my only fully autobiographical piece, and by that time the hooks were in and I kept going. A million and a bit words later, I'm still going.

A couple of years ago I jotted down every story idea I had in my head, and figured out, at my current writing speed, I had about three years worth. I've written one of those stories in that time (everything in the last three years has been a side project for something else), so now it's probably five year's worth. Why stop now?

 

[SimonDoom]

1. I wanted to try my hand at fiction. I've been an avid reader of fiction since I was a kid, and I have always written a lot for my profession, but I hadn't written any fiction since I was a teen, decades ago.

2. I'd been reading a lot of erotica for well over a decade, since around the turn of the millennium, and I often thought, I should try that!

3. I was going through a phase in life where I'd been divorced, and done some dating, and learned a lot of new things about my feelings about sex and relationships, so erotica was a natural thing to write about. Erotica was a form of release and self-expression.

4. Finally in 2016 I got serious, and I started writing and publishing stories. I haven't stopped since.

 

[Seadog777]

My sisters dared me to.
They're readers on here too.

I've been told all my life that I'm a good writer(which I am), and so I wrote one, to get them to shut the hell up.

It snowballed from there.

 

[John_Vandermeer]

My sisters dared me to.
They're readers on here too.

I've been told all my life that I'm a good writer(which I am), and so I wrote one, to get them to shut the hell up.

It snowballed from there.

Sound like fun sisters.

 

[Seadog777]

Sound like fun sisters.

They have their moments. LOL.

As the older brother, they piss me off quite a bit as well.

#family

 

[Djmac1031]

It'll be two years this August 18th for me.

I've been reading stories here for many years before that, of course.

What started me writing?

Boredom, mainly. Everything was locked down. So I had plenty of free time.

And yeah, I couldn't always find the stories I wanted to read and realized I'd have to write them myself.

So I decided to see if I could do it, just for fun.

My very first story (The Doctor Is In...Me) was a very short, very simple tale about a guy getting his prostate milked by a sexy woman Doctor.

The only piece of reality to it was that I actually had a very lovely Doctor and she did check my prostate. Although there was absolutely nothing remotely sexy about that.

My second story, Discovering Amy, was just a mix of fantasy with a little of my real life as a young man.

My third, The Jenna Arrangement, was pure fiction, just based on a particular CFNM kink of mine.

It's escalated from there lol. Some stuff "grounded and realistic," others pure flights of fantasy.

Some a mix of both.

What kept me doing it was quite simple: reader response. People actually seemed to like my stories.

I know I'm not the GREATEST writer, but if I was making people happy, cool. Why not keep going?

I find it a very strange mix of fun and tedious.

Fun when the ideas are flowing and the words are there to support them; tedious when you're struggling to make it coherent or tie it together with a solid plot with a satisfying conclusion.

And then there's editing...ugh.

The funniest part of all of this for me has been realizing it's not just horny guys like me enjoying my stories.

I kinda figured any women reading my stuff would either be bored or repulsed.

So having women read my stories and actually complimenting them as opposed to just calling me a "pig" has been illuminating lol.

Society in general is still so judgemental about sex and those of us who write about it, so it's also been nice to find people with common interests who don't think you're some sick in the head pervert for writing sex fantasies.

That's certainly allowed me to expand my horizons in what I write about, for sure.

I've slowed down a lot the past several months; the words just come slower now and I gotta carve out the free time.

But I've no plans to quit any time soon.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I’ve told this story more times than Stan Lee has told the story of how he came up with Spider-Man.

I came up with the idea for ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE after reading LIKE THE DEVIL WITH A DEAL and approached the author with the idea (who graciously allowed me to write this myself as he had no intention of going back there).

I enjoyed it so much I decided to do a homage to one of my favourite films HOT FUZZ, brilliantly electing to call it HOT AND FUZZY (I’m not saying I’m a genius…but…it was aliens).

And now I’m working through THE PROCESS a tale of a gene therapy centre for athletes where almighty heck breaks loose.

I have another story at least after that but I don’t really know why I’m here?

Fun, I guess…sometimes? I dunno.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

They have their moments. LOL.

As the older brother, they piss me off quite a bit as well.

#family

…Have they read anything of yours? If so how did that play out? Awkward or no?

My big sis is a writer. She’s shown an interest in checking out my work, especially after hearing about my publishing for compensation. But I don’t know it seems like such an odd thing to do. I’m not embarrassed, I’m pretty confident in my work but still it strikes me as an odd thing to share… maybe I’m over thinking it?

 

[Rob_Royale]

I had a great creative writing teacher in middle school. I've enjoyed writing every since. Some fan fiction, gaming character bios, poetry and cute storys for my wife. Then I discovered Lit about this time last year. An accidental click from an adult comic site.

I started reading and came across a story that wasn't very good and I said to myself, "Ah hell, I could do better than that."

So I decided to find out. I figured I had a couple of stories in me based on women I'd known. Then that would be it. Twelve stories now and a document with 25+ more ideas.

I just enjoy the hell out of it. Plus there's a great supportive community here of fellow perverts.

 

[Seadog777]

…Have they read anything of yours? If so how did that play out? Awkward or no?

My big sis is a writer. She’s shown an interest in checking out my work, especially after hearing about my publishing for compensation. But I don’t know it seems like such an odd thing to do. I’m not embarrassed, I’m pretty confident in my work but still it strikes me as an odd thing to share… maybe I’m over thinking it?

They proofread my stories sometimes.
Usually if they're here at my house or they ask me to bring my laptop to their house, because I'm fixing their car, sink, toilet, etc, etc.
We are all very open with each other.
We talk a few times a week at the least.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I just enjoy the hell out of it. Plus there's a great supportive community here of fellow perverts.

I have no idea what your talking about and have contacted my attorney over your slander (hang on, he just emailed me back. “Get over yourself, you massive perv!” The goddamn nerve!)

In other news we are super supportive and everyone on here is a lot of fun,

 

[harmonicks]

My original motivation was that I had an idea for a story, which over time grew and I spent more time dwelling on until I found I basically had to write it just to get it out.

The continued motivation has been to write the sort of stories that I enjoy reading. I feel that over the last few years I've read all the stories that really hit all the right spots for me, and new ones are published so rarely that one of the easiest ways to engage with my favourite types of story is just to write them myself.

Lastly it helps that the two works I've published to date have been positively received and the positive comments do provide something of an egotistical drive to write more. I think first and foremost I'll always try to write what I think is good rather than what anonymous comments say I should, but it does help when they happen to overlap.

I do find the day to day motivation is super variable though. Some days I spend the whole day with my mind running through ideas and I can't wait to finish work and get it all out. Other times I sit down, write a couple of lines and I feel like that's all I've really got creative energy for on that day.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

They proofread my stories sometimes.
Usually if they're here at my house or they ask me to bring my laptop to their house, because I'm fixing their car, sink, toilet, etc, etc.
We are all very open with each other.
We talking a few times a week at the least.

Awww, that’s super sweet… awesome to hear you all have such a close relationship! You sound like a great big brother.

I suppose I might be overthinking things, eh, worse case I’m sure we’ll get a good laugh out of it! None of my sibs are exactly prude or anything like that.

 

[Ssbbw4u1974]

I've always been great at creative writing. I don't recall the first erotic story I ever wrote, but when I was 20 I wrote a few xxx rated ones and let my male friends read them. They loved it!!
The attention I got from them kept me going to write more through the years.

My favorite subjects are others fantasies that I turn into written words...
Like, when my male friend in the past was a closeted, crossing pansexual. I would write him elaborate stories about him and others meeting up and fucking.

I think I write well , TBH

I have some stories on Lit if you're curious