Why Do YOU Write on Literotica and What Do YOU get out of it?

[ChloeTzang]

If I don't write them, the stories just continually play out in my head and I can't sleep.

I write the stories to clear my mind so I can sleep.

I write stories in my head as I go to sleep ...I find it a great way to relax as I play out the plot of something I;m working on or thinking about

Himself used to ask "what are you smiling about" and now he just grins and says "I can't wait to read it"

 

[Meekly_Anna]

I know. I have a book called "The First 50 Words" - all about how to use that 50 words to capure the reader - but eually, you can lose them in that first 50 words just as fast or even faster.

As soon as I see "36-C or B or D," I am so outta that story. LOL and one of the first things Learnt was drop the long narrative background at the start. "My name is Joe Roberts, and I'm a Highway Patrolman in Nebraska, married, three pint five kids and I like drinking Budweiser down at the....." I see that and I'm outta there too. Yikes!

The thing is, we all have to start somewhere, and we all start out making the same mistakes. Literotica is a very forgiving place to make thse mistakes and learn from them and that's one of the thing I LOVE about this site. It's very very tolerant, and everuone has a chance to shine (or sink like a stone LOL) but you gets out what you puts in.



Oh, Mary-Sue's are so popular with writers for a reason. I do a bit of that quite a lot with my characters - most of them are really good at taekwondo (I am middling) and some of them are cold-eyed killers (fantasy and wish fulfillment there LOL) and some like tentacle sex (okay and - uh - ovipositers - she blushes) but it's all fun. I do enjoy some of the superman stories tho.


But what about gerbils?

I can't recommend inserting gerbils either. Or hamsters.
Bananas are too mushy, except they are very fresh and picked only an hour ago...
Just saying.
Try carrots, of you must, but do it as the boyscouts and girlscouts do. Leave nothing behind.

 

[MrPixel]

Try carrots, of you must, but do it as the boyscouts and girlscouts do. Leave nothing behind.

I wrote a cucumber scene last week. That count?

 

[TheRedLantern]

Curse you, @ChloeTzang ! I was literally thinking about posting a thread like this but, as usual, you're a couple steps ahead of me.

I posted here because I love to write but I'm super skittish and nervous about showing my work to people. I figured that erotica's audience will be more forgiving than speculative fiction or literary fiction, so this might be a way to dip my toe into sharing my work and build up some confidence.

Right now I'm working to get better at writing about the emotional connections between characters, and to make characters that are flawed and traumatized. I had trouble doing that in the past because I fall in love with my characters and want them to be perfect, which makes for terribly boring fiction.

I write stories in my head as I go to sleep ...I find it a great way to relax as I play out the plot of something I;m working on or thinking about

JFC stay outta my head already!!!

 

[redgarters]

Try carrots, of you must, but do it as the boyscouts and girlscouts do. Leave nothing behind.

I'm not sure I'll ever look at the carrot section in the supermarket the same... oh please please leave nothing behind...

 

[Dearelliot]

I like to build things...it's always difficult when you first build...digging the foundation isn't fun, little to see, not rewarding, and not always sure how big or what it will look like...but once the frame is up the fun starts. Planning, a gable hear, a skylight there..dutch doors, bay windows, like building my characters, how they act and react! What they say and do...I love that.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I can't recommend inserting gerbils either. Or hamsters......

"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to save the gerbil," Eric Tomaszewski told the bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski and his homosexual partner, Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.

"I pushed a cardboard toilet paper tube up his rectum and slipped Ragout, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out 'Armageddon,' my cue that he'd had reached nirvana, so to speak. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he simply would not come out, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him."

At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman desribed what happened next.

"The match ignited a pocket of intestinal methane gas in Kiki's colon. Flames shot out the tube, ignited Mr. Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers, causing it to scurry further up Kiki's colon, which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out of the cardboard tube like a cannonball.'

Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.

Sadly, Ragout the gerbil did not survive the incident.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I like to build things...it's always difficult when you first build...digging the foundation isn't fun, little to see, not rewarding, and not always sure how big or what it will look like...but once the frame is up the fun starts. Planning, a gable hear, a skylight there..dutch doors, bay windows, like building my characters, how they act and react! What they say and do...I love that.

LOL and then start to remodel and rebuild LOL

 

[ChloeTzang]

Curse you, @ChloeTzang ! I was literally thinking about posting a thread like this but, as usual, you're a couple steps ahead of me.

Uh-oh!

I posted here because I love to write but I'm super skittish and nervous about showing my work to people. I figured that erotica's audience will be more forgiving than speculative fiction or literary fiction, so this might be a way to dip my toe into sharing my work and build up some confidence.

I find Literotica does that in spades. I dipped my toes in here originally to see if people liked my stories. Turned out they really did!!!!

Right now I'm working to get better at writing about the emotional connections between characters, and to make characters that are flawed and traumatized. I had trouble doing that in the past because I fall in love with my characters and want them to be perfect, which makes for terribly boring fiction.

It's even harder to kill favorite characters!!!!! So I write the trolls in and kill them instead LOL

JFC stay outta my head already!!!

What can I say. Blowjobs. LOL

 

[Meekly_Anna]

"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to save the gerbil," Eric Tomaszewski told the bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski and his homosexual partner, Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.

"I pushed a cardboard toilet paper tube up his rectum and slipped Ragout, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out 'Armageddon,' my cue that he'd had reached nirvana, so to speak. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he simply would not come out, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him."

At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman desribed what happened next.

"The match ignited a pocket of intestinal methane gas in Kiki's colon. Flames shot out the tube, ignited Mr. Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers, causing it to scurry further up Kiki's colon, which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out of the cardboard tube like a cannonball.'

Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.

Sadly, Ragout the gerbil did not survive the incident.

Gone with the wind....

 

[Wonderer67]

I barely call myself a writer, but I have a couple stories out there.

I’ve written a lot more stories for friends here on lit.

For me, it’s just the experience of creating. I feel like I’m a good storyteller and I can get inside the characters heads a little bit and give you their perspectives.

I like the writing process and wish I had time to do more.

 

[AG31]

I've been asked about this - and about my reaction to stories with low view counts and is it worth writing when you only get a few k views, and I did put some thinking into this. I'd be interested to hear what yu all think about this one too?

I don't write any more, after having published 11 (I think) stories. I just record fantasies, and at age 81 the fantasies are few and faint. But I do thoroughly enjoy the forums, especially AH. The following is from my bio here.

My history with erotica

I experienced an unusual set of events at the end of 2020 which caused me to re-engage with erotica after some fifty years. (See the afterword to my story Twelve Maxbridge Street). This caused me to explore sites such as this one. I have two purposes.

The first is to find more stories that appeal to me. I'm looking for stories that feature a strong man who surrenders with dignity to pain and/or sexual humiliation.

The second purpose is to find out where my sensibility fits in the world of erotica today. I was introduced to erotica in the late 60's. At that time The Story of O was being talked about in the mainstream media. I was very surprised to find that there are almost no stories like that in modern day erotica. I'm very curious about how people perceive those "classic French erotica" stories and my own stories. Negative feedback is as valued as positive.

A description of my niche

After several years of noodling about what my stories are about, I came up with a name for my (probably unique) niche: Pure Male Surrender

I've long thought "pure" should be an adjective that applies to erotica. By pure I mean a story that has nothing in it that doesn't contribute to arousal. There's no unnecessary back story. No scene setting except the current physical place. In the case of my stories it doesn't include distracting human relationships (don't read "includes non-human.") My charcters are so overwhelmed by their surrender they don't have time to reflect on their subjectivity. There's also no room for sexual desire for the other, whether hetero-other or homo-other. All action involves "being done to."

NOTE: In the fall of 23 I started a thread in the forum to advocate for "pure erotica," but I ended up deciding to switch my advocacy to "simple erotica." Much better, as it doesn't place a value judgement on erotica that attends to plot and character.

"Male," because that's just how it is for me. It may be odd for a 79 year old female. But there you are. Read the afterward to Twelve Maxbridge Street if your curious as to how this came about.

"Surrender." My stories are all about surrender. "Surrender" is better than "submission" for me, and I'm not quite sure why. I think it has something to do with "submission's" connotations of power dynamics. "Dynamics" has a back and forth aspect that is greatly reduced in my stories.

 

[ronde]

I wrote the first story to see if I could change from business writing to fiction. I found out I could and that writing was an escape from my technical occupation.

Sometimes I write about how I used to be.
Sometimes I write about how I am now.
Sometimes I write about how I wish I'd been.
Sometimes I write about what I wish I could be.
Sometimes I write because the story in me needs to come out.

 

[TheRedLantern]

I don't write any more, after having published 11 (I think) stories. I just record fantasies, and at age 81 the fantasies are few and faint. But I do thoroughly enjoy the forums, especially AH

This is one of the most heartwarming things I've read on Literotica. I hope I'm still putting words together when I hit that milestone in life.

 

[Dearelliot]

I don't write any more, after having published 11 (I think) stories. I just record fantasies, and at age 81 the fantasies are few and faint. But I do thoroughly enjoy the forums, especially AH. The following is from my bio here.

My history with erotica

I experienced an unusual set of events at the end of 2020 which caused me to re-engage with erotica after some fifty years. (See the afterword to my story Twelve Maxbridge Street). This caused me to explore sites such as this one. I have two purposes.

The first is to find more stories that appeal to me. I'm looking for stories that feature a strong man who surrenders with dignity to pain and/or sexual humiliation.

The second purpose is to find out where my sensibility fits in the world of erotica today. I was introduced to erotica in the late 60's. At that time The Story of O was being talked about in the mainstream media. I was very surprised to find that there are almost no stories like that in modern day erotica. I'm very curious about how people perceive those "classic French erotica" stories and my own stories. Negative feedback is as valued as positive.

A description of my niche

After several years of noodling about what my stories are about, I came up with a name for my (probably unique) niche: Pure Male Surrender

I've long thought "pure" should be an adjective that applies to erotica. By pure I mean a story that has nothing in it that doesn't contribute to arousal. There's no unnecessary back story. No scene setting except the current physical place. In the case of my stories it doesn't include distracting human relationships (don't read "includes non-human.") My charcters are so overwhelmed by their surrender they don't have time to reflect on their subjectivity. There's also no room for sexual desire for the other, whether hetero-other or homo-other. All action involves "being done to."

NOTE: In the fall of 23 I started a thread in the forum to advocate for "pure erotica," but I ended up deciding to switch my advocacy to "simple erotica." Much better, as it doesn't place a value judgement on erotica that attends to plot and character.

"Male," because that's just how it is for me. It may be odd for a 79 year old female. But there you are. Read the afterward to Twelve Maxbridge Street if your curious as to how this came about.

"Surrender." My stories are all about surrender. "Surrender" is better than "submission" for me, and I'm not quite sure why. I think it has something to do with "submission's" connotations of power dynamics. "Dynamics" has a back and forth aspect that is greatly reduced in my stories.

Not sure for myself whether it's submission or surrender...or if there is a difference and what it is. My male characters are strong men, I like retired Military to give them the aura of strength. They could easily take the whip from the woman's hand, but they do not! They are obedient! They lower their pants and bend over, and do as they are told...As I have so many times, and it feels so good to do that, to obey a woman.

 

[Nynah]

I know some authors here have done WIWAW (What I Wrote And Why) submissions before so I'm surprised a general thread on it took this long for AH.

I've been reading Literotica since the early aughts but only made an account back in 2017 because I felt I could try my hand at it. At first I wrote in a very niche subsection of the E/V category (Mailgirls) because the stories that were around at the time were good, but didn't push the buttons I wanted them to, so I figured I'd write my own. I've written a couple of chapters that were fairly well-received but still pretty raw in terms of composition and content.

Then life bit me in the ass and I got very busy and went on hiatus. I only just came back to Literotica last year, but my motivation for writing was largely the same as the first time. I had a few favorites within a specific niche (hot roommate) of E/V but none of them really went as far as I wanted them to, so I tried writing my own. For some reason I have yet to decipher, these stories found a much wider audience and I've been pleasantly surprised at the reaction this time. They easily outpace my previous work in terms of views and feedback, so I guess I just found something that people liked and wrote it decently enough.

I suspect my next effort will be similar my previous ones where I take something that I've enjoyed on this site and put my own spin on it. I don't think I'm a great writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I think I'm at least competent at putting a narrative together that's easy to digest and paints a clear picture. Obviously I would love it if my work continued to be popular with the readership here, but if it's not, then I don't think I'd be too broken up about it. I, similar to what many others here have said, just want to write stories that excite me. If it resonates with other people who use this site, great. If not, then that's okay. If I somehow become a better writer because of it, also great. If not, that's okay too.

 

[Gamblnluck]

If I don't write them, the stories just continually play out in my head and I can't sleep.

I write the stories to clear my mind so I can sleep.

I tell myself stories at night. One has changed, started over and repeated itself many times. It is a fantasy/science fiction featuring me in a key role that will never see the written page. Why? because nobody would want to read it. Portions approach the 'nope that is just too much' thing. In another thread

 

[WendyTrilby]

I get a thrill. A well-earned thrill. I work in a highly creative field with equally creative people. Our work is as far afield from erotica as you could imagine, so I draw great pleasure from writing erotica that would shock my colleagues. Not that they are very uptight, just that I'm the last person they would suspect was writing about pegging my man, going down on my neighbor's wife, or having sex with my 70-year-old father-in-law. I liken it to wearing something incredibly risque under my proper attire to attend a funeral or a christening. I know it's there and that excites the hell out of me.

So when I push the button to submit another story, I usually celebrate by putting on something trashy under my preppy New England attire and go out for drinks and whatever.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I am 72. At this point in my life I do not care about writing the great American novel. I never did. For most of my life, outside of my 6 years in the Army, I had science related jobs: agriculture, animals (i bred various pet animals for a hobby and to sell), then the medical field for almost 30 years.
I write because I like to tell a story. At one time I wrote for a couple other sites, one being a role reversal site. I found it kinky and wanted to contribute myself.
I read a lot here. I still do. I probably actually read a half dozen or more a day. I skim over at least a dozen more before decide if it is something worth reading.
I start by looking at scoring. If the score is low, that tells me many others found the story poor or lacking. I may read a few comments to decide. If it is an author I recognize I might even begin to read to see WHY the score was low.
I want to tell a story that I think/hope others will enjoy or at least get them hooked into reading. I'm not going to waste my time and efforts antagonizing readers. (I don't throw rocks at the neighbor's barking dogs either.) Some authors here LOVE to do that, probably so they can bitch their efforts 'were not appreciated.
In the end, I'd like to think somebody reading my body of work will like and appreciate the stories I told.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Oh, Chloe... sigh... my most read story is 40K views, and that after five years.

But then, readership is not my priority. Like @Bazzle said, I need to get the stories out.

In my case there's a little bit of Thurbur's Walter Mitty in me, writing to express a life I wish was possible. And, occasionally, to bend the rules, thinly veiling recalled IRL events in a life with rich moments.

I'd love to be at a point where a mere 10k views was disappointing.
Alas, I'm not there yet.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I don't write much exclusively for Literotica, but I do share all my non-commercial (and some commercial) work here in hopes that others might enjoy it.

I used to post to other sites, such as Inkitt, Wattpad, Goodreads, and so on (acceptable content of course), but the hassle of checking the status and limited feedback on other sites wasn't worth it to me.

Stroker stories are not really my forte, but I have a loyal audience here for my teasingly erotic novels and more sexually graphic series. I don't fret over ratings, views, or comments here. As I have shown in several posts, I have one story here with less than 1,000 views after two and a half years but it has almost 700 votes. The same story (with a different title) has earned me a couple of hundred dollars in paperback sales on Amazon over that same time. Some of the readers from Literotica have even mentioned buying a copy to keep.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

I've said this before, but I don't mind repeating myself while I procrastinate. I started writing here just to prove to myself that I was capable of writing novel length stuff.

When it comes down to it in terms of views, I don't have a ton of views on my stuff - my first series maybe is approaching 80k total, and the others are far less than that. An average chapter gets 1.5k views, maybe more.

I try to think about it this way. I have maybe three really, truly good friends, my SO, and maybe one of my in-laws who, if I wrote anything, I could give it to them and ask them to read it and they would. Even if I threw in all the folks I work with, and all my extended friends from various communities, I'd be hard pressed to get more than maybe one hundred sets of eyeballs on my stuff. And that's just for non-sexy-time stuff. I might have three actual friends in my entire group who I'd be willing to let read anything even remotely erotic.

But here? Even if only a tenth of the views are different people, my first series has close to 800 actual people who have read it.

That's fucking huge. That's more my high school held (not the biggest, I know). That many people read what I wrote - it's humbling and still pretty damn cool, regardless.

That's more than enough to justify the experiment of seeing whether I could craft something somebody would find compelling.

 

[iwatchus]

I tell myself stories at night. One has changed, started over and repeated itself many times. It is a fantasy/science fiction featuring me in a key role that will never see the written page. Why? because nobody would want to read it. Portions approach the 'nope that is just too much' thing. In another thread

Someone may want to read it. My feeling is if you connected with just one person for a story, then it was worth publishing.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I used to post to other sites, such as Inkitt, Wattpad, Goodreads, and so on (acceptable content of course), but the hassle of checking the status and limited feedback on other sites wasn't worth it to me.

That's what I found but it jst wasn't worth it. A very different readership amd Wattpad cut a ciuple of my stories there (too XXX for them) so I just deleted them all and keft it. The views and the visibility were almost zero. Wasn't worth the effort. iterotica gets way more views.

Stroker stories are not really my forte, but I have a loyal audience here for my teasingly erotic novels and more sexually graphic series. I don't fret over ratings, views, or comments here. As I have shown in several posts, I have one story here with less than 1,000 views after two and a half years but it has almost 700 votes. The same story (with a different title) has earned me a couple of hundred dollars in paperback sales on Amazon over that same time. Some of the readers from Literotica have even mentioned buying a copy to keep.

It's surprising how well they sell on Amazon. My first novel was there in 2018 and it just keeps on tickimg away. Won't get rich on it LOL but a $100 here, a $100 there adds up over time and it's nice to know people are willing to pay for them.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I've said this before, but I don't mind repeating myself while I procrastinate. I started writing here just to prove to myself that I was capable of writing novel length stuff.

When it comes down to it in terms of views, I don't have a ton of views on my stuff - my first series maybe is approaching 80k total, and the others are far less than that. An average chapter gets 1.5k views, maybe more.

I try to think about it this way. I have maybe three really, truly good friends, my SO, and maybe one of my in-laws who, if I wrote anything, I could give it to them and ask them to read it and they would. Even if I threw in all the folks I work with, and all my extended friends from various communities, I'd be hard pressed to get more than maybe one hundred sets of eyeballs on my stuff. And that's just for non-sexy-time stuff. I might have three actual friends in my entire group who I'd be willing to let read anything even remotely erotic.

But here? Even if only a tenth of the views are different people, my first series has close to 800 actual people who have read it.

That's fucking huge. That's more my high school held (not the biggest, I know). That many people read what I wrote - it's humbling and still pretty damn cool, regardless.

That's more than enough to justify the experiment of seeing whether I could craft something somebody would find compelling.

I know how you feel. Most of my stories are writtenwith male readers in mind, so my assessment of success is based on ejaculations.

I figure these are stroke stories, so conservatively, if I say one ejaculation to every two views, (just a wild guess), with about 4 million views, I have been directly responsible for at least 2,000,000 ejaculations and possibly more (based on reader feedback) - far more than I could ever achieve in person. LOL.