Writing erotic horror/sci-fi/fantasy or other supernatural genres

[sheablue]

I've been meaning to start a thread like this, and with the Halloween contest coming up, now seems like a good time. I asked Laurel about these genres getting their own forum topic, but alas, it is not to be. (Unless there is so much interest generated by this thread that it becomes necessary.)

I wrote a bit of a blog post on genre writing, exploring why erotica and horror/sci-fi/fantasy go so well together. If you'd like to read it, my website is in my sig line. I plan to write more in the future.

I'm interested to hear others' thoughts. Especially as pertains to Lit. I feel like there are a lot of stories in these categories, but not a lot of love. Is it because many, especially in fantasy, are multi-chaptered? Is it because in some genres like sci-fi and fantasy, a certain amount of world-building has to take place, and readers don't have the patience for that? Is erotic horror only appealing around Halloween?

I'd love to discuss these things seriously with those who are genuinely interested in discussing these genres, what makes them work, and what their limitations are.

So to start, what do you think the limitations are in these genres on Lit? Why do these categories get less love than others?

Please discuss. I'll be back later.

 

[MatthewVett]

This is all based on absolutely no research, but I would say that part of it is the inherently greater need of mental investment for science fiction or fantasy.

If I'm reading a story about, say, a guy running into his teacher at a nudist resort, I've already got a pretty basic idea of the world and how things work. I know the relationship between teachers and students. I know what nudism entails. I get what resorts are. I don't really need to think very hard to grok the story.

But if I'm reading a science fiction or fantasy story where Gort and Klaatu are visiting an underdeveloped world on behalf of their federation of planets to ensure that they don't spread warfare to the universe, first I want to know what Gort and Klaatu are, and then I'd be interested in the politics of their interplanetary federation, and I'd wonder why they're so interested in earth, &c.

It takes a lot more to bring the reader up to speed, and there are definitely readers who appreciate that, but I would assume the majority of erotica readers prefer stage-setting to be minimal before getting to the action. On the other hand, the readers you do get are probably going to be more invested, so there's that.

As for myself, erotic horror just isn't appealing to me. Maybe it's just the development of my own sexuality, but I never really combined the two. Horror, for me, usually involves the uncanny and feeling powerless with an expectation of danger and harm. Erotica tends to involve the exotic and feeling more powerful than in real life, having more agency than I typically do. I do write some erotic stories that have powerlessness as a central feature, mostly ENF stuff, but it's still set in the familiar, and there's no real danger. Sure, she might be seen naked, but she's not going to get stabbed.

 

[RejectReality]

Most of the people looking for this type of story are after it because of the setting. Such stories are in much greater abundance elsewhere on the 'net, and aren't associated with a "dirty porn site".

People coming here are looking for sex in the written form first and foremost. If they weren't, they wouldn't be here.

Most of the stories in the section are long, involved, and depend heavily on the setting. You lose the stroke readers that I will contend are a majority of Lit's traffic, and only get that small chunk of people who equally enjoy the setting and the sex.

People looking for written incest stories don't have nearly as many options. Many of the higher ranked sites don't allow it at all. Believe it or not, many of those that do are even more difficult to navigate and visually unappealing than even the oldest legacy pages on Lit. There really isn't any mainstream outlet for it.

So, Lit gets the lion's share of that traffic.

Two sides of the coin. "Sex sells" is infinitely more true on an erotic site.

 

[Handley_Page]

I used to read a lot of SciFi when I was younger (unless you can count the Discworld books as SciFi, in which case I still do).
Authors like AE van Vocht, Arthur C Clarke & Isaac Asimov kept me well entertained on a long night's duty.
As to horror, I was a bit more pickie; HP Lovecraft kept me looking over my shoulder whilst waiting for my lift one cool night in the Town Square.

But the author of an 'erotic' short story set in some strange environment had better explain, in detail, just why Axell's tail gets in the way of his lovin' [or whatever].

 

[MSTarot]

Sherrilyn Kenyon's League Novels are sex and Sci-fi. She did a real good job of combining the two genres.

As far as Lit goes hard to say. I've only done one truly sci-fi space story and it was based off the speech patterns of the TV show Deadwood.

Almost more space western.

I think you might have to sell the sex in the first of the story to hook your readers, something I'm not fond of. Maybe a quick scene then bringing the story and then a much longer scene nearer the end.

Will ponder on this when I'm not trying to do corrections on and older story.

 

[Altissimus]

I would suggest that a lot of erotic sci-fi/horror on Lit. spends too much time "building the world" and not enough time building the concept of the sex within that world.

Do you *really* need to know the political, social and economic (let alone the flora, fauna and geology) of a distant/fantasy world/moon/middle earth before two rather two-dimensional characters engage in rather two-dimensional sex?

In a lot of the sci-fi stuff I've read on here, the answer would appear to be "yes".

That said there's some great exceptions, where background story is glossed over and only applied as necessary - for example, some particular gems in the non-human cross-over, where one of the participants is the reason for the sci-fi setting. Other examples where the world-building is formed into the erotica of the story as the story naturally builds, not as a 10-page preamble.

It is harder to write when the reader doesn't share the same concept of your world, but then...isn't that, at some level, always the challenge?

Regards,
A

 

[LadyVer]

I read a lot of paranormal romance and what I've recently noticed after starting a few series that start out well is that I can't handle horror, and I resent horror being peddled as paranormal/paranormal romance.

What frequently happens is I read about two or three books of a series, I'm enjoying it, the world building is good, the romance is good, the sex is good, and then the next book takes off in a new direction. The protagonist can't just be your average run of the mill paranormal heroine or vamp slayer or witch or vamp, etc etc. She now becomes someone who has to be stronger than anyone else on earth who either eats disgustingly described zombie-type creatures/dead flesh, she can't just kill a vamp with a simple stab through the heart--she has to cut out his heart, cut off his head, and enjoy doing it in techni-colored detail, and she has to save the entire planet because she is the chosen one to save the planet. And she has to have sex with every male who crosses her path, which for most romance readers is a big no-no. Which leads to another recently discussed issue here that I'm not getting into.

 

[RejectReality]

People who want to write Sci-Fi&Fantasy with sex take things in that order for the most part. The sex is the #2 concern, which is in direct opposition to the wider audience here.

Within the category, the bulk of the readership is just fine with the sex being secondary.

In order for the category to be more popular, there need to be a higher percentage of shorter, sex-heavy stories to attract the wider readership. Such stories often perform poorly within the category as it stands now, though. ( At the very least, score-wise )

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I do a lot with scifi settings. They don't rank as well, but the comments and emails I get often gush on about the depth of the worlds I created. Most readers are here to get off and don't care about setting and backstory, but the few that do, care a lot and can't get enough.

Ultimately it depends on the crowd you want to attract, if attracting people is even a goal. If you want your fans to be people lurking in their parents' basement and jerking off to whatever they find, keep it simple. You'll get your fill of fans.

I like bright, thoughtful people; and the few friendships I've made though my stories are all people who impress me with their intelligence and insight. In that respect my stories have served me very well.

 

[sunandshadow]

I think it's all about how poor the archive functionality at lit is. If there's a particular type of science fiction or fantasy story you want to read, it's impossible to find stories of that type among the others. Nor can you tell whether a story is complete before reading it. Every fanfiction archive out there has better filtering and tagging than lit.

 

[PervOtaku]

Right up my alley, I suppose. Just about all my ideas are based in sci-fi or fantasy, from both western and Japanese (anime) sensibilities. I'm not a horror buff really, but I've had some ideas for that kind of thing too.

So to start, what do you think the limitations are in these genres on Lit? Why do these categories get less love than others?

Dunno. Maybe that these are such insular genres to begin with, a lot of people might see that topic in a story description and just move on.

Most of the people looking for this type of story are after it because of the setting. Such stories are in much greater abundance elsewhere on the 'net, and aren't associated with a "dirty porn site".

Most of the stories in the section are long, involved, and depend heavily on the setting. You lose the stroke readers that I will contend are a majority of Lit's traffic, and only get that small chunk of people who equally enjoy the setting and the sex.

Probably a lot of the erotica in this field is fanfiction. Lots of nerds want to read stories about their favorite fictional guys and gals doing the dirty. The main advantage is the world and characters are pre-established. The main disadvantage is anybody not familiar with the series is almost certainly not going to read fanfiction of it.

Apart from that, yeah, it's a shame to world-build just to use it for porn. Personally, I prefer the opposite approach. Rather than sex merely taking place in a future or fantasy setting, I mostly go for sex that is only possible in those settings. Monsters, robots, aliens, that sort of thing. (Oftentimes something that is just a little bit unusual makes a person extra sexy, be it a foreign accent, hair dyed some bright primary color, funny ears, a bumpy forehead, horns, a tail, etc.)

As for setting, I haven't had any world-building urges yet. Put in enough detail to support the immediate situation, and the rest is irrelevant. This is easier when you're working in a present-day setting, but readers are familiar enough with the basic workings of sci-fi and fantasy worlds that there's not too much you need to go into. I think world-building stories are a sign of authors creating their world and then crafting a story to show it off. I tend to pick a basic concept, list out what sex scenes that concept suggests, and then build the story around that. I guess I favor the "stroke story" style a bit, but that's also what I tend to be after as a reader.

(Though I suppose I should admit that my first story was sort of a microcosm of this. I built something much smaller than a world, but the story was still front-loaded with a lot of talking head exposition. Not so much that it drowned out the sex, though.)

I think you might have to sell the sex in the first of the story to hook your readers, something I'm not fond of. Maybe a quick scene then bringing the story and then a much longer scene nearer the end.

I know this isn't universal, but I tend to figure that if you're putting out a porn story, every released segment (e.g. chapter) is supposed to have at least one sex scene. I plan everything around this, regardless of genre. Though again, I tend to work by building plotlines around sex scenes rather than inserting sex scenes into a plotline.

That probably isn't the mark of a good writer, although it may be the mark of a good porn writer. I'm working on a story now that started as a stray daydream years ago, a story set-up and some basic character outlines, but didn't go much beyond that in my head. When I recalled the concept more recently and thought "just add sex and make it a porn story", lots of ideas started flowing. It's kind of a strange thing to recognize that my best creativity is linked to sex, but I never fancied myself a "real" writer anyway.

 

[oggbashan]

I have written many erotic horror and Sci Fi/Fantasy stories.

Horror? I don't see the problem even if your ghost doesn't behave traditionally.

I have written two stories about genies - Genie, and my recent contest entry Jeanie the Genie. In both I start with the standard Genie in a bottle premise, and then change things.

Alternate worlds? Setting the premise is a problem. I think I got it right with Tripletit. Travellers arriving on Tripletit are given an introductory talk by immigration and are issued with a credit card size reminder. Alice's Wonderland has a short introduction but Alice reminds the hero that she's not human.

With my series Shelacta, the introduction at the start of chapter one is too long but once read it is an appendix in later chapters.

jeanne_d_artois Laundry Tales have the premise that the ghost Martha tells stories that the heroine lives as the main character in the story. That premise seems to work well.

The answer, as with most writing, is try it, and try again.

 

[NaokoSmith]

The comments and emails I get often gush on about the depth of the worlds I created. Most readers are here to get off and don't care about setting and backstory, but the few that do, care a lot and can't get enough.

I get that with my fantasy stories too. Readers who are into this genre really appreciate the back story, and are enthusiastic about it when they can be persuaded to comment. From quite early, when I was publishing spin off novellas from my fantasy romance novel, I would get feedback that the world was intriguing. There is a lot of interest in utopian and dystopian writing, on here as elsewhere. As others have commented, there aren't many votes but the love is deep even if it's not counted in the hundreds of votes which some other genres can pull down.

(NB A good way to up the views and votes is to put in to the contests.)

I have read a fantasy story on here which had many pages of comments, in which by Chapter Two, several fans were suggesting the author cut down the amount of sex he included! They said the world and the action in the story were so fascinating that although the sex was good (and they wouldn't mind the phone number of the furry cat-woman), it was distracting and they just wanted to know what was happening next to the protagonists. (Lien_Geller's The Missing Dragon.)

BrambleThorn has quite often written top class erotic horror stories, but which don't have much sexual activity. It must be quite a challenge to get hot sexy action combined with cold goosebump-raising atmosphere - although I bet you can do it, Shea, and I look forward to reading it!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I have and do write Sci-Fi. I'm not into Fantasy or Horror, I consider these quite different from Sci-Fi.

Every Sci-fi story, I have published here at lit had scored well, although the read count has been low, the comments were always positive. Several comments said they would have enjoyed the story without the sex.

To Sci-Fi fans, sex is secondary and in most cases can be done away with all together. Even here at lit.

Personally, I read Sci-Fi for entertainment value not for titillation.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The horror/sex stories I've sold for indy screenplays do poorly at LIT. I post all of them at an alt account. LIT readers don't like them, movie producers do. Producers like them because I have a sense for using few scenes or expensive sets. LIT readers demand hea bliss. Horror isn't hea.

I dreamed up a new horror tale recently. The Nazis gas several 100 people but one woman survives beneath the bodies piled atop her in the gas chamber. Slave workers take her unconscious body to the crematoria pathologist, he revives her, restores her health, and offers her a deal, agree to be his whore and live. Refuse and go with the SS guards. She picks the SS guards.

 

[sr71plt]

Well, this is the thread for discussion of one's fantasies.

 

[redzinger]

I dreamed up a new horror tale recently. The Nazis gas several 100 people but one woman survives beneath the bodies piled atop her in the gas chamber. Slave workers take her unconscious body to the crematoria pathologist, he revives her, restores her health, and offers her a deal, agree to be his whore and live. Refuse and go with the SS guards. She picks the SS guards.

That actually happened. The gas didn't work so well in humidity, and a woman was pulled out alive from underneath the dead.
She was taken to Dr Mengele, poked and prodded, assaulted, then dragged screaming back off to the gas chambers by the guards, just in time for the next round of killing.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

That actually happened. The gas didn't work so well in humidity, and a woman was pulled out alive from underneath the dead.
She was taken to Dr Mengele, poked and prodded, assaulted, then dragged screaming back off to the gas chambers by the guards, just in time for the next round of killing.

I imagine it happened a lot when small folks were under the piles of bodies.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

That actually happened. The gas didn't work so well in humidity, and a woman was pulled out alive from underneath the dead.
She was taken to Dr Mengele, poked and prodded, assaulted, then dragged screaming back off to the gas chambers by the guards, just in time for the next round of killing.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/apr/13/guardianobituaries.secondworldwar

This man was one of 5 to escape Auschwitz. He wrote an excellent memoir of his time there. He got away hidden inside a large pile of wood.

Oddly, many people published memoirs of surviving Auschwitz. Rudolf Vrba says 5 but it was prolly 200 or more.

 

[sheablue]

Lots of excellent replies and theories to ponder. I'm trying desperately to finish an erotic horror story right now, so I don't have a lot of time to respond at the moment, but I will.

Here's something to think about. The story I'm writing is truly erotic horror. There is sex, and there is horror, mostly in the form of possession, but someone's going to die, and it's going to be a bit bloody. Even the sex is a little bit scary, I hope.

But to Lady Ver's point, there are plenty of people out there who enjoy paranormal stories that aren't horrible. There is a huge market for paranormal romance. As well as other paranormal/supernatural themes that aren't necessarily trying to be horror or even scary. Creepy maybe, or mysterious.

With only the categories Erotic Horror, Sci-fi, or Fantasy to choose from, is there a category missing here at Lit? Does there need to be a paranormal or supernatural category to catch all of those stories that aren't going for horrific? Or do other categories catch them? Do paranormal romances go in Romance, non-threatening vampire love stories go in ... non-human? What about ghost stories? Many of those can be intense but not horrific.

I wrote a ghost story that I've since pulled from Lit that was a bit creepy and a little sexy, but not anywhere near horror. I put it in erotic horror, because there was nowhere else for it to go, but it wasn't very scary. Maybe it belonged in romance or erotic couplings.

Have there been times you wished there were a broader category like Paranormal or Supernatural?

 

[redzinger]

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/apr/13/guardianobituaries.secondworldwar

This man was one of 5 to escape Auschwitz. He wrote an excellent memoir of his time there. He got away hidden inside a large pile of wood.

Oddly, many people published memoirs of surviving Auschwitz. Rudolf Vrba says 5 but it was prolly 200 or more.

Fascinating, thanks. Had never heard of him before - strange how the Israelis took against him.

I read about the survivor in a memoir, 'Auschwitz', written by one of the Jewish doctors under Mengele. The paperback was a charity shop find when I was in school, while we were studying WWII. Very powerful. I still remember parts of it nearly 25 years later, that's how much of an impression it made.

Unfortunately, I lent it to a friend and never saw it again. Gah. Can't remember the name of the author either.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Fascinating, thanks. Had never heard of him before - strange how the Israelis took against him.

I read about the survivor in a memoir, 'Auschwitz', written by one of the Jewish doctors under Mengele. The paperback was a charity shop find when I was in school, while we were studying WWII. Very powerful. I still remember parts of it nearly 25 years later, that's how much of an impression it made.

Unfortunately, I lent it to a friend and never saw it again. Gah. Can't remember the name of the author either.

There are several Auschwitz memoirs. I think Treblinka is the place with no survivors tho I seem to recall reading a Treblinka memoir long ago. Auschwitz had a thriving prostitution industry.

 

[redzinger]

The most horrifying story I read on here was about a body swap - the man's wife ended up being tortured to death in another world while the wicked witch walked free in her body. *shudders*

I don't read much horror nowadays, if any - my overactive imagination tends to transfer it to my nightmares and I have enough trouble with the sleep paralysis/old hag syndrome!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Jew-Treblinka-Memoir-ebook/dp/B007RJ9QLG

Here it is. Treblinka survivor.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The most horrifying story I read on here was about a body swap - the man's wife ended up being tortured to death in another world while the wicked witch walked free in her body. *shudders*

I don't read much horror nowadays, if any - my overactive imagination tends to transfer it to my nightmares and I have enough trouble with the sleep paralysis/old hag syndrome!

Talmage Powell wrote a tale for Hitchcock in which a husband murders his wife and she comes back inside the girlfriends body. Hell hath no fury.