Writing sex stories is hard. Sex fiction writers have to handle issues that other writers don’t have to worry about, such as coming up with non-repetitive words for genitalia, making dialogue actually sound sexy, and scraping the bottom of our imagination for scenarios we haven’t used. But this article isn’t about erotic writing techniques; it is about something much more elemental.
When you’re starting a sex story, your mindset going in either works for you, or against you. If you take the wrong mental approach, you’re in for a ton of extra work. Fix the mindset, and all your technical challenges become much more controllable.
How do YOU think about sex stories?
The trouble is, writers don’t think of sex stories as real stories. They think of them as erotic scenes strung together with a flimsy excuse for a plot, somehow exempt from the rules of storytelling just because they contain explicit material. You’re smart, you already know that there is no escape from the rules of storytelling, not for any story.
Erotic stories are still stories. The fundamentals still apply, just as they apply to horror, romance, science fiction, courtroom dramas, and all the other genres of fiction. You still need to do as much work on your plot, setting, pace, character development, and premise as though you were writing anything else.
How you got brainwashed…
If you are struggling with this concept, it isn’t your fault. It’s the way we’ve been conditioned to think about entertainment. Everything is rated as either “contains sexual content” or “does not contain sexual content.” General entertainment, and adult entertainment. NC-17, and other ratings. The trouble is, this division makes us focus on the sex to the exclusion of everything else. To most people, even erotic story writers, adult entertainment usually means all sex, all the time.
Movies and erotic romances do have some sexual material, but most of the time, it is not well integrated. These works are still created in sex-or-story mode; scenes are either sexual content or story, but rarely both. The sex scenes are not specific to the story; you can often substitute names and scenarios, and there won’t be much difference in who has the sex. This doesn’t serve the audience well, either, because audiences know when a scene doesn’t fit in the story well, and it feels like it was tacked on to earn a more mature rating.
Entertainment for adults, not “Adult Entertainment.”
We need to accept that these are not our only two options. What we really need is to start thinking in terms of “entertainment for adults,” not “adult entertainment.” This is a new field, a new way of thinking about sexual entertainment, but one that will yield great results if we push forward. Erotic romance was only viable as a genre in the last few years, but readers are ravenous for it. The popularity of erotic fan fiction, possibly the best example of integrated sex and story content, also suggests that readers are hungry for a change.
How to reprogram yourself.
Because you are a serious writer, you probably want to know how to get past the sex-or-story split. I will freely admit that getting into the right mindset is more easily said than done, and you will probably need time to get used to the idea and develop your own philosophy. My advice is to do the following exercise. Get a good book on some basic aspect of writing, such as plot or character. Writer’s Digest has several good ones. Read it, and ruthlessly apply every idea to one of your old erotic stories.
You’re essentially doing a remix, so you may end up with a completely different story than the original. Don’t worry about style or fine writing too much, because that’s not the point of the exercise. The purpose is to help you see your sex fiction writing in a new way, and to help you gain more mastery as an adult storyteller.
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