Erotica 101

by Han Li Thorn

© 2003 Han Li Thorn. All Rights Reserved.

Article 4: Keeping the Story Taut (as well as the bodies!)

An erotic story, naturally, needs to have plenty of erotic action, but it takes more than a bunch of excellent bedroom scenes to keep any but the least-demanding reader engaged. As well as imaginative, enjoyable sex, you'd be well advised to include:

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of writing erotic stories (as opposed to steamy slices of bedroom life) is to keep things spicy enough to keep the reader's libido engaged, while providing enough dramatic conflict, tension and resolution to maintain interest in the story as well.

(It was the diffculty of finding dramatically compelling erotica that made me write Property Rites, which was my first erotic novel and my second novel overall).

Let's take an example of an erotica classic that many (even among those who admire it) consider to be flawed: Pauline Réage's Story of O. (If you've never read it, and you're interested enough in erotic fiction to be following this series of articles, then where have you been? Go and get a copy right now! It's here on Amazon, and here (in several ebook formats) on Renaissance Ebooks -- or you might be able to find the full, free text of Story of O using this google search).

I've chosen to discuss this novel for the very reason that it's one of the most widely-read and influential pieces of written erotica in history, and the chances are that most people who are interested in the genre will be at least somewhat familiar with it. Perhaps you love Story of O, and will stop reading this article when you learn that, despite finding much about the novel to learn from and to admire, I also have some negative remarks about it.

Still with me? Good! If you read the customer feedback on Amazon, you'll find plenty of other people who also have reservations about the story: among other things, that nothing really happens, that you never really see into O's mind. Caveat: there are also many positive review; back in the day, this novel rocked worlds (mine included). Maybe it still does, for those who come to it fresh.

One of the most instructive things about Story of O is that many people seem to find the first few chapters compelling, but that the plot then fizzles out for them (even though certain passages remain highly arousing). The reason, I believe, is that the opening is full of conflict: O being inducted -- reluctantly but obediently -- into Roissy; O discovering the awful things that are to be done to her; O's romantic and sexual longing for the lover who never returns to her. You want to know what's going to happen next.

You want to know if she'll get what she wants.

When, part-way through the story, O stops wanting (by submitting herself utterly to male desire, no matter how cruel), the central fictional question -- will the protagonist achieve her goals? -- becomes largely meaningless.

Does this mean that characters shouldn't be (or become) totally submissive?

Of course not! Submissive characters can still desperately want things they can't get, can still face extreme jeopardy in challenging, even impossible situations. Watching the protagonist struggle against the odds is something that delights readers ... for many, O being submissive but proactive, plotting and planning get back to her true love René (and being thwarted, and punished for her pains, and perhaps slowly won over by sadistic Sir Stephen) would be much more compelling than O passively chained in the dark and waiting obediently for the next man who decides to fuck her or whip her.

By way of contrast, I'll mention a lesser-known novel that's one of my own favourites (available again after being out of print for much too long): Captivation, by Sarah Fisher. It's available here from publisher Chimera, both as a paperback and as an electronic download. (Caveat lector: Sarah Fisher's Dr Caswell books, also available through Chimera, are not in my opinion nearly as good as Captivation).

Story of O and Captivation have similar themes: the induction of a girl, at least somewhat unwillingly, into sexual slavery. The milestones on this journey (collarings, whippings, piercings, and so on) are similar.

Unlike O, however, Alex (the heroine of Captivation) doesn't simply accept what's happening to her. She agonises about it, rebels against her own nature, has tantrums, and even escapes. She's a heroine in the truest sense of the word -- and the novel's submissive climax, when it comes, is all the more satisfying for that.

If you find time to read both these novels, ask yourself which is loaded with drama and conflict, and which seems to be lacking in pace and action. Which do you think would be more likely to resonate with today's wider readership and publishing houses, and which might have done better half a century ago? Hint: the answers are printed on the fly-leaves of the respective books :-)

It's no coincidence that both the examples I chose were BDSM novels. This happens to be my favourite form -- and not simply because of my own preferences. The ideas of submission and domination, of power exchange and punishment, are inherently loaded with conflict in a way that's much more difficult (if not impossible) to achieve when writing about vanilla acts.

(That's not to say that including a bondage scene automatically tautens the story as if it were a submissive's shackled body, or that you can't create a compelling erotic plot without unless you resort to full-blown kink. You just have to find another way to work the conflict in -- which is exactly what some of the more risqué genre romance titles do, nowadays. A pioneer in this area was The Fires of Winter, by Johanna Lindsey. Ostensibly a romance novel, it takes its heroine through a journey of abduction, enslavement and rape at the hands of the romantic hero before delivering the expected happy ending. It also happens to be an excellent example of a story that's suffused with erotic sensibility while also being chock-full of character-threatening conflict.

Which suggests that even novels that aren't ostensibly about BDSM can include elements of sexual power exchange. Even in an unashamedly BDSM-oriented work, in order to maximise the erotic conflict, it can help if at least one character is at least slightly unwilling, at least at first (and a dominant character can be unwilling or scared or unaware of their true nature, just as much as a character in a submissive role). That's not to say that you couldn't write a BDSM novel where all the players are completely happy in their assigned roles, but you'll then need to find another source of conflict -- and you won't get the automatic, powerful charge of eroticism that an element of sexual coercion between your characters can deliver.

If a wide readership (and thus commercial success) is your main objective, then you might want to take the idea of coercion to the extreme, for example by writing about a completely unwilling victim in the power of a cruel and merciless (not to mention criminal) abductor/abuser. A glance at Amazon's sales rankings will show that stories like Claire Thompson's Frog: A Tale of Sexual Torture and Degradation are consistently near the top of the list, and there's always interest in real-life documentary accounts such as Perfect Victim. At this end of the genre, though, there's the risk of making the protagonist too powerless. Without power, there can't be much of a struggle; without struggle, there won't be much of a story.

Personally, I find that straying too close to the borders of non-consensuality troubles me as a writer, yet those regions are exactly where BDSM-related erotic conflict is to be found. In my own work, I do my best to appeal to the reader who will see the submissive victim as the protagonist, to be identified with and cared for, and the abuser (unless there is explicit or implicit consent) as the antagonist, to be reviled and followed by the reader in the expectation of a well-deserved comeuppance.

Comments on this article are welcome (please don't change the email subject line!)