Writing Erotic Fiction

Sometimes, when reading erotica, you find a line such as: “She removed her top, revealing her sexy body.” Now, a line like that might do it for some people, but it leaves me cold. What are the problems with it? Let’s take it one clause at a time.

“She removed her top”

This is 100% generic. It tells the reader nothing apart from the bald fact of what happened–there is nothing to nourish the mind’s eye, nothing to send a rush of blood to the loins. An erotic scene is about senses, thoughts and actions. Even within a fragment of a sentence, you can work to bring these out. Instead of removing her top, she could have:

- unbuttoned her blouse
- slowly unlaced her corset
- wriggled out of her boob tube
- shucked off her crop top
- shrugged her tee shirt over her head
- unfastened her bikini top…

Why are these better than “She removed her top”? Because they are specific, not generic. They show, instead of telling. Can you read, “She wriggled out of her crop top” without seeing what she did in your mind’s eye? Similarly, when you read, “She took off her top,” can you see exactly what happened, or is it more a case that you know what she did?

In erotic writing, it’s always better to choose specific verbs and nouns over generic ones.

You’ll notice that in one example I wrote that she “slowly unbuttoned her corset.” Many authorities on storytelling recommend limiting the number of describing words (adverbs and adjectives) you use, arguing that it’s better to seek out stronger, more specific verbs and nouns that don’t need any such support.

This is always good advice, but it’s perhaps less important in erotic and romantic writing than in other genres, because eroticism is all about description; the reader wants to know if something was done slowly or languidly or abruptly, and it’s not always possible to signify such things without using adverbs and adjectives. A balanced approach is to find the best verbs and nouns you can and embellish them with additional description only where it genuinely adds to the piece–and then stop.

Now for the second clause:

“revealing her sexy body.”

This suffers from the same problems as the first clause did, namely that it’s generic instead of specific; it tells instead of showing. In what way was her body sexy? Were her breasts small and firm or large and bountiful? Did her spine, collarbones and shoulder blades display exquisite bone structure? Was there some blemish or imperfection that in some way enhanced the whole? Or perhaps it was no more than her perfume, or flickering candlelight and the contrast of smooth skin against silk sheets…

Sadly, since all we have is the word “sexy”, we will never know.

The second problem with this clause concerns point-of-view (POV), a subject that deserves full coverage (I plan to get around to it eventually) but that’s worth mentioning here.

A line such as “revealing her sexy body” contains an implicit assumption that somebody found her body sexy. Who could it have been? It depends on the POV from which the story is written. Perhaps she thought her own body was sexy (which would reveal something of her character). Perhaps her lover thought so. Perhaps it was a hidden observer, secretly watching the scene. Whomever it was, would they have used the word ’sexy’ to describe what they saw? I don’t know about you, but my own emotions on seeing the object of my desire are much more specific, and more primal, than that…

The fact is that a word like “sexy” (which is effectively a code word, representing a whole gamut of possibilities) is often a clue that the judgement comes from the writer, who is using the omniscient POV. This can be a problem: the writer isn’t in the story and his/her comments will often appear out-of-context and distracting. Most writers would be better advised to stick to a first- or third-person POV, and ensure that all judgements about things like sexiness come from a character in the story, and not from outside.

In my last piece, I wrote about two fundamental character types, those of player (actors and story-drivers) and voyeur (observers and story-interpreters). Those two categories tell us something important about how a piece of fiction is propelled and reported by its characters, but they’re of little help in defining the detailed roles those characters take within the story.

Before we discuss story roles, we need to consider the following question:

What is a story?

For some, a story can be a simple sequence of events–and indeed, such a pattern is seen over and again in the world of erotic stories, particularly of the shorter kind. Boy meets girl, boy takes girl home, boy and girl have wild sex… You know, if that kind of pattern were repeated often enough, erotic literature might one day get a reputation for only ever having the most tenuous kind of plot!

Engaging fiction of any kind needs a plot, and it needs characters who are impacted by, and who care about, that plot. So, my answer to the above question is:

A story is a sequence of causes and effects that results in a significant change to at least one character.

More on plot in another article. For now, I want to get back to character archetypes:

The Protagonist
The protagonist is the person to whom the story belongs. If you’re not sure who your protagonist is, ask yourself who has the most at stake in your story, who undergoes the most significant change, which character struggles the hardest to achieve her goals. Whom is the story about? The answers will guide you toward your protagonist–and if there is no clear answer, they will guide you toward clarifying your story ideas.

The Hero/Heroine
A hero or heroine is a specific kind of protagonist, one who is essentially good. A traditional quality of the hero or heroine is the ability to sacrifice themselves for the good of others–to put other people first, which is an aspect of being a good person, when you think about it. The alternative is to be selfish all the time, which is hardly the stuff of heroism.

When writing heroes and heroines, remember that good/self-sacrificing does not equal perfect. Too-perfect ‘Mary Sue’ characters are unbelievable–and even irritating. There’s no reason why your hero or heroine shouldn’t be selfish, mean, confused, hung-over, bitter, angry, or anything else, as long as the goodness comes through when it counts. Heroism is about overcoming obstacles, and the most serious obstacles a fictional character can tackle are the ones that arise from his or her own nature. By giving your heroes and heroines some well-judged flaws, you make them believable and all the more engaging as human beings.

The Antihero
Not every protagonist has a heroic nature. Some can be fundamentally selfish, dastardly, even cruel–in other words, entirely opposed to the usual qualities we expect of a hero. This doesn’t mean that an antihero never does the right thing, but he will generally do them for reasons that have more to do with self-interest than morality (or only after going through some kind of redemption that re-casts him in a more heroic mold).

An antihero may not be heroic, but you can still draw him sympathetically, and audiences can have just as much (if not more) fun in his company as they would with a regular hero (particularly the flawless goody-two-shoes Mary Sue kind of hero).

The Antagonist
If a protagonist struggles to achieve her goals, then the antagonist is the character (or corporation, force-of-nature, animal, or whatever) busy throwing up barriers. Antagonists don’t have to be purely evil, or evil at all: a character who opposes the protagonist out of pure spite is (a) less believable and (b) less sympathetic than one who acts in that way for an understandable reason.

In an erotic story, for example, an antagonist might actually be the protagonist’s love interest: he chases; she rejects. She’s blocking him from achieving his erotic goals, but you can hardly portray her as selfish. If she was evil, why would he want her? She’s just not into him (yet).

The Villain
A villain is a specific type of antagonist who is evil (or at least, morally questionable). The opposition of a villain arises from selfish reasons. The truest home of the villain, of course, is in the world of comic books. If you want to set your erotic fiction more in the real world, you’d do well to steer away from the pure villain and at least some of the way toward a more complex, human antagonist.

The Sidekick
A sidekick is a close companion and trusted supporter of the main character. In erotic or romantic stories, the sidekick might be a best friend or confidante–somebody who advises, listens and comforts.

The Playmate
The playmate (who can be of either sex and any sexuality) is an object of sexual or romantic desire. Some stories will have a single playmate; others will have several. Playmates can, of course, desire other playmates.

If the playmate is an object of desire, should that desire necessarily be fulfilled? The answer is no, or at least, not straight away. The term ‘playmate’ reflects another character’s desire, not necessarily the playmate’s story role. Remember that fiction thrives on tension, and don’t satisfy your characters’ erotic desires too quickly. In erotic fiction as in erotic life, the journey can mean more than the destination, and timing is crucial.

The Mentor
The mentor is a wise figure who acts as instructor and guide to the protagonist. While crucial in many traditional heroic tales, this role is perhaps less important in erotic stories, but the archetype remains a powerful one. If your protagonist ever becomes somebody’s sexual protege or trainee, for example, then your story will include this archetype.

The Hero’s Journey
Some readers will recognize a few of the above archetypes from the Hero’s Journey (see Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces). If you want to tell powerful stories (whether erotic or not) the Hero’s Journey is well worth examining (though Campbell’s book is a hard slog). The ideas, archetypes and story-shapes you will find there are mythic and resonant and rooted deeply in our culture; you may even discover (as I did, in my first erotic novel) that you are using them without even being aware that such a thing as the Hero’s Journey ever existed.

What are these Archetypes for?
A story certainly needs a protagonist and some kind of antagonist, but the remaining archetypes do not necessarily have to be expressed by means of a character. The roles can be omitted, or subsumed into another part.

Imagine an erotic story about two friends who figure as protagonist and antagonist. The protagonist has fallen in lust with his female best friend; his objective is to seduce her. She, in the role of antagonist, throws up one barrier a..er another but, being his friend, continues to offer support and advice. Perhaps she even tries to help him out by introducing him to some eligible singles from her circle.

The conflict arises from the collision of friendship and desire; the resolution will occur when he succeeds (friendship develops into romance) or fails (the chance for romance is lost; perhaps the friendship is lost too), or some other solution is found.

This story has two main characters, but how many archetypal roles are represented? The man is the protagonist. The woman is his antagonist, but also his sidekick (she does her best to help with his problem) and mentor (she offers advice). Last but not least, she also fills the role of playmate, as the object of his sexual desire.

Don’t be misled by the term ‘character archetypes’ into thinking that these roles must always be fulfilled by human characters. In the erotically-themed movie Cherry 2000, the playmate is (initially) a broken sex-android. The protagonist, Sam Treadwell, misses the fun times he had with his android and sets out on a quest to replace it. Being non-human (and non-operational) the android barely qualifies as a character—a fact that helps Treadwell decide which playmate he really wants by the end of the movie.

Or imagine a tale about a woman who discovers an ancient erotic text, one that inspires her to embark on a journey of sensual discovery. Isn’t the book playing the role of her mentor?

Erotic behavior is fundamental to human nature. To be a truly erotic being, a fictional character must also be a fully developed human being.

Think about it this way: would a description of two mindless androids, equipped with precise replicas of human bodies and programmed to rut with one another, be genuinely erotic? If you feel that physical description is enough to generate eroticism then you will answer ‘Yes’. If you feel that eroticism arises from thought, sensation and response–things that can only be experienced by characters, not by mechanical entities–then you will answer ‘No’.

(If you answered ‘No’ then you may be reading the wrong blog.)

Creating Characters
Some authors pull characters out of thin air, paying little attention to the process by which it happens. If you can do this, then it’s not a bad way to start. The characters you invent will have come from somewhere inside you, so there’s a good chance you will understand them and be able to portray them in a believable and sympathetic way. However, unless you have an exceptionally deep and varied stock of characters in your head, you run the risk of writing about the same people over and over, and the chances are that you’ll eventually need another source of inspiration.

Another technique is to use people you know or observe. This can be a viable approach, particularly if you disassemble and reassemble those characters in such a way as to ensure the results are unrecognizable to the original models (or to anyone else, for that matter). To some extent, every writer draws on this method; we can only write what we know, and when it comes to people, everything we know has come from our interactions with…people.

No matter what technique you choose as the basis of character creation, it’s worth being able to take a step back and look at the matter from a more analytical point of view. The first topic I want to examine is the division of characters into two very broad categories, depending on two extremely high-level roles the characters perform in the story: those of player, and voyeur.

Players propel the story. They make plans and execute them. The do stuff, initiate stuff. They act, decide, speak, intervene…

Voyeurs reflect on the story. They watch what happens, judge, pass comment, report and interpret…

A single character can take both roles, either within a single scene or at different times. Conversely, some characters can be purely players while others are purely voyeurs. The important thing is to understand the difference between the roles.

A classic way of structuring stories is as a series of scenes and sequels. Using this model, the protagonist of a story might spend a scene as a player–pursuing her story goals, striving to overcome obstacles, and generally being active and player-like. Most scenes will end with a setback for the protagonist (otherwise there will be little in the way of tension) and will be followed by a more introspective sequel, in which the protagonist reflects on what happened in the scene, comes to terms (or not) with the setback, takes stock of her new position, and decides what to do next.

In commercial fiction (which includes most erotic fiction), players are more important. After all, an erotic story cannot be told purely through reflection–something has to happen; there must be sexual encounters, desires and longings, seductions and rejections…all these things might be viewed and reported by a voyeur character, but there must still be a player to do them in the first place.

In literary fiction (including literary erotica) voyeurs come more into their own. Literary fiction tends to be character-driven, so the thoughts and judgements of those characters are an important part of the package. After all, a writer can hardly examine the human condition without entering the human mind.

Keep the above player/voyeur balance in mind as you work–but don’t slavishly exclude all voyeurs from your commercial erotica, or all players from your literary work. Exploring thoughts and responses can expose a new and deeper layer of eroticism in ‘action’ driven pieces, while following characters who lust and debauch and live can help prevent literary erotic writing from becoming an introspective plod.

The player and voyeur character roles exist at a very high level. Next time, I’ll look at more traditional archetypes such as heroes, villains and sidekicks.

Like most human endeavors, there are several ways of going about the creation of erotic fiction. The easiest and most common way is to take a pragmatic, get-the-job-done approach. For an erotic writer, the job in hand (ahem!) is to arouse the reader, to feed and reflect his or her sexual fantasies, to offer vicarious, powerful experiences and climaxes that would not normally be possible in the reader’s own life.

People read fiction for many reasons. Fans of adventure stories want thrills and spills; fans of mystery and crime enjoy the deduction and detection. Romance readers are hooked on the development and resolution of sexual and romantic tension, while SF nuts are into new ideas and technologies. The readers of the various genres want all the above things, but they also want more: they want characters they can identify with and care about, and they want stories that move them and keep them turning the pages. Some readers may even hope that a story will deliver new insights into the human condition.

The most basic, get-the-job-done erotic fiction is like an adventure story that’s only about fights and chases. If the reader just wants something to beat off to, then that’s fine–there’s a market for basic hands-on erotica, and nothing shameful about writing to that market. But there’s also a market for erotic stories and that’s what this blog is about.