The Rabblelaid Starter Guide to Writing Erotica (Part 2)

Good Evening Everyone!

I have a lot of stuff cooking right now! So much so that I hope when it’s all ready you will be buried under a blizzard of content!

In the meantime, I promised the other week to write a follow-up to my guide on getting started writing erotica. Here is that guide. 

So, last time I recommended starting out by writing a hot sex scene. It’s a good way to judge whether writing erotica is for you. Sex scenes are the fun part, so if you found that difficult and boring, it might not end up being your favorite hobby. But let’s assume you liked it, and you are ready to write a story which fits your sex scene. 

Here are some tips for writing a great first story.

Get your fundamentals in order before you start. 

On a personal level, I’m an obsessive outliner. But I am aware that not everybody works like that. If you don’t think a detailed story outline would be helpful, you should at least have the basics of your story firm in your mind before you begin. Especially:

Characters: Who are your main characters? What do they look like? How do they act? What motivates them? What is their relationship to each other? I find that erotica is especially compelling when all of the main characters involved have an inner life. What do I mean by that? I mean that some writers (especially male writers) sometimes write some characters more like props than like people. For example, maybe you have a naughty secretary character. But WHY is she naughty? What does she think she is getting out of seducing her boss? It might seem silly. Who cares about plot in a porn? But I promise you thinking about this sort of thing is sort of the secret sauce that can make your story feel compelling. 

Conflict: What is the problem faced by the main characters? How do they plan to solve it? What obstacles are in their way? All plots written for people above the age of five have some sort of issue for the main characters to overcome. Having a collection of scenes where two people have sex and nothing else happens would be a snooze no matter how well written it is. 

End Point: Have an ultimate goal in mind that the entire plot can work toward. Usually this is a climactic sex scene of some kind, that really demonstrates the conflict and the characters’ relationships. Every scene in the story should work toward that goal.

A Fetish Focus: This is more for marketing than strictly necessary, but it helps to interest readers if you have a specific fetish you are focusing on. I think a “Teacher” story will do better than a “Teacher, Feet, Cuckold, Latex” story. If you are writing for your own enjoyment, ignore this one. 

Your opening scenes are key

Your first one or two scenes are crucial, and can also be the trickiest to nail. Typically, you want these first scenes to introduce the characters and the conflict. They will be the first thing your reader sees about your story, and first impressions are important! 

It can also sometimes be rough because introducing characters and conflict isn’t always sexy. That’s why it’s especially important to be quick and snappy with these scenes, and dangle as much intrigue and sexiness as you can. 

So you need to effectively introduce your characters, set up the plot, and try to inject a little sexiness, all while keeping it brief. Sound difficult? Sometimes it can be! 

My advice is to have your main character doing something. Don’t just describe them, show them in action, accomplishing something that speaks to their character or sets up the plot. Sprinkle in your physical descriptions with those actions, and it will make the scene feel more dynamic. 

Although I don’t often use this technique, you can even open with a sex scene! Cut right to the action, and use that to give physical descriptions and show important things about your characters. 

Every Scene Needs a Purpose. 

This one is straightforward: every single scene needs to have a reason for being there. Keep in mind that in erotica “because it’s fucking hot” is a totally valid reason for a scene’s existence. But what about non-sex scenes? Anyone who has read my stories knows that I have plenty of scenes that aren’t just sex, but I tend to have a very strict criteria for those. Non-sex scenes need to either develop the plot, or the characters. And they need to do a damn good job at that too. After all, to be crude, if someone is masturbating while reading my story, a non-sex scene has to be pretty compelling for them to read it.

So does that mean you should just have all sex scenes all the time? Well, no, because…

Context is King

A huge part of what makes erotica hot to me is the drama and stakes behind the sex scenes. I could read a well crafted sex scene about a younger woman and an older man and feel bored… but give me a short lead-up plot about how the woman is a disobedient bratty new employee, the boss is an arrogant old stick in the mud, and there is a spark off antagonistic attraction between them… then I sit up and take notice. 

I don’t know if everyone cares about this as much as I do, but this is the reason why non-sex scenes are important. Understanding the characters, their struggles, and how the sex relates to that makes the whole scene far, far hotter. At least in my opinion. 

Escalation:

I feel like I repeat myself a lot on this one. Maybe it’s as close as I could get to a central philosophy of erotica writing. Simply put, each scene should represent an escalation or heightening from the scenes that came before it. 

That doesn’t always have to be on the same axis. One scene might intensify the plot, and the next might intensify the sexual tension, and a third might intensify a conflict between characters. So for instance, if you have a blowjob scene in the middle of your story, the next plot scene doesn’t have to be more intense than a blowjob, but it does need to feel more intense than the most recent plot scene. Generally speaking, the intensity of the story should always be moving up toward the climax. 

This looks a little different in stories with multiple chapters (if you are in this for the long haul). To a certain extent, the intensity resets at the beginning of each part of the story, although there should still be a noticeable slope upward over time. 

Ok, I feel like that is enough rambling out of me. But I want to emphasize that I feel strongly about helping other writers, new and old. If you feel like you could benefit from a fresh set of eyes on your work, or are stuck with a writing attempt, don’t hesitate to reach out. My author email is grogstoopid32@gmail.com!