Arousing Your Reader In Erotic Fiction

The best way to become a better writer is to read what's out there, find out what your competition is, and discover what's lacking in your own work. This is the true for any genre. As a writer and regular reader of erotic fiction, I've noticed that a lot of erotica is missing key elements. Things I've been reading lately should have been deliciously spicy, but ultimately flopped for me as the reader.

By definition, "erotic" means to sexually arouse. How can an author cause sexual arousal in their reader? In my humble opinion, it requires the following steps:

Step ONE: Get Your Reader's Attention

Make your characters believable: Regardless of who your characters are (werewolves, aliens, fluffy pink unicorns, normal people), the reactions they have to their environment and situations need to be relatable. If you're writing monster erotica and have otherworldly and hard to understand genitalia... yeah. That won't make my panties wet. A write should be creative, but keep it on the level.

Give your characters an emotional motive: Without a why to what a character does or feels makes connecting to them more difficult. Don't put two virgins in a pool about to screw without telling me why they've chosen the pool or each other. Erotica without a purpose is just porn.

Step TWO: Don't Forget The Big 5

SIGHT--SOUND--TOUCH--TASTE--SMELL

Sex is a physical thing. To be physically aroused in the bedroom requires your body to take in signals in any way that it can. The same things transfers onto paper. Put your scene under a microscope describing everything in detail so that your reader can properly visualize. Too much of what I've read lately has focused mostly on sight and taste, completely abandoning the other 3 senses. If you tell me your character is giving oral sex, don't just tell me that the skin is warm and the genitals are big... Tell me how it feels inside the mouth, how it tastes and smells, and what shape it is. Also combine the senses with Step ONE, and tell me how each character feels about what's going on. The more specific the details, the more real it becomes inside your reader's head.

Step THREE: Language

Think River: The way something is spoken or described can make all the difference. Make your language flow. One sentence needs to meet the next like poetry, not stop abruptly. Sentence variety works well. If I begin reading something that is nothing but sentence fragments or short and choppy, I stop reading.

Euphemisms & Vulgarity: Alternative words for penis and vagina are great, but get creative with your descriptions. I've read enough "juicy cock" and "tight pussy" to go blind. Make your work stand out by finding another way to say things. Also, think about why you're using one word over another. "Cock" and "pussy" are both legit words, but they can ultimately turn some readers off. Stories with a romantic subtext will have readers with a more sensitive taste, where readers who want to read harder, more explicit sex scenes might not be bothered. Match your language to your story and make sure you remain consistent.

If you combine all three steps and everything they include, you can slip your reader into the story and have them visualize your words successfully. Visualization and connection to emotion which is detailed and well said, can and will arouse your target audience.  If you're turned on while writing, becoming hot and bothered yourself, that never hurts either :)

Interview With Erotica Author Richard Bacula

I've interviewed my good friend and Erotic Fiction Author, Richard Bacula. He's recently partnered up with Kelli Roberts to write a BDSM novel titled "Letting Go." Here's a little about him and the book. Stay tuned for my personal review of this work.

1) Why have you chosen Erotica as your genre of choice?

Because erotica is wonderful! Or, at least, it can be. There is a lot of badly written stuff out there, but overall erotica is an under-appreciated genre. Sex is one of the most powerful experiences that a human being is capable of, especially when love is involved, but for some reason writers don't get a lot of respect unless they're write about some kind of great suffering instead. 

Write about people dying in WWII, you get an award. Write about the cruelty of racism, you get an award. Write about somebody starving to death, you get an award.

Write about something wonderful happening between two (or more) people...?

You can get sales. You can have a best-seller. But you'll be mocked and have your work derided, as if pleasure was somehow less noble than pain. Personally, I'd rather create works that give the readers orgasms than works that give them tears. (Although there's nothing to say that you can't do a bit of both, when it fits the story.)

2) How did you become involved with your new book "Letting Go"? 

Through Twitter, actually. I started my twitter account because I learned that award-winning journalist Doug Saunders had mentioned one of my titles in passing, in a tweet. I decided that Twitter might be a good way to publicize my works, and I was half right.

It turns out that Twitter isn't so great for getting a lot of sales, but it IS pretty good for networking. You can meet people via Twitter that you'd never encounter in your daily life. Somebody on Twitter mentioned to me that Kelli Roberts and Audrey Hollander had written some erotica, and that aroused my curiosity, so to speak.

I read their work, tweeted Kelli about it, and we sort of struck up a friendship. She ended up reading my short story "Cornholed," on Literotica (retitled "Corn Hold" for the kindle), and she was impressed by my ability to write such an absurd premise--sex with a magic scarecrow--so well.

She was already working on "Letting Go," and decided that I could bring a lot to the table if we partnered up on the project. I had been wanting to write a novel, and getting the chance to work with an AVN-nominated Adult Film producer was something that I couldn't pass up.

3) How would you describe your book?

It's romantic BDSM erotica. Not to be confused with a BDSM erotica romance. While there is romance involved in the plot, it's primarily about two people discovering secrets about each other, and about themselves, although there is certainly romance involved.

Stasia, the protagonist, has had a growing attraction to Jaxon, but the fact that they're co-workers has kept them apart, as well as the fact that Stasia considers herself to be a rather vanilla kind of girl, and she's heard some unsettling rumors about Jaxon's sex life.

She can't help trying to find out more about him, though, and she starts stumbling onto some secrets, then ends up getting in over her head.

Most of the novel takes place over a single weekend, and (like most of my writing to date) there is a LOT of very descriptive sex involved. We tried to avoid doing the kind of "then they did this position, then they did that position" kind of writing where only the physical acts were concentrated, and made sure that every sex scene helped develop the characters, and/or advance the plot. 

Stasia ends up going through a number of things that she has never experienced before, and part of the appeal to me with that kind of story is all of the internal thoughts and reactions that new experiences bring.

Also, many of our readers will find things in the novel that they have never personally tried before, and when we wrote the scenes, we strove to write them in such a way that readers would have some idea of what the experience is actually like: what the appeal is to being spanked, paddled, chained, and such.

4) How was writing the novel different from your other writing experiences?

It was my first novel, for one thing. I've been a bit intimidated about writing novels, simply because I can be so extraordinarily verbose in my writing. My first erotic story was "An Innocent Haircut," and my intention was to just dash out a very quick sex scene between a young man and the woman who cuts his hair. I figured that a simple, one-scene story would be fast and easy.

I wrote it out fast enough, and the story ended up being over nine-thousand words long, most of those words describing the sex.

That tends to be my writing style, so I really wasn't sure of how a novel would go for me. If I aim for a quick, 4-6k story, I tend to end up with something in the 9-14k range. I was afraid that if I aimed for something in the 50-100k range, that it would never end!

That's one place where having a partner came in handy, which is the other new experience for me with this project. I'd never worked with a partner before. Kelli and I came up with a story arc that let us accomplish all that we wanted to do, while still keeping us under 65k words. We were able to both push each other to meet goals and to do our best, as well as to reign each other in a bit when needed. Overall, it worked out very well. We seem to have had the right blend of flexibility and firmness in our working together.

5) Where will your writing take you next?

Someplace interesting, I expect!

I always have a number of projects in the works, and even more in my intentions. I've been compiling my various short stories--including two not-yet-published stories--into an anthology that I hope I'll be able to release soon.

I've been working on a short piece of vampire erotica. Even though I've said in the past that I'd probably never dip into the vampire genre, sometimes stories just kind of happen to you, and you need to write them.

I'd like to write a sequel to "Letting Go" at some point. There's still so much more that can be done with those characters, and the world that was created in that book. That'll depend on sales, though, as well as the good people at Wastelands.com, because they're the ones ultimately behind the project.

The future is open, and I'm optimistic.

6) Do you have any messages for readers or those interested in the bdsm lifestyle?

I’d like people to keep two things in mind when reading the novel.

First, experiences vary, so one person's reaction to certain stimuli is going to vary from another person's. It's all so very personal, depending heavily on how the people in question are wired both physically and mentally, as well as on their past experiences. One of the things that I've discovered with BDSM is that it is such a wonderfully wide and eclectic mix of people and passions, that there's no way to encompass everything in one novel, or even in a dozen novels.

So when you read the book, and one of the characters within that book enjoys a certain thing, that doesn't mean that you the reader would enjoy it. Likewise, the reverse is true: just because you the reader might not enjoy an act depicted in the book, or you might not react the same way, doesn't mean that nobody else out there would react the way the character does. That's one of the nice things about erotica- no matter what you write, somebody out there is likely to find that it reflects their desires.

Second, the work IS fiction. There may have been some places where we had to compromise realism in favor of storytelling. While we endeavored to write a novel that would help educate newcomers about various BDSM experiences, this is not a "How-To" book, nor a description of the BDSM community, nor any kind of guarantee that everybody who enjoys reading about the acts depicted in the book would actually enjoy those acts in real life. It's simply a fantasy, not any kind of commentary on the concepts, communities, or people involved in real-world BDSM.

That being said, if anybody wishes to compare their own experiences to scenes in the book, or if anybody wishes to discuss anything within the book that they feel was inaccurate or incorrect, feel free to contact me via any of the means below:

Twitter: @RichardBacula
E-Mail: RichardBacula@gmail.com or RichardBacula@aim.com
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7514047.Richard_Bacula

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Bacula/e/B00IMLVIHS

And please, if you read “Letting Go” (or any of my work), I’d love it if you could leave a review for me on Amazon!

A New Title

Introducing...

Amazon: Click Here

Rumors are powerful force, and Lara uses them to her advantage. This contemporary erotic m/f story explores how far one young adult will go to both fulfill her sexual desires and take revenge on those who have spread lies about her. Blackmailing her much older nextdoor neighbor allows Lara to punish her rumormongering ex boyfriend, as well as lose her virginity to her ideal man.

Expect voyeurism, barely legal sex, and everything from the perspective of a virgin.

Taboos

I was considering posting my thoughts under "Ravings Of A Mad Writer" because it would seem that my thoughts belong there. I'm feeling an internal rant coming on; cresting, roaring, breaking like Mother Nature's most wicked fury. But this isn't just my issue. This is AN issue. Prepare yourself for my long explanation and anger. I hope some of you can share my anger. Warning: I say fuck a lot.

Taboo: 

Noun - a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.

Adjective - prohibited or restricted by social custom : sex was a taboo subject

ORIGIN late 18th cent: From Tongan tabu'set apart, forbidden' ; introduced into English by Captain Cook

Ok. So I'm really hating this Captain Cook guy right now... Not because he coined a word to encompass all the things that are socially or religiously unacceptable, but because he coined something in the 18th century. It might not be all that rational to dislike like this guy based on his time period, but I just can't help it. I honestly feel the taboos relevant to the 18th century are still relevant today. Herein lies the problem.

All religious notions aside; God fucking help us.

I'm so angry with the modern world right now that I could spit tacks. I find myself cursing when I search out publishers to submit my newest completed work to. One tiny moment at the very end of my story (A Normal Girl) will be the sole reason my fiction is rejected before anyone has even given it a chance.

Reading through submission guidelines, I run across things like:

1.  "No scat or depictions or misuse of excretory functions." Does that mean poop or pee?
2.  "No deprived acts" What the hell does that mean? Depravity has no bounds...
3.  "We do not accept bestiality (does not apply to shapeshifters), rape, etc." The Shapeshifter bit makes me laugh because THEN bestiality is OK, but what the fuck does "etc." mean? 

Really. If a publisher can't clarify something on their webpage as important as to what is admissible or not, then they shouldn't be a fucking publishing house!

I began writing my story to prove a point and drive home a message important to me, and now I struggle with the possibility my story will never be read by mass readers. All the other struggles aside; submitting, competing with other authors, making it through the cracks and not being cast into the unholy slush pile of disregarded and forgotten manuscripts... Geeze. Like it's not already hard enough. Now I get to deal with not belonging in the "published by a publishing house" category because my subjects of fiction are taboo.

What makes something taboo? Who says what topics aren't ok? Who has that power? Why? My story's taboo is used to make a point, not to titillate. But that's beside the point. Even if I had taken a taboo subject and glorified it, made it sexy, it shouldn't fucking matter. Apparently because it's fiction, it's just not OK.

Pisses me off that the rules aren't the same for non-fiction. You hear about autobiographies from so-and-so all the time about their time in captivity during war and the atrocities they went through. You read about rape and incest survivors and hear about how well their stories sell in the book stores. Why is what I'm writing about different? Why am I not allowed to write and publish what I want because it's fiction and taboo? Does a true story have more merit than the creativity I pull out of my head?

I don't think so. FICTION. Sweet mercy, people. Do we really live in such a world where ancient taboos are still modern? How many hundreds of years have to pass before writing--free to write, free speech and all--is really allowed. How dare anyone tell me or anyone else what's not OK.

So fuck you backward thinking publishing houses. OH! And fuck you Amazon. Fuck you for banning books based on societal taboos. Fuck you society for making anyone feel ashamed about reading material. I don't condone underage sex, incest, rape, bestiality (with or without shapeshifters), or other "depraved acts," but I do condone writing about them, however you fucking want to write about them. Your own personal thoughts and opinions, especially in fiction, is a god given right.

I'll continue to write what I want and how I want. I might not reach the masses with my story's message, but I might reach one or two. I'll still be heard, and maybe my message will make a different in the life of those willing to overlook the taboo.

Something New In the Works

My latest piece, A Normal Girl, is done and with beta readers until I decide what to do with it. For now, I've started on something new. Not sure exactly where it's headed, but it's surely going to involve lots of kinky sex and classic Angora Shade revenge. My favorite.

Excerpt from "The Real Fruitcake" by Angora Shade

“Annabeth!”

I race into his office feigning shock. “Everything okay, Mr. Blake?”

Fucking priceless.

I watch his expression first read anger, and then morph into surprise, followed by emotions that slither back and forth between lust and confusion. He must like my new outfit. My lime green blouse dips low over my small bust, and is transparent enough to show my bra is made of lace without getting me sent home to change. If my mini skirt were any shorter, I’d attract enough negative attention that I would be. I can’t sit down without first smoothing and rounding the fabric over my backside. And don’t mention walking. If you can stand at the copy machine and bustle back and forth doing errands for nine hours in four inch heels, then you’re damn goddess.

Boo-Ya!

“Those…” He clears his throat and rubs at his stupid goatee, covering his sick smile. “Those papers for the Mahathy Case. Where are they?”

I was waiting for him to yell about it.

“Here,” I tell him, approaching his desk with a brown envelope filled with papers. “I’ve just made the copies.” I plop them down on his desk, inching in closer to him, my deliberately free hair cascading over my right shoulder and falling an inch from his body. Surely he can smell me.

His fucking aftershare reeks.

He clears his throat again, leaning toward me and grabbing an eye full of my chest. “Do you have a date after work?” he asks me casually.

“No,” I laugh, placing my hand on his shoulder. “I saved up enough to stop shopping at the thrift store.” I make sure to make eye contact with him, and then look down at the floor as if I’m embarrassed to say, “And, I thought I’d buy something I knew we’d both like.” My voice rings in the air like a siren’s song.

I have to force myself to not recoil in disgust as I feel his hand slip around my midsection. Instead I smile shyly and open the folder.

“Here’s the witness list, the deposition, police report…” I flip through showing him I’ve missed nothing.

Suddenly I feel his hand sliding from my waist to my backside. I refrain from shaking as his slimy hand rounds over my ass and slips under my skirt. He brushes my thigh with his fingertips, exploring my pantie-free zone. His thumb and his pointer finger drag toward one another to the middle of my warm, naked slit, and I have to close my eyes. I pretend he’s someone else. I want to hate it, even when his attentions feel so good. A finger enters me, and I sigh, allowing myself to feel the tingles of pleasure he makes with his thumb, rotating over my clit, while he slowly drags his finger in and out of me.

I bite my lip and breath deeply. I’m quickly made slick, and feel that imminent climax upon me, cresting like a wave about to break. It’s been too long. Several weeks. I need a release caused by someone else more than I need anything else. I crave it. I starve for it.

Makes me hate him even more.

“Blake, I need those--” Dave breaks off in mid-sentence as he bursts into the room.

At the end of the hall, my boss’s office looks out from heights of skyscraper splendor with floor to ceiling windows, but there are no windows in the front. The location is part of my prison, making me less visible to others.

I look up at Dave’s face and see him grin, and feel my climactic moment become a forgotten pain and frustrating memory as willing fingers retrete from my slippery, wanting desire.

Dave’s voice fills the room again as I straighten up. “Did L.A. call about the Talton case?”

I sigh deeply and close the envelope on the desk.

“Yeah, they did,” Mr. Blake says, casually scratching at his annoyingly angular black goatee as he stares at me like a piece of meat. I cringe under his probing eyes and think I miss dressing more conservatively, even when I’d resembled a nun. I had bought pant suits on sale in the women’s section, hoping that he’d be turned off to something my mother or grandmother might have chosen; old fashioned, full coverage, shoulderpads, dull blue, and boring.

But no. It hadn’t helped. I had been only meat to him then, just as I am now. It might have played to my ego to think I could make wearing a stinky potato sack sexy if I were seen in it by anyone else.

“Bring me another coffee, Annabeth,” he says as he reclines back into his chair.

I can still feel his gaze on me as I fake a smile, turn, and leave his cushy office.

Right on my ass.

The fucker.

It’s all good. He’ll get his and I’ll get mine.

All part of the plan.

I walk toward the break room down at the end of the hall. I’m invisible to the other employees at the law firm. The lowly secretary I am. Not for long. Everything is flexible, and I’m on my way out. No one knows it just yet. I intend to make some waves first; before saying a hearty, Fuck you, Peter Blake. I’ll have a very cozy existence in my future, living off the fruits of my torture.

Yup. Torture. That’s exactly what this is for me.

He’s a liar and a cheat; a good-for-nothing son-of-a-bitch, fucking *@*(*#$!!

He’ll sell some story to his wife on the phone about working late, and then run off to dinner with some oily and pretentious slut. There’s more than one. He makes me pick out gifts for them or send them flowers. I’ve even walked in on him with them--clients too--one or the other of them bent over his desk.

Yuck.

I’m the one who gets stuck cleaning up; reorganizing the desk, the papers that fall to the floor, reprinting the ones that get… soiled.

This all happens of course when his attentions aren’t focused on me. He makes it clear he wants me on his menu, licking his lips while undressing me with his eyes, blatantly stroking his cock through his designer suit pants while watching me do some chore in his office. And he’s never done with ordering me around.

He’s a terrible human being.

I’ve noticed little things in his work too; inconsistencies. I’ve heard his conversations with clients, heard the advice he’s given them, and I’ve seen the results. He’s sly, sneaky, corrupt. I’ve even seen him partake in that stereotypical back alley deal involving large amounts of cash.

Yes, cash. Big out-of-the-movies briefcases filled with sequential bills under fifty.

But I keep quiet. I have to. I’m a victim of blackmail.

It’s not even such a big deal. I could just quit playing secretary and nothing much will come of Peter Blake’s threats, but I have to make him believe it’s a big deal to me. I have to make him believe I don’t want my secret made public. As if exploring my own sexuality could be frowned upon in modern society anyway. Really.

Moonlighting as an escort had always been a fantasy of mine, and that fantasy had become real for five fantastic months. Different men--and sometimes women--every weekend had not only been entertaining, but eye opening as well. I’m not saying I’m a slut and I slept with all of my clients, just that the option had been there if the chemistry had clicked.

And it had. Often.

I like the oddballs. I like the ones who like things other than… the typical. Take me home, tie me up, force me to cum exponentially as tears stream down my face from the whip repeatedly striking my ass. Let that great big cock thrash my insides.

Pure joy.

Sometimes playing games is nice too. Please Daddy, I know I’ve been a bad girl, but don’t take my panties away from me. I need them. Otherwise I’ll be so… naked.

Boo-hoo. Give me more.

Strangers with different sexual tastes are like fine wines; sinfully delicious, delightfully exotic, and expensive.

Or at least I am… Was.

Until my stranger became Peter Blake--Mr. Peter Blake.

But I couldn’t bring myself to fuck the bastard. No. The idea makes my skin crawl. I told him to get lost, find another “date.” Naturally, he hadn’t been pleased, and threatened to have me fired. I returned with a threat of my own, saying how I would expose him for hiring an escort. I asked him about what his wife would think, what the firm would think. I remember his laughter, slyly suggesting he had only been ‘meeting a witness’ or maybe ‘acquiring a new client’, and not out for ‘sex’ with anyone. That’s what he would tell people. That would be his explanation.

Right.

But I found his weak spot.

Exposing all his crafty under-the-table and questionable actions at the firm.

I knew I had him when I had watched him blanch. He couldn’t really have believed I was blind to it all. Saying nothing earlier in our working relationship about the things I had seen him do doesn’t mean I’m not capable of saying something now.

But he still had tried to play his cards. I would have to keep quiet about him, about everything. How dare I threaten him at all over anything. How dare I believe I had the upper hand over someone as powerful as him. I remember him being angry--clearly frightened--and for the first time, turned off. I still feel good visualizing him running off beat red. There’s a certain power in making a person want to fuck you, and an even greater one in making them want to kill you.

Back at the law office, running his errands, pretending like nothing had happened, I had already moved past it and put it out of my mind. But he had pulled me aside. He must have been sick with worry to continue to threaten me. He must have thought a lot about what would happen if his back alley deals and unlawful ways were found out. I know I had. It had been a sick little daydream for me to imagine what would happen to him. Some people have the inner strength to deal with prison, but Peter Blake has the bowels and the backbone of a weasle. It’s easy to visualize him becoming the meat, sizzling like raw, juicy bacon in a frying pan, rather than being the one eating it. Surely a successful lawyer has a string full of enemies already waiting for him on the inside, lying in wait.

Fear makes a man crazy.

He threatened to have me fired by the firm if I decided to say something, as well as reveal my escorting history. He threatened to have his shady contacts hurt me, make me pay.

I now have to let him think he’s wounded me, has a hold on me. I have to let him think being his secretary, or my personal hobbies made public, means any kind of shit to me. It doesn’t. Not really. Even the idea of having the shit kicked out of me doesn’t bother me much. I know the deep dark secrets of all the people he’s involved with. Have to keep all aspects in balance.

Touche.

I might not have fucked him as his escort, but he still managed to screw me over, mess with my sexual fun.

Fired. I had showed up for work the following weekend only to be told to get lost.

No more lovely strangers to teach me new tricks and entertain my boring weekends.

The sleazy fucker.

So I’ll pretend to be cornered, tied evenly in a stalemate.

Pretending is something I’m good at. Pretending is something I can do, am still doing, and will continue to do until my plan is seen through.

I take a cup out of the cupboard and fill it half with coffee and half with milk, and add a packet of sugar. Just how Mr. Peter Blake likes his brew. I work up a bit of saliva in my mouth and hack it in, giving it all a good stir. I wonder what vengeance tastes like.

“Extra flavoring in your coffee this morning?” Dave jokes, seeing me and my bodily fluid addition. I spit in Peter Blake’s coffee everyday. I don’t try and hide it from Dave anymore.

“It’s the little things that make a great cup of coffee,” I joke back. Giving him a side hug, I rest my head on his shoulder and sigh. “Just a few more days until the party, and then it’s goodbye.” I feel Dave squeeze my midsection with his hand, and snortle.

“Right,” he admits. “I can’t wait.”

Neither can I.

The office holiday party is something the firm’s senior lawyers take turns hosting every year. Peter Blake couldn’t weasel his way out of it if he tried. I made a deliberate remark--loudly--to him about it while he was on the phone with his wife. She overheard and instantly became ecstatically excited.

Wow. She’s in for a treat. And not the fruitcake kind.

With only a few days left to put my plan into action, I loath what I have to keep doing; stereotypical sexy secretary outfits, no more disgusted looks, no more avoiding him when I don’t absolutely have to. Short of flinging myself at him, I have to imply I had only been playing hard to get in the beginning, when the threats had all started. I have to make him believe I regret failing to escort him, regret trying to blackmail him, and not fucking him silly while I had the chance.

Dave will help. Dave’s in on it.

He’s no idiot. He’s seen the looks, the suggestive actions, and he had confronted me about it. He had told me to file a suit, get paid. But I need more than that. I need divine retribution. I don’t just want money, but a smug satisfaction in knowing I’ve ruined a man who thought he could ruin me.

So I spilled my guts. I told Dave everything. Good thing Dave is only a mildly crooked lawyer. He had always been suspicious of Peter Blake’s “legal” shenanigans, but could never prove his faults the way that I can. I have actual, physical evidence. Dave’ll help me and I’ll help him. I’m free soon, moving on to bigger and better things.

Dave too. There’s a cushy chair with his name on it when Peter Blake vacates. One less dick to worry about.

I take my coffee and strut out of the room, feeling Dave’s smile mimic my own.

#MyWritingProcess Blog Tour

I would like to thank Mr. Anthony Beal for including me in my first blog tour! It’s wonderful to be included with such gifted and talented writers! 

Dark Erotica Author Anthony Beal's 15 years of publishing credits include contributions to multiple print and online publications, as well as all three volumes of the Dark Dreams horror anthology series edited by award-winning horror novelist Brandon Massey, the Chocolate Flava 2: Succulent anthology edited by New York Times best-selling author Zane, Las Vegas-themed erotica anthology Sin City, and the bisexual threesome erotica anthology Some Like It Bi, both edited by The Dark Duet Trilogy author Jennifer Roberts.

Anthony's other interests include drinking, graphic novels, Japanese language and culture, cooking, poetry by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and fiction by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Charles Bukowski. His writing influences include E.A. Poe, Anais Nin, and Henry Miller. Anthony's debut novel-length work titled The Escapists: An Erotic Fantasy Novel, has garnered multiple 5-star reviews and continues to earn praise. He's currently working on the next book in that series (more often than not at times when he should be asleep), a planned trilogy.

Find Anthony on:
Twitter http://twitter.com/ABeroshorror
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/DarkEroticaAuthorAB
His website http://theofficialanthonybeal.com/

This blog tour focuses on the writing process. Every writer’s creative process is different, and in my case, I’m Ms. Unorganized.

1) What am I currently working on?

I’ve just finished writing and am now editing a fetish story titled A Normal Girl. I’ve been sitting on it for far too long. This story is all about fetishes, some of which include orgasm denial and humiliation, cum play, spanking, plushies, strap-ons, and golden showers. As my latest title infers, my story is about the normal.

I firmly believe there is no “normal” sexual play or orientation. Normal is a relative thing, like art. A person’s normal is determined by gender, age, upbringing, experiences, and society, which makes everyone’s normal very different. I use this story as a means to show readers this, and stress that every individual’s normal is beautiful.

My main character, Ryan, is a 22-year-old virgin looking to loose his virginity in his ideal way by his ideal normal girl. Ryan finds himself faced with two partners who expose him to sexual kinks that he deems not normal—or not for him—only to discover his own sexual kink at the end of the story. Ryan’s kink is intended to show the reader that vanilla sex—which the story suggests that Ryan is after from the beginning—is in itself a kink; just one on the list of many.

This week I’m working on my final sex scene. After a thorough edit and multiple beta reads, I’ll be sending my story off to publishers. It’ll prove a high hurdle to jump with this story. Many publishing houses refuse to publish stories that include a fetish such as a golden shower. The taboo won’t stop me. If I have no big takers, I’ll self publish as I always have.

2) How does my writing differ from others of its genre?

Many of my stories are written with a purpose or a message. I try to encourage readers to think in a different way about sex, and open their minds to the possibility that there’s more to it than we all learned in Sexual Education class. I try to give readers something more than the traditional, allowing for the fantasies we all crave to be fulfilled, if not only in the mind. The mind is the best place for an orgasm.

I also find it important to include a story to go along with sex. I often get tired of reading erotic fiction that is purely about the sex and not about a why. Sex without a story is just porn. I want my readers to be able to get into the heads of my characters, understanding their motivations and choices.

To go along with my storylines, I try and find some unusual way to include household objects or tools. I want my characters to not only be interesting, but creative as well. Some readers might be amazed at the options available to them in their own kitchen. In my free story available on Smashwords, Adventures In Plastic Wrap, my female protagonist takes revenge on a drunken roommate by torturing him while he’s wrapped immobile in plastic wrap. Similarly in the sequel, Cat & Mouse, my protagonist gets creatively kinky with an old towel, a paintbrush, and a cucumber. Sex plus creativity are the two basic ingredients of a good story!

3) Why do I write what I do?

I write erotica because it gives me power to express my thoughts and ideas about love and sex in an environment where no one can tell me what I think or believe is wrong. I was raised to believe sex was taboo to even talk about. I grow tired with society telling us how we must think. I mean to open the minds of as many readers as possible, and encourage them to think for themselves. I also write erotica because—why not? It’s fun and it turns me on.

4) How does my writing process work?

The traditional process of writing is something that I can’t follow. Usually it begins with an idea, which builds your plot, and then the writer does the actual writing, followed by editing, and then publishing. For me, I’m anything but this organized.

Sometimes I’ll have only half a story, and I’m forced to simply write down my thoughts and come back to it when inspiration chooses to strike. My muse is a fickle bitch, and often forces me to wait. In the time that I wait, I edit, reread, sit, and talk to my writing partners. My inspiration tends to come at random from bits of things I read, hear on the radio, or from something I dream. Then I go back and make everything perfect with what I’ve already written, procrastinate until I’ve formed exactly what I want to say inside my head, and then force myself—yes force—to sit down and finish writing. Anyone who tells you that writing is easy is full of crap. It’s hard work to transform an idea into something that flows well and paints a picture inside another person’s head.

Tapped next in the #MyWritingProcess Blog Tour: Mr. Ray Sostre

About Ray Sostre:

Ray Sostre was born in New York, raised throughout the east coast (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) for much of his life, until he moved to Nevada in 2005. His passion to write erotica happened by accident in the summer of 2010, but since then he’s been writing stories (m/f contemporary, lesbian, and ménage). At that same year, he established a website specifically for erotic authors -- AfterDark Online, giving a voice for authors of erotica and erotic romance to be heard. He lives with his longtime girlfriend of nearly ten years, and is an avid listener of electronica, hip hop, and R&B.

Ray jokes, “I’m always looking for writing material.”

Mr. Sostre is the author of several erotic works which can be found on Amazon, Smashwords, All Romance Ebooks, and Kobo

Follow Ray Sostre on:
His blog: The AfterDark World with Ray Sostre
Facebook Page: Author Ray Sostre
Twitter: @anarchy0029
Google+: Ray Sostre

Vanilla Flavored: A Kink Of Its Own

My current work in progress, A Normal Girl, has been an enlightening engagement for me. It has led me to examine why I write the things I write, and what purpose I want my writing to serve. Sex is a big topic for me to include in my stories because it's entertaining, but the more I write about sex, the more I want to know and understand its value and importance in society. 

I began writing A Normal Girl with the intention of writing something other than what I'd written in the past. I had just finished writing Cat Games, which included some kinky sex games and materials, but I wanted to really push the envelope. I wanted to write the "taboo" and test what I was capable of. I set off to create a story full of some of the kinkiest things I could imagine at the time; cum play, orgasm humiliation, spanking, strap-ons, plushies, voyeurism, and golden showers. Writing about specific kinks has caused me to examine why so many sexual kinks are viewed as taboo. It comes down to society and all the Disney princess stories and media bullshit we've been fed from birth. The truth is that there is no right or wrong way to love or express love, lust, or desire. The truth is that what society tells us is acceptable—tradition vanilla sex between a man and a woman—is a kink of its own.

Kink: Noun
• figurative: a quirk of character or behavior• informal: a person with unusual sexual preferences
The main character in A Normal Girl, Ryan, is a geeky technology apprentice. Shy by nature, his lack of experiences with women have left him still a virgin at the age of 22. After taking a part time job at a local bakery, Ryan finds himself encountering two women, both who have specific sexual kinks that he decides are not for him. Ryan wants the normal--a nice normal girl. But... what is normal? My story leads the reader to believe that Ryan is searching out traditional vanilla sex, when in the end, Ryan drops the bomb by reveling his own sexual kinks. 
The message behind A Normal Girl is that "normal" is relative: normal to one person is not normal for the next. Society telling us that vanilla sex is normal is the biggest lie of all time. I have yet to meet or speak to any person/couple that do not involve a quirk or the unusual in their sexual habits. I have yet to find anyone solely interested in vanilla sex. I'm not suggesting that there are those out there who don't enjoy or practice vanilla sex, and I'm not saying that vanilla sex is wrong or unacceptable. I'm pointing out that there are large numbers of those not practicing vanilla sex or who practice it in addition to other sexual behaviors. This puts the force-fed, idealized societal norm of "vanilla" into its own category, making vanilla sex a kink by definition. 
A Normal Girl is completed! You can pick up this kinky fetish novella from Torquere Press, releasing April 13th, 2016! 
I ask you to think over the taboo. I ask you to examine what you believe and why. The most important thing is to not judge anyone for the who, what, how, or why they choose to practice their style of lovemaking.