Erotica Writer Michael Williams Wants to Share the Love

(Originally published December 10, 2021)

Miguel de Cervantes published Don Quixote in 1605. That would’ve been the end if someone hadn’t written an “unauthorized sequel” in 1614. After that, Cervantes penned an official continuation that reads as an extended literary fuck you to the author who dared to use his character. And to seal the deal, Cervantes ended the second part by killing off Quixote to prevent other writers from creating future works.

I can already hear the fan fiction writers snickering in the background. Though that’s a community in the crosshairs of several authors, putting some fanfic writers in danger of litigation. It has spawned an organization dedicated to helping fanfic writers keep their work from crossing into copyright infringement. This is helpful since copyright laws are sort of a disaster.

You can, in part, blame the house of the mouse for that. The Walt Disney Company has used their considerable cash to lobby congress to change copyright laws to keep their big-eared icon out of the public domain.

People and companies have gone to great lengths to secure their claims on the characters they create. Erotica writer Michael Williams chose a different path when making Our Sexy City. Our Sexy City is an experiment in collaborative storytelling.

Williams crafted a shared universe with characters that are free use … sorry, free to use. (Though, if you were so inclined, you could write a story about the characters being free use.) Writers are not only allowed but encouraged to take a character someone else made for a spin without any prior notice. There’s a lot of potential here, especially for writers trying to establish themselves on a site like Medium.

Medium can provide writers with an opportunity to turn a profit based on having their stories read. Once you join Medium and get 100 followers, you’re eligible for the paid Partner Program. According to Williams, “Getting a hundred followers is simple. It takes less than a week.”

And if you join this project, Williams isn’t looking for a cut. “If you write for a publication like Our Sexy City, you still retain 100% of the profit.”

And you never know, your piece could earn you a pretty penny if it catches on. The internet is a wild place. Imagine if, in September of 2020, I told you the biggest internet sensation would be a man longboarding while drinking Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice and singing along to Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. But that’s what happened. It went so viral that Ocean Spray bought the man a truck, and Dreams hit number one on the charts even though it was more than four decades old.

It’d be almost as unbelievable as someone’s fanfic being published and leading to an increase in sex toy injuries. You just never know unless you try. Aim big.

When asked what inspired him to launch this project, Williams said, “Sonja Rae wrote the most amazing story, and as soon as I was done reading it, I immediately wanted to continue the tale of the characters she created.”

Williams thinks he could have done so if he had asked nicely, but instead, he decided on creating a space where that would be the norm. He made a setting and stable of characters available for anyone to canonically write about within a few very reasonable guidelines.

Each writer must understand that any characters they create in Our Sexy City will be in an open relationship with every other author involved. Williams maintains a directory for the characters in this ever-expanding erotic shared universe so people can track who has been banging who and how. It encourages writers to read other writers’ work to see how many men a hotwife has been lent out to.

Not only is this project open, but Williams also wants to make it welcoming. “I had some requests for more erotica with mom and dad bods, so we included it. I also saw a Twitter post about the lack of disabled characters in erotica and have recently done my part to help correct that.”

This character swapping model has already led to some interesting results. “Slevin Kimberly took Mary, a character I created, down a very different path than I would have, but now that she is on the path, I think I will walk her further down the road.”

Though Williams does more than just watch over a sinful city. He’s published several other stories on Amazon and Medium with characters not intended for public use. Given what he’s written, he does find it a little funny how the people around make certain assumptions.

I am a happily married father of two in my forties. I chat with my neighbors, help the school PTA, and basically blend in. When I tell people about my books or stories, they always seem shocked that the guy with the reputation for being so nice can be so explicit.

His writing career started in March of 2021. “I had already finished every Covid project I could think of, so I researched self-publishing.” Once he understood the process, he decided to give it a try. “I honestly figured I would write a chapter or two then get bored, but before I knew it, I had a 70K+ word erotic novel written.” That 70K+ word novel is Krissy’s Training. The second book in the series, Krissy Evolves, is already out. The third and final installment is slated to be released early in 2022.

For more on his journey from being a salesman to a full-time writer, you can listen to his interview on the Lapreneurs podcast.

His work tends to contain at least a little kink, but for now, “I haven’t gone too far down that route, although I do have some ideas in mind.” In his own life, he says, “I’m willing to try almost anything with a little discussion and pre-planning.”

And that discussion and pre-planning are critical. One of the major stumbling blocks he sees is when people surprise their partner with kink. “It reads great in a book and always goes great in porn but in real life, consent and planning are very sexy.”

He can appreciate that sort of fantasy, but it does have limits. He sees no issues when the sex is always amazing in shorter stories. “After all, most short stories are specifically designed to arouse.” But when it comes to novella-length and longer works, “My pet peeve is every sexual encounter being the best ever, and it induces multiple orgasms that shake the soul. Sometimes sex is just okay, and that is okay.”

Williams strives to write relatable characters. “At times, my characters are indecisive, lack confidence, and show other flaws. When someone is reading my work, I hope they can see just a little of themselves in it.”