Writing Erotica Right! (Part 2)

This is a part two of my Write Erotica Right series. In part one I talked about story driven writing. Structures and pacing. This is the part about character driven story.

This will contain some spoilers for the story "Three Witches and a Troll." That's up on my $1 level of Patreon. But it is a good one that demonstrates what I do to create the characters I write about.

Character studies are not stories to be published. It's a thought experiment for you the author and they can inspire your story. So often I see people puke out "I guessed she was 4 feet 10 and had 33D tits and..." or "God I wanted to swing off of his 9 inch dick." So what's wrong with that? Well it's as deep as the character seems to get and that's fine for porn but not erotica for a couple reasons.

Reader Involvement (less is more)

Readers often put themselves into the action. Especially women. They often don't need your dimensions. People are far more into "how he fucks," and "How she feels." Not that the main characters tits are 45DD who actually knows that about a person seeing them. I feel it's lazy writing. You should say that she likes her tits perhaps like this.

"I stood in front of the mirror admiring my full breasts. They are bigger now after having children, but my husband still loves them. I hope James will too."

So what size are they? What shape? Nipples? they are whatever your reader wants them to be. People are weird about what's sexy and what's not. You can kill the scene with a physical description that the reader finds offensive. I like small nipples and dark areole, but you might not. You may find that repulsively, but in the passage above we can both have what we think is sexy. And so if your selling a story, you want that product to appeal as widely as you can. Now some stories are about very specific physical things, I get that. Even then though you can be creative. Tease the reader into forming the picture.

Show don't tell

Which brings us to the point. Word count is achieved by showing and it's far more sexy. Instead of "Wow, his cock must be nine inches long." Lets do a dialog where this idea is revealed in the scene.

My husband said James would love my tits. He was right. Laying on the bed with him now. My zipper open with his fingers on my clit he kissed me for the first time. I felt his cock though his jeans.

"I want this," I told James and he pulled down his shorts.

"This? You sure your ready for that?"

"No, fuck your huge. I can't even wrap my hand all the way around it," I told him as I stroked the length of his cock.

"I meant taking this to that level. But Yeah. I've had no complaints."

"No? No one telling you it's too big."

"We will go slow. Relax," He tried to assure me but how was that monster going to fit? I rolled him on his back, I wanted to be in control our first time. I felt the sting of a virgin again as I pushed down on his cock, it took my breath away. I was a hot wife at last and god this felt so right.

So you see the difference. How big is his cock? Don't know, don't care. It's huge clearly. She's worried it's to big, but can't stop herself. The characters are connecting over his huge cock. She is excited that another man is into her. He's gentile and caring (how he fucks is more important.) So you can see how the first statement short changes the story and your character development (and word count). It's still sexy and now I bet your wondering how she manages it? How does it feel inside her? How does her husband compare? All things you get to show your readers as they put this scene into their mind.

Developing a good character

Developing a good character is more that a chick with numbers. Why is she fucking this guy? What's her motivation? What has been missing if anything? So this is where the spoiler example is.

In the story "Three witches and a Troll." The character in question is a supporting character named Brenda. Who in the course of time you find has been labeled a troll by classmates etc... Mac the main character is about to discover Brenda is in fact a Troll (from Iceland) and to make this work I needed to understand her deeply. Does she like Mac? What would be the characters fears? How would she protect herself from shame or humiliation she feel might happen? Maybe her thing is Mac is not for her, but in the story she likes him enough to help him get laid.

So. What's troll society like. I get into the character I need to know a lot about troll culture, so I based it off of Hyena culture, the spotted hyena to be exact.

Trolls therefore go like this:

The females have penises (futa) They are aggressive, strong, and matriarchal (see spotted Hyena). Brenda is still a submissive female (20 yo) In their culture they are basically "Taken" by the male aggressive (Rape or Dom fantasy) but not without a fight.

They are a very old race and tribes tattoo their face for identification so they don't mate inside the family etc. They hide the tattoos from humans by magic. They think that humans consider their true face ugly. They are otherwise similar to people, not warty and green. But stocky and strong.

As they are matriarchal Brenda lives with her mother, a dominant female and does not know her "Father" but she goes back to Iceland every year to the gathering of women where she will submit to another female (lesdom) and they have sex with each other as a show of tribal bonding and respect.

She really wants to be with Mac, but knows he will have to fight a rival and deal with her fucking him (pegging) and she is quite rightly concerned he will not go for that, or even survive.

In Tanzania and India hyena are said to be ridden by witches, hence the witch connection. Trolls serve witches (wiccan) and are often their slaves. Brenda knows several girls on the cheerleading squad which are witches trying to form a blood bond to create a coven, so this makes for a weird dynamic socially as to why the plain girl is hanging out with the hit chicks that make fun of her.

Wiccan practice sexual magic (along with others) and do use sex toys in rituals. These are considered anti-matriarchal practices and this is directly contrary to troll culture. Think vampires and lycan in underworld.

Hyena get hard-ons when they greet each other, so trolls do too, which makes for a possible awkward meeting for Mac with mom. Mom can probably smell him and she my have smelled him on Brenda and will have a territorial over the top reaction.

Trolls (like Hyena) can be cannibals' and many tribes have over the years had no problem feeding on humans. Not Brenda's group though, she and mom live here now because Mom want's Brenda to go to school, choose her mate and not get force bred. They are changing their stars.

Brenda is a red haired girl with unruly hair, big boobs and she is curvy, plain dressing she is a tomboy in many ways. (see the illustration on this article)

So now you know Brenda, and troll culture. Look up the spotted hyena females, I am not making it up. But it works for a completely new race in the story. 90% of this will not get into the story. But you will notice that there are various kinks to explore and your probably seeing a lot of Brenda's motivation, fears, hopes and hopefully you see a lot of story possibilities. Just as Story structure and escalating Issue and Action pairs work to drive the character to the sex. So does knowing your people. Brenda provides a LOT of tension to the story. Imagine being Mac.

But I'm not writing about a troll. Still writing a end-to-end character study can tell you more about the character, really put her in your mind so you can add those flavors to the story for the reader later.

Research, Research, Research. Take notes, imagine.

Like Margaret Atwood, I don't often have to make stuff up. When she wrote the handmaidens tale she did a lot of research and will tell you that everything she wrote, has happened. I stretch a little sure but the troll society I am writing about is based on a real creature. Truth is stranger than fiction. Likewise other stories like "Carnival Row" (HBO) is a Fairy fantasy but based totally on all the issues of World War I.

Conclusion

By now I hope you see that story structural considerations and character work together to form the bases of rich story telling. How the character study, though not part of the story creates possibilities to mine for a lot of detail and kinks. Sit down with your characters and imagine what they want out of their lives.

Next time I'm going to talk about world building. Yes, even in erotica it's a thing.

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