What is erotic, Part 6 Power

Wanting it, having it, succumbing to it, fighting it—power and sex are inseparable. It's been said, "Men use power to get sex; women use sex to get power." The relationship between power and sex underlies the action in my story Clytie. Paris is a hugely muscled, heavily hung super athlete. But to the rich woman who controls his fate, he's a sex toy. The title character, Clytie, is a tomboyish slip of a woman. Yet her heart and her beauty make muscle-bound Paris powerless in her hands.

Much fiction deals with power/sex issues indirectly.  In erotic fiction, the question of who's on top is wrestled out in the bedroom.  There's a kind of honesty in erotic fantasy that you don't find anywhere else.

Making it up as you go along

Writing fiction is more fun if you make it up as you go along. Some writers outline the plot and describe the characters in detail before they start writing. I've done so, but I much prefer starting with a general idea of a character and a situation, and making things up from there. My story Clytie has several appearances of a man wearing a bull's head and tail (nothing else) and waving dildos. He's called the Minotaur. When he shows up, everyone in sight plunges into wild group sex. The distinctions between master and servant disappear.  I started my story Minotaur with nothing in mind except to write about a character like the minotaur man in Clytie.  By the time I ended that story, I'd built a framework for my entire Fair Warrior Chronicles series.

This way of making up a story seems more lifelike than starting with an outline. If you had tried to make an outline of your life, would it have worked out anything like the reality? What we really do is go day to day with a general idea in mind, and deal with what comes. That's the kind of outlook I like my fictional characters to have.  And since I'm writing erotic fiction, a lot of what comes along for them is wildly sexual.

What is erotic, Part 5 Initation

Initiation into a new and deeper level of sexual experience is wildly erotic for both the person being initiated and the person doing the initiating.  Remember losing your virginity?  Remember your first oral sex, your first outdoor sex, your first….  All my erotic fiction involves initiation into new levels of sensual pleasure.  This is especially so for my novel Clytie.  The title character comes from a secluded upbringing.  Although the story is told from the point of view of her lover, the plot revolves around Clytie's initiation into the anything-goes life of a sexual consort on a private resort island, and her battle to live with a free heart.

What is erotic, Part 4 Orgies

 Ménage, an arrangement is which three or more people share a sexual arrangement, is a mainstay of erotic fiction. A writer needs to come up with plausible reasons for groups of people to jump into the sack together.  In my Fair Warrior Chronicles series with eXtasy Books, I write about six people who enter a cave together and come out endowed with odd powers. One of the effects of their shared experience is that they now have an overwhelming physical attraction to each other. And they have discovered that their powers grow stronger if they engage in sex, especially sex with one another, and especially wild group sex involving all of them and their significant others. In the Fair Warrior Chronicles, each story is written from the point of view of one of the six companions. Each of their stories involves them finding their way to the group and becoming initiated into the mysteries. This gets me to another topic in my What is Erotic blog posts—initiation.

The virgin huntress stalks her prey

My story Huntress will be published tomorrow by eXtasy Books.  The ebook will be available immediately on the eXtasy site and a few days later on Amazon and other online outlets.  Here's a description:

Men who enter Camilla's forest pay a price. Touch her, and she'll turn you into a living statue. Anger her, and she'll make you believe you're a hunted stag. Threaten her, and you'll feel the bite of her arrow. Try to love her, and see what you get.

Keeping it sexy

This morning I wrote a scene for my story Morpheus in which a squad of soldiers visits the scene of a helicopter crash that nearly killed them. It was interesting to write, but I was concerned because it wasn't offering opportunities for sex. This is frequently a problem in erotic writing. When the writer needs to cover plot material that doesn't take place in bed, the shower, or some other setting that lends itself to lewd nude behavior, she is making a problem for herself. Readers who are interested in soldiers going about their business will be looking for The Things They Carried,  and not fir an X rated romance from eXtasy Books.

I'll solve that problem in the scene I'm working on by adding flashes of recollection of sexier times. Lieutenant Lindsey, the point–of-view character in Morpheus, will recall what the landing area looked like when he and his men approached the area in the helicopters. They saw a circle of very attractive naked people, which seems sexy enough. The Lieutenant's recollection will probably spark a few more sexual thoughts.

All this seems lifelike.  Readers who are in touch with erotic romances are probably open to the bits of sexual imagining and memory that run through our daily lives. The Lieutenant's train of thought won't surprise us.

What is erotic, Part 3 Intimacy

Intimacy may be the kind of eroticism most of us prefer. What is better than to have a lover who is your closest friend and your devoted soul mate, with whom you share your deepest secrets, your bumps and bruises, and your everyday ups and downs?  For most people, the more adventurous or hazardous kinds of eroticism are something you'd rather read about.

I'm happy to oblige.  My stories serve up quantities and varieties of sex that few people will ever have the freedom, imagination, athletic ability, and stamina to experience. But my characters are people, albeit entirely fictional. Despite or because of their adventures, they desire the same kind of snug, intimate sexuality as real people.

What brings intimacy to mind is that this morning I found myself describing a woman giving a man a convalescent bath. He's been confined to his bed while recovering from a wound. The nurse has given him permission to get up, but his lover asks to bathe him as she has done each day during his recovery. Her movements and his thoughts create a deep unspoken intimacy.

Of course, since this is an erotic story, they're fucking hot and heavy two lines later. But the quiet moment made a nice interlude. I'll try to build on it as the story develops.

Jugglng stories

For the past week, I've been working on three stories at once. I reviewed the final galley of Huntress, which is scheduled for publication this Friday by eXtasy Books. I put the finishing touches on Midas, which is presently in line for a July 15 publication date, and sent it to the eXtasy editors. I brought Cassandra, which is in line for an August 15 date, to the point of about 99% completion.  Occasionally I got confused about which story I was in, and who was doing what to whom. All these stories are in the Fair Warrior Chronicles story series. Some of the characters carry through and develop from one story to the next. People have sex in ever changing combinations and at various times and places. It's a lot to keep straight. I have to be careful not to add a full moon to a scene about lovers enjoying an afternoon roll in the sack.

So it was with relief this morning that I started Morpheus, the fifth story in the series. For the next few weeks, I only have one story line to think about.

The tattoo on her butt

This morning I was taking a final look at Huntress, the second story of My Fair Warrior Chronicles series. The story publishes next week. Yea! As I scanned a scene, I saw a description of a Maltese cross tattooed on the butt cheek of a character named Jess. When I put that tattoo on Jess's ass, I didn't know how important of a character Jess would become in the later stories. I've finished the next two stories, Midas and Cassandra.  Jess runs around naked in both, and there is no mention of a tattoo on her behind.

I haven't sent either of those stories to the eXtasy  Books editors, so I can still add the tattoo.  This sort of thing is more than just description.  Details like the tattoo allow the writer different ways to delve into the characters.  Here's how I used Jess's tattoo in Cassandra:

I twist to see my ass in the mirror. Firm and rosy, and not showing a bruise. Jess's butt tattoo makes her backside irresistible. Maybe I should get one.

Let Paul decide. The thought goes through my head like a spear. I hold the sink to keep from falling. I strain to see an image of his face. It's as if hes' turned his back on my memory. His elusiveness makes me angry. Fine. I'll follow my phone's advice. Lick the cunts you're with.

One of the problems writing a series such as my Fair Warrior Chronicles is in keeping track of how the individual characters look and act. Each of the Fair Warrior stories is written from a different point of view. The main character is meeting many of the characters from the earlier story for the first time.  Everything is new to that person, and needs to be described from their point of view.  The characters grow as their relationships change. I don't know if the tattoo on Jess's ass will touch the thoughts of any characters in the stories I haven't written. Hopefully I won't forget it again.

What is Erotic, Part 2 Willingness

Some readers and writers prefer their eroticism paced over several chapters filled with hours, days, months, or years of longing, gazing, imagining, hinting, flirting, desiring, wondering, and despairing, before the lovers finally get to the clinch. Not me. My erotic writing does not feature languid candlelight evenings. My characters are willing from the first line. 

Most characters in all types of fiction have exaggerated tendencies.  Fictional people are more exciting than real people. They do more adventurous things, have more interesting friends, and enjoy more sex. In an erotic story, more sex becomes more, more, more.

The plot of an erotic story needs to offer reasons why the characters are always in the mood and in the sack.  In my novel Mandi, the title character starts with a willingness to use everything she has, including her dynamite looks, to acquire power and wealth. Her appetite for sex is increased by a drug, the Fire Genie. When she thinks she's made her way to the top, she's snared by another drug that makes her a helpless, ever-horny libido slave. My novel Clytie takes place on a private resort island where public sex is a way of life and consorts are expected to provide pleasure at the whim of their lords. My series The Fair Warrior Chronicles tells the stories of people whose sex drive has been pumped by a paranormal encounter. All these plot lines create opportunities for couples, threesomes, and ménage, straight, gay, and bi, and none of the characters ever says no.

What is erotic, Part 1 Naked People

What makes erotic fiction erotic? Practically anything, if you're in the mood. A Dickens novel can be erotic.  You just need to imagine all the things that he doesn't mention.  A writer of erotic fiction develops ways to move story and character development along sexually interesting lines.

To me, it isn't erotic just to say people had sex. "He fucked her hard" doesn't do it for me. Erotic writing, like the erotic intervals in our lives, depends more on mood and circumstance than on barnyard descriptions of copulation.

In the next few blogs, I'll talk about story elements I use to keep the tone of the story steeped in eroticism.

Naked people are erotic. Especially highly attractive, immediately available naked people.  In my stories, the point-of-view character either is naked from the first line of the story or gets that way as soon as possible.  My characters undress at the slightest excuse, and stay that way for so long that they sometimes forget where they put their clothes.  It's true that a scantily dressed body—in dishabille—can be sexier than a naked one. But my characters seldom manage to remain even partially dressed for long. If they are wearing clothes, the outfit is usually hot.

Ugly words and naughty words

Over the weekend, I worked through some of the final rewriting steps of the fourth book of the Fair Warrior Chronicles, Cassandra.  I'm writing several months ahead of deadline, trying to stay in front of a book-a-month publishing schedule given to me by eXtasy Books.  When I'm about done with a story, I turn to the eXtasy editors' list of Ugly, Weak, or Overused Words.

There's no such thing as an ugly word, only a word in the wrong place. Using the list helps me look at each sentence and paragraph of the story with a new eye.  Some of the words on the list can be rattled out of a sentence like a loose tooth. Others are more deeply imbedded, and will take other words with them if they are extracted.  These require either a rewrite, justification for leaving the sentence as it is, or removal of the whole sentence.  By the time I go through the list, I've usually removed a thousand or more words from an 18,000 or 19,000 word manuscript.

The eXtasy editors also recently recommended a proofreading program called Perfectit. (I think that means Perfect It, not Perfec Tit.) The program is a step up from the grammar editor in Word.  I wouldn't rely on either one as a judge of sentence structure, but the programs will catch word omissions and other items that are easily overlooked.  Perfectit is a little prim.  It assumed some of my favorite pieces of erotic fiction vocabulary were typos.  Maybe the software company should develop an erotic version of the program, one that won't have a problem with cock and cunt.

Endings and beginnings

This morning I wrote the last few pages of the first draft of a story titled Cassandra. When writing a series, such as my Fair Warrior Chronicles, the ending of each story also needs to lead to the beginning of the next. The Fair Warrior Chronicles will consist of six stories, each told from the point of view of one of the six people who stumble on a spellbound cave. The first story, Minotaur, was published last month by eXtasy Books. The second, Huntress, is scheduled for publication on June 15. The third, Midas, is ready for the copy editor. The fourth, Cassandra, is built around the quest of the title character to find her lost love, Paul. I don't know the title of the fifth story yet. I know it will be from Paul's point of view.

Here's my first draft of the ending of Cassandra:

     The air clears. I'm on my back, naked, under an empty sky. Beside me on the grass two naked men stretch slowly, sit up, and become Evan and Andrew. Their cocks are hard. Close by, Greg holds his head in his hands. His bull mask lies on the grass beside him.

    The women lie as if they've been thrown by a storm. All are undressed. Marianne crawls to Evan and collapses in his arms. She's crying. Her hands try to cover her cunt, and then fall away. He whispers to her, "It's over."

      A harsh noise overhead rouses us all. A helicopter lifts rapidly into the sky. The single figure leaning out the door to look at us is not outfitted like a soldier. It's a man, tall, dark haired, in a dark suit. He fades to invisibility. The helicopter becomes a point against the unbroken blue.

     The silence fills with the groans and gasps of other men. I look around. The other two helicopters must have crashed together. They lay in a heap, engulfed in flames.

       The men who rode the helicopters are scattered over the lawn. Their uniforms have been rent by the explosion. Some try to move. Others lie still.

            One of the soldiers stands. The blast has shredded his uniform. The few rags left hanging on him cover nothing. Orion and Chiron see him and attack. Their leaping rush throws him to the ground. One of the dogs takes his arm, the other takes his neck.

          I'm on my feet, running to him. I take Orion by the collar, scolding and commanding until he releases the man's neck. Chiron obeys my command and sits by his brother. Blood runs over the soldier's chest. The dogs didn't bite him. Their grip left no marks. He's wounded some other way.

  He will be well. I don't know if I'm foretelling or hoping. I'll bend fate if I have to, but I will see that he survives. I kneel and cradle his head in my lap. I kiss his forehead and touch my lips to his ear. I whisper, "Paul, Paul, I've found you."

          That's pretty rough-drafty, but it illustrates what I mean about endings. I've been brooding over a story line for Paul's story. This morning after I got to the end of Cassandra, I finally began to develop a concept of how Paul's story will start and where it might head.  Endings are beginnings for writers as well as readers.