I was plagued with doubts when first asked
to write an erotic story. My dear husband was very keen on this new development
in my writing journey. He thought my inner muse would require me to lounge in
front of my keyboard in a negligee, sipping champagne, surrounded by scented
candles and sex toys. (He was saddened to find that my inner muse works just
fine dressed in jeans and fueled on cups of tea.)
However, I was nervous. Oh, I had written lots of stories before but
never one with any sex in it. I had read
a lot of erotic literature but there’s a big difference between lying
back and absorbing someone else’s words and getting into the saddle (so to
speak!) and creating some prose of your own.
But ultimately, a story is a story.
Irrelevant of hot, heavy, heaving bits, it needs to have a great beginning, a
punchy end and some sturdy structure in the middle, holding believable
characters and dialogue together.
I have to admit I was also petrified my
writing would come across as a pervy Penthouse Forum piece rather than a
scintillating, sexy, short story. The
line between titillating and tawdry had never seemed so blurry. However, my critique partners promised they
would wield their red, editing pens of doom over anything they thought better
suited to a magazine with sticky pages. ;-)
Lastly and possibly most frightening for
me, I was scared stupid about being judged on a sexual level. Like most authors, my friends and family are
my most ardent supporters and fervent fans.
Writing about vanilla sex seemed easy enough but if I deviated from what
was perceived as “normal”, what would every one think of me? Good grief, in
this crazy mixed up world we live in, what’s even considered “normal”
anymore?!?
Then I gave myself a reality check and put
on my big girl panties. Creative writing is exactly that, creative writing. Its basis can be in truth or fantasy, actuality
or dreamland. The readers have no idea whether the story is one pulled verbatim
from my treasure trove of life experiences or is one fabricated deep within the
recesses of my fertile imagination. Does
that make me blush thinking about it too hard?
Hell yeah! But my family and friends
loved me before I started writing about sex. I figured they would still be on
my side when my stories became X rated.
And as for erotic? What defines erotic? One person’s va-va-voom is another’s vanilla.
Am I able to please all of the people all of the time? Probably not. But whether I’m writing about a straight
married couple or a free-for-all orgy, there is a quote by Isabel Allende I try
to keep in mind,
“Erotica is using a feather, pornography is using the
whole chicken.”
I figure if someone is looking for a
graphic, visual
‘wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am’ experience, they are well served by a vast
multitude of pay per view sites via the internet. Erotic literature needs you
to draw in the reader with all of the senses, not just their eyeballs. You want
your audience to smell the perfume of your heroine, hear the rustle of her clothes
hitting the floor and have goose bumps race across their own skin in tandem
with hers.
And when the story is done, what you want
most is the reader to walk away with a spring in their step and a sparkle in
their eye thinking, “Gee, I enjoyed that!”
What do you think? What makes a great erotic story for you?
By Greta Goddard
