The Ten Commandments of Writing Erotica

I. Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord’s Name in Vain

“Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod” need I say more? The same goes for any other kind of onomatopoeia: “ooh”, “urg”, “gack”, “mmmm”, etc. Use your words, people; use your words!

II. Thou Shalt Not Own a Thesaurus

An exaggeration, of course (to get that vicious Roget off my case). The need to change a descriptive word after every sentence or paragraph is the clear sign of an amateur. Example: ‘cock’ in the first paragraph of the sex scene, becomes ‘rod’ in the second, ‘staff’ in the third, ‘pole’ in the forth ... and you get my gist. The same goes for the silly need to be ‘polite’ in describing either a sex scene or various body parts. Unless you’re writing a Victorian homage (or pastiche), women don’t have a ‘sex’ between their legs, and a ‘member’ doesn’t live in a man’s trousers. If you can’t write ‘penis’, ‘clit’, ‘cock’, ‘cunt’, or the rest of the words you can’t say on television then find another job - or just write for television.

III. Thou Shalt Not Equate Dirty Movies with Erotic Writing

Films are films and stories are stories and very rarely do they meet. Another stigmata of the greenhorn is thinking that a smut story has to have the deep characterization and suburb plotting of a porno film. Even a story written for the lowest of markets has to have something aside from sex scenes. So face it, just siting down and writing out Debbie Does Everyone won’t do anything but bore you and the reader. Read on >>