I was just reading a few posts by Remittance Girl. (I tend to mention her a fair amount because I admire her writing style a great deal. Honestly, she gives me literary lady-wood as an erotica writer because she does it so different.)
My writing hard on aside, reading her posts always end up pushing me to think.
What role can sex take in writing? If sex is the “focus”, that is?
That question seems stupid to ask as an erotica writer, but I think it’s a valid one. I mean, I’m a writer, and even with the genre label hanging over me – as in your expectation when picking up my stories, glancing at my blog, reading a piece of flash fiction is that I’ll give you sex like a paid trick turner – I write to tell a story. That’s first and foremost.
I see sex as a vehicle I put you in. You need it, want it, look for it so you can climb into it and travel from the beginning of the story to the end of it. The sex is important, but the story needs to be a road worth traveling down.
But sex can get old. It’s hard to write a scene in a book that’s both interesting and new, as well as relevant to the life and development of the character. I have to turn you on AND bring you into the emotional awareness of the person. Making you understand dominance dynamics and power exchange, character need, and have you feel what they’re feeling is hard. And not be repetitive in the process?? I question my sanity sometimes.
Biggest compliment I could receive would be a reader who doesn’t usually partake in erotica telling me they liked what I wrote because they didn’t just see the sex, but the relationship and the why of the interaction. If I can write and make you see the why, then I think I did okay. If I can convince a non-erotica reader that erotica can be quality and worth looking into, well then, my work here is done. *dusts off my hands*
So how do you write sex? Maybe I’ll discuss that another time. Besides, I’m still trying to figure it out myself.
When I got it down, I’ll let you know. Sharing is caring.