Lessons learned from writing erotica

In April, a queer magazine put out a pitch call for queer erotica pieces and I sent one in. I’d never written a piece of erotica, but: 

1. I love writing about sex.

2. It sounded fun.  

3. If you freelance, you know the hustle is real. 

When they approved my pitch, I had about a week to turn around a 2,000 word piece of erotica. It was extremely fun and challenging. For my first few drafts, I doubted I would be able to do it. It was cringe, it was cheesy, my vision was not coming to live on the page.

But really, as it always is for me, it was just about finishing the first draft. My first drafts are sort of heinous. My writing process involves vomiting onto the page and usually includes a lot of telling—you know, highly poetic stuff like “I was sad” or “they were hot.” Lots of glimmers in eyes and such.

That’s because I’m making my clay. I can’t remember who shared this idea (sorry!): that other artists, like sculptors, often already have their base material to work with. They don’t have to make the clay or the paint. As writers, we don’t have that. We have to make the clay: our first draft.

This is so true to my own process. Once I make my clay, only then can I step back and say ah—now what am I going to do with this? What am I making? With this piece specifically, it was figuring out ways to express desire and build tension without being cheesy or using cliche.

Here are a few things I learned throughout the writing process:

• Noticing can show desire. Noticing the slope of their back, the smell of their head, letting the narrator’s gaze linger on their thigh tattoo, can build desire. Take these two examples: “I wanted them” vs “My eyes traced the slope of their arms stretched to the counter beside them, tanned from camping and taut with lean muscle from years of welding and sculpture making.” Which one puts you inside the moment more? Which one helps you as a reader better experience the narrator’s desire?

• Slow down. Okay, this isn’t necessarily just a lesson from erotica writing. What was maybe a paragraph or a sentence in my first drafts can expand into a whole scene. It’s a process of short —> huge —> right sized over the course of drafting for me, no matter what the content is. But slowing down was particularly relevant in this project to build tension.

• Build tension, let it break, build it back up again. Even though this is fiction, I wanted to write a sex scene that was authentic to the sex I actually have. Where sometimes one of us needs a drink of water. Where we check in with each other. Where we might cuddle right in the middle of things. These moments are authentic and also feel like the literary equivalent of edging: build the tension, let it climax (pun intended), build it back up again. Like hiking rolling hills. 

• Let interiority take you on a little tangent, then anchor back to the scene. Like in any other kind of writing, I want my narrator to feel complicated and real. Moments in scene started to feel like little windows opening up to give more interiority or backstory, like when the narrator danced on a pole for Ollie. It felt like a natural moment to push the window up and show more of who she is and what she wants:

  Pole dancing for the first time years ago in a studio, I felt power thrumming through my body. I had the power to inspire desire, manipulate want, and move in ways that made things I wanted happen: hardening bodies, pulsing blood, biting lips, spreading legs. It was there again tonight, pulsing in my wrists as I spun and moved. 

  And then we return to the action, where she wraps her body back into the pole.

How do you write desire? I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences/advice around any of this in the comments!

And if you want to check out my story, The Boss, it was serialized in four parts with Tagg Magazine. Links are here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

With care,

Eryn