Do you write about what you like? Or what you find interesting? Or something else?

[PennameWombat]

While I am not a writer, I am very interested in following this conversation. I will be lurking in a corner.

Just my opinion, but I see nothing wrong with your lurking.

 

[SimonDoom]

This holds for you. You are clear that you are most interested in the first time experiences of things.

That's not true for me. I think it's not true for a lot of people. As KeithD is so fond of saying, there's no one Lit reader, there's no one average erotica reader. So, you like stories in which people are doing things they've never done before. The stories I write that are the most meaningful to me (either emotionally or sexually) are ones that place the sex in a larger emotional context, which (imo) is more believable in an ongoing relationship. Not that you have to delineate every aspect of the ongoing relationship, but I like it when it's sketched well enough that I can get a sense of the rationale the people have for trusting each other.

I especially think that's true if you're writing about some of the more extreme kinks. For me, it requires too much suspension of disbelief to think that a person just meets another person and immediately agrees to some more extreme kind of sex.

I think some clarification of my view is in order. I don't think I'm unusual at all, but the way I stated things might have suggested my tastes are narrower than they are.

I do believe, generally speaking, a good story presents something new. There's nothing at all interesting about a character who gets up one day and experiences a day like every other -- unless the author/narrator has some interesting observation to make about the monotony of the character's life. And it's not just me that thinks that -- most popular stories and books introduce a character who faces something new. That's true whether the genre is erotica, horror, crime, science fiction, you name it.

To me there's nothing especially erotic about a happily married couple that wakes up one morning and makes love exactly the same way they do every morning. No matter how lovingly and eloquently the experience is rendered in words, it's a bit dull. There's no edge. There's nothing new. There's no change, no growth. Good stories involve change, development, the unfamiliar, growth of some kind. Again, this isn't just me. I think this is what most readers expect and want.

There's no limit to what that "new" thing might be. It isn't limited to the "first time" one experiences some erotic experience. A story could feature two people who've been involved in a Dom/sub relationship for years. But to be interesting the story should present some new twist -- feature something new that the characters are confronting, even if the twist concerns their feelings or their relationship rather than a new kinky experience.

This is probably more true of some genres than of others. In the Exhibitionist category, for instance, stories are much less interesting once characters have become completely comfortable being naked in public. A story about a shy wife or librarian entering an "amateur hour" strip contest is much more erotic than a story about a professional stripper stripping on stage. Comfort and familiarity deprive a story of drama, conflict, and interest. This is as true of erotica as of any other genre.

I haven't read all your stories, but my guess is they more or less follow the pattern. From my quick perusal of your Symon and Michelle series, although the stories take place within an established relationship you have them experiencing new things in the stories.

 

[RetroFan]

Mm, I definitely see what you mean. For me, if I have completely no interest in a subject, then I don't dedicate any time to learning about it, at all. Like sports (sorry) so the prospect of me writing a piece very heavily influenced by sport, it wouldn't be a lot of fun for me, at all. I would have to learn enough about the subject to not get my head bitten off in the comments... and really, who needs that kinda stress? haha

I like sports and am from sports crazy Australia, so sports feature quite heavily in some of my works. The titular 'crazy fat sister' from 'My Best Friend's Crazy Fat Sister' is a former (fictional) Australian professional tennis player, while Leanne from 'Leanne the Lusty Lifeguard' is a triathlete. There is also Australian Rules Football (a full contact sport) in 'Body Swap With Sister's Boyfriend' where a nerd who dislikes sport swaps bodies with his sister's jock boyfriend and has to play semi-professional football in his place. I think its the only story on Literotica with an Australian Rules Football game in it, but the Incest/Taboo crowd weren't too impressed by my efforts.

I can understand though how an author who has no interest in or dislikes sports would struggle to write a sports story. It's the same with any erotic themes. I've written about fetishes that aren't my thing because readers on the site like these types of stories, but some are so far out of my comfort zone that I could not write them effectively. For example, the whole 'Hucow' thing I just find flat out weird, so you won't be finding me writing a story called 'Horace Humps a Hucow' anytime soon, or at all.

 

[rutger5]

I think some clarification of my view is in order. I don't think I'm unusual at all, but the way I stated things might have suggested my tastes are narrower than they are.

I do believe, generally speaking, a good story presents something new. There's nothing at all interesting about a character who gets up one day and experiences a day like every other -- unless the author/narrator has some interesting observation to make about the monotony of the character's life. And it's not just me that thinks that -- most popular stories and books introduce a character who faces something new. That's true whether the genre is erotica, horror, crime, science fiction, you name it.

To me there's nothing especially erotic about a happily married couple that wakes up one morning and makes love exactly the same way they do every morning. No matter how lovingly and eloquently the experience is rendered in words, it's a bit dull. There's no edge. There's nothing new. There's no change, no growth. Good stories involve change, development, the unfamiliar, growth of some kind. Again, this isn't just me. I think this is what most readers expect and want.

There's no limit to what that "new" thing might be. It isn't limited to the "first time" one experiences some erotic experience. A story could feature two people who've been involved in a Dom/sub relationship for years. But to be interesting the story should present some new twist -- feature something new that the characters are confronting, even if the twist concerns their feelings or their relationship rather than a new kinky experience.

This is probably more true of some genres than of others. In the Exhibitionist category, for instance, stories are much less interesting once characters have become completely comfortable being naked in public. A story about a shy wife or librarian entering an "amateur hour" strip contest is much more erotic than a story about a professional stripper stripping on stage. Comfort and familiarity deprive a story of drama, conflict, and interest. This is as true of erotica as of any other genre.

I haven't read all your stories, but my guess is they more or less follow the pattern. From my quick perusal of your Symon and Michelle series, although the stories take place within an established relationship you have them experiencing new things in the stories.

Simon, I've read enough of your comments to know that they are your opinion and you don't believe they represent most opinion. No need for a disclaimer stating so like I've seen one person do on forums. I also have plenty of stories where people are doing something new or are with a partner for the first time. But I don't believe that is the only way to be erotic. I daresay, in real life, as well as stories, that oral sex can be better when you know what your partner likes and what buttons to push. And in the case of a couple married for six years and probably having sex before so, it can be written in a hot manner. Unless you write a series where we are with them the first time they have sex and every time leading up to the encounter six years later it will be new to us. Most won't want to read and then they did it the exact same way they've done it every time, nothing new here, but that would be on the writer doing a bad job. There are only so many ways to describe sex to begin with. Just because you give them new names they are still inserting tab into slot or kissing body part there like the others. Kinks can be a bit different but if someone likes exhibitionism they are going to like reading about different people being naked in public but if it isn't your bag you'll probably be meh anyway.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I think some clarification of my view is in order. I don't think I'm unusual at all, but the way I stated things might have suggested my tastes are narrower than they are.

Hi Simon - I appreciate this. Yes, I'd read your comments as being much more narrowly defined than you appear to have meant them. When you write about "the first time someone ties you up" or the first time the librarian takes off her clothes in public, I do think that reads as you greatly favoring "First Time" experiences. And as I wrote to Kyra, I like those stories too. I write those stories too. In fact my first two stories, chronologically ("One End of the Spectrum" and "Whitman") are both first time stories.

I think "first time" stories are definitely fun, and can be full of the good kind of tension. There's a lot to explore in the lead up to someone deciding to do something for the first time, and the writer can make it an empowering journey, or a fraught cringe-worthy journey, or a terrrifying one. Those possibilities are less available in the stories where the erotic actions are familiar territory for the characters. So, the writer has to go another way to keep things interesting.

I'm still learning how to do that, with some sucess and some failures...

I do believe, generally speaking, a good story presents something new.

~snip~

There's no limit to what that "new" thing might be. It isn't limited to the "first time" one experiences some erotic experience. A story could feature two people who've been involved in a Dom/sub relationship for years. But to be interesting the story should present some new twist -- feature something new that the characters are confronting, even if the twist concerns their feelings or their relationship rather than a new kinky experience.

On this, I completely agree with you. A story does need some kind of tension to hold interest, and something new (or else why is the story being written?) but the new thing can be one of an almost infinite number of possibilities. And it can be something as subtle as a slight, temporary change in the power dynamic. For me, this is where your previous comments read as more absolutist than you meant them to.

As for "Symon & Michelle", yeah some of those stories are about them doing new things. But some of them (including ones I haven't submitted yet, and that therefore haven't been judged by a readership) are about situations which are not new to the couple, things they have done repeatedly, but there's some dynamic I'm exploring within that context that the sex is the catalyst for.

 

[kinkbugs]

I definitely write what I like. What makes me aroused. Basically what I wanted to see in a piece of fiction and what I think others would like as well!

 

[EvelynEden]

I like sports and am from sports crazy Australia, so sports feature quite heavily in some of my works. The titular 'crazy fat sister' from 'My Best Friend's Crazy Fat Sister' is a former (fictional) Australian professional tennis player, while Leanne from 'Leanne the Lusty Lifeguard' is a triathlete. There is also Australian Rules Football (a full contact sport) in 'Body Swap With Sister's Boyfriend' where a nerd who dislikes sport swaps bodies with his sister's jock boyfriend and has to play semi-professional football in his place. I think its the only story on Literotica with an Australian Rules Football game in it, but the Incest/Taboo crowd weren't too impressed by my efforts.

I can understand though how an author who has no interest in or dislikes sports would struggle to write a sports story. It's the same with any erotic themes. I've written about fetishes that aren't my thing because readers on the site like these types of stories, but some are so far out of my comfort zone that I could not write them effectively. For example, the whole 'Hucow' thing I just find flat out weird, so you won't be finding me writing a story called 'Horace Humps a Hucow' anytime soon, or at all.

Ahh, that's awesome! Sounds like some really interesting reads, even to a non-sports lover like me. I'm a little sad your footy story wasn't well-received though haha. I'm an Aussie too but unfortunately, I missed the sports gene (luckily they haven't yet discovered my secret and rightly kicked me out of the country. I tell you this in complete confidence of course).