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This is number seven in my weekly blog series about my life as an author of erotica. For the past twelve years, I have been on an incredible journey and there is much more to that story. I’ll post here each week with another short chapter of my life as an author of erotica. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.
I sometimes joke that I write ‘Old Men’s erotica.’ (You have to talk about the weather.) It is replete with wish-fulfillment. “Oh, if I knew then what I know now!” The phrase has given rise to an entire genre of do-overs in which the hero is magically placed back in his fourteen-year-old body with Wikipedic knowledge of all that has happened in his seventy years of life. He is able to bet on obscure sports events and make a fortune, or co-opt inventions that would make him rich. Most of all, he can use his vast accumulation of knowledge of women to seduce all the fourteen-year-old girls who wouldn’t give him the time of day when he was fourteen, and it’s okay to screw them because his new body is only fourteen and not 70.
I conveniently forget to tell them that if they knew then what they know now, they’d be old men in a teenage body. It isn’t just the physical age that separates old men from young men. It is the entire thought process. It is youth itself.
I recall an episode of Star Trek TNG in which Q gives Picard the opportunity to live his life over to avoid having an artificial heart valve that is cutting his life short. Picard discovers that it was the impetuosity of his youth, causing that injury, that set the stage for his advancement to Starship Captain. Exercising the same wisdom and restraint at a young age which was valued when he was older made him less of a commanding man who never advanced beyond the lowest levels in Starfleet.
But in a way, the difference between ‘old men’s erotica’ and women’s erotica is that women are titillated by their imagination. Old men, I’m sorry to say, tend to lack imagination. Or, perhaps they’ve simply forgotten what ‘it’ was really like. This is illustrated by two things.
I was hyping my books at a music festival when one fellow looked at one and put it down again. “I like erotica,” he said. “But I want it to go all the way. I want to read the description of what it feels like to push his cock into a young woman and how she tastes on his tongue.”
This is not particularly bad advice to anyone writing erotica. Engaging the senses is valuable, but for men, it tends to focus much more on the detailed description of the sex act itself, supported by a compelling story.
The lack of imagination was hammered home to me when a reader of Living Next Door to Heaven sent me a note asking: “Could you please put in the bra and cup sizes of the girls so I can get a better idea of what they look like?”
Really? Do you think I work in a lingerie department fitting bras to young women? Please! I don’t understand the arcane art of fitting a bra and the associated sizes. From what I hear, many if not most women don’t understand it either. No, I will not tell you she was a C-cup, because I don’t know what that actually means. However, I will talk about their firmness, response to my touch, feeling when I pressed her close.
I am always amused when I see the meme about men writing erotica with phrases like “she breasted boobily to the stairs and titted downwards.” But in fact, men—specifically older American men—are obsessed with breasts. And I know for a fact that I have succumbed to the most ghastly male descriptions of women’s most treasured assets.
I’m thinking perhaps, I need to develop a close personal relationship with a lovely pair of firm young breasts in the near future. For research purposes.
But we need a little humor with it as well. My favorite scene was of two young people talking about how they played doctor when they were little and she’d complained that her breasts were "swelling." He’d suggested she try icing them.
But physical descriptions aren’t the only things that need to be spelled out. I find that I need to take great care in painting the feelings that are being experienced. I had to develop a vocabulary of emotions that went far beyond ‘happy’ and ‘sad.’ The shock so great that the hero throws up. The joy so intense that he cries. The laughter so hearty that it hurts his chest. The love so intense that he can only hold his lover and rock her in his arms.
I’m an emotional person. I write a great deal of very emotional material. Some of it is sad, some angry, some tender and loving. But I guarantee you that no reader has cried more tears over something I wrote than I wept while writing it.
So, the question facing an eroticist is how to spark that imagination and get the emotional and even physical attention of the reader without succumbing to a lot of, “Oh oh oh, uh uh uh!”
I use a lot of dialog in my stories. Even during sex. Sometimes I have characters telling each other of their erotic fantasies. Sometimes they are discussing mundane things as a way of prolonging their excitement. The conversation is punctuated by movements, touches, kisses. Very seldom do any of my characters rush to a climax.
I have frequently heard from some readers that my story would be better if it had some ‘real sex’ in it. Not only do I not rush to a climax, I don’t rush a teen into bed for the best sex of his life in the first chapter. The teasing is half the fun. The encounter that brings them one step closer, but not all the way. The resistance against nature’s call because of fear, religion, parental lectures, social stigma, or all the above is part of what builds sexual tension. Eventually, the climax is much sweeter.
Next week, I’ll talk about ‘writing what you know.’
This is number six in my weekly blog series about my life as an author of erotica. For the past twelve years, I have been on an incredible journey and there is much more to that story. I’ll post here each week with another short chapter of my life as an author of erotica. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.
Next week: "Writing Old Men's Erotica."
It's always fun for me to celebrate the release of another new book and the beginning of the story on SOL. Today, it is Book Three of the Photo Finish series, Exposure. This continues the story of Nate Hart as he prepares to head for college in Chicago.
There are more models, more photos, and more trouble ahead for Nate. And the promise that he'll learn a lot about his art in college.
Exposure also released on Bookapy today. Enjoy!
Onward to Exposure!
Yes, with the end of Nate's high school career, we bring Shutter Speed to a conclusion. But Sunday, volume three of the Photo Finish series will begin and after a summer of fun in Tenbrook, Nate moves to his college dorm in Chicago. Just in time.
1968 and 1969 were turbulent years in the history of America and while Nate expands his circle of friends and gets some unbelievable opportunities to expand his skillset, there is a constant undercurrent of unrest that threatens to unbalance his stable life. Through it all, though, he has a rock solid relationship with his girlfriends as they begin to transform their little group into a family.
Exposure is available for pre-sale on Bookapy, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. It will release Sunday morning, just at the time the first two chapters will post here on SOL.
Thank you for all your kind comments on Shutter Speed!
This is number five in my weekly blog series about my life as an author of erotica. Why and how did I get started? How is it going? What have I learned? These posts are suitable for general audiences, but probably not of interest to anyone under 50. Feel free to contact me with questions or for information about my 50+ erotica books. For the past twelve years, I have been on an incredible journey and there is much more to that story. I’ll post here each week with another short chapter of my life as an author of erotica. Might even give tips regarding how to get involved. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.
I have heard authors respond to criticism about their work with the words, “I don’t care. I write for myself, not a reader.” I always have to ask, “Then why did you post it for others to read?”
Yes, I will make the final decision regarding what I write and it won’t please everyone. But I write for readers. So, when I decided to focus on writing a story specifically for my readers, I needed to find out what they wanted to read.
How many times have you received a “Tell us what you think” invitation to take a survey for your bank, a product you purchased, or a political party? I get two or three a week. My typical response to these ‘invitations’ is to drop them nicely in the trash. Still, I needed to find out what readers wanted. I opened an online survey and announced it on SOL with no great expectations.
I was flooded with responses. The survey site was free for surveys with up to 100 responses. I had to pay the survey company so I could unlock more than 400 responses to my little survey!
Some of the data simply confirmed what I thought. The majority of my readers, 55%, were age 55 or older with half of the remainder between 45 and 54 years old. 98% were male. Well, I fit in both of those categories as well. According to the survey responses, pretty much everyone got their erotic stories from free or paid websites—like SOL. After all, that’s where the survey was announced. But about 20% also bought eBooks.
I worked in the eBook industry for several years when it was just beginning. I was an evangelist who traveled to trade shows, book shows, and writers’ conventions to demonstrate the new technology and tout its advantages. During that time, I saw a marked increase in the reading of men’s erotica. I believe it was sparked by being able to read romance and erotica on handheld devices. No one could tell what you were reading. And if I was reading my survey responses correctly, that was confirmed. There was a huge market for free and moderately priced erotica for men.
What made The Prodigal, for example, ‘men’s erotica’ rather than just general erotica? It wasn’t 150 million men who read Fifty Shades of Grey. Only 17% of that readership was male. Yet it was 98% men who read my stories.
The survey and a detailed review of my email revealed several contributing factors.
1. These older men like coming of age stories most. Second was science fiction, mind control, and time travel. Third, they liked romance, and fourth, action and adventure.
2. In my conversations, I discovered that our readers generally liked a strong male lead. It was preferred that he was an underdog. He needed to have honorable character. He needed to have a talent and/or a skill. But most strongly, he needed to develop a life-long relationship with one or more women for whom he would die if necessary.
3. My audiences liked multiple relationships with “Some Sex” according to the SOL rating system. They liked harem, polygamy, and polyamory. By and large there was a strong showing for standard heterosexual relationships, but female-female relationships were generally okay, especially if they were in the context of a plural relationship with a man.
My first three serials, The Art and Science of Love, Model Student, and Ritual Reality, all had a fundamental basis around the art world. In both of the first two, the main character is a paint on canvas artist. In the third, he was a theatrical props master. In two of the three, there was a coming of age aspect. In the latter two, there was a consistent plural relationship, and in the first, there were third parties invited into the couple’s relationship. All three were rated “Some Sex.”
I felt like I had a pretty good idea what my particular audience wanted. I decided to write a story that was based on these principles, just to thank my readers—an effort that yielded the “Living Next Door to Heaven” series.
In general, I still follow that pattern. My heroes are a kind of underdog. They exhibit a strong talent for something artistic. Brian was a short television star chef. Hero Lincoln was a crippled juggler and magician. Art Étrange was an autistic artist. Jacob was a transplanted fourteen-year-old guitarist, recovering from being hit by a bus. Dennis was a near-sighted shrimp with a magic touch for basketball. And in my current series, “Photo Finish,” Nate is a new kid in town who loves photography.
Before I ended the "Team Manager" series, I was bemoaning the idea that I would lose readership overnight if I didn’t come up with another new story right after the “Team Manager” series ended. My ex-wife, with whom I am on very good terms, said, “You know the formula and what your readers want. Write that.”
Duh!
I set to work on Full Frame.
Next week, I’ll talk about applying my research to an actual story.
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