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Lisabet Sarai

Contrary

by | February 21, 2015 | | 21 Comments

By Lisabet Sarai

I used to be such a good girl. I don’t know what happened.

In the old days, I followed all the rules. I got straight As. I adhered to the high school dress code. I was an expert at figuring out what people wanted and giving it to them. In every area of my life, I aimed to please.

How did I get so contrary?

I guess I got bored. Bored with the same old plots and characters, the same tropes, conventions and clichés. Overwhelmed by ennui when I looked at the best seller lists. The longer I spent in the world of publishing, the more frustrated – even disgusted – I became by the tyranny of genre and the overwhelming influence of whatever is Currently Hot.

Over the past decade and a half (has it really been that long?), I have become progressively less interested in pleasing the masses. Instead, I seem to have cultivated my own personal imp of the perverse.

In the first vampire story I wrote for publication, my hero is a blond, blue-eyed, Midwestern frat boy who doesn’t have Goth bone in his undead body. Unlike Lestat, Edward Cullen or the many recent incarnations of Dracula, he’s not in the least ancient or world-weary – he became a vampire just five years before the tale begins.

My soon-to-be-released paranormal romance The Eyes of Bast turns the traditional “shifter” paradigm on its head. The male protagonist was actually born a cat. A sorceress gave him human form in order to have a vehicle for satisfying her lusts. And if the heroine succeeds in freeing him from the witch’s curse, will he revert to his original feline nature? This is not a typical concern in a shape-shifter tale.

In reaction to the hundreds (thousands?) of gorgeous, athletic, thirty-something Doms crowding the BDSM genre, I have stories that feature a middle aged, overweight master and slave (“Never Too Late”, in my new D&S Duos Book 2) and a dominant who’s half paralyzed from a stroke. I’ve even started writing a tale where the Dom is a quadriplegic, though so far I haven’t had the guts to push that one very far.

Of course, dominant billionaires and submissive virgins are all the rage at the moment. Right now I’m working on a novel entitled The Gazillionaire and the Virgin in which the heroine’s the one who’s richer than Croesus, and the hero is a brilliant nerd with deep theoretical knowledge about sex but no actual experience. Probably it won’t sell any better than my historical novella Challenge to Him, about a filthy rich Gilded Age industrialist and a labor activist.

I can’t blame anyone but myself. I’m just too contrary to write what sells.

When I see a call for submissions that seems worth my consideration, my first thought is “how can I twist this into something different?” This isn’t always the route to getting my work accepted. For example, one editor just couldn’t see the Hindu goddess Parvati as a succubus, despite her consuming the sexual energy of the aspiring ascetic hero. I thought it was a great, original take on the theme, but hey, that’s just me.

One trope that’s been bugging me lately is the Natural Submissive. I’m sure you’ve encountered her. Despite never having had any prior experience with D/s, she surrenders immediately and completely to the charismatic Dominant. Without training, she kneels with perfect grace and wears her bonds without complaint. Oh, and she’s got incredible pain tolerance, too, just what the nasty Dom likes. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve read recently where the dominant canes the sub in the very first scene, despite the fact that caning is quite an extreme form of discipline.

Now, I’m somewhat guilty of this cliché myself, especially in my earlier work. “You were born for this,” my slightly cheesy dominant Gregory tells Kate in my first novel, Raw Silk. It’s thrilling to believe that your Master can see through your everyday facade to the kinkiness at your core. To be known – accepted – valued because of one’s dirty desires – that’s intoxicating.

My subs are always conflicted, though, unlike the classic Natural Submissive. They’re shocked by their own behavior. Furthermore, they’re not ready all at once for the worst the Dom can throw at them (and of course the Dom knows this).

So now I’m toying with the notion of writing a story where submission most emphatically does not come naturally. I’m thinking about a female character who really does want to be a competent slave, but who keeps making mistakes – due not to lack of motivation but lack of aptitude and training. Maybe she has joint problems, so she can’t stand being on her knees or suspended from the ceiling. Or perhaps she’s just a natural klutz. Her poor Dom is actually embarrassed to take her to his favorite kink club. He loves her, though, and appreciates her sincerity, so he can’t bear to send her away.

Yeah, I know. Sounds like another best seller, right?

Ah well. At this point, I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I’ve reached official curmudgeon age, hence I have license to gripe with impunity about “the industry”. And as long as I’m writing – and enjoying the process – I’ll continue to seek originality over marketability. That’s just the way I am.

Wrangling Sentences

by | January 21, 2015 | | 7 Comments

By Lisabet Sarai

I realized that I hadn’t written a craft-oriented post for the ERWA blog in a while, so I thought I’d remedy that today. My topic: making your sentences work to accomplish both your narrative and emotional goals.

Defining terms

When I teach writing classes, I begin by stating that, in English, the sentence is the basic unit of meaning. A (simple) sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. The former identifies what we are talking about, while the latter expresses what we want to say about the subject. A subject may be a noun (“spanking”), a pronoun (“she”), a simple noun phrase (“the riding crop”) or a noun phrase with modifying clauses (“the riding crop that dangled casually from her belt”) A predicate may specify an action (“heated his butt”), a relationship (“was his first Mistress”), or a state of being (“was obviously new”). Both subject and predicate are required in order to have a complete idea. The subject “spanking” may conjure a variety of theories regarding the point to be made, but we really don’t know what the author intends without the predicate.

Compound sentences combine two (or sometimes more) simple sentences using conjunctions or adverbs that specify a logical relationship between their components. English provides a wide variety of relationships including coordination (“and”), opposition (“but”, “although”), sequence (“before”, “during”, “after”), and causality (“because”, “if”). A compound sentence expresses a meta-idea that includes not only the individual concepts captured in the component simple sentences but also the relationship determined by the connector. Change the connecting words and you totally change the meaning.

Peter fantasized about spanking but he had never been to a BDSM club.

Peter fantasized about spanking because he had never been to a BDSM club.

Sentences – naive and experienced

We authors use sentences for both telling a story and for evoking specific emotional responses in our readers. When I wrote my first novel, Raw Silk, I was thinking mostly about the first goal, not the second. Certainly, I was trying to evoke various moods, but I didn’t consciously manipulate the structure of my sentences with that in mind. As a result, all my sentences tended to be fairly long and complex, regardless of what was going on in the story.

Paragraph from Chapter One:

Kate extricated herself from the car’s comfortable embrace. The house was small, almost a cottage, but had two stories, and was surrounded by lush gardens. A huge tree with gnarled, contorted limbs stood before the building, bearing drooping masses of vines and creepers. She breathed deep, savouring the sweetness of flowers she could not name. The humid air caressed the bare skin on her arms. She heard the chittering of insects, and softly, the music of flowing water. There must be a pool or fountain, she thought, smiling to herself. She noted a balcony on the second floor, overlooking the garden.

Paragraph from Chapter Four:

Somtow rocked his pelvis in time with her strokes, but otherwise remained still. He watched her as she rode him, harder now, grinding herself down on him, finding exactly the right position, the right angle, for her own satisfaction. Now he reached up and caressed her breasts gently, trapping the nipples between his first and second finger. Katherine responded by pinching his nipples, hard. His back arched, pushing his cock deeper into her.

Paragraph from Chapter Nine

The rubber felt foreign, solid and unyielding, no respite, no escape. Noi hammered into her, then pulled out slowly, so that Kate could feel each of the ridges as it caught and then released the edges of her hole. The huge dildo stretched her deliciously, but she wanted more. She pushed her hips back toward the woman fucking her, begging for deeper penetration, harder strokes.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with these sentences, but they have a sameness, a similar rhythm and style even though they play very different roles in the story. In the sex scenes, the length and complexity of the sentences have the effect of distancing the reader from the action.

In the fifteen years since I wrote this book, I’ve learned to use shorter sentences, even fragments, in sex scenes, to evoke a sense of urgency and breathlessness.

Here’s a bit from my latest novel The Ingredients of Bliss:

The sting dwindled when he nuzzled the sensitive spot just below my ear. As I’m sure he expected, my clit twitched in response. I arched up, trying to grind my pelvis against his bum. He raised himself to a half-kneel, breaking the contact between our skin, while still holding me more or less immobilized. His cock was now fully engorged. Barely a foot from my hungry mouth, it wept pre-cum onto my chest. I whimpered and struggled against his inexorable grip. I really didn’t want to talk anymore. I just wanted him to fuck me. Again.

Notice the difference? I’ve deliberately chosen shorter sentences and more concrete nouns. The paragraph feels more immediate and intense than anything in my first novel.

The style in the passage above isn’t necessarily typical of all the prose in the book. Here’s a bit of description:

Buildings of brick, stone and stucco made the street into a shadowy canyon. Overhead there were decorative cornices and wrought iron balconies, remnants of another, more prosperous time, but at the ground level, most had roll down metal shutters, locked tight. Neon-hued graffiti decorated the blank steel panels. Fast food wrappers and crumpled newspaper stirred in the gutters. The temperature had remained balmy but fog had crept in from the harbor, bringing the smell of rotting kelp and giving halos to the scattered street lights.

As I’ve become more aware of my sentence structure, I believe that my writing has improved. I have more control over the reactions I’m trying to elicit from my readers.

Tips for more effective sentences

I called this a craft article, so I suppose I should try to distill my own strategies into a set of recommendations that might help other authors. So here goes!

Comprehensibility comes first. Before starting to play around with sentence structure in order to achieve particular effects, be sure that the literal meaning is clear and easy to grasp.

Avoid using complex noun phrases as sentence subjects since they burden the reader’s memory. Here’s a sentence from a story I recently edited for another author.

But what had been a nice little itch to scratch in private had bloomed within me and grown as uncontrollable as my hair.

This sentence is completely grammatical, but struck me as awkward and confusing because of the long subject – especially since that subject begins with a pronoun.

I suggested revising it as follows:

But the little itch I’d scratched in private had bloomed and grown as uncontrollable as my hair.

Multiple pronoun references in a single sentence that refer to different individuals can reduce clarity. Words that can act as both nouns and verbs (e.g. “present”, “market”) sometimes cause problems. Finally, cognitive research has shown that long sentences are more difficult to comprehend, regardless of their structure. I am not suggesting that authors “dumb down” their prose, but complexity must be weighed against comprehensibility.

I’m sure the average length of my sentences has declined as I’ve gained in skill, even as the variation in length has increased.

Match the pace of your prose to the pace of the narrative. I’ve already addressed this issue above. Brief, concrete, punchy sentences work well for action scenes (including many sex scenes). Longer, more intricately structured sentences are more appropriate for description and thematic explication. Also, you may want to use more complex sentences for flashbacks than for live action. Recollection does not generally have the same intensity as experience, unless the character is lost in fantasy.

Use sentence fragments with discretion. A sentence fragment is a bare subject or bare predicate, or else part of a complex sentence – a dependent clause without the corresponding independent clause that controls it. Without context, a fragment does not express a full idea, and strictly speaking, fragments are not grammatically correct. However, a partial sentence can be highly effective in the right circumstances, particularly inner dialogue.

Sympathy welled up inside me. I pushed it aside. I had to be strong. Stern. Maybe even cruel.

In their ice-blue depths I saw a flicker of something—something that both warmed me inside and turned up the volume on my arousal. Gratitude, maybe? Or complicity?

If you’re deliberately using sentence fragments, don’t let some over-zealous editor cite rigid grammar rules to red-pencil them out of existence. At the same time, be aware that overusing fragments can render your prose much harder to understand.

Avoid joining clauses with “and” unless they are logically equivalent and have strong semantic links. Compound sentences are powerful tools for expressing subtle connections between concepts. However, the “coordination” relationship, using “and”, is the weakest way to join two ideas.

Authors often use “and” when they are actually trying to convey temporal sequence:

She landed another stinging slap on my bare ass and I cried out in agony.

This sentence might be more effective if the clauses were split apart:

She landed another stinging slap on my bare ass. I cried out in agony.

Alternatively, you can make the temporal relationship more explicit:

When she landed another stinging slap on my bare ass, I cried out in agony.

Reserve “and” for cases where there’s a strong connection between concepts expressed in the joined clauses:

He’s my beloved Master and I’m his devoted slave.

Vary your sentence structure and length within a paragraph. A paragraph in which every sentence has a similar structure quickly becomes boring. Erotic books are full of passages like the following:

Now he sipped at my mouth rather than swallowing me whole. He feathered his tongue over my lips, coaxing me to let him enter. He breathed into me, warm and sweet, gentle as drifting clouds on a spring day. He held me close, so close I could feel the heartbeat under his sweat-damp shirt, and bathed me in his devotion.

Every sentence in this brief paragraph has “he” as the subject. I revised the passage as follows:

Now he sipped at my mouth rather than swallowing me whole. His tongue feathered over my lips, coaxing me to let him enter. He breathed into me, warm and sweet, gentle as drifting clouds on a spring day. Holding me close, so close I could feel the heartbeat under his sweat-damp shirt, he bathed me in his devotion.

Now the sentences have a more varied structure. One technique for achieving this variety is to use modifying phrases (like “holding me close”) to introduce some of the sentences. Another technique I’ve employed here is to use what some editors would label as an “Independent Body Part” (IBP), using “his tongue” rather than “he” as the subject in the second sentence. Like any other construction, IBPs can be over-used, but in fact they are an example of a type of figurative language called synecdoche , which involves using a part of something to represent the whole, or vice versa.
(Check out my blog post here for more about IBP.)

An exercise in wrangling sentences. Just for fun, I decided to take one of the passages from Raw Silk I quoted at the start of this post, and revise it according to some of the recommendations above. Here’s the result:

The rubber felt foreign, solid and unyielding. No respite. No escape. Noi hammered into her, again and again. With each invasion, the ridges on the obscene toy caught then released the edges of Kate’s hole. The huge dildo stretched her to the limit, but Kate wanted more. Shameless, she arched back toward the woman fucking her, begging for what she craved. Deeper penetration. Harder strokes.

This still isn’t great literature, but are the sentences more effective? Is the tone more urgent, more involving? I’d argue that it is.

Summary

The structure of your sentences impacts the effectiveness of your prose. Work to create sentences that are easy to understand, that match the pace and tone of the narrative, and that use devices like fragments and figurative language to add variety and spice. Be deliberate in your choices. You have more control than you may have realized.

Sexy Snippets for January

by | January 19, 2015 | | 21 Comments

It’s that time again – time to heat up the Internet with your hottest erotic prose. Today’s the 19th of January, which means it’s Sexy Snippets Day!

The ERWA blog is not primarily
intended for author promotion. However, we’ve decided we should give
our author/members an occasional opportunity to expose themselves (so
to speak) to the reading public. Hence, we have declared the 19th of every month at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association blog Sexy Snippet Day.

On Sexy Snippet day, any author can post a tiny excerpt (200 words or less) in a comment on the day’s post. Include the title from with the snippet was extracted, your name or pseudonym, and one buy link, if you’d like.

Feel free to share this with erotic author friends. It’s an open invitation!

Please
follow the rules. If your excerpt is more than 200 words or
includes more than one link, I’ll remove your comment and prohibit
you from participating in further Sexy Snippet days. I’ll say no more!

After
you’ve posted your snippet, feel free to share the post as a whole
to Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else you think your readers hang
out.

Have fun!

~ Lisabet

Is Diversity a Liability?

by | December 20, 2014 | | 9 Comments

By Lisabet Sarai

If I were looking for a logo, I might choose a Pu Pu Platter.

Do any of you remember those pseudo-Polynesian appetizer assortments, complete with the fiery wrought-iron cauldron in the middle to heat up all the finger food? Do they still exist? When I went searching for images on my favorite stock photo site, I came up with zero hits. Are PuPu Platters totally passé? Have they gone the way of granny glasses and lava lights?

Modern concerns with healthy eating have probably played a role in the platter’s demise. It’s difficult to imagine a more fat-and-cholesterol intensive repast than the traditional fried wonton, crispy egg rolls, barbecued spareribs, battered giant shrimp, cheese-filled crab puffs, and all the other delicacies that might show up ranged around the flaming Sterno. One PuPu Platter can undo weeks of toil at the gym.

But God, how I loved them! Indeed, I recall that on my first real date, my companion (with whom I was highly enamored) ordered us one. This may explain my lingering fondness; PuPu Platters are somehow mixed up in my mind with sex. (Not that I had sex on my first date, of course, but a teenager’s hormones color everything in her world). And there are some similarities, after all. A PuPu Platter is decadent, all luscious flavor with little food value. You devour the components with your fingers and lick off the juices afterward. And you can’t eat one all by yourself. PuPu Platters are made to be shared.

The real attraction for me, though, is variety. (I also adore mezze plates – Middle Eastern appetizer assortments.) A taste of this, a hint of that, never enough of any one dish to be bored – that’s what I love. Diversity is my ideal in life. I want to sample a wide range of different experiences, rather than being forced to choose one dish, one path, even one person – although I have been married to the same guy for more than thirty years. (He likes variety, too.)

As a reader, I also seek out diversity. Anyone who scrolls through my books on Goodreads will find plenty of erotica, true, but also romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, classics, historical novels, biographies, plays, poetry, a bit of almost everything. If you focus in on the erotica, you’ll see I read and review work ranging from extreme hard core BDSM to sweet vanilla. I read and enjoy gay, lesbian, bisexual and multi-partner fiction – contemporary, historical, futuristic – really, whatever I can get my hands on.

Most authors write what they like to read. Hence it’s not surprising my books are all over the map. At this point I’ve published nine novels (defined as works over 50K words). Two are gay erotic romance – one paranormal, one sci fi. One is M/F and F/F erotic noir. One is M/F paranormal. One is steampunk BDSM paranormal ménage. My first three are even harder to classify, offering a bit of everything, from a sexual perspective – from exhibitionism to enemas – with many assortments of gender and in one case, a parallel historical subplot.

I’m proud of my books. I like the challenge of tacking new genres as well as new forms. However, lately I’ve started to believe that diversity can be a liability to an author’s career. When someone asks you what you write, “almost everything” may not be a strategic answer.

Think about the authors whose names are household words. Steven King writes horror. Anne Rice writes paranormal. P.D. James writes (or wrote) mysteries. Tom Clancy and David Balducci write political thrillers. John Grisham writes legal thrillers. Nora Roberts writes romance. J.K. Rowling writes fantasy. (Remember how nasty the critics were when she published her realistic contemporary novel, A Casual Vacancy?)

I couldn’t think of any really popular writers whose books vary as much as mine do, from one to the next.

Meanwhile, my favorite authors are the ones who can write anything – and do. M.Christian comes to mind as maybe the best example. His backlist includes science fiction, horror, and just about every sort of erotica you can think of. I’ll devour anything by Kathleen Bradean/Jay Lygon. Jonathan Lethem’s wild imagination produces something different in every offering. And though I haven’t read anything by him in a long time, John Barth used to delight me with each new novel. I never knew what to expect – and that’s the way I liked it.

Of course, in answer to the question, “what do you write?”, I could say “erotica”. That doesn’t pin things down much, though. Some erotica readers are pretty picky about the themes and topics they want to read. I know people who find anything other than BDSM fiction totally boring. Others have complained they can’t find hot vanilla M/F stories anymore. The segment of the erotica market that’s reading primarily for arousal wants stories that push their particular buttons. Someone who gets off on water sports isn’t interested in femdom. And so on.

Anyway, the “erotica” answer isn’t strictly true. I also write erotic romance, which has a different audience. I’ve been told in no uncertain terms by some erotica readers that my stories were too tainted by romance. Meanwhile, I’ve had romance readers shy away from my work as “too hot” and “too much like porn”. I’ve considered adopting a new tag line: “Too raw for romance, too sweet for smut.” (I’m only halfway joking.)

I guess I have to accept the fact that the majority of readers does not value variety to the extent I do. Instead they are seeking predictability – the antithesis of enjoyment, from my perspective!

This is a bit depressing, if I allow myself to dwell on it.

Am I willing to focus on one sub-genre in order to become popular? If I were making my living as an author, I think I’d have to. Fortunately, I have the luxury of writing what I feel like – of indulging my love of diversity. As long as I don’t care if my work sells…

Now all I have to do is find readers with similar tastes.

Anyone care to share a Pu Pu Platter?

Sexy Snippets for December

by | December 19, 2014 | | 15 Comments

May I interrupt your shopping, cooking and other holiday preparations for a moment? Just in case you’ve forgotten, today is the 19th
of December. In other words, it’s Sexy Snippets Day!

The ERWA blog is not primarily
intended for author promotion. However, we’ve decided we should give
our author/members an occasional opportunity to expose themselves (so
to speak) to the reading public. Hence, we have declared the 19th of every month at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association blog Sexy Snippet Day.

On Sexy Snippet day, any author can post a tiny excerpt (200 words or less) in a comment on the day’s post. Include the title from with the snippet was extracted, your name or pseudonym, and one buy link, if you’d like.

Feel free to share this with erotic author friends. It’s an open invitation!

Please
follow the rules. If your excerpt is more than 200 words or
includes more than one link, I’ll remove your comment and prohibit
you from participating in further Sexy Snippet days. I’ll say no more!

After
you’ve posted your snippet, feel free to share the post as a whole
to Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else you think your readers hang
out.

Have fun!

~ Lisabet

What Was Lost

by | November 21, 2014 | | 6 Comments

By Lisabet Sarai

A few days ago I finished reading The Sweetest Thing, a new short story collection by fellow ERWA member Julius Addlesee (and edited by another ERWA member, Nan Andrews). This isn’t a review – that will be coming at the beginning of next month, over at Erotica Revealed – but rather a reflection on the contrast between the sex in this book and the sex we tend to see today, both in the real world and in a lot of erotica.

The book is unabashedly vanilla. Although the characters and situations in The Sweetest Thing vary, all the tales focus on mutual heterosexual lust, seasoned by serendipity, affection, and, in many cases, lingerie. The stories feel a bit old-fashioned because the characters experience desire in such an enthusiastic, uncomplicated way. No one takes sexual pleasure for granted, but no one questions it, either – no guilt, no angst.

There’s an innocence about these stories. The narrators (all male) display a sense of wonder when confronted with the glory of women. The characters linger over foreplay, delighting in the tastes, smells, textures of their partners, who tend not to be model-thin or movie-star handsome but who are nevertheless almost unbearably desirable. Sex is special, a delicious mystery to decipher, a gift waiting to be opened.

I remember when sex was like that – powerful and intimate. To a heart-breaking extent, I feel like that kind of sex has been lost. When I was in my teens and twenties, stores hid magazines like Playboy and Penthouse under the counter. Porn movies arrived by mail in plain brown wrappers. A nude photo shoot like the one I did with the friend of a friend would be considered outrageous and daring. BDSM was shockingly perverse. To discover my own inclinations in that direction was a life-changing revelation.

In today’s mobile-obsessed, painfully public world, nude photos are commonplace. Teenagers broadcast them to their friends – kids who are not even their lovers. Porn is never more than click or two away. Sex is everywhere: in movies, in video games, in rock music, in advertising, in popular best sellers. I remember the thrill of reading James Bond in study hall, passing around a volume that marked the spot where the virile spy stroked his hand across the smooth, flat belly of his bikini clad partner. That was all – imagination filled in the rest – but oh, how that made me yearn!

What would Ian Fleming have thought of Fifty Shades of Gray?

I wouldn’t complain, if more sex meant better sex. However, I get the impression that many people find sexual satisfaction as elusive as ever – perhaps more. Casual sex has become more accepted and more available, but close, mutually enjoyable sex is another story. Divorce rates have soared. Rape occurs at least as frequently as when sex was rationed and forbidden, and my observations suggest that it is actually more likely to be tolerated in our sexually-desensitized world.

As I discussed in a previous post on this blog, an explosion of information on sexual technique has stolen the spontaneity from sexual encounters. When I was in my sexual prime, I never worried whether I was good in bed. All I knew was that being in bed with a lover felt good.

Even “deviant” behavior like BDSM has become ordinary and accepted rather than shocking. Fetishism influences popular culture. I can’t count the number of fashion ads I’ve seen where the model is wearing a leather corset and wielding a whip. These days everyone seems interested in kink. My master grumbles that everybody gets spanked now, or tied up. We’re not special anymore.

It’s not surprising that today’s erotica and erotic romance reflect the same trends. Authors include ever more extreme sexual activities in their tales, trying to get noticed. Voyeurism, exhibitionism, age play, infantilism, blood and water sports, body modification, bondage, threesomes, foursomes, orgies, gang bangs – you’ll find it all and more, not just in self-identified stroke fiction but also in anthologies released by publishers of “literary erotica”, and indeed, even in romance, once the bastion of coyness and traditionalism.

One of my readers complains that she can’t find any vanilla erotica anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against outrageous sexual acts. I’ve written a few myself. My concern is that these acts have come to have no meaning. They don’t feel dangerous or brave or transgressive anymore. They scarcely influence my emotions or my physical reactions, unless they’re extremely well written. Meanwhile, warm, bawdy stories of straight sexual pleasure – like Julius’ tales – have become as rare as penny candy.

I know I sound like a curmudgeon – like my mother, railing against “the new generation” and praising the good old days. This change isn’t even generational, though. It encompasses a mere decade or so. When I wrote my first novel, the acts I portrayed were unusual, scary, and exciting. Now they’re ho hum.

You can’t stop time, nor control cultural change. You have to learn to live with the world as it is today, without pining for yesterday. I’m glad the market for erotica has expanded, offering more opportunities for us all. Still, I mourn the loss of sexual innocence, and the corresponding incandescence of sexual experience – in life and in fiction.

[The title for this post was stolen from a story by Robert Buckley, which features an aged bootlegger from 1920’s. Thanks, Bob! That tale is included in his charitable anthology, Coming Together Presents Robert Buckley, which I had the privilege of editing.]

Sexy Snippets for November

by | November 19, 2014 | | 22 Comments

Whoa! Almost slipped by me, what with everything else I’m doing, but I realized last night that today is 19th of November, which means that it’s Sexy Snippets Day!

The ERWA blog is not primarily intended for author promotion. However, we’ve decided we should give our author/members an occasional opportunity to expose themselves (so to speak) to the reading public. Hence, we have declared the 19th of every month at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association blog Sexy Snippet Day.

On Sexy Snippet day, any author can post a tiny excerpt (200 words or less) in a comment on the day’s post. Include the title from with the snippet was extracted, your name or pseudonym, and one buy link, if you’d like.

Feel free to share this with erotic author friends. It’s an open invitation!

Please follow the rules. If your excerpt is more than 200 words or includes more than one link, I’ll remove your comment and prohibit you from participating in further Sexy Snippet days. I’ll say no more!

After you’ve posted your snippet, feel free to share the post as a whole to Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else you think your readers hang out.

Have fun!

~ Lisabet

Language, Sound, and Word Choice

by | November 11, 2014 | | 7 Comments

By Shauna Aura Knight (Guest Blogger)

To spurt or not to spurt? Finding the right word for an erotic scene is occasionally fraught with peril. Using overly clinical words breaks the sensual mood but so does purple prose. Often I focus on the musicality and sound of words while keeping an eye to their connotation, context, and even unintentional humor.

Let’s talk about connotation. Though we have this lovely invention, the dictionary, words shift their meaning over time. Reading about heaving bosoms in a romance novel published today might make you chuckle whereas a generation ago the author could reasonably assume that phrase was sexy.

I don’t use the word “dick” for sexy scenes. Why? In modern use it’s generally an insult, as in “Bob, you’re a dick.” I might use it if I’m writing from the guy’s POV and he’s referring to his own anatomy, but cock is usually my go-to word for penis. It has that nice percussiveness and rawness without being insulting.

But this brings us to the question, why not just use the word penis? It’s certainly specific. However, the word penis isn’t a very sensual sounding word, is it?

Clinical vs. Evocative Words

Let’s look at a few clinical words for human anatomy and functions. Clitoris, Penis, Vagina, labia, perineum, vulva, scrotum, anus, prostate, G-spot, urethra, semen, ejaculate, contraction, cervix, uterus, frenulum, testicles, meatus.

These words are all fairly explicit, but in most cases, they are about as sexy-sounding as formaldehyde.

On the other hand we don’t want to venture to the land of purple prose.

Let’s look at other words for penis: member, manhood, hard-on, erection, lance, shaft, hardness, thickness, length, heat, phallus, schlong, dong, pecker.

Some of those words are right out if you want a sexy vibe. Many of them, however, have a warmer, more sensual sound. Erection is still a little clinical, and manhood’s a little goofy-sounding these days, but what we’re looking at is how the sound of the word can evoke the emotions and sensations you want to bring into your writing. When we’re working with word sounds, there are techniques from linguistics and poetry that describe why words work the way they do.

Ideograms, Onomatopoeia and More

Both of these are part of phonosemantics. Onomatopoeia is when a word sounds like what it refers to. For example, water: swish, slosh, splash, crash, pour, trickle, flow, ocean, creek, brook. Onomatopoeia is a type of ideogram.

Ideograms also include sensory words for concepts that do not make a sound. For instance, we might use the words sparkle, shimmer, glint, and glisten to refer to diamonds, but diamonds don’t actually make a sound.  If you want to get really nerdy, iconism is how specific sounds recur to in language to refer to the same type of thing. Phenomimes and psychomimes are specific sound-effect words for concepts that don’t make a sound.

There are a lot of words that sound like what they describe. More examples of onomatopoeia: breath, breathe, gasp, groan, moan, grunt, cry, scream, whimper, mewl, rough, hoarse, growl.

And there are a lot of situations where the sound of the word is just as important as its meaning.

Trance and Hypnosis

I wear a few different professional hats, and along with writing paranormal romance I also write nonfiction focused on leadership, facilitation, and personal transformation. A lot of my public speaking work includes workshops and rituals for the Pagan, Earth-centered, Goddess, and metaphysical communities. Thus, I’m frequently leading meditations and trance journeys, and I’ve found that my choice in words is absolutely crucial in getting a group of people into a trance state.

I’ve learned facilitation techniques from hypnotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, shamanic and other indigenous traditions, educational theory, and storytelling. A mentor of mine put it succinctly; if you’re trying to speak to the subconscious mind and keep the talky-thinky conscious mind from interrupting, you want to use the rougher-sounding Anglo-Saxon words as opposed to the clinical-sounding Latin words.

When I thought about this, I realized that Anglo-Saxon words tend to have more ideograms. The more visceral words keep the subconscious mind engaged and invested in the story you’re telling.

Put even more simply, words with more than three syllables tend to be more clinical whereas simple one and two-syllable words tend to engage the subconscious mind. If you’re writing an erotic scene and trying to articulate a very primal, embodied experience, you’re generally going to want to use more visceral, evocative language that keeps people out of thinky/clinical headspace.

In other words, the more you want someone to feel and experience the words, the more you want shorter words using sound and musicality that reflects those sensations. However, it also serves to be aware of when word sounds can have unintended effects.

Alliteration, Consonance, and  Accidental Humor

Alliteration is when a series of words start with the same consonant. Consonance is when a series of words use the same consonant sound anywhere within the word. These sounds in words can evoke a mood, but they can also render a phrase unintentionally humorous. Repetitions of certain consonants is found humorous to our ears.

For instance: “His penis was pounding her pussy til she peaked in pleasure, his hips slapping her posterior powerfully.” A little ridiculous, but you get the idea.

For erotic scenes, words that begin with S or SH tend to evoke the right sound. Even the clinical word sex uses the sound. Too many S-words in a series, though, will tip the balance from sensual to comical when you aren’t intending to make your reader laugh.

Some S-words: slip, slide, slick, silk, slurp, slap, squirt, spurt, spew, seed, stroke, shiver, shudder, shake, shaft, shot.

Spurt and spew are words that can sound ridiculous all on their own just because of how they sound. One of my favorite erotic romance authors, Emma Holly, somehow manages to use the word spurt without it sounding silly. Largely I think that her use of the word fits in context; she’s using more sexually raw language in most of her descriptions. There are a lot of words that will sound ridiculous in one context and hot in another.

Assonance, Internal Rhyme, and Rhythm

Assonance is when you have several words in succession that have the same vowel sound. This can create a sense of rhyme, even if the consonant sounds are different.

This can add a very gentle rhythm to your prose. And rhythm is good; rhythm is one of the qualities that helps to bring people into that light trance state. When I’m facilitating a trance journey, I’m using rhythmic words and I may often use a soft drumbeat. You might notice how some of the most charismatic public speakers use rhythm in their speech, sometimes even physically moving their bodies to that rhythm.

However, too much rhythm and rhyme and you end up with a scene that sounds like a children’s book. Rhyme, just like alliteration and consonance, can make things sound funny when that wasn’t your intention. Of course, if you’re writing a sex scene and you need something to be funny, pop in a few extra consonants and some rhyme and you’ve got it covered.

Here are a few examples. You decide: Hot, or not?

Consumed with lust, she thrust down onto his cock.

He was bucking into her, fucking faster and harder.

Hauling her leg over his shoulder, he was driving her higher til she screamed.

She gasped as he shafted her; she wouldn’t last long.

He jerked and then spurted, roaring in release.



Pulling Together Poetic Sounds

Here’s a sentence that brings in some of those sensual sounds that evoke the sensation of sex: “She pulsed in bliss at his slick, soft lapping of her silky petals.”

I used ideophones with a mix of alliteration, consonance, and assonance without it being too overbearing. A little assonance and internal rhyme is going to create a gentle rhythm. Too much internal rhyme and you’ll end up with that unfortunate sing-song quality.

Choosing the Right Word

Sometimes when I’m writing, it seems like my choices are a clinical, overly-percussive word, or a soft-sounding word that has been labeled as purple prose. And some words have so much onomatopoeia that they evoke a laugh instead of a moan. It always helps to go back to the context and mood of your story.

For instance, the words squishing, squelching, and squeaking don’t usually sound sexy. In the right context, you might get away with it, like referring to the sexy squeaking of the mattress. Dick and cunt are derogatory, insulting words in modern English. Dick is percussive, cunt is percussive and nasal. They aren’t words that I use in my own erotic fiction because they don’t fit the mood of what I write or have the sound that I want. In your writing, either of those words might work fine because the context is different.

When you’re looking for the right word, think about the atmosphere you want to evoke. Is that clinical word too stiff? Do you want that really percussive sound? Do you need a smooth, soft word?

Generally in my first drafts I tend to overuse the word “pearl” because I like the sound, but eventually for my paranormal romance and urban fantasy I have to switch it out for the word “clit” at least few times. I don’t like the percussiveness or clinical sound of clit so I use it sparingly. However, if I’m writing a modern character, they usually know what their organs are called.

On the other hand, when writing a secondary-world fantasy story, or a historical paranormal romance, I might need to avoid clinical words entirely since that’s not how people would have referred to their anatomy. And that’s a whole separate can of worms. In essence, musicality is important, but it always has to be balanced with context.

I can’t think of a context where I’d use the word vagina for a steamy scene. It’s just too nasal-sounding. “I’m going to penetrate your vaginal opening with my penis.” No way.

Generally I go with pussy because I like the softness of the word. If you’re going for a euphemism, you’ll probably find yourself using another poetic device where you refer to the object by its properties. Her slickness, his hard heat. Here is a brainstorm list to get you started. Think about the sounds of the words and how that would impact your fiction.

Vagina: pussy, cunt, sheath, channel, slickness, tightness, heat

Clitoris: clit, pearl, bud, bud of pleasure, nub, joy button

Other: G-spot, sweet spot, labia, lips, petals, mound, mons, testicles, balls, nutsack

Orgasm: climax, cum, come, ejaculation, spurt, pulsing, contraction, bliss, hot jets

I’ll end this deep dive into the poetics of words with one of my all-time versatile favorites. Fuck: this word just has a rough, percussive intensity. This word that has survived for centuries. It’s a swear word, yes, but when I need a coarse, primal word for sex, this one fits the bill. It’s a word that people can actually say during the act of sex; notice that we tend to go for those simple, one syllable words when the sex is really good. And for quick humor, just rhyme it. Fuck a duck. Fuckety-fuck. Fucknugget. Pumpkinfucker.

What words work for you? What don’t? What sound are you going for?

For further reading, if you want to get a little nerdy about language, here are a few links to get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inherently_funny_word
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_symbolism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideophone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliteration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_consonance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assonance

About Shauna Aura Knight

An artist, author, presenter, and designer, Shauna travels nationally offering workshops in the transformative arts of facilitation, leadership, and personal growth and has written several books on those topics. Her urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels include Werewolves in the Kitchen, A Winter Knight’s Vigil, and A Fading Amaranth.

Web site: http://www.shaunaauraknight.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShaunaKnightAuthorArtist
Leadership Blog: https://shaunaaura.wordpress.com
Design Portfolio: http://shaunaknightarts.wordpress.com

The First Time

by | October 21, 2014 | | 12 Comments

By Lisabet Sarai

Revealed wisdom – or perhaps unsupported mythology – states that it takes time to become an accomplished author. I wish I had a dollar for every blog I’ve read where the writer claims his or her first efforts were pure unadulterated crap. Not having been privileged to read these early tales, I can’t judge whether this is the truth or merely misplaced humility. However, I’ve been noticing recently that in erotica, at least, an author’s first novel often possesses a special quality that’s hard to recreate in subsequent work.

From a craft perspective, that first book might be flawed. Somehow that doesn’t matter. First erotic novels have a life, an intensity, that’s unique. They offer a riotous explosion of lascivious fantasy, unchecked and uncensored. The scope of imagination compensates for less than perfect execution. Passion carries these books, overwhelming other considerations.

I realized this anew when I read K.D. Grace’s post last month here at the ERWA blog. She was celebrating the four year anniversary of her first novel, The Initiation of Ms Holly. I’m a huge admirer of K.D.’s writing – check out her steamy contribution to the current ERWA Gallery to see why – but I found Ms. Holly particularly arousing. It’s full of offbeat characters involved in creative and kinky carnal activities. A delicious sense of sexual license pervades the novel. Reading it, I knew the author had not held back, that she’d poured all her personal desires and fantasies into her lovely fable.

In some ways, it’s hard to believe this was K.D.’s first novel. Certainly, I didn’t realize this when I read it. At the same time, the heady mix of prurience and innocence in the book is typical of first timers.

The book that inspired me to publish erotica has some of the same characteristics. Portia da Costa’s Gemini Heat aroused and delighted me with its diversity and sexual creativity. I became an instant fan, and I’ve read many of her other books, all good, some brilliant. Still, none of them, except perhaps Entertaining Mr. Stone, can compare with Gemini Heat, in terms of its effect on me.

Despite having a happy ending for everyone involved, the book totally shatters romance conventions. (Of course, it wasn’t written as romance, though it’s marketed that way now.) Everyone has sex with everyone else. Both gender identification and power exchange are fluid. The hero is half-Asian, slightly androgynous, a total sybarite who’s nevertheless ferociously intelligent – almost the opposite of a typical alpha male.

Just recently, Portia mentioned to me that Gemini Heat was her first attempt at erotica. If I’d known that when I first read the book, back in 1999, I would have been astonished. Now I think I recognize the hallmarks of one’s first time, the erotic charge released when an author bares her sexual soul and dares to write what pushes her own buttons.

My own debut novel has some of the same characteristics. Like many new erotic authors, I didn’t really have a clue about the publishing business, about writing for a market, about genre conventions. I’d read some erotica, mostly classics, but nothing (other than Portia’s book) that could really serve as a model. Mostly, I was burning up with self-generated arousal. I wanted to share my fantasies, to vicariously explore what would happen if I extrapolated on my (not insignificant) real life sexual experiments. In the previous decade, I’d had life-changing experiences with dominance and submission. I wrote the book to capture that intensity, and amplify it with what-ifs.

The creative process was intuitive and close to effortless (especially compared to writing now). I’d sit down at the computer and the words would flow unobstructed from my dirty mind onto the page. I penned 72,000 words in my spare time, over the course of about six months. I wrote an additional 10,000 words in a single weekend, after the publisher complained that I hadn’t honored my contract, which called for a minimum of 80K. (Newbie that I was, I thought that clause was just advisory!)

The result, Raw Silk, has been released by three different publishers and is still in print. I can’t say it’s a best seller, but it’s the only one of my books that ever earned out its advance. And apparently, people are still reading it. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting erotic romance legend Desiree Holt. The first thing she told me was that she had loved Raw Silk. (Needless to say, that was one of the high points of my so-called career as an author!)

Depending on how you count, I’ve written seven or eight novels since Raw Silk. From a craft perspective, all greatly improve on my first effort, which suffers from wooden dialogue, an overabundance of adverbs, excessively long sentences and word repetition that makes me cringe. Still, I have the uncomfortable feeling none of my later novels can compete, in terms of genuine passion.

The more I write, it seems, the harder it becomes to tap that well-spring of pure sexual excitement that fueled my first attempt. At this point, I’ve read and written so much erotica that I’ve become jaded, I know. I’m sure the ebb in hormones as I’ve grown older has an impact, too.

As I continue to write, I hope that other factors compensate: original premises, surprising plots, engaging characters, polished and evocative language. Still, I look back wistfully on that first novel – so fully of naive sexual energy.

I wonder how many other erotica authors feel the same.

Hot Chilli Erotica

Hot Chilli Erotica

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