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Writing Exercises

Writing Exercises

by | February 6, 2012 | | 4 Comments

By Ashley Lister Constant Reader, My name is Ashley Lister and, aside from being a regular columnist and reviewer at ERWA, I’m also a freelance writer and a creative writing lecturer. I’m reminding you of this because so many interesting contributors have appeared in this space since I last blogged here I can understand if you’ve forgotten me. As I mentioned last month, I’m using this space to share some of my favourite writing exercises. This month’s exercise deals with characters. Have you ever met a person that you thought you would like – only to discover they were completely unlikable? Conversely, have you ever met a person you expected to despise – only to discover they were surprisingly charming? This happens all the time in the real world. However, it’s only in fiction – and really, only in badly written fiction – where we encounter characters that are written in shades of unmistakable black or white and absolute flavours of good or bad. As writers creating characters, if we want them to be believable representations of real people, we have to keep in mind that real people are multifaceted individuals who are never wholly good or wholly evil. We also have to remember, whilst some characters and their characteristics will remain consistent, their traits will appear to change depending on who is looking at them. To illustrate this point, I recently read out rude a poem to a large audience. The audience members that laughed and applauded clearly thought I was risqué and funny and deserved to be on the stage in front of them. The audience members that walked out and complained clearly thought I was vulgar and humourless. I was the same person at the microphone. But I was a vastly different person to each of those responding in such diverse ways. Here’s the exercise: Write about yourself from the perspective of someone who likes you. Write for about half a page on this first part of the exercise. Now fill out the other half of the page writing about yourself from the perspective of someone who doesn’t like you. Hopefully there should be a contrast in perceptions here. Ambition and greed are often different sides of the same coin. It’s admired to be relaxed but few people approve of someone being lazy – yet the two adjectives can be used interchangeably depending on whether we like or loathe a person. A beloved bargain-hunter can easily be regarded as a despised tightwad. This exercise is not only useful for self-examination. You can use it to better understand how your characters are perceived by other characters in the fictional world you’re creating. Your fashion-conscious protagonist could be seen as a vacuous clothes-horse by her detractors. A sexually adventurous hero could be seen as an immoral man-slut. Take a shot at this exercise and feel free to share your favourite contrasts via the comments box below. It would be interesting to see how readers of this blog believe themselves and their characters to be perceived. Ash

All About Pleasure: Stimulate Your Senses

by | January 18, 2012 | | 6 Comments

by Donna George Storey

A new year always brings a sense of adventure and possibility, and I’m fortunate to part of a very exciting new adventure here at the ERWA blog.  It’s a real honor to be in the line-up of regular monthly columnists, all of whom I admire greatly as erotica writers and mentors.

As you may know, I write a column every other month for the ERWA website called “Cooking Up a Storey,” which combines a meditation on the writing process with a tasty recipe.  For the blog format, it struck me that a sort of miniature version of “Cooking” would be fun to write.  Coincidentally, I noticed that the #100 entry on this year’s Saveur magazine’s 100 list is mignardises (meeng-yar-deez), the tiny, artful sweets that are served as the last course of a grand meal in French and other fine restaurants.  In “All About Pleasure,” I’ll offer you a monthly tidbit, a literary mignardises if you will, to remind you that writing erotica is sweet and hopefully leave you inspired to create your own.

January is a month when we all need a little extra inspiration, so I decided to start with one of the most powerful foundations of good erotica—the vivid, fresh expression of sensual pleasure.

Writing requires us to pay attention to everything around us, even the most humble and ordinary things.  Without this focus, this desire to transform sensual experience into evocative words, we could not capture the truth of human experience in our own fresh voice.  Better still, paying attention to the amazing world around me invariably brings pleasure and often awe.  I liken this to the scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy wakes up in Technicolor Oz after a dreary life in black-and-white Kansas.  This intensity of awareness is what readers expect from writing, and it’s what will keep them coming back for more.

With fifteen years of fiction writing behind me, I sometimes take the process for granted.  I can dash off a decent, publishable story for a deadline while drawing from my archives of moments of heightened sensual awareness.  But I think even veteran writers can use a reminder of what really matters in a story.  A good writer captures experience from the inside, thus allowing the reader to enter the world of the story fully.  In the best case, our fantasy might begin to seem more real and true than anything he has experienced in his own life.  As in sex, the fresher and more wondrous it is for you, the better it will be for your partner, the reader.  This is particularly true for erotica.

So, with the rekindling of sensitivity and wonder in mind, I’d like to offer a classic exercise in sensual awareness, known in Japanese as monoawase (moan-oh-ah-wah-say).  A thousand years ago, during the age of The Tale of Genji, it was a court pastime to compare thoughtfully different types of incense or pottery or poetry or rice wine.  The purported goal was to discern the blend of ingredients and their place of origin by sensual properties alone, but in the process, the critic had to hone her senses and pay close attention to the components.  It is that part of the experience that is of real value to a writer.

In spite of the exotic name, the exercise is quite simple.  Choose two pleasurable things to compare (“pleasurable” is, well, more pleasurable, but you can go with whatever adjective suits your current writing project).  An obvious choice is two squares of different brands of dark chocolate—since Valentine’s Day is on the horizon—but two brands of Greek yogurt or two types of apple or tangerine or two lovers in one bed will serve just as well.  The two things don’t really need to be similar either, just comparable, which I suppose means anything.  Whatever you choose, your next step is to procure a piece of paper, a writing implement, and a place free of distractions.

Take a deep breath, and let’s begin (I’ll assume we’re dealing with two small pieces of good-quality chocolate—any complaints?)

First undress the chocolate slowly.  Note the sensation of the paper, the crackle as it tears.  Take a good look at the chocolate itself, jot down notes if you like.  Describe the color, the relative glossiness of each.  Do they look different than you thought?

Treat the chocolate like fine wine—perhaps the only consumable we are allowed to imbibe with such ritualistic reverence in Western culture.  Take in the fragrance slowly.  The challenge here is to describe the experience.  You can use the language of wine critics to describe the scents—earthy, hints of vanilla, more obvious with mint or strike out into new territory.  Our sense of smell is most directly connected to memory.  Perhaps the pieces of chocolate evoke particular memories for you?

Some practitioners of monoawase say the item they are appreciating speaks or whispers to them.  What is the chocolate saying to you? How can you transform the “voice” of the chocolate into your own words?

Next taste a small bite of the chocolate, no more than a third of the square.  The first taste is going to be the most intense.  Let it sit in your mouth and pay attention to the process and tactile experience as well as the taste.  What does it feel like on your tongue?  Do the flavors change?  Jot down a few notes, then take another bite.

Once you feel you’ve gotten as much as you can out of the exercise, feel free to stuff the rest in your mouth and get lost in pure indulgence!

Monoawase is perfect for threesomes in bed, especially if you’re in the middle, but can this exercise be translated into an erotic experience with a long-term partner?  Indeed, as in haiku poetry, the limitations of form can inspire a profoundly creative result.  A favorite contrast game for me involves oral sex and a cup of hot tea.  Take a mouthful of tea, let it warm your mouth, and swallow.  Then immediately put your mouth to your lover’s tender parts—for both male and female, the intense warmth is bound to elicit a gasp of surprise and pleasure.  Or focus on the tactile—stroking your lover’s body with a piece of fur or silk or one of those sex toy store mitts that are fur on one side and leather on the other.

Compare and contrast.  Once it was a meaningless exercise on essay exams in high school.  Now it’s a way to hone your writer’s skills, an excuse to eat lots of chocolate, and a reason to have oral sex while you’re drinking your tea. This focused celebration of the senses is the foundation of good sensual writing.

So go write something vividly, enchantingly and deliciously sexy—and change the world!

Donna George Storey is the author of the erotic novel, Amorous Woman.  Her short stories have recently appeared in Best Women’s Erotica 2012, Best Erotic Romance, and The Best of Best Mammoth Erotica.  Learn more  at http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor.

Writing Exercises

by | January 6, 2012 | | 14 Comments

By Ashley Lister

As Lisabet mentioned at the start of the year, the ERWA blog is going to see a lot more activity in 2012. My name is Ashley Lister and, aside from being a regular columnist and reviewer at ERWA, I’m also a freelance writer and a creative writing lecturer.

Because of that last qualification, I figured I could use this space to share some of my favourite exercises for all those erotica writers reading this who want to polish their craft.

I usually work with three types of writing exercise.

The first type is the sort that’s traditionally used in the lecture hall. It’s a timed exercise designed to get students writing. These are usually ‘on-demand’ type exercises where students write haikus, limericks, cinquains etc. The purpose of these exercises is to get students familiar with the form being discussed.

From a writer’s perspective, timed lecture hall exercises work best when they can be recreated at home. That way the writer has the scope to properly use the exercise but without the pressure of meeting unreasonable standards set by peers.

The second type of writing exercise is the sort that’s solely intended to be done at home. For these, in my classes, I’ll give a theme or the opening paragraph to a story and ask learners to create a short piece of fiction to share with the rest of the class the following week.

Last term I used the opening pages from a piece of werewolf fiction I’d written (‘Scratched’, Red Velvet and Absinthe). The class’s responses to this exercise produced a lot of differing results. Few had gone for the traditional approach to telling a werewolf story. One had simply gone to see the latest Twilight film and told me the plot of that movie. Some of the stories were dark – dark even for werewolf stories. Some of them were whimsical. All of them had been written when the writers had the time and enthusiasm to engage with the subject. This level of personal involvement showed in the quality of the writing.

From a writer’s perspective, these are the exercises which I prefer. I can complete them at my own pace, in my own writing place, and without the pressure demanded by the need for immediate quality results.

The third type, to my mind, is the sort of exercise used for creating fresh ideas. Creating ideas can be daunting for any new writer and these are the sorts of collaborative exercises where we share our suggestions and bounce them off other writers. It’s a chance to voice ideas to others, see how they’re received, and to also get an insight into the way peers are thinking. In short: it’s a chance to hear some unusual ideas which can often prove tangentially inspirational.

One of my favourite exercises of this type is adapted from Margaret Geraghty’s The Five Minute Writer. Learners are expected to spend five minutes compiling a short list in response to the question: What does it feel like to…?
My personal responses to this included items such as:

What does it feel like to run a marathon?
What does it feel like to lick a hedgehog?
What does it feel like to taste an emotion?

Your exercise, should you wish to participate, is to produce five original responses to that question: What does it feel like to…? Feel free to share your suggestions via the comments box below and let’s see if we can inspire each other with some wonderful and original ideas.

Ash

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Hot Chilli Erotica

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