Looking For Inspiration as a Writer

What inspires you to write about sex and the erotic?

I recently did an interview for Ari on My Pen Her Whip and one of the questions was Where do you find the inspiration for your stories? That set me thinking, so here’s an expanded article on Looking For Inspiration and where I find it.

I’m a visual person so many of my erotic or downright naughty stories have sprung from a single image that sparks an idea. I’m using the word image here rather than photograph as it could be a painting or simply something, or someone I see. My original inspiration is usually for a vanilla or kinky sex story. The Car Wash was inspired by a single image that popped into my inbox from Pixabay.

The supernatural or horror elements I write about add themselves as the story develops. The Girl in the Green Dress was inspired by a girl walking down the road wearing, you guessed it, a very sexy green dress. so the image itself only existed in my mind. Release Me came from the photograph that illustrates it.

I have worked in the photographic industry and various people facing jobs for over forty years. I have developed a natural ability to visually observe people, to watch the way they walk, talk and how their expressions change.

In addition to being an observer, the second quality a good writer needs is the ability to listen. Everything from overheard fragments in coffee shops to lengthy conversations with friends can provide material for stories, phrases for characters to say or in some cases create whole characters or stories.

I also read a lot, both fiction and non-fiction. It is not plagiarism if another writer’s work stimulates an idea and you decide to run with it and create your own story.

Once an image, an overheard phrase or something you have read has sparked an idea the next stage is to cultivate it into a story that will appeal to your readers.

Writing About Sex

People like to read about other people like them having sex. They want to think, yes, maybe I could meet him or her, maybe that could happen to me. They want to read about characters based on reality.

The last men’s magazines to die were the ‘Readers’ Wives’ style ones. MILFs is still a very successful niche on the internet because the subjects look real. They are not the unobtainable glamour of a Playboy model. Adding the tag, hotwife, to your story is going to attract these readers.

Use your observations of real people in real-life situations to create these characters and scenarios. For example, I once noted down the overheard phrase, ‘You know that red dress, the one that makes me boobs look, like, massive’ (I cannot remember whether it was from life or the TV). The dialogue style is real, in my mind it conjures up an image of a character and the beginning of a story.

Adding A Kink

According to David Barker in The Shortest History of Sex, 68% of adults have fantasized about BDSM and 45% have engaged in it at least once. That is a huge market for kinky stories.

Whilst working in the photographic industry I was fortunate to meet a lot of models who were into BDSM and various other kinks. I spent a lot of time talking to them and they were amazingly open about their sex lives. They gave me a lot of ideas for characters and scenarios, and I am very grateful for their candour.

If you do not have access to first hand accounts then read articles and stories by genuine BDSM practitioners. Do not rely on porn sites to get your information. At best these are creating a fantasy and at worst stray into exploitation. Do research to try and keep your stories real but sexy.

The Fantasy

In Make It Believable I wrote, Star Trek […] is set in the future where new things might be possible but characters generally react to situations in a believable way. Even when I am writing about the supernatural I try to keep my human characters anchored in reality.

Unless you have created an entire race, living in a fantasy world you can still use many of your real-world observations to create believable characters.

I have to work harder on my supernatural stories. These come from deeper in my imagination but I still pick up ideas from life, other authors and the media.

I have always been a fan of Dr Who and loved the TV series, Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected when I was younger. The idea that there are things out there that you just glimpse out of the corner of your eye fascinates me. I like to take these ideas and add sexual elements.

I have also read a lot about myths and legends. There is already quite a lot of erotica in some of these stories but I think they have been cleaned up as they were written down over the years. I’ll bet when they were told around a campfire they were a lot more explicit. I just add some of that back in.

Finally

Watch, listen and take notes. Cafes, bars and public transport are great places to people watch. Make use of your notebook.

Carry a camera or use your phone to record ideas for characters and scenes.

Read outside your favourite themes and authors.

Watch TV and films but remember, they are creating a fantasy as well. Did they draw you into a believable world or did you suddenly find yourself back on the sofa?

These are my main collections of stories