Make It Believable

Your story might be sexy but is the reader going to believe it?

I recently read this superb article by Glenn M Stewart on Medium. He details some of the red flags that offend the reader’s intelligence so much that they make erotic writing unbelievable or transform it into pornographic writing.

What is the Dirtiest Thing You Have Ever Done

Published in Mmm Mondays Life Matters

If you write about sex, read it, even if you end up not agreeing with his comments.

My article Why I Don’t Watch Porn (Well, when I'm thinking about writing I don't) also originally appeared in Mmm Mondays. It asks the question: Are you a reader who likes your sex served without too much accompanying plot or one who likes it embedded in a story?

We are all different. Writers have different styles and readers like different styles. What Do You Want From a Sexy Story (free to read here on Substack) is about writing erotica and tells you what I like to include in my stories.

Make It Believable

As writers of erotica, we find ourselves placing characters in evermore kinky or outlandish situations, adding more partners and taking our readers into a fantasy world. But to create that illusion the story needs to be believable.

Star Trek defies many of the laws of science but a lot of fans follow it. It is set in the future where new things might be possible but characters generally react to situations in a believable way (well, to the legions of fans anyway).

A lot of erotic writers want to get to the sex as quickly as possible. Not unreasonable as a lot of readers want the same. They can always skip straight to the action but this leaves writers with a problem. Do we reiterate some of the introduction and risk boring some of the patient readers or do we adopt the ‘sod you, if you cannot be bothered to read the first bit you might not know what is going on approach’? Make the introduction interesting and both types will read it.

What happens if either type of reader reads the bit where the action is hotting up and thinks ‘No, I wouldn’t have done that’, or even worse, ‘I don’t think anyone would have done that in that situation.’

If you place a character in a situation where ninety per cent of your readers would be reaching for the nearest heavy or sharp object you need to furnish the reader with a very good reason as to why they are feeling horny instead.

The best writers use the conflict between the two reactions to create an engaging story and have added little clues in the introduction as to why the character makes the final decision. Whatever you write, your ideal reader needs to find it believable or they will stop reading your stories.

Motivate Your Character

Characters need some serious motivation to act in the way they do and it is up to the writer to provide plausible reasons for their characters’ actions.

A lot of cuckold/hotwife erotica seems to work to the formula of man/woman discovers partner/husband/wife fucking another man/woman and decides to join in. I even read one where the husband said, “I’m fucking her because she’s younger and you’re crap,” and she still joined in rather than reaching for the aforementioned heavy object.

At this point, I decided not to read any story that had the words cum, fuck or hotwife in the title, but then I’m probably not these stories’ ideal reader.

Sex is generally an enjoyable experience so when I am reading about it I prefer the characters’ motivations to be positive rather than a result of coercion or to avoid a negative outcome. ‘I decided to have a threesome with his girlfriend because otherwise he’ll leave me’, does not inspire me to read that story.

My supernatural can be fun or quite dark. In No More Virgins a rather confused demon and the village ladies have some very positive fun even though it starts with a virgin chained to an altar as a sacrifice.

The Confession is a lot darker but, despite the negative outcome for the male character, even male readers seem to like it, probably because the character is obnoxious and his motivations less than holy.

Both are free to read.

The Setting

What the characters will react to as credible. and how they will react is defined by their surroundings which includes the time they live in.

A lot of my supernatural stories are set in an undefined time, although they hint at happening sometime in the past. This allows the reader to place the stories in their own imagined settings which (I hope) makes them more believable.

Bringing these stories into the present changes the character’s perception of an event. A character in a modern setting may be less scared of a demon as they may think of it merely as a ‘movie special effect’, whereas someone in a medieval setting might be terrified as the supernatural is part of their folklore.

The great thing about being a writer is that we can change history.

It is called editing. If a scene is not really believable - go back, change the setting, subject the character to an event in their past that would change their motivation or the way they react. It does not have to be a major rewrite, sometimes just a subtle hint, a change of tone or a suspicion works.

The best short stories start in the middle of the action. Violation Before the Vows by Jordan Riley on Medium starts with the bride performing oral sex on a man she is not going to marry so definitely fits that criteria. But, within those first hundred or so words we get our first clue as to her motivation. The opening also sucks in both types of reader (pun intended), the straight to the action one and the long-haul one.

The author also never tells us who she is fucking but this becomes obvious as the story jumps from the action to the wedding ceremony and back to more action. There are also a lot more clues as to why she is behaving the way she is.

Just as the reader is on the edge of thinking, would she really do that? there is a final twist that takes us deep into all the characters’ thinking and leaves the reader with a sense that, not only have we just read about some very hot sex but that the story is plausible.

It can be difficult to motivate your characters but when a good story comes together you can hear your characters say, “Yeah, go on, I’d do that.” Hopefully your readers will hear it to.