Writing About the Supernatural: What Are Your Demons?

Writing advice and questions on supernatural erotica

Those of you who read a lot of my work will know I like writing about sexual encounters, but I do like to have something a little weird going on. My light bulb moment was when I started to add supernatural elements to the stories.

I just brought the first series of my latest erotic supernatural story, The Invitation, to a close. Continuing writing about three sexy ladies engaging in enthusiastic orgies with a demonic character was quite appealing, but something more dramatic was needed.

At the end of the last episode, the main character finds herself sharing her body with her supernatural self. Whether this other self is genuinely a version of her from the ancient past or a demon inhabiting her is left open.

I am thinking about where to take it next. The Invitation began as a one-off story, blossomed into a serial and now a second series beckons.

Update: I have been writing some prequels to The Invitation. You can find all the stories on the Contents Page. The Invitation sequel has begun with The Awakening

Awakening

As a writer it is always good to regroup, come up with some new ideas and do a little plotting before rushing into the next project. I asked myself the question.

What are these creatures I write about?

None of my stories are set in a complete fantasy world; they explore the premise that there is a whole group of other beings living alongside us. A world that our ancestors were in tune with, recognised and could see. Now humans with their technology, and their self-obsessions, have forgotten about these creatures, but they are still there, they still exist and they are still interacting with us.

Many of my stories play on this half-seen world. As H. Zilfiger commented, A seemingly casual start with a creeping incursion of the supernatural terminating in a thumping emotional punch that reframes everything.

At first, I labelled many of these creatures as demons. It is a useful word as it conjures up a particular image in most readers’ minds, but it is too harsh; it has overtones of malevolence and evil (although the original Greek word, daimon did not acquire these connotations until the Christians got hold of it).

Spirits, Faeries, and lately, Fauns and Satyrs have started to appear in my stories. The problem is that each of these words has different entrenched associations: Spirits tends to mean ghosts; Faeries, Disney’s Tinkerbell; Fauns (fawns), Bambi. Fortunately, comic books and the gaming industry have made much use of Demons and Satyrs, so readers may have a different image of them than the ones portrayed on ancient Greek pottery.

Satyrs are perfect for a writer of erotica; they have a permanent erection and a libido to match. It is true that in some depictions they are part goat, part horse, part human and often permanently drunk, but in other depictions they have a human appearance. Fauns are gentler and more spiritual, but by Roman times had become mixed up with Satyrs.

The great advantage in writing about supernatural creatures is that you can do what writers do best: make stuff up. Even if you do assiduous research, there are so many variations in appearance and characteristics of supernatural and mythical entities that you are presented with a Smörgåsbord of possibilities.

As long as you keep your human characters’ reactions to their appearance believable you can create what you like (Read: Make It Believable).

Make It Believable

For example, what if these entities have their own desires, their own rules? No More Virgins injects a little humour into a supernatural tale when a demon (I was still using this term when this was written) gets a lot more sex than he bargained for.

The only problem with Satyrs and Fauns is that they are all male. Early on, in need of a female spirit, I moved on to succubae. If you are going to write about supernatural sex, what better to write about than a being that feeds off its conquests? In, The Girl From The Rain, Francis discovers that succubae not only feed on men but women as well and that they have a gentler side, until they are crossed, which happens in Succubus Lover’s Revenge.

The problem as a writer is having created some of these demons, how do you then get rid of the bad ones? Most of my succubae do some very erotic, but ultimately life threatening things to some pretty disgusting examples of the human race, before fading back into the shadows. In, Satanic Vigilante, the world is rid of one housebreaker and sexual predator by a succubus.

In The Invitation series, I have created a male character that is possibly a demon or maybe a Satyr and a female character that is locked in her body with a succubus. Satyrs and Fauns were both thought to save at least some elements of mortality, so disposing of them when they become troublesome is theoretically possible. But what about demons? What is the demonic version of Kryptonite?

More musings on writing supernatural erotica and the complete collection of my supernatural stories