Hang Your Erotica
On A Worthwhile Plot

Plot grows out of character. If you focus on who the people in your story are, if you sit and write about two people you know and are getting to know better day by day, something is bound to happen.  —Anne Lamott

To me, the best erotic story is one which has a plot with some weight of its own, and either includes or is seen through a filter of erotica. I write three pages of fiction every day, 99% of it unusable. I may have the glimmering of an idea once a month, but can never turn it into an event around which a plot can be developed.

I don't know if this is an answerable question, but if anybody can help with how to develop a worthwhile plot to hang the erotica on, I'd sure appreciate it!   —Angie

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From Leo9
I recently asked a published author what I could do about a story that had simply come to an end without making a book-length work.  Her answer was "You didn't give your hero enough problems at the start."  Louise McMaster Bujold says her plot generator is "What's the worst thing I can do to this character?"  If you've invented enough problems, all you have to do is put your characters at the entrance to the maze and let them run.

Failing that, to paraphrase Raymond Chandler, have a man come through the door with a whip.

From Emma Holly
Since I'm fresh from a Deb Dixon workshop I can tell you the secret to plot is very simple: Goal, Motivation, Conflict.

Characters have Goals, something they want. They also have Motivation, often driven by something in their past, that makes them want the goal very badly. But Conflict stands between them and what they want, usually both an interior/emotional obstacle and an exterior/outer world one.

The characters have to work hard to overcome the conflict and achieve the goal but they do it because they're motivated. In the process, because their old strategies will not solve the problem they face, they're forced to change. At the end of the story, they're not the same person they were at the beginning. They have new coping skills, new self knowledge, possibly even a different goal.

This works for all commercial fiction, short or long, though literary writers don't always operate in a cause-effect story world.

Someone on the list said change is the secret to plot. This is true. Goal, motivation and conflict is simply the reason that they change.

I could blather more about this but luckily Ms. Dixon wrote an easy-to-read book about this called, surprise, GMC: Goal, Motivation & Conflict. I'm pretty sure it's sold through Amazon. For anyone who doesn't want to wade through more complicated how-to's, GMC boils down the various concepts pretty succinctly.

From Bob
What works for me is knowing some background info about my characters. I'm talking about stuff that you won't necessarily put into the story. You give yourself an idea of what kind of life they led before the story begins: childhood, education, brothers, sisters, did they get picked on or were they popular in school. Stuff like that.

Then I think about what could happen to this or these characters that would break their routine or otherwise be an unusual event in their life. Maybe a nerdy little guy gets seduced by a voluptuous woman dripping with wantoness. That's just an over-the-top example, but it could be a subtle life change too. From there the story takes off for me.

From Glenn Rogers
I always start with an ending as a result of observation. Once I think I have what amounts to a good ending, I imagine where the beginning might have been. This helps when writing for word length as you can pick up the story wherever you wish. Once I know the ending and where I want to begin, anything that happens in between is up to me and the life my characters take on during the course of writing.

I always write a back-story (brief or lengthy) for each major character before composing. Writing the back-story gives life to the characters and inevitably becomes a part of the narrative at some point.

There are only 25 plots in writing, and some say Isaac Asimov wrote the 26th addition in 1951 with "Night Fall". The plot itself will emerge on its own accord and in its own unique way. Your job as a writer is to hinder, thwart and impede the protagonist from attaining the end result or denouement at every point you can come up with. Done well, this method can become a real page-turner. If you think of formulaic offerings like the Indiana Jones films or the Star Wars epic you'll grasp the hinder, thwart and impede method easily; you probably know this instinctively or by experience already anyway if you are a reader to start with.

My point is that thinking plot first will lead to your own hindrance and impedance. Start with a whopper of a lie, as Mark Twain might say, know where you're going and give life to your characters with a back-story and the plot will take care of itself.

With erotic writing, write it so your parents and your grammar school librarian would be shocked by sexual explicitness, but most importantly bring the reader to the precipice of orgasm and then change the pace. Don't provide satisfaction until the final paragraph.

From J. Z. Sharpe
One, I've always believed that change makes plot. Do your characters change through the course of the story? Are they different at the end of the story, from the way they were at the beginning? For example, that pretty girl who really thinks she's an ugly duckling -- how does she feel after she's gone to bed with the guy of her dreams, who praises her to the heavens the entire time? She probably doesn't feel like much of an ugly duckling anymore -- and voila, there's your plot. If you can show the reader some sort of change in your characters, you've got it.

This leads me to the other point -- if you can get inside of your characters' heads and continually ask "why?", this is another route to a good plot. So many time over the weekend, I'll read a story that's basically just an accounting of two people getting together and doing the Mattress Mambo (or some variation thereof). Nothing changes between the two of them, and we don't know much about what's going on in their heads other than he comes, she comes, everybody's happy. After a while, all those stories, even though many of them are hotter than hell, they all start to sound alike. By giving your characters some problems to work on, some conflict (doesn't have to be between them, it could be between the couple and the mother-in-law or even the weather), then seeing them solve the problem -- once again, you're on the right track.

From L.A. Smith
Several books on writing erotic fiction offer this exercise:

Take the plot from a movie, television program, or even another book, and strip it bare--then rebuild it with erotica in the mix. For example, Take Casablanca. A man finds himself face-to-face with his former lover, discovers that she is now married to another man. Her husband requires assistance that only the former lover can provide. Get the picture?

I agree with Joan's assertion, BTW, that character is at the heart of it all--the capacity for characters to grow and change.

For me, the key phrase in your query is "a worthwhile plot to hang erotica on." Simply put, aside from plots that would require explorations of sexual behavior not deemed suitable for guidelines, a good plot peopled with strong characters will hold its own water.

From Alan Wheeler
Here's a possible and reasonable solution:

STEAL.

Take the plot of a non-erotic story you like. Rework the action so that the characters are stewing in their own erotic juices. Make one of them a voyeur maybe, or a panty freak (my personal favorite) or a bisexual or--well, you get the idea.

By the time you have done this with something like Hemingway's "Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," the lion probably won't be hunted, the buffalo will survive and everybody will come to breakfast with big smiles on their faces. You'll be smiling too, because you will have written a story that is strictly your own.

This idea, by the way, is not original with me. Valerie Kelly suggests it in her How to Write Erotica.

From J.T. Benjamin
Personally, when I get a glimmering of an idea, I make sure to write it down on paper, then I mentally file it away, and I let it simmer for a week or two. My muse nibbles on the edges of the idea for a while in my subconscious, and when I look at the idea again, there's sometimes an interesting little growth there. Like a weed or a fungus.

Okay, answer this. What makes characters so interesting? More importantly, what are these characters' FLAWS which MAKE them interesting?

Nobody really likes perfect people, do they? We're not interested in the guy who pays his taxes on time, never drinks or smokes, and who'd never DREAM of even looking at another woman... or another man.

BO-ring!

We like to hear about the guy who drinks a sixpack of beer at one sitting, or the woman with the tattoo of a man with a dagger in his heart on her shoulder. What happened to the bartender's pinky finger, and why is that pretty young blonde sitting on the park bench and crying?

A good story involves tension; some kind of anxiety about what's happening next. The best way to create this tension is to observe your character's flaws or weaknesses and attack them or bring them out.

For example, if Hamlet had been decisive, Shakespeare's play would have been two pages long.

"Hamlet leaves the ghost's presence, rushes up to the king, and stabs him to death."

Curtain.

Hamlet's main character flaw, his inability to commit to a course of action, keeps him from resolving the central conflict of the play, avenging his dead father. This creates the tension.

If John Doe has a fear of heights, put him in the middle of a suspension bridge and watch what he does. If Susan Roe is afraid of being attacked, have her car break down in the middle of a crime-infested part of town.

Oedipus had his hubris. Rick Blaine's pride and broken heart made it difficult to respond when Ilsa begged for his help. Felix Unger, the neat freak was stuck in a New York apartment with Oscar Madison, the slob. The character flaw creates the tension, and the struggle to overcome that flaw (successful or not) creates the story.

These great characters you've got....what are their hangups? Maybe sexual repression? An inability to love? Impotence? Some dark secret? An allergy to leather?

Also, don't be afraid to use those three pages you work on every day. I do three pages daily myself, and I consider them a great device. I come up with a thought or two and just ramble on, playing free association and I let my mind wander out and play for a while. Most of the time it's garbage, but the occasional nugget of an idea is worth the effort.

Finally, don't give up. This is work. If anybody could do this, it wouldn't be special when it's done well, would it?

From Rosemary
I seldom start with a plot... for me, plot develops from the characters and the setting...

I know my main character (s) and the setting... (the latter is as important as the former IMO.).., and the incident or situation that triggers the opening of the story.. and from there the plot unfolds.. okay, my fiction is very much character rather than plot driven..

and as for a plot for erotica... I don't think that differs from a plot for any other fiction... you need a conflict, either internal or external... (or both if it's novel length) character growth, and some degree of resolution of the conflict...

If you're having trouble with plot Angie, I'd suggest starting with your main character(s) do a little 'What if?" toss them into an unexpected situation and start writing... and if you know your characters well enough, the sex comes naturally ...

and don't, whatever you do, censor yourself too much as you write... first drafts are meant to be drek.... but if you can only get the first draft finished, you have something to rewrite and refine...

From Helena Settimana
I don't know... I think you might have more than 1% usable material at the end of the day. I have files and files of fragments: bits and pieces of "unusable" material which I collect and sometimes piece together like a collage.

Sometimes my stories know where they are going. More often they don't, just like yours. When I do get a good story I get into a kind of a "zone". It's hard to describe, but its like being possessed and the stories seem to write themselves. I put them down any old way. Getting the words out first, I later edit them into a more cohesive whole, moving sentences, paragraphs, and adding or deleting as I see fit. Sometimes I put in the bits of lonely words I've saved from botched attempts. Not very pretty, but it works for me.

When I'm stuck, I write poetry or flashers [see ERA's Flasher page], and hope for the muse to strike. I try to let myself off the hook. Some friends have insisted that I write every day - I can't do that. I need to be moved to write. Some folks have said I make it seem easy, but honestly, sometimes it doesn't feel like that.

So...advice...*First, read, read, read! Success leaves clues. Find out what you like and emulate it.

*Use your life's experiences. Change the names, mix and match situations. Most of us have good material right within our reach and memory. I often take situations from real life and change the players, while maintaining the general outline. "Reconstructing Richard", which I posted here for critical support was based upon my feelings after losing a lover, going back years later to make my peace, and moving forward. He was not a soldier, was not killed (though lives overseas), but the loss was like a death, and the process of grieving was the same. It drove me nearly crazy. I took a general idea and turned it into a specific story. After I made some necessary changes, I sent it to Marcy Sheiner. The story has been shortlisted for next year's Best Women's Erotica. Marcy's comment to me was that it was "real". Not literal real, but based in real for me. It works. Try it. Don't look at the details, look at the big picture. The details come later.

*For the moment, how about letting go of the "I gotta" notion about "having" to have a strong plot? Yes, I agree that sometimes the best erotica is a story which stands on its own. But if you struggle with this, try letting go of the illusion that that is the only way to write. It's not.

Write the sex only, for now, and write it HOT. Have a look at Best America Erotica 1995. There are a number of very short stories, almost vignettes, in that volume as well as some longer works. Just because some tales are more fragmentary than others does not necessarily take away from their potency. The greater issue for me is the overall quality of writing. That is a somewhat ineffable quality for me to describe. What turns me on in writing (erotica or otherwise) is the inherent eroticism in the words themselves, in the juxtaposition of observation and imagery in relation to the action and the overall storyline. Don't be too hard on yourself or you'll trip yourself up. Just write.

*If you must always strive for the whole story try this: write down a précis [a concise summery] of the story; let's say 3-6 sentences or points marking the general beginning of the story, middle and end, then fill in the blanks, then add the naughty bits. Don't make it complicated. You're trying for short fiction, not War and Peace. You may find something for your characters to do while you're at it.

*Write a flasher. Remember, it too must be a complete story. Now, just like you did with the précis, flesh it out. Draw out the activity in the flasher, adding details, dialogue, colour, scent, shadow and light. Put back in all those things you've disciplined yourself to take out in the first place! Go crazy. Make it slow, linger on the details. Many good flasher writers can get a huge story into 100 words...write what is read in between the lines.

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