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9 Steps to Sexier Stories

As a reader, I want better porn. As a writer, I've taken note of the most common weaknesses in stories here, and I offer the following as a reminder to all of us. Porn stories can be made sexier, stronger, and more effective by following the tips below:

1. Skip Irrelevant Details

If your story is about Betty Boob seducing pool boy Dick Hung, do not start with 5 paragraphs detailing how Betty divorced her husband and then went back to school and finally landed a job at Doofus Industries and quickly worked her way up to Executive Vice-President of Boring Readers to Death. Get to the sex!! When readers want back-story and human drama, they read Joyce Carol Oates, not LickMyRim69.

Many authors here pride themselves on not writing "stroke stories," filling their work instead with what they feel is literary quality, lots of non-erotic plot and character-development, before throwing in a little sex. But if you're a writer with a burning desire to do that, write novels, not porn stories.

A writer who fills the first Literotica page with non-erotic content is like a stripper who walks out on stage and spends a half-hour reading her own poetry before she takes anything off. Even if that stripper happens to be Emily Dickenson, her poetry won't get a good reception because that's not what the audience came for. And if she can't find a better venue to present her poetry, she probably is no Emily Dickenson.

Every paragraph of a porn story should be rich with sexual tension. That does not mean you start with intercourse. Tease and build to the sex act. Start with Betty Boob checking out the pool boy. Then let every paragraph describe either wrestling with desire, planning the seduction, or doing something that moves the story closer to the sex. This is literary foreplay.

Back-story can be fine, but only if you wed it to the sexual tension. For example:

"I'm sorry, Ms. Boob, but I can't sleep with a married woman. It's wrong."

"Oh, you silly boy. I divorced that loser years ago. I'm single now, and I need a man like you to satisfy my needs."

"That's great," he told her. And he meant it, judging from the bulge in his jeans. "But if I don't get the other pools cleaned today, I'll be fired. We can't do it now."

"How would you like to make more money sitting in an air-conditioned office at Doofus Industries?"

"Would they hire me?"

"I'm their Executive Vice-President. But I only hire assistants who know how to lick pussy. Do you qualify?"

2. Skip Irrelevant Sexual Details, Too

When I said, "get to the sex," I really meant "get to the plot of your sex story." Back-story used as a long introduction can be boring even when the details are sexual. In our hypothetical story about Betty and her pool boy, some authors will start by telling us that when Betty was married, she and her husband had lots of sex at first, but then it became sporadic; after her divorce, she had a boyfriend, and they did it in the missionary position on the first date and did only a few variations later; but lately she's been in a dry spell except for blah blah blah.

A summary of the character's sexual history can be as boring as a summary of her career moves. Get to the plot!

3. Don't Generalize

Here's something distracting:

Like any 18-year-old, Peter had the typical long hair and wore only black.

Readers are annoyed when you stereotype or make sweeping statements about an entire group. They think about people they know who don't fit your generalization, and then they are annoyed by your falsehood.

Such generalization, in fact, is presumptuous and condescending. Like most right-handed readers over 5'1", I don't need to be told which elements are "typical." Just tell me what is true of your characters, and I can decide for myself whether it's true of others.

Stereotyping on the basis of age, race, gender, etc. is not only condescending but can be offensive, even to elderly Latinas.

The above example reads much better when written as follows:

Peter, 18, had long hair and wore only black.

That tells us about the character without distracting us.

4. Stop Starting

Here's an annoyance plaguing many stories at Literotica:

He started unbuttoning her blouse and then started to smile as her naked tits began falling into his view, her nipples starting to harden. She started unzipping her jeans, beginning to feel eager to start showing him her pussy, which was starting to begin getting moist. No sooner had she finished beginning to unzip her jeans than she immediately began continuing.

Does anyone in a porn story ever COMPLETE anything?? Enough starting!

Compare how much better the same paragraph reads if we simply remove the starts:

He unbuttoned her blouse and then smiled as her naked tits fell into his view, her nipples hardening. She unzipped her jeans, eager to show him her moist pussy.

See?

5. Remove Empty Phrases

The classic writer's rule is "omit unnecessary words." Two phrases often used without purpose at Literotica are "with that" and "for his/her part." As in:

"You're hot," he told her. With that, he unbuttoned her blouse and then smiled as her naked tits fell into his view. She, for her part, unzipped her jeans, eager to show him her moist pussy.

"With that" and "for her part" are attempts to smooth transitions that, in 99% of cases, are smoother without.

And with that, I, for my part, shall pointlessly transition to the next tip.

6. You Must be at Least this Literate to Post Stories

Writers should check THEIR dictionaries for correct spelling, or else THEY'RE going to look bad when they put THEIR stories out THERE. And not just them. YOU'RE going to need YOUR spelling correct as well. IT'S important that a word have ITS spelling checked.

7. Advertise Effectively

Literotica lets you write the story summary, which tells readers whether this is a story they want to check out. Too many authors will write a summery like this:

Pat and Chris do more than hold hands!

This tells us almost nothing. It suggests only that two people (Two women? Two men? One of each?) do something sexual (In a porn story, I would hope so!).

Tell readers what makes your story interesting. The relationship between the characters. The context of their actions.

At least tell readers the genders of the major players. If your story is a voyeurism story, tell us the genders of the watcher and of the person being watched. A reader who's in the mood for a man peeking at a woman is probably not in the mood for a woman peeking at a man. Likewise, if your story is group sex, is it a man with multiple women, or a woman with multiple men?

Here are examples of specific summaries that let a reader know if these are stories she wants to read:

A high school jock spies his favorite cheerleader changing.

Julia says she's straight, but Barbara plans to test that.

Can Betty seduce her pool boy?

It is often tempting for an author to want to surprise his readers and therefore avoid spoilers in the summary. But with thousands of stories to choose from, readers are likely to skip those stories with vague summaries and keep searching for something they know matches their taste.

8. Say "Said"

In writing dialogue tags, some writers fear the simplicity of "said," and they use in its place fancy words that prove distracting. Ex.:

"Can I fuck you?" he queried.

"You may," she preached.

He observed, "Your pussy is pretty."

"Thank you," she bellowed.

"I hope we don't get caught," he iterated.

"We won't," she enthused.

He verbalized, "Are you sure?"

"I am," she whined.

"How sure?" he harped.

She declared, "Very."

"How do you know?" he tittered.

"Trust me," she howled.

Just shoot me, the reader proffers.

Usually, you don't want to use the same word more than once or twice, but "said" is an exception. In a dialogue tag, readers skim over the word "said," reducing it to white noise. And that's a good thing, because it's not the important concept in the sentence. When you use other words, you distract the reader's attention from the important elements of who is speaking and what is being said.

9. Don't Start with a Curtain Call

Some writers start by giving each character a paragraph describing the character's face, body, and personality. This is boring. Why use paragraphs to describe characters we do not yet have reason to care about?

Personality should be revealed through action.

Bad:

Monica was shy.

Better:

Monica's face turned pink as Jim unbuttoned her jeans. "I can't believe we're doing this," she giggled.

Physical description can spice up a scene, but don't give it to us in one block. Ladle out the details as they become relevant.

Bad:

Monica had shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes. She had long, curvy legs.

Better:

Monica dipped her face down as she giggled, letting her brown hair veil her face for the moment. When her face resurfaced, Jim loved the spark in her blue eyes. He loved even more what he saw when he pulled off her jeans and drank in the sight of her long, curvy legs.

Better yet, perhaps, leave out physical details altogether. Let the reader imagine the characters as she pleases.

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