It's actually kind of a strange feeling, liking one's life.
Or rather, it's strange to suddenly realise that that's how you feel.
This is by way of being a placeholder; I shall elaborate at some point soon.
Or rather, it's strange to suddenly realise that that's how you feel.
This is by way of being a placeholder; I shall elaborate at some point soon.
One of the best writing tips I got about writing sex (which also applies to writing violence, for whatever you want to read into that) was to do two exercises with any sex scene you write.
Firstly, take the scene, chop it up into sentences, phrases or words, jumble it about with any similar scene from another book, make the necessary name changes and then plug it back into the story you got it from. Has this appreciably affected how it works in the story?
Secondly, repeat the exercise, but swap it with a different sex scene from the same story. Again, does the story suffer at all? Do either of the scenes?
If any of the answers are "no", then you've got some rewriting to do.
The point of this, of course, being that the scenes shouldn't be interchangeable: just because it's about people fucking doesn't mean it shouldn't be serving the story with something that advances the plot, something that shows something new about the characters or the setting, whatever. The important thing is that the story not be in stasis while the fucking goes on. Perhaps the writers of bad erotica have lost track of this?
What I was about to type here was "on the other hand, maybe the rules are a little different in a piece specifically designed as erotica", but on reflection I'm not sure I'm convinced of that. Does intending to arouse free you from obligations to storytelling? I wouldn't buy that argument from a horror writer who made a similar claim about the intent to scare, for example.
If you could find a way to disseminate this wisdom to the masses, I would sing your praises to my dying day.