Erotic Enhancements

By
Thomasnovels

I blame my proclivity of writing erotic stories on my childhood reading habits. I was a voracious reader. I read anything I could get my hands on. If I wasn’t allowed a book at the table, I’d read the cereal box. (Although, I recently found a report card where the teacher informed my parents I needed to read more at home while my mom was always complaining about me having my nose stuck in a book.) I read school assignments (no sex). I devoured ghost stories (lovers’ triangles, lost loves but no sex). Under my covers at night, I consumed the smutty pulp novels my older cousins smuggled in to me (lots of very kinky sex). I laughed through the true love story magazines my mother (yes, the same one) bought me. She thought they would teach me that bad things (sex) happened to girls who go off with (poor) guys. I read gothic romances where good things (sex) happened to girls who went off with (rich) guys. Then I discovered mysteries where sex was never mentioned but it could be used for a motive for criminal acts, reuniting lovers, revenge or any scenario you can imagine.

My love of writing took hold somewhere around high school when a teacher assigned one of those writing exercises that goes, “This is the first sentence and this is the last sentence. Now write the story in between the two”. I loved it and discovered my thoughts could flow through my fingers onto the keys (typewriter keys … it was a long time ago) and out onto the page. I never stopped writing but life and the need to earn a living (or whatever excuse I could come up with) always seemed to be in the way. I piddled at it for years. (Writers say this is a good way to learn the craft, while others say this is the stage where you’re writing all the crap out of your system before the good stuff starts to flow. The person going through it thinks their brain should stop pissing around and produce a New York Times Bestsellers List novel.) I didn’t think I was accomplishing anything until I tried to move and picked up the filing cabinets I had filled with words. I was producing pages (and killing small forests) if nothing else.

I tried those gothic romances I had loved but my female character kept mouthing off to the lead guy then would wander off and do her own thing. I could write a great plot and who-done-it mystery but the characters just sat around sipping tea, talking to each other and didn’t do much of anything else. I attempted romances but the women refused to be submissive and wouldn’t heave their breasts at anyone. My ghost stories sounded like those from the nineteenth century where you just want to tell them to knock it off with the flowery language and get on with the story. The science fiction I wrote … well, you don’t even want to know about those.

I finally got serious about my writing for three reasons: I had out-read everybody else and there was nothing new to read, at my advanced middle-age I figured I had better get started or give up and the voices in my head wouldn’t leave me alone until I told their stories. I thought back through all the thousands of books I’ve read to see what I could remember and what I remembered were the characters’ relationships, interactions and dialogues. Oh, I know the blue carbuncle is in the Christmas goose but I would rather read about Amelia trying to pull one over on … trying to solve a mystery with her husband Emerson.

Then I asked myself if I had unlimited funds (I did not) what type of book would I buy. (I had five thousand … books not dollars … when I moved.) What kind of book would I pay full price for just to have and hold and read. (I love the feel of books. Shit. I’m an eBook writer. Forget I said that.) And when I couldn’t find a book to read that satisfied that story craving, what were the stories I told myself in my head until I could get my next fix. And the answers were … I would give anything (okay, a lot) to have those smutty, trashy, kinky novels back I hid from my mother (and could never find again) and of course the stories I told myself right before sleep were … well … sexual fantasies.

As a reader, I hated it when characters went and hid behind a closed door (or the nearest bush). I wanted to know what was happening. As a writer I decided to add a little erotica (defined as sex) to my mysteries (the genre that’s my first love). Suddenly, characters got up off their butts and started interacting. Really interacting. Adding sex created emotions, feelings, relationships, conflicts and resolutions. My sex scenes were very descriptive and peppered throughout the story. The basic who-done-it stayed the same but I found a little spice added to the mix helped to fully develop my characters into real (and much happier) people.

How two people (or three or more) relate to each other during sex helps the reader (and the writer and the characters) understand the full realm of their relationship. Sex is a natural part (desire, craving) of life and we all (hopefully) do it. I had been leaving the sex out of the story and that was like leaving the potatoes out of the roast beef and carrots. It was not a complete meal and didn’t please the appetite. Everyone skips the carrots but the potatoes are an essential part of the story.

The words flowed, the stories got written and the books got published. Sex saves the day. Rejoicing. Swinging from the chandelier. Celebrating. Only … well … ah … I should warn writers of premature (add sexually related words to text) spending of the royalty check. I’ve had publishers tell me “Sorry, way too much sex”, “Sorry, sex is way too weird”, “Sorry, not enough sex” and my all time favorite … “Sorry, had to read too far to get to the sex”. You can’t please everybody so please yourself (sexual allusion).