Welcome to Hobo's unofficial and amateur guide to writing sex and writing in general. It'll probably be shit, and there will be a couple mistakes, but that just means I've accurately simulated the act of having sex in a text guide about writing smut. So enjoy, feel free to ask me questions in the thread or through Pastebin notes if you can't find what you're looking for (that way I can both answer them and them add to the FAQ), and as is the old /hmofa/ motto: "Do not actually fuck dogs." First off, the articles written by people who actually have books published and make money doing this shit, along with maybe a personal note. Foreword: Turns out most erotic writers are women so there may be a bit of a paradigm problem in shifting how you think to understand what the author is going for and/or where they're coming from, and a LOT of these articles are focused on the idea that the reader themselves is trying to publish a book instead of simply writing smut for other anons. //// How to Write a Sex Scene - By Steve Almond https://www.utne.com/arts/how-to-write-a-sex-scene ))Steps 4, 5, and 7 are indispensable. Remember them, respect them. The Do's And Dont's Of Writing Erotic Fiction - By Elissa Wald https://litreactor.com/columns/the-dos-and-donts-of-writing-erotic-fiction 25 Humpalicious Steps For Writing Your First Sex Scene - By Delilah Dawson http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/04/30/25-humpalicious-steps-for-writing-your-first-sex-scene-by-delilah-s-dawson-author-of-wicked-as-she-wants/ )This URL is fucking terrible, holy shit. Bits that I think are distinctly important: 4, 5, 8, 14, and 16 How to Write a Good Sex Scene - by G. Doucette https://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-doucette/how-to-write-a-good-sex-s_b_4957087.html )I know, I know, >huffpost, but still. This is mostly for the people with a mental hurdle of actually writing about sex. Demystifying the dirty is a paramount to being able to confidently write about banging waifurs. You're going to have to get past writing 'It felt so good to be in her' or 'her pussy was tight' and actually describe to the reader what's happening. Double Feature links - by Susan Squires #1 http://writersinthestormblog.com/2014/06/sexual-tension-its-all-in-your-head/ )This is regarding creation sexual tension between two characters. Points 3 and 4 are pretty good to remember here. #2 http://writersinthestormblog.com/2014/07/lets-get-down-to-it-writing-the-sex-scene/ ) 8 brings up a good point. Watch some porn, maybe download a modern, hip version of the Kama Sutra. There is more to sex than doggy style and missionary. Shocking, I know. /// SHIT I ANSWERED IN A THREAD, FRESHLY COPY PASTED #1 - Scene Transitioning From Sexy to Outright Sex Q: I'm wondering how you transition from a lewder scene to a sex scene naturally. All my mock ups for stuff like that just feel...awkward. A: The quick and dirty explanation is that I try have a distinct 'this is where they're going to bone' place in the scene/setting. If the characters get to that location, it's go time. For example, in Treading Patience, it was Tinneal's bed. Not her room, but her bed specifically. They kissed, and it was obvious where things were leading, but when Anon got her on the bed, I'm certain a lot of reading anons finally went "IT'S HAPPENING!" It gives both you and the reader a goal. For the reader, it's to let them know things are about to go down. For you as the writer, that's your target. You need to get your characters from wherever they are to the designated sex spot that you have mapped out ahead of time. Once that's decided, now you've got to get them ready for the bangin' on the way there. Don't preemptively start the fuck; they can get handsy, strip each other, dirty talk, whatever, but nothing gets put into any hole or gets too hard of a squeeze until they've arrived at their destination. This is to give you space in the story to give the characters time to mentally accept what's about to happen. Regular, sensible people aren't porn actors. They don't just drop their pants and go at it. The transition from "I'm feeling horny" to "I need to bang, YESTERDAY" isn't a switch, it's a sliding scale. The trouble with this is that not all characters operate on the same scale. Tinneal needed to realize that yes, her husband was there to do the deed. However, in the case of Ariannis, she's already impulsive by nature. When she and Anon were on the futon, and Anon told her that she scares the shit of him (even though she turns him on), she liked that answer enough that she crawled over and helped herself to a piece of that pie. In that situation, it was Anon who was going "oh shit this is really happening." Qa: Ah, so if my story is set in an apartment, there needs to be a specific spot where the 2 are to initiate the scene, kinda like a waypoint in a videogame Aa: Eh, it sounds kind of nerdy when put like that, but yeah. Imagine it like a line (aw shit more nerd talk) between two points. You have the Point A where your characters currently are when things are getting spicy, and the Point B, where they're fucking like rabbits. Your goal is to have them ready to fuck like rabbits by the time they arrive at Point B. Point B isn't actually important, and Point A is even less so. It's the line that matters. Maybe she's the one pushing for sex, and is trying to goad him into doing it with her. Maybe he's describing all the things he's going to do to her over the phone as she's on the way home from work. Maybe they're confessing their mutual love for each other while holding hands while they hug their way to the air mattress on the floor of the home that they just bought together. Maybe he's got her pinned against the wall of a back alley, and they're grinding crotches together like they're trying to start a fucking forest fire until she pushes him off of her only to bend over on a dumpster two feet away. An easy way to make sure there is a smooth transition from lewd to outright lurid is a physical transition. It's really dumb, but it works like a street magician's slight of hand. -- #2 - Actually Writing a Sex Scene Q: I'm still very unsure of how to write lewd. I can imagien the entire scene in my head, from the emotions being displayed to the minor changes as things heat up... but I just can't write it down without it seeming wrong. A: It's kind of fucked, but my answer on how to write lewd is to seriously just write it. Especially if you already know what's going down. Get it written down, correct it like any other part of the story, fine tune it, and everything will be fine. Honestly that answer sounds like the 'just b urself' of writing advice, so here's a hot take. There is probably something mentally bothering you about writing porn. I don't know what it is, but I'm 90% sure that's what happening, because that's what happened to me back when I started ERPing in fucking, I dunno, 2008. Something about it just -feels- wrong to actively be writing a sex scene. Like you're doing something you're not supposed to. Well fuck that nonsense. You're going to write, it's going to be smut, and it's going to get done. The only thing that's changed from your 'regular' writing is that now you're actively trying to turn on the reader. Even if it's a story that's a mystery, in this particular scene you are practicing bonermancy rather than intrigue. Your strategy is to 1) Make things as steamy as you can manage. This is where you slot in the kinks, the five traditional senses, the emotion. 2) Make it realistic. Keep track of where limbs are, positions, how long they've been going at it, ect. You don't want to pull the reader out of the scene by making them ask "Wait, where did the ball gag come from?" or "Who the fuck talks like that while taking three dicks in the ass at once?" 3) Finally, make it read well. This is basic grammar, and by this point you've finished the act of actually writing the scene. Check your word choice here, try not to use the word 'tight' or 'wet' or 'throbbing' and other such word crimes too often. -- #3 - Commas and Perdue OWL Q: im still having issue (i think i do anyway) with commas and their placement A: The great thing about grammar questions is that I don't have to try and think about how to explain things at a basic level. There is an army of English teachers and professors who are doing that for me. Meet Perdue OWL, or the Online Writing Lab of Perdue University. Specifically, in order of links, the article on independent and dependent clauses, on punctuation in general, and a powerpoint presentation on comma usage. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/598/01/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/566/1/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/692/1/ Perdue OWL is the standard that college papers are judged on, and has become ubiquitous to the point that it might as well be the standard for any written work. No seriously, in my old tutoring lab we had a magazine rack that was nothing but printouts from this website on basically any English lesson someone might need to learn. They may not have made the rules, but they've practically chiseled them into stone slabs. As such, those three articles might as well be the laws of comma usage in the English language. ->Pastebin exclusive note: Perdue OWL is seriously a one stop shop for any basic English help. If you need help with more advanced topics such as word choice, or more plainly just creative writing, you're going to have to look elsewhere. But if you're struggling with how parts of the language and sentence structure work (or someone else is asking if English is your second language since your grasp on it is less than stellar), this is the place to brush up on things. -- #4 - Sentence Openers and Repeated Word Usage Q: I'm just as bad, as well as overusing the same few words to start any sentence >the you she so as it it's A: In green text you can kind of get away with that to some degree, but you should actively be figuring out different ways to refer to characters or describe ongoing actions. I'm certain at least two people have noticed, but when I refer to a female character, usually the waifur of the story, I have three ways: their name (Tinneal shuddered when...), 'she/her' (she began to wiggle in her seat), or their species (When things went quiet, a grin grew on the feline's face). You can also try to find more active language to diversify your sentences. Instead of >As the door opened, everyone turned their head to look Try >A groaning creak interrupted the mood, the shy attempt at opening of the door causing everyone to check who had arrived. And FINALLY, some words are considered "invisible" words. Things such as he, she, and say/said are all invisible to the reader until someone points it out or they stop to think about it. You can totally get away with repeating yourself if it's not as blatant and obvious as >The party really got started when... >The people there began... >And then the music rose up... >The noise was unbearable but... >The free flowing drinks made things... >The night started to be... If it's THAT bad, fix your shit. But if you can manage a variety of seven to ten ways to start a sentence without repeating yourself you've got something to work with. Those are just generic fall backs, though. Eventually you should start getting creative. ->Pastebin exclusive note: "Invisible words" directly to words that readers don't 'see' when reading. The most prominent examples are pronouns (he, she, his, her) and, most often, "said." You can use them as you please, over and over without worry. Spice things up when appropriate, but don't stress out by trying to find a variety of ways to announce who is speaking to keep from repeating yourself. The reason it bothers (You) is because you're typing it out, and are face to face with it. Readers phase over "he said" and "she said" without even mentally read it to themselves because that's just how written dialogue works. These two articles (http://murverse.com/invisible-words/ and http://www.novelmatters.com/2010/01/invisible-word_29.html) explains it in length in a manner more professionally presented than some digital vagabond's writing FAQ in a pastebin could manage. -- #5 - Mostly Rereading Your Own Stuff (Also Something About Editing) Q: How does one edit their own work, I'm really struggling here. A: I don't do it live, that's for sure. I finish what I'm writing and edit on the second pass. If you try to edit on a sentence by sentence basis you won't get shit done. Qa: How do you gather the autism to sit down and read your own garbage? Aa: >gather the autism I think you've confused discipline with autism. Proofreading and editing what you've written is part and parcel with writing, not an extra thing you do if you have the time for it. Writing and then not editing is like playing a sport but only knowing what to do when your team has the ball and being completely clueless what you're supposed to be doing when you're on defense. You're missing half the game, essentially. Qb: I mean autism, because I can't stop cringing while reading my shit. Ab: That just means your writing isn't at the level of being able to tell the stories you wish to write. That, or whatever you're writing is coming out like a thirteen year old's cross over fanfic that you thought you were better than. Either way a level of self awareness is necessary for self improvement, and you aren't where you want to be. At the moment it sounds like your real issue is with what you're originally writing and not actually with the editing. Though, if it helps with the motivation, after you finish writing and sit down to edit (hopefully at least two hours after you've stopped writing), edit and proofread like you were about to tear some illiterate motherfucker apart and shame them into the shadow realm. Destroy past you's literary asshole with as much red ink as you can manage. If you're using Google Docs you can go into suggestion mode which leaves hovering and sidebar notes over the writing, or you can take it to the next level and print your shit out and actually take a red pen to it all. This is going to teach you your bad habits by bringing them to the forefront of your mind every time you edit, until you stop making those mistakes in the first place. ->Pastebin exclusive note: This doesn't get said enough, but if you're doing your own editing then it's best to wait AT LEAST a couple hours after you finish your first draft. If you hit that final line and immediately scroll back up to start your edit, all you're going to do is start going mad over how you're supposed to connect plot point A with plot point B to plot point C and wrangle it all in to the epilogue that you JUST wrote. By disconnecting from your work even for a little while, you step back from what you've written and can return as a reader rather than a writer. Some if not most /hmofa/ writers generally operate on a FIRST DRAFT ONLY DRAFT system, but I assure you running your writing through multiple drafts will increase the quality of your work. -- #6 - On Meandering While Writing [These answers aren't mine; I was too busy doing RL shit at the time to answer. Still, the answers are worth reading, and I give credit where I can.] Q. How to add detail without sounding like im babbling about nothing. A-Strong: add detail in passing have the MC take note of things and whats going on A-Unknown Anon: Not him, but if you're worried about redundant information, only include information crucial to visually fleshing out a scenario (Describing enough of the layout of a room to be able to understand how characters are moving around in the space, aspects unique to a object, etc.) or that pertain to the plot (Aspects of a characters attire or demeanor that play in at some later point in time). Doing this while functionally just fine, lends itself to the same trap a /lot/ of movies and other stories get into: everything becomes predictable because you only show things pertaining to the story as a whole, so every element shown eventually has to have a purpose that by the last third if it hasn't already been used is pretty easy to piece together how the rest of the plot goes down long before it actually happens. A-DecoFox: Not him either, but Imagery is for mood. The information in your detail might not be important to the plot, but if it's in there, it should at least be making us feel a certain way. Rambling about nothing starts when details aren't providing either, or if you have more detail then is necessary to make us feel a certain way. I usually only describe thickly right after changing scenes that also change the mood. Changing scenes that don't change the mood usually involve a little, but a lot less. By and large though, once you describe a scene, you're not going to need to do it again in the same scene. Focus on details of characters instead, particularly when their feelings change. Basically: >Tell me a lot if you're changing what I see and how I feel >Tell me a little if you're only changing that I see >Otherwise just tell me about changes in the characters For the most part, you only need detail when something changes. Don't describe the same thing twice. That's how I do things, anyway. T. Deco -- #7 - Showing Not Telling: A How-To Spurned on by a chapter of an audiobook that had me replaying it at least three times, here's what I can assist with this astral art of not sounding like a police report. Large pieces of this will be heavy paraphrasing from Sol Stein's Stein On Writing. Showing rather than telling is the idea of involving the reader in scene unfolding in front of them rather than giving them a play by play. It's also a manner of storytelling in which you don't treat the reader like an idiot who can't put two and two together. Both of these aspects are yours to harvest so long as you just keep your head on a swivel and avoid the potholes of lazy writing. Stories become both vivid with more chances to fire off little hooks to grip into the reader's interest as well as far less dry by not sounding like it was written by those elephant looking things from Mass Effect. Lets start with the first bit, involving the reader. Just for an example, we'll go with a scenario: We have an Anon who is trying to pull something out of the mud. Telling: >Anon walked to where he threw the ball. He leaned down and stuck his hand into the mud it landed in. The wet dirt stuck to him as he pulled out the baseball. He felt lonely and sad. Now if we were standing in the same room, maybe watching this unfold side by side as we looked out a window, we could both agree this is a good synopsis of a guy playing catch by himself Milhouse style. Also we somehow developed the ability to innately know exactly which emotion someone else was feeling. There is nothing left to chance or speculation here, and the writing is as dry as sun baked plywood. Showing >Anon's jog had the step of a man not sure if the next one was worth the energy. Before he even reached it he could see the off white of his ball sticking halfway out of the brown puddle. His lot in life reaffirmed by Mother Nature, Anon bent over to grab his ball. The mud didn't fight his hand as he dug in, but the wet dirt wouldn't give its prize away without resistance. There was a wet pop as the ball came free along with a weak splash of angered earth that left its mark on most of his hand. Anon let out a sigh as he stood up. The ball didn't even know how good it had it; nobody would bother picking him out of the mud these days. Look at that, all snazzy and filled with pizzazz. Now technically these two things tell the same story of a person doing the same thing, but this second version gives details and perspective without sitting our reader down with a fucking textbook and dossier of the situation. With just these changes we've Shown that the Anon: -Is tired in some manner, either mentally, physically, or both -Thinks the world is against him -Believes there is no one in his corner And we did all this without having to break it down for the reader with a power point presentation. I'd bold this if I could but since I can't: ++++ YOU SHOULD NEVER, EVER OUTRIGHT STATE A CHARACTER'S EMOTIONAL STATE. JUST DON'T. IF THEY'RE SAD, MAKE THEM DO THINGS IN A SAD WAY. IF THEY'RE MAD, THEY ACT IN A WAY A MAD PERSON WOULD. YOU DON'T GET TO LEAVE IT AT "HEARING HER STORY MADE ME MAD AT THE BAD GUYS." ++++ Don't go overboard and get too verbose, but there are rarely any cases where someone only "just does the thing" or a thing "just happens." Maybe they're over enthusiastic, or bored to death, or are razor blade sharp professional at what they do. Maybe the event is so subtle hardly anyone but our ever vigilant narrating perspective noticed, or with such an cacophony that it made everyone in the tri-state area stop what they were doing to figure out what the fuck they just heard. These are chances to breath life into your story's world, not an eye witness account for court records. There is another point I wanted to make about not having characters telling each other things they should already know just to bring the reader into the loop, but my energy levels are tapering off. This section is to be continued, I suppose.