In late September of 2021, I enjoyed the first part of a two-step dance. Writing erotica is fun, and it is the first step.  However, even before you turn it over to your professional editor, and I truly hope you do take the time to do so, you must have it right.

MY WRITING PROCESS:

First, I take the idea for the novel and do a rough outline.  This gives me an idea of the number of characters, the locations, and what the action is going to be.

Second, I take the fleshed-out idea and create a full outline. I use Plottr for this. It helps me create the character sketches, the locales, and then the main plot.  After I have an idea for the main plot, I start adding the character arc scenes.  Most of the time these get blended into the plot – I’ll get to that later.

Third, I let it sit for a few days.  If I look at it too soon, I know what it should say, and I miss what it does say.  Also, by waiting, I get a reader’s perspective instead of the writer’s.  This is important because I write for an audience that knows erotica well, and I have to make sure I’m creating a storyline that the reader is going to enjoy.

Fourth, I do all the necessary edits to the plot line, the sex line, and the character arcs.  With this done, I add the villain of the story and make sure to keep it interesting.  Once it is all done, I move it from Plottr to Scrivener, and also to a word file.

Now I’m ready to write.

WRITING EROTICA IS FUN:

This is the fun part. I take the outline, break it up into one scene per word document. I use the header to keep track of the chapter and scene, and the blurb for the action that takes place in that scene.  The last line is the list of characters I’m using in the scene.

In book two of A Stag-Vixen Journey, I war ready to start writing 70,000 words in October of 2021.  I took my trusty Surface Pro, and every day at lunch I wrote at least one scene.

I added characters and took away scenes and chapters that no longer made sense to the project.  Since writing the first book of the Stag-Vixen Journey: First Tentative Steps, I knew the main characters.  The difficulty in At Our Own Pace is that I chose to give Helen Abramson the lead role.  I’d explored her point of view in the first book, in a few chapters, but she leads us through the second story.

Her character arc is the key to the second story.  We saw Mike’s arc in the first book, and now I had to give Helen equal time.

EDITING EROTICA IS BRUTAL:

In December of 2021 I finished the fun part.  A delicious gathering of friends.  I had a lot of fun writing the last few chapters and now it was time to take a break.  Once the holidays were behind me, and I had my editing outline I grunted.  Yup, literally grunted – more than once.

Words for me come easy (this post is a case in point).  Remember from above that my target was 70,000 words?  I set it at 70,000 because I thought that way, I’d finish under 80,000 and I’d have an easier time editing.  I ported everything back into Scrivener and checked the full word count.  I came in at a lovely 92,000 words.

Now you know why I grunted.  I have to take out at least 17,000 words to hit my real original taget.

Do you know how hard it is to delete words?  Every word I wrote had a purpose. It moves the story forward. It gave the reader a deeper view into the characters and the plot line.  No!!!  No!!! I hate removing my words.

Ah, but alas, the genre does not like works that are overly long.  At 75,000 words, as a new writer, I’m pushing the limits.

Editing:

During my various edits for the first book, I set up a template.  It was useful, but a bit cumbersome. This time I cleared out my comments and focused on current word count, target word count, edited word count.  This spreadsheet lets me see where the biggest work has to be done. 

I started going through the changes and found that there is a key section, early in the book, that is over 6,000 words.  I read through it, took out what I could, and still, it has 6,000 words.  That caused me to re-think the project.  To save the set-up section, I have to cut an additional 4,000 words from the rest of the book.

I’m now 27 chapters into the re-write and edit of the novel’s 46 chapters.  The new process is painful but successful.  It is painful because on Saturday I had to look at a lovely sex scene and ask three tough questions. First, does the scene move the plot forward significantly.  Second, does the scene move the character arc forward significantly. Thirds, can I condense this into a few paragraphs and include them in the previous or next scene.

Two-thousand words were about to be sent to the trash.  I don’t know any writer who would be happy about that.  The scene was about Helen and Mike reconnecting after Helen’s date.  It was tender. It was emotional, and it was real.  New couples in the Stag-Vixen lifestyle need this reconnection. 

It was two thousand words, that did not move the plot forward, did not add to the character arc, and I could include the important parts of it in a summary paragraph in the next scene.

I moved it to the trash.

WHAT’S NEXT?

I’m on a self-imposed deadline.  I want to have all three books done by December 2022.  I have other fun projects in the WIP pile that I want to get to.  Also, if the publisher gets all three, they may decide to publish them, and that should give them – and me – a nice trilogy to be out in 2023.  To accomplish the goal, I have to have book two to my editor by March 1.

WHY PROFESSIONAL EDITING?

 Writing erotica is fun, but editing is best left to the professionals.  There is far more to editing than catching typographical errors.  The continuity of the story is critical, and the consistency of the characters can break suspension of disbelief in a single sentence.

The cost is always a limiting factor.  The problem is that as a new author, I’m not good at making sure that all my characters are believable, that the main characters are faithful to the story arc, and that the sex scenes are neither boring, nor physically impossible.  One more thing to through into the mix. Sentence structure has to be simple, clear, and unobtrusive. 

Sad for me, I tend to write grammatically correct yet very complex sentences.  They are a distraction in Romance, Erotic Romance, or Family Drama.  Words should be felt, and not seen.  As the reader of the story, the words must convey images to your mind and get out of the way. Read that again, and you’ll get my point. Any time someone has to stop and decipher the sentence or the paragraph, they are ripped from the story.  At this point you have two possible paths.  First, they’ll put the book down.  Second, they’ll make a mental note, and the next time they’ll pass up your titles.  Neither is good.