How to turn them on - creating great erotic content

[Doorknob22]

While I’m still a novice adult game developer, I do have more than 20 years of experience in writing erotica, even selling my books online for the last 3 years. This article is an article I wrote and posted on my site about writing erotic stories but in my opinion the principles are relevant to all erotic content: stories, stills, videos, illustrations and, of course, games.

=========================================================

This article deals with the three elements that contribute to creating erotica in general and excellent sex stories in particular.

Note A : In this article I will use examples of a man and a woman but they are relevant to any gender combination.

Note B : writing erotica is a practice close to my heart but most of what I write here is relevant to all erotic creation : stories, films, illustrations, games, etc. '

Let's start with a brief text of two people fucking on a bed.

She sniffles while she rides me, hot and slippery and tight and lush. Gradually, the sniffles change and become soft sobs. Wet downstairs and sobbing upstairs, I’d laugh if I didn’t fear it would spoil my fuck. She snuggles with me as she cries like a little girl and fucks herself, hungry for the only two things that are stable in her life right now: the reassuring valley between my neck and shoulder, and my cock.

A few moments later I am so hungry for her that I get up impatiently and turn her over with her back on the bed. Her crying red eyes open in amazement as I start to fuck her hard and fast and her pussy responds accordingly, producing slippery, wet sounds that fill the small room. The horniness seems to increase her crying and she grabs my pillow, burying her face in it and sobbing into it while being fucked, her ankles gripping my calves hungrily.

I stop the fuck, steady my breathing and watch her beneath me, sweaty and sensual. Her belly is like a flat hill and her breasts are almost as flat, decorated with my bite/suck marks from last night, the small pink crowns of her areolas with the sweet nipples at their center. Her shoulders are thin and delicate and her neck is fair, also decorated with two or three distinct hickies. Anyone who’ll see her outside will know I have fucked her and that turns me on. When she feels the fucking stopped she slowly removes the pillow from her face, peeking at me like a girl hiding under a blanket. Her face is flushed and her blonde hair is disheveled, sweat-glued to her face. Only now do I notice two or three cute freckles on her upturned nose and a tiny scar on her upper lip.

This section is a technical section. We know nothing about the couple: not their ages, just a little bit of what they look like, nothing about the relationship between them or how they got into this situation. And still it’s a turn on.

The equivalent of this scene is a well-shot pornographic scene with aesthetic actors and good lighting and sound ,or and erotic illustration with beautiful models naked in bed. There are those for whom such scenes do nothing, but the porn industry thrives on such films so probably many can make do with the technical foundation of the media alone.

And this is the first foundation for creating good erotica. The technique. Aesthetic characters, good descriptions, lighting, sound, illustrations, syntax and grammar: everything that conveys the pure fuck experience. This element can also be called the pornographic element .

This element alone is enough to create hot scenes, provided it is well made. Take a beautiful girl with big tits, put her on a bed, add a handsome and muscular dude with a respectable sized cock and the result can be very sexy whether you’re illustrating, writing an erotic story, developing a game or shooting a live action scene.

I will now add a few more sentences to the scene I wrote earlier.

"You’re my favorite teacher." She gasps beneath me.

"I know." I say, moving my cock inside her. "And I'm really risking my career with what we're doing now."

“Yeah, and it’s turning me on."

What these sentences add to the paragraphs I started with is a gap between the characters: they are a student and her teacher and they shouldn't be having sex. There is a gap between them. The greater the gap between the characters (socially, culturally, religiously , etc. ) the bigger thrill closing the gap introduces into the scene. For example:

1. If the characters were a married man and woman, there is no gap between them and so the scene would have relied on the technical (or pornographic) element only. That does not mean it wasn’t hot, but the scene would have one less "engine" to drive it.
2. If the characters were a two singles with no relationship between them, say two co-workers, the gap between them would have increased slightly (because at the beginning of the story they are not a couple) and so is the reader's satisfaction when we get to the sex scene .
3. And what if the characters were from different cultures, social positions or religions? The gap between them is much wider now, and again: so is the satisfaction of the reader when the sex finally takes place.
4. The ultimate (common) gap is incest stories. The cultural gap between the characters is huge but when the author succeeds in bridging the gap, many readers will not forget the sex scenes.

In filmed pornography, for example, interracial scenes (usually blacks and whites) rely heavily on this implicit gap: whites usually symbolize a higher social status and in many cultures interracial relationships (especially between black men and white women) are frowned upon. In the erotica written by British artists, the class gap is often present in stories, usually in which a lower class man seduces a woman of the upper class.

The challenge of employing the gap element stems from the difficulty of writing it realistically. In order to convince the reader that the story is realistic and to help the readers suspend their disbelief, the writer has to invest a lot into realism of the characters.

On the one hand, the character’s behavior should be realistic and the reader should believe that the characters are the ones they represent but on the other hand, if the characters do behave as expected of them and there is a big gap between them, the effort to bridge the gap is a considerable one.

The two gross mistakes that many erotic writers make are :

1. An impatient attempt to bridge the gap between characters which are expected to have a gap between them. For example : an incest story in which the mother happily jumps into her son's bed shortly after the story begins .
2. Unreliable character building. For example : an ultra religious woman who does not behave like one.

It could be argued that these two mistakes are basically the same mistake that stems from a crude and impatient attempt to “get into action already”. It is important to clarify that a well written sex scene can still be hot even if the gap is not bridged in a realistic manner, but it will miss an important erotic element if the two characters which the reader expect a gap to exist between, suddenly bridge this gap because the author impatiently wanted to get them to fuck already.

So we have two elements : the technical element and the gap between the characters. I will now demonstrate the third.

"You don’t seem to be concerned by the fact that I'm not on the pill." She says, her knees pressed to her shoulders and her feet on either side of my head. I have already came twice in the past hour and this question alone brings me closer to the third peak.

"Not really." I gasp, continuing to fuck her deep and good.

"You're dying to get me pregnant, huh? Your young, sexy student?”

"Maybe...probably..." I admit.

The third element (or the second and a half, I'm still not sure if it's an element in itself) is the Fetish. The fetish is an element that exists in a pornographic media (again : story, video, game, image , etc. ) whose very existence is exciting to some readers. For example: big breasts, anal sex, leather clothes, incest or in the example above: impregnation.

The fetish has an interesting attribute: the more it appeals to a broader common denominator (for example : blonde hair, teacher - student relationship, big breasts, etc.) the weaker the erotic reaction it evokes but also less antagonism from readers who are not into this fetish. On the other hand, the more a fetish refers to a narrower common denominator (for example : besitality, incest, etc.) the bigger the thrill for this fetish’s followers but the chance to antagonizse or repulse readers who are not into this fetish increases as well. Some readers/watchers/players will be indifferent to a "strong" fetish but others will not be able to enjoy the scene/story if it is present.

Let’s summarize.

In order to create sexy and hot content, it's enough for a sex scene to be technically excellent. Attractive characters, good descriptions, syntax and grammar, good illustrations and you have an exciting scene. To double and even triple the level of excitement for the reader, one needs to add a gap between the characters and invest in closing this gap: the characters need to be believable and the process of closing the gap realistic. Adding a fetish is another erotic multiplier but it must be used with consideration because some of the stronger fetishs might turn off some of your readers/viewers/players, so you should take this into account when introducing them.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

Very interesting. Still a budding game dev but one of the main driving forces for me is to understand and test the theories that lay underneath adult porn games. I've just finished writing a sex scene, but maybe you could talk about one aspect I am unsure of and that is the pacing. I try to write long sex scenes (2k words) but I don't understand how to judge if something will fatigue the audience who's busy jerking it. It's 2k words because I'm aiming for 10 minute jerk sessions and the average reading speed is 200words/minute. Keep in mind, that 2k words is just dirty talk, no descriptions, as instead of using prose to describe the scene, the images do it for us in a game.

 

[Doorknob22]

Very interesting. Still a budding game dev but one of the main driving forces for me is to understand and test the theories that lay underneath adult porn games. I've just finished writing a sex scene, but maybe you could talk about one aspect I am unsure of and that is the pacing. I try to write long sex scenes (2k words) but I don't understand how to judge if something will fatigue the audience who's busy jerking it. It's 2k words because I'm aiming for 10 minute jerk sessions and the average reading speed is 200words/minute. Keep in mind, that 2k words is just dirty talk, no descriptions, as instead of using prose to describe the scene, the images do it for us in a game.

I'm afraid we're talking about two different state of mind here. When writing a story, I will never release anything less than 3000 words unless I'm specifically going for a flash fiction. But the sex itself is rarely more than 3-4 paragraphs, the rest is buildup, the element I refer to as "the gap" in my article.

Knowing almost nothing about your game, I would suggest investing more into the buildup and creating tension than the actual sex. The more you invest into the buildup, into bridging the gap, the more the players will care about what's going on. If there's no gap or no serious bridging of the gap, what your players will get is just descriptions/animations/images of people boning.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

I'm afraid we're talking about two different state of mind here. When writing a story, I will never release anything less than 3000 words unless I'm specifically going for a flash fiction. But the sex itself is rarely more than 3-4 paragraphs, the rest is buildup, the element I refer to as "the gap" in my article.

Knowing almost nothing about your game, I would suggest investing more into the buildup and creating tension than the actual sex. The more you invest into the buildup, into bridging the gap, the more the players will care about what's going on. If there's no gap or no serious bridging of the gap, what your players will get is just descriptions/animations/images of people boning.

Yeah, I guess we are talking about two different things here. You're talking about the set up and build up to the sex scene, while I'm more interested in the actual sex scene. I understand the importance of that set up and that it makes up a majority of the content of the story (my 2000 words are for the sex scene of a 12000 word length episode). You talk about "the gap" which I see as basically the major point of interest and conflict for sex with a character. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you are insinuating this gap disappears or resolves immediately once your characters start bumping uglies, which is why I think you mention your sex scenes are short (3-4 paragraphs). I'm of the mind that you can extend this gap into your sex scene and that you can write that gap in a way where it isn't resolved so prematurely. For example, in an incest story, the taboo nature of the act doesn't vanish completely once a father's dick enters his daughter's vagina, nor is it impossible for either party to further develop conflicting thoughts about sex with the other. Their actions and dialogue, and even external forces, can show this conflict of thought while they're having sex. That's where the 2000 words in my sex scene come from. It's not just 2000 words of random dirty talk, rather it's of the characters attempting to address that gap all the while remaining relevant to the sexual act at hand. I'm so adamant against short sex scenes, especially in the adult games space, because I've had plenty of experiences where developers do a good job of dragging out that tension, of building up that "gap", only for the actual sex, the end goal of all that teasing, to be short and unsatisfying. A short sex scene just feels a lot to me like those action-adventure stories that build up to one massive epic battle, only for that battle to end before it started.

I guess my original inquiry about the pacing in sex scenes is irrelevant now, but in case you were curious, let me put it in another way. If erotic stories were like action adventure movies (sex scenes => battle scenes), then I want to learn how to write a long battle (sex) scene in a way that doesn't fatigue the audience.

 

[Sphere42]

Worth noting that mismanaging the "gap" as you call it can yield a net negative result, for me anyway. A generic childhood romance doujin is far better than the exact same thing with the girl's dialogue during the sex scene changed from "ah!", "more!" to "no!", "don't!".

Alternatively the "gap" and "fetish" aspects can contradict each other or otherwise overlap. I can definitely enjoy a black woman having sex with a white man. I don't identify with the taboo but I can certainly see how it would enhance the sex/romance if I'm immersed in the setting beforehand. But if the sex scene itself constantly repeats "black pussy" (or more commonly "Big Black Cock" which at least is closer to factually accurate) I just want to slap the author for being a racist douchebag. Needless to say almost everything tagged as "interracial" falls into that last category.

 

[Baka plays]

I'm a noob when it comes to write erotica in a foreign language but this meme was all i could think of after reading the first few paragraphs:

 

[Laikhent]

Very interesting. Still a budding game dev but one of the main driving forces for me is to understand and test the theories that lay underneath adult porn games. I've just finished writing a sex scene, but maybe you could talk about one aspect I am unsure of and that is the pacing. I try to write long sex scenes (2k words) but I don't understand how to judge if something will fatigue the audience who's busy jerking it. It's 2k words because I'm aiming for 10 minute jerk sessions and the average reading speed is 200words/minute. Keep in mind, that 2k words is just dirty talk, no descriptions, as instead of using prose to describe the scene, the images do it for us in a game.

In your place I would just take a look at the pacing of some successful games.

I'm not much of a reader, so maybe 2k words for me is overkill, but this does not mean that's the case for the majority of your audience.

You can also open a pool just to get a feel of what ppl prefer. Even though the pool won't necessarily give you the best answer, it's better than nothing. But again, if in doubt, why not just copy "proven" pacing of successful games?

 

[Mimir's Lab]

But again, if in doubt, why not just copy "proven" pacing of successful games?

Like I said, I like the theory behind it all so I'm partly curious about venturing into unknown territory but also, I'm not quite happy with the pacing of those said successful games and think there's definitely room to improve. They might be "proven" now but it might be because there hasn't been anything to challenge those ideas, enough to get people to think that maybe those proven implementations might not have been that effective after all. For example, many adult games from a few years ago that you would have touted as the best back then don't hold up against games from today and that's because each new generation of games raises the potential of what you, the audience, can expect from these games. A few years ago, you could make a game with no animations and that was the norm. Now if you release a game without animations, you're subpar. I see copying someone else's "proven" pacing as potentially stagnating the further potential of games. If everyone just kept copying currently successful stuff, you'd eventually get bored of it all because you start to see the pattern. I'm interested in making an enjoyable game but I am probably more interested in further pushing the envelope of what can make these games enjoyable.

All that said, I'm all for smart experimentality. If I can theorize about the impact of changes I can make to the formula using proof from other's failures or successes without having to put in much effort on my part, then all the better.

 

[Laikhent]

Like I said, I like the theory behind it all so I'm partly curious about venturing into unknown territory but also, I'm not quite happy with the pacing of those said successful games and think there's definitely room to improve. They might be "proven" now but it might be because there hasn't been anything to challenge those ideas, enough to get people to think that maybe those proven implementations might not have been that effective after all. For example, many adult games from a few years ago that you would have touted as the best back then don't hold up against games from today and that's because each new generation of games raises the potential of what you, the audience, can expect from these games. A few years ago, you could make a game with no animations and that was the norm. Now if you release a game without animations, you're subpar. I see copying someone else's "proven" pacing as potentially stagnating the further potential of games. If everyone just kept copying currently successful stuff, you'd eventually get bored of it all because you start to see the pattern. I'm interested in making an enjoyable game but I am probably more interested in further pushing the envelope of what can make these games enjoyable.

All that said, I'm all for smart experimentality. If I can theorize about the impact of changes I can make to the formula using proof from other's failures or successes without having to put in much effort on my part, then all the better.

I see now.

Well, for me, I was never bothered by short sex scenes. I normally would just stop when the character is about to orgasm and fap from that point. If in renpy, I often rollback to the image that I find more arousing when I see that I reached the end of the sex dialogue.

About long dialogues, sometimes I'm more patient and read everything, and there are times when I'm more horny and I end up just skipping the dialogue to reach the point I want.

Personally, I prefer the shorter ones but, as I said before, I'm not much of a reader. I think the optimal length is probably just dependent on the type of ppl that play your game.

 

[anne O'nymous]

She sniffles while she rides me, hot and slippery and tight and lush. Gradually, the sniffles change and become soft sobs. Wet downstairs and sobbing upstairs, I’d laugh if I didn’t fear it would spoil my fuck. She snuggles with me as she cries like a little girl and fucks herself, hungry for the only two things that are stable in her life right now: the reassuring valley between my neck and shoulder, and my cock.

A few moments later I am so hungry for her that I get up impatiently and turn her over with her back on the bed. Her crying red eyes open in amazement as I start to fuck her hard and fast and her pussy responds accordingly, producing slippery, wet sounds that fill the small room. The horniness seems to increase her crying and she grabs my pillow, burying her face in it and sobbing into it while being fucked, her ankles gripping my calves hungrily.

I stop the fuck, steady my breathing and watch her beneath me, sweaty and sensual. Her belly is like a flat hill and her breasts are almost as flat, decorated with my bite/suck marks from last night, the small pink crowns of her areolas with the sweet nipples at their center. Her shoulders are thin and delicate and her neck is fair, also decorated with two or three distinct hickies. Anyone who’ll see her outside will know I have fucked her and that turns me on. When she feels the fucking stopped she slowly removes the pillow from her face, peeking at me like a girl hiding under a blanket. Her face is flushed and her blonde hair is disheveled, sweat-glued to her face. Only now do I notice two or three cute freckles on her upturned nose and a tiny scar on her upper lip.

I understand that it's a text used to illustrate your saying but, er... Sorry to be abrupt, but what is this exactly ? It have nothing to do with what you're saying afterward.

Here's an aesthetic revision of the exact same scene. I write it on the fly, so it will be far to be perfect ; it will surely have some grammatical errors or inconstancy, and perhaps few words that my brain messed up while translating from my native language:
"She's riding me, her hot and wet body moving up and down to the hypnotic cadence of her rising lust. She's dancing on top of me, a lascivious dance to the sound of her breathing. Up, she's purring ; is it the satisfaction of the pleasure, now flowing back , or the anticipation of the wave that will incessantly renew it, only her know. Down, she breath out, or perhaps is she expiring ; after all, isn't orgasm called "little death" in French ? Then come the climax of her rhythm, this moment when all air left her body in an instant. A moment of both pure pleasure and deception ; she can't go down anymore, going up again as if, next time, she'll achieve to fill herself up to the deepness of her soul.
It seem to works, slowly, with her speed increasing, her breathing turn into crying. Moans of pleasure are generally an indescribable sound, half way from cry and laugh, but not with her ; she chose her side, pleasure make her cry. But it's not her eyes that turn wetter any passing second with those cries. I would laugh, if it wasn't the fear to spoil the moment. It would be a shame to disturb her journey to the sky. Suddenly, she snuggles against me, silencing in the valley that forms between my neck and shoulder, the crying little girl she became ; using this comforting place to hide her shyness. She's hungry, hungry for the only piece of stability in her life right now, the only tangible thing in the whole universe ; the thing she's lusting for, more and more with each movement she make, my cock.

I could let her continue for hours, but she isn't the only one to be hungry ; not the only one to want more, way more. Without warning, why lost time talking in such instant, I get up and turn her over. Her back haven't touched the bed yet, that already her legs are spreading, her arms opening ; silent exhortation to join her, to join in her. What gentleman would deceive a woman by declining such invitation ? Not waiting more, I enter in her hot and pulsing loving cave. Her eyes, crying red, are open in surprise, amazement, and pure delight, as I try to fulfill every men's dream, going back, hard and fast, to the original matrix. As sharing my desire, wanting to welcome me where every life start, her pussy is responding to my moves, more slippery than ever. And the dance start again. A dance where I am, this time, the bandmaster ; frenzied ballet on a symphony of wet sounds on cry major.
While the melody of her effervescent excitement fill the room, she hastily grabs a pillow, burying her face in it. Did she felt the need to muffle her voice, by fear that, once totally filled by the sound of her pleasure, the room left no place for us ? Doing so, she's, once again, hiding her shyness to my eyes. But it's worthless, did she not notice how hungrily her ankles are gripping my calves ?

There's times where you should hurry, and times where you should act as if the time itself had ceased to exist ; following its example, I put a stop to our dance. Steadying my breath and heart, I took the time to look at the sweaty, and still sensual, body lying down on the bed. Pleasure is neither a question of grinding, nor a matter of eternal goes and forth. It's the consequence of a mood, a state of mind that make you crave for those repetitiveness. You've to nourish it for it to grow, and no food is tastier to my sense, than the flat hill of her belly, coupled to the small, but so ravishing, curves that adorn her chest ; those breasts, ornamented by the suction marks that my passion left last night, while my bites seem to draw a map of gullies on her tender skin. The biggest mountains wear the white hat of their eternal snow, is it by an arrogant copy move, that her bosom, makeshift mountains, wear the pink crown of their aureola ? Or perhaps, instead of a crown, are they lying here as a red carpet for the banner that try to give to those hills the size they are missing ; those proud nipples, swollen by the desire.
In top of her bust come the shoulders, hatstand that usually forbid her clothes to left her body ; what a shame, she's so more beautiful in the nude. And finally, in between those two thin and delicate handle where, sometimes, my hand rests, imprisoning her during our passionate exchanges, there her neck where three hickeys stands, dazzling contrast on her pale skin. Anyone seeing her would know, just by that, that she's already owned. Sorry guys, those soul and body are now sold out ; I must admit that the deception in their eyes always turns me on. Following this road and it's purple paving, what I see is a little girl hiding under a blanket. At least it's how her face, now only half hidden by the pillow, appeared to my eyes. She obviously felt me stop, and her flushed cheeks, as well as her blond hairs, disheveled by our dance, and partly caught in her sweat as an attempt of tattoo glued to her skin, make no doubt, she's wondering why. Before resuming our intimate choreography, I abandoned myself an instant on the marvel of those two cute freckles on her turned-up nose, and the tiny scar that illuminates her upper lip."

[...] And still it’s a turn on.

It's parly a matter of personal taste, but honestly for me your text was plain boring. Your books are selling, good for you, but there's really a lot of room for improvement.

The equivalent of this scene is a well-shot pornographic scene with aesthetic actors and good lighting and sound ,or and erotic illustration with beautiful models naked in bed.

The equivalent of your own version of this scene is more something looking on the

You must be registered to see the links

film movement side, while trying to stay porn. You're trying to mix the aesthetic approach of a

You must be registered to see the links

, with the crudeness expected from pornography, but it's like trying to mix water and fire, it can't works.

You aren't a bad writer, but neither are a good one. Your example is missing what matter the most in writing, especially when it's erotic writing, a soul. And it's also deprived of an important vector for the reader's imagination, emotions. In place of the erotic scene expected, the reader is facing the rawness of a testimony in a tribunal ; you're supposed to give food to the reader's fantasy, but write as if you were requested to explain what you'd seen "that day".

And this is the first foundation for creating good erotica. The technique. Aesthetic characters, good descriptions, lighting, sound, illustrations, syntax and grammar: everything that conveys the pure fuck experience.

I totally agree, too bad that there's none of this in your own text.
Regarding the "aesthetic characters", what is aesthetic in the four lines where you try to describe her body ? The only part that isn't a simple anatomical description is the "flat hill" of her belly. Everything else can be read in a medical report explaining what a person looks like. It doesn't matter it the comparison you're using is academically correct, what matter is the feeling that the reader will have because of this comparison. Being really small, her boobs obviously can't be compared to mountains like I did. But it permit to introduce the aureola in a more erotic way, while reinforcing the small size of the boobs by creating the opposition between the two.

Regarding the "good descriptions", none of your description are good in the writing sense of the word. They are correct according to the scene, but like I said above, they are what we expect from a witness telling what he saw. When you write, you are the main character. What man would see a girl riding his dick and think, "She sniffles while she rides me, hot and slippery and tight and lush" ? Unless he's both blazed and rapped, It's not what he see ; or more precisely, not how he see it.

Regarding the "syntax and grammar", I'm not well placed to comment since my English is far to be as good as I want to think. But there's so much to say about the words. Not being an English native speaker myself, I know that it's sometimes really hard to translate the feeling you want your words to carry. And as much as I can remember the really few I know about Hebrew, it's probably harder because words can have blurry meaning that will depend of the context ; reason why Europeans (and more globally everyone who read a translation of the Bible that come from the Latin or Greek versions) think that God created the world in seven days, while it's more in seven period of times in the Hebraic text.
Yet as author, and even more when you want to illustrate an explanation regarding how to create great erotic content, you've to pass time finding the translation that feel the most accurate. This even if it imply a rewriting of the sentence as it is in your head.
There's also the enormous problem of the approximations. Did she have two, or three hickeys on the neck ? Did she have two, or three freckles on her nose ? You should know it, you should say it, and not present it as an uncertainty. There's no place for approximation here. Either he see two, or he see three, but the number is far to be big enough for him to not be able to know the exact number at the first sight. At worse it can works for the freckles, yet it have to be phrased differently, something along the line of "the two freckles, or is it a third one that I see on the upper left part of her nose ?"
And obviously there's the abomination that is your "bite/suck marks". I don't even know what to say, it's so out of place to put a "/" here in place of a simple "and".

"You’re my favorite teacher." She gasps beneath me.

What a horror. Not the dialog line, but the context as you describe it. She isn't gasping beneath him, she's saying it in a whisper while her pleasure arise. Once again it's suppose to be erotic, not a testimony.

"I know." I say, moving my cock inside her. "And I'm really risking my career with what we're doing now."

"moving my cock inside her" ? Really ? It's supposed to be erotic, and therefore to talk to the reader's imagination, not to be the audio description of a porn movie.
Also, he isn't risking his career, he's thinking that she worth that he risk his career. Those are two really different things. What you write is a treat, "don't talk about this to anyone", while
what I say is a declaration, "I'm ready to risk everything to stay with you". And since the next sentence imply that she's turned on by those words, it's not supposed to be a treat.

What these sentences add to the paragraphs I started with is a gap between the characters: they are a student and her teacher and they shouldn't be having sex.

Because it's a student and her teacher ? Sorry, but it's absolutely not as obvious as you seem to think.
It's probably the most difficult part of the writing, but once you're done with a part of your text, you're supposed to read it in order to correct it. And while doing this, you should look at your text through the knowledge that you gave to the readers. This in order to see if you gave enough information for him to understand what you mean. And here you failed.

He's a teacher, and he's her favorite one. Well, if I was in love with a teacher, it would also be my favorite teacher, and being 50yo I'm obviously not a student.
He risk his career by fucking her. Well, like we know absolutely nothing about the context, it can happen in the early 50's USA, and what we are reading is a teacher in nuclear physics having sex with a Russian spy. He's probably risking a little more that his career, but well, she seem to be a good fuck, I understand him.

And it's just one of the possible interpretation. A teacher that risk his career by fucking a girl is far to be enough. Yet, what is missing is almost nothing, just a rephrasing of the first dialog line could have solved the problem: "Among all my teachers, you're my favorite."
Done. He's now clearly one of her teacher, and therefore she's clearly a student.


I'll stop there. There's still a lot to say, but globally it can be resumed in few words : You know what need to be done, but you don't know how to effectively do it.
I know that the text you presented here is just an attempt of illustration for what you said. But, as I said there nothing in it that illustrate your saying. It looks more like the draft of a scene that you'll extend once you've the whole picture of their afternoon. As a draft it's not bad, but as erotic text it is.

 

[slider]

I understand that it's a text used to illustrate your saying but, er... Sorry to be abrupt, but what is this exactly ? It have nothing to do with what you're saying afterward.

Here's an aesthetic revision of the exact same scene. I write it on the fly, so it will be far to be perfect ; it will surely have some grammatical errors or inconstancy, and perhaps few words that my brain messed up while translating from my native language:
"She's riding me, her hot and wet body moving up and down to the hypnotic cadence of her rising lust. She's dancing on top of me, a lascivious dance to the sound of her breathing. Up, she's purring ; is it the satisfaction of the pleasure, now flowing back , or the anticipation of the wave that will incessantly renew it, only her know. Down, she breath out, or perhaps is she expiring ; after all, isn't orgasm called "little death" in French ? Then come the climax of her rhythm, this moment when all air left her body in an instant. A moment of both pure pleasure and deception ; she can't go down anymore, going up again as if, next time, she'll achieve to fill herself up to the deepness of her soul.
It seem to works, slowly, with her speed increasing, her breathing turn into crying. Moans of pleasure are generally an indescribable sound, half way from cry and laugh, but not with her ; she chose her side, pleasure make her cry. But it's not her eyes that turn wetter any passing second with those cries. I would laugh, if it wasn't the fear to spoil the moment. It would be a shame to disturb her journey to the sky. Suddenly, she snuggles against me, silencing in the valley that forms between my neck and shoulder, the crying little girl she became ; using this comforting place to hide her shyness. She's hungry, hungry for the only piece of stability in her life right now, the only tangible thing in the whole universe ; the thing she's lusting for, more and more with each movement she make, my cock.

I could let her continue for hours, but she isn't the only one to be hungry ; not the only one to want more, way more. Without warning, why lost time talking in such instant, I get up and turn her over. Her back haven't touched the bed yet, that already her legs are spreading, her arms opening ; silent exhortation to join her, to join in her. What gentleman would deceive a woman by declining such invitation ? Not waiting more, I enter in her hot and pulsing loving cave. Her eyes, crying red, are open in surprise, amazement, and pure delight, as I try to fulfill every men's dream, going back, hard and fast, to the original matrix. As sharing my desire, wanting to welcome me where every life start, her pussy is responding to my moves, more slippery than ever. And the dance start again. A dance where I am, this time, the bandmaster ; frenzied ballet on a symphony of wet sounds on cry major.
While the melody of her effervescent excitement fill the room, she hastily grabs a pillow, burying her face in it. Did she felt the need to muffle her voice, by fear that, once totally filled by the sound of her pleasure, the room left no place for us ? Doing so, she's, once again, hiding her shyness to my eyes. But it's worthless, did she not notice how hungrily her ankles are gripping my calves ?

There's times where you should hurry, and times where you should act as if the time itself had ceased to exist ; following its example, I put a stop to our dance. Steadying my breath and heart, I took the time to look at the sweaty, and still sensual, body lying down on the bed. Pleasure is neither a question of grinding, nor a matter of eternal goes and forth. It's the consequence of a mood, a state of mind that make you crave for those repetitiveness. You've to nourish it for it to grow, and no food is tastier to my sense, than the flat hill of her belly, coupled to the small, but so ravishing, curves that adorn her chest ; those breasts, ornamented by the suction marks that my passion left last night, while my bites seem to draw a map of gullies on her tender skin. The biggest mountains wear the white hat of their eternal snow, is it by an arrogant copy move, that her bosom, makeshift mountains, wear the pink crown of their aureola ? Or perhaps, instead of a crown, are they lying here as a red carpet for the banner that try to give to those hills the size they are missing ; those proud nipples, swollen by the desire.
In top of her bust come the shoulders, hatstand that usually forbid her clothes to left her body ; what a shame, she's so more beautiful in the nude. And finally, in between those two thin and delicate handle where, sometimes, my hand rests, imprisoning her during our passionate exchanges, there her neck where three hickeys stands, dazzling contrast on her pale skin. Anyone seeing her would know, just by that, that she's already owned. Sorry guys, those soul and body are now sold out ; I must admit that the deception in their eyes always turns me on. Following this road and it's purple paving, what I see is a little girl hiding under a blanket. At least it's how her face, now only half hidden by the pillow, appeared to my eyes. She obviously felt me stop, and her flushed cheeks, as well as her blond hairs, disheveled by our dance, and partly caught in her sweat as an attempt of tattoo glued to her skin, make no doubt, she's wondering why. Before resuming our intimate choreography, I abandoned myself an instant on the marvel of those two cute freckles on her turned-up nose, and the tiny scar that illuminates her upper lip."




It's parly a matter of personal taste, but honestly for me your text was plain boring. Your books are selling, good for you, but there's really a lot of room for improvement.




The equivalent of your own version of this scene is more something looking on the

You must be registered to see the links

film movement side, while trying to stay porn. You're trying to mix the aesthetic approach of a

You must be registered to see the links

, with the crudeness expected from pornography, but it's like trying to mix water and fire, it can't works.

You aren't a bad writer, but neither are a good one. Your example is missing what matter the most in writing, especially when it's erotic writing, a soul. And it's also deprived of an important vector for the reader's imagination, emotions. In place of the erotic scene expected, the reader is facing the rawness of a testimony in a tribunal ; you're supposed to give food to the reader's fantasy, but write as if you were requested to explain what you'd seen "that day".




I totally agree, too bad that there's none of this in your own text.
Regarding the "aesthetic characters", what is aesthetic in the four lines where you try to describe her body ? The only part that isn't a simple anatomical description is the "flat hill" of her belly. Everything else can be read in a medical report explaining what a person looks like. It doesn't matter it the comparison you're using is academically correct, what matter is the feeling that the reader will have because of this comparison. Being really small, her boobs obviously can't be compared to mountains like I did. But it permit to introduce the aureola in a more erotic way, while reinforcing the small size of the boobs by creating the opposition between the two.

Regarding the "good descriptions", none of your description are good in the writing sense of the word. They are correct according to the scene, but like I said above, they are what we expect from a witness telling what he saw. When you write, you are the main character. What man would see a girl riding his dick and think, "She sniffles while she rides me, hot and slippery and tight and lush" ? Unless he's both blazed and rapped, It's not what he see ; or more precisely, not how he see it.

Regarding the "syntax and grammar", I'm not well placed to comment since my English is far to be as good as I want to think. But there's so much to say about the words. Not being an English native speaker myself, I know that it's sometimes really hard to translate the feeling you want your words to carry. And as much as I can remember the really few I know about Hebrew, it's probably harder because words can have blurry meaning that will depend of the context ; reason why Europeans (and more globally everyone who read a translation of the Bible that come from the Latin or Greek versions) think that God created the world in seven days, while it's more in seven period of times in the Hebraic text.
Yet as author, and even more when you want to illustrate an explanation regarding how to create great erotic content, you've to pass time finding the translation that feel the most accurate. This even if it imply a rewriting of the sentence as it is in your head.
There's also the enormous problem of the approximations. Did she have two, or three hickeys on the neck ? Did she have two, or three freckles on her nose ? You should know it, you should say it, and not present it as an uncertainty. There's no place for approximation here. Either he see two, or he see three, but the number is far to be big enough for him to not be able to know the exact number at the first sight. At worse it can works for the freckles, yet it have to be phrased differently, something along the line of "the two freckles, or is it a third one that I see on the upper left part of her nose ?"
And obviously there's the abomination that is your "bite/suck marks". I don't even know what to say, it's so out of place to put a "/" here in place of a simple "and".




What a horror. Not the dialog line, but the context as you describe it. She isn't gasping beneath him, she's saying it in a whisper while her pleasure arise. Once again it's suppose to be erotic, not a testimony.




"moving my cock inside her" ? Really ? It's supposed to be erotic, and therefore to talk to the reader's imagination, not to be the audio description of a porn movie.
Also, he isn't risking his career, he's thinking that she worth that he risk his career. Those are two really different things. What you write is a treat, "don't talk about this to anyone", while
what I say is a declaration, "I'm ready to risk everything to stay with you". And since the next sentence imply that she's turned on by those words, it's not supposed to be a treat.




Because it's a student and her teacher ? Sorry, but it's absolutely not as obvious as you seem to think.
It's probably the most difficult part of the writing, but once you're done with a part of your text, you're supposed to read it in order to correct it. And while doing this, you should look at your text through the knowledge that you gave to the readers. This in order to see if you gave enough information for him to understand what you mean. And here you failed.

He's a teacher, and he's her favorite one. Well, if I was in love with a teacher, it would also be my favorite teacher, and being 50yo I'm obviously not a student.
He risk his career by fucking her. Well, like we know absolutely nothing about the context, it can happen in the early 50's USA, and what we are reading is a teacher in nuclear physics having sex with a Russian spy. He's probably risking a little more that his career, but well, she seem to be a good fuck, I understand him.

And it's just one of the possible interpretation. A teacher that risk his career by fucking a girl is far to be enough. Yet, what is missing is almost nothing, just a rephrasing of the first dialog line could have solved the problem: "Among all my teachers, you're my favorite."
Done. He's now clearly one of her teacher, and therefore she's clearly a student.


I'll stop there. There's still a lot to say, but globally it can be resumed in few words : You know what need to be done, but you don't know how to effectively do it.
I know that the text you presented here is just an attempt of illustration for what you said. But, as I said there nothing in it that illustrate your saying. It looks more like the draft of a scene that you'll extend once you've the whole picture of their afternoon. As a draft it's not bad, but as erotic text it is.

This came up as a sad attempt to "one up" him or simply being an ass.

Doorknob22 shared his knowledge with the intention of helping other erotica writers, and his text served as an example to illustrate the what he was explaining. Tastes are very subjective (I for once prefer his writing to yours), what's the point on writing so much just to say that you didn't like it?

 

[anne O'nymous]

This came up as a sad attempt to "one up" him or simply being an ass.

Doorknob22 shared his knowledge with the intention of helping other erotica writers, and his text served as an example to illustrate the what he was explaining. Tastes are very subjective (I for once prefer his writing to yours), what's the point on writing so much just to say that you didn't like it?

You understand that the exact same can be said about what you just wrote ?

Why couldn't I have the right to also share my knowledge with the intention of helping other writers and all ?
As for the point, he is in the fact that, precisely, I haven't wrote "so much just to say that [ I] don't like it". I have explained, explicitly and point by point, why I don't like it and presented an alternative. Of course, at one time I stopped, mostly because I would have repeated myself, and so it would effectively have become me being just an ass ; what wasn't the intent.
And since, as you said it yourself, taste is very subjective, I expect for other writers to do the exact same with my own text. It's, after all, how people improve their skill and extend their style.

Too bad, so far the only one who answered is a knight in his shinny armor who had absolutely nothing to say, but wanted absolutely to say it. As if it wasn't obvious that the writing style of someone who sell books is loved by at least a part of the population, and that taste are a personal matter.

 

[Staimh]

As someone whose only writing experience is technical documentation (considered erotic by the smallest of minorities only) I am definitely not offering advice.
I would say it's a very rare solitary image that I find immediately erotic or sensual (and even more rarely a single image involving actual porn). A paragraph of well thought out writing, for me preferably which has at least some element of tension or suspense, is far more likely to have an arousing effect.
Obviously gawping at a succession of lewd pics works perfectly but pornhub is just as effective as a game in that case.
So I applaud all attempts to incorporate good writing into games.

Incidentally I believe the same is true for a number of other reactions like humour or empathy.
This is double-edged though because a badly written paragraph is far more likely to generate disinterest or boredom than one laughably rubbish image.

 

[woody554]

this is so good advice, and applies to all writing in general.

I agree with everything doorknob said, but I prefer to call the gap 'tension'. because it describes what it does (raising tension), but also because 'tension' is a more general term that applies to more than a gap between people. but it's the same thing. traditionally it's called 'conflict' in scriptwriting, but I think that too is a little confusing to grasp at first as conflicts are only a small part of what it covers. it applies to all contrasts, secrets, unilateral views, any 'gaps' you can create not only between characters but concepts in general.

sometimes it's what doorknob described, the 'gap' between two people, but it's only a small part. (btw I love how his example of telling it's teacher/student changed the whole 'technical portion' into a Story, and didn't need more than 4 words. which shows also how little you need to tell a whole story. you don't need to hammer on school stuff for 2000 words, you only need "you're my favourite teacher" inserted and suddenly we see school uniforms, school environment, have a whole backstory for both characters.)

sometimes it's a secret to both characters and audience (the trunk in repo man, the briefcase in pulp fiction), sometimes we know and the characters don't, or characters know but audience doesn't. very often it's something the character SHOULD say in the situation but just 'can't get it out of her', leaving us screaming on our sofas. the people going into the basement in horror movies when there's a psychopath on the loose.

sometimes it's the world against characters, sometimes it's a joke the other character doesn't get. sometimes it's a rough looking dude in a high class environment or vice versa.

it can be anything really, from people to wallpaper in a hotel corridore or a nun looking away blushing. when you analyse well executed movies the thing that pops out is how there's a 'conflict' in every single line and image you see. not just people, but sets, dialogue, lighting, acting, etc etc. and when the tension isn't there, no amount of cgi, action scenes or pyrotech can make it feel interesting.

what's common to all sources of tension is that we all have a natural instinct to release it. we desperately WANT the girl to say "yes I do love you" instead of creating an awkward pause, we want the mom to suck her son's dick instead of hesitating and changing her mind. the first reflex of all beginning writers is to release all tension, solve all problems, let the lovers get each other.

the problem is the second you release the tension, your story dies. it lost its driver, it lost that anxious feeling that kept us hoping the problem will be solved. and in one second flat your story, dialogue, even sentence grinds to a halt. full stop. nothing that comes after can flow, because there's no driver left. you lost the 'gap'. never lose the gap, the gap is what your story is all about.

so despite our instinct to resolve problems, it should be avoided like the plague. don't instantly turn the mom into a slut, don't make the teacher quit his job so he can openly be with the school girl and move in as a couple. instead give them MORE problems. maybe someone finds out and threatens them, maybe the girl's dad turns out to be a mafia boss who'll murder the teacher. keep throwing throwing those curve balls, and the second it might seem they're getting away with it, the writer's job is to take a running start and kick them in the nuts as hard as he can. "the writers job is to ask questions, and not answer them for 90 minutes."

***

now, obviously there's a point where you SHOULD solve at least the central problem driving the story. without it you don't have an ending, and without an ending you don't have a STORY. you can jerk people off for a while, you can blueball them, but eventually that has to end. just make damn sure you're not releasing the tension before you want that release. and in no circumstance should ever you do it at the beginning of the story. build it up, don't flatten it down.

 

[Doorknob22]

the problem is the second you release the tension, your story dies. it lost its driver, it lost that anxious feeling that kept us hoping the problem will be solved. and in one second flat your story, dialogue, even sentence grinds to a halt. full stop. nothing that comes after can flow, because there's no driver left. you lost the 'gap'. never lose the gap, the gap is what your story is all about.

This is 98% true: the gap/tension/conflict is super important. A common mistake novice creators of adult materials often make is "rushing to the good bits", crudely closing the gap/resolving the conflict. However if your technical element is great (descriptions, illustrations, animation etc') people will still want to see the characters shag again (with different settings of course), even if they did it before earlier. A common trick to "reopen" a bridged gap (or "re-introduce the conflict") is simply have the characters on the screen not fucking but looking hot. If the player knows they did it before and there's a chance they'll do it again, you can "reuse" them: the player will want to see them fuck again and the result can be very satisfying when they do.

Additionally: fetish. If one is really turned on by vampire sex, for example, and the game/story/movie/comix offers another scene of vampire sex (even if both characters fucked before) it will still be a turn-on for followers of this fetish.

 

[Lussuria]

Really enjoyed this thread. Hopefully I can utilize this knowledge in my upcoming game. I have found writing and story development the most challenging part of making my game, so this thread has been inspiring. Thanks!

 

[Synx]

A lot of good information on how to write a good adult scene, but I was wondering in your insight on how to write good pillowtalk. Like your main example is completely descriptive which is fine for an adult novel but for an adult VN you could (or even should) describe that whole scene with images. What would you then do with the sex talk? Just leave it out as its unnecessary, or try to add some small parts (like your second example)?

Yeah, I guess we are talking about two different things here. You're talking about the set up and build up to the sex scene, while I'm more interested in the actual sex scene. I understand the importance of that set up and that it makes up a majority of the content of the story (my 2000 words are for the sex scene of a 12000 word length episode).

I would highly advice you to go over the 12000 words and see how much of it is actually crucial and how much of that can be removed and have 0 effect on the story. 12000 words is insane for a single chapter, I wouldn't be surprised if most games don't even get to 12000 words overall. Just to give you a comparison: An episode of Game of Thrones in the first season (when it had good dialogue) had between the 3000 en 4000 words per episode. Thats dialogue for a 50-60min episode. You got 3-4 times as much, and I highly doubt you have as much characters/interactions/relations then Game of Thrones had at the start.

 

[Doorknob22]

A lot of good information on how to write a good adult scene, but I was wondering in your insight on how to write good pillowtalk. Like your main example is completely descriptive which is fine for an adult novel but for an adult VN you could (or even should) describe that whole scene with images. What would you then do with the sex talk? Just leave it out as its unnecessary, or try to add some small parts (like your second example)?

That depends on what you're trying to achieve. If it's a softer scene, when there's affection between the characters, some dialog lines can help convey this affection and help the players understand the characters actually like each other (hopefully making the player like them more):

-God, I love fucking you.

-Easy to say after you came, isn't it?

-I'd say it even if we didn't fuck!

-Yes, but then you'd be saying it just to get into panties.

-There's no winning against you, is there?

-I'm somewhat surprised you're still trying, actually.

Stuff like that.

On the other hand, if you're writing a complete bastard like my man Karder in Vae Victis, the post sex talk is all about... well, being a complete asshole and enjoying it.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

I would highly advice you to go over the 12000 words and see how much of it is actually crucial and how much of that can be removed and have 0 effect on the story. 12000 words is insane for a single chapter, I wouldn't be surprised if most games don't even get to 12000 words overall. Just to give you a comparison: An episode of Game of Thrones in the first season (when it had good dialogue) had between the 3000 en 4000 words per episode. Thats dialogue for a 50-60min episode. You got 3-4 times as much, and I highly doubt you have as much characters/interactions/relations then Game of Thrones had at the start.

Trust me, I've done plenty of research about screen writing and the principles of visual storytelling and the strengths of having short, impactful dialogue. One of my biggest weaknesses is that I get straight to the point; Being overly verbose is not a problem I have. I've played two Mr. Dots games, my stuff doesn't come close to being as verbose as that. The stuff you mention works on the big screen where your visuals are easy to produce and those visuals take up the majority of the time in the episode/movie. However, when you work on an adult VN with images that take 2 hours to render each, you have to rely on your dialogue to make up the bulk the runtime or else your production time increases dramatically so you have images where words can be or your game length decreases dramatically. You say Game of Thrones has 3-4k words per episode, but if the dialogue were to be read in a VN format, you'd have a 15 minute episode (based on an average 200 wpm reading speed). If you know anything about the people on this forum, it's that they despise short games/VNs. I understand the importance of visuals but I also understand having to work with the limited resources that I have, mainly time. I don't have thousands of hours or multiple pcs to produce renders so that I can abide by show-don't-tell rules. Besides, verbosity, even in film, is not necessarily a bad thing. Quentin Tarantino and Andy Sorkin both write dialogue-heavy screenplays to amazing success. They break the show-don't-tell rule but in masterful ways, building character, setting up foreshadowing, jokes, and irony. Now, I won't claim that I can match their writing prowess but I believe their dialogue-heavy style is best to emulate if visuals are difficult to produce, as is the case in my medium of choice, 3DCG visual novels. The alternative is just too resource intensive to be viable for me.

 

[Deleted member 6650724]

The only valuable stuff that I read in this forum is literally this.

What these sentences add to the paragraphs I started with is a gap between the characters: they are a student and her teacher and they shouldn't be having sex. There is a gap between them. The greater the gap between the characters (socially, culturally, religiously , etc. ) the bigger thrill closing the gap introduces into the scene. For example:

1. If the characters were a married man and woman, there is no gap between them and so the scene would have relied on the technical (or pornographic) element only. That does not mean it wasn’t hot, but the scene would have one less "engine" to drive it.
2. If the characters were a two singles with no relationship between them, say two co-workers, the gap between them would have increased slightly (because at the beginning of the story they are not a couple) and so is the reader's satisfaction when we get to the sex scene .
3. And what if the characters were from different cultures, social positions or religions? The gap between them is much wider now, and again: so is the satisfaction of the reader when the sex finally takes place.
4. The ultimate (common) gap is incest stories. The cultural gap between the characters is huge but when the author succeeds in bridging the gap, many readers will not forget the sex scenes.

Even though "gap between the characters" are basically another form of fetish for me.
And it will effect players like the things you said for the extreme fetishs.

The fetish has an interesting attribute: the more it appeals to a broader common denominator (for example : blonde hair, teacher - student relationship, big breasts, etc.) the weaker the erotic reaction it evokes but also less antagonism from readers who are not into this fetish. On the other hand, the more a fetish refers to a narrower common denominator (for example : besitality, incest, etc.) the bigger the thrill for this fetish’s followers but the chance to antagonizse or repulse readers who are not into this fetish increases as well. Some readers/watchers/players will be indifferent to a "strong" fetish but others will not be able to enjoy the scene/story if it is present.

I just wonder why you extract "gap between the characters" from fetishes, cause can't see the difference between them.