The Complete Rules of Erotica

THE RULES

0. These are "rules" not rules. Think of them more like vitamins than medicine: here to help your writing grow big and strong, not to decide whether it lives or dies. Those of you who are already great at writing erotica will no doubt buck at some or many or the very existence of these "rules." Buck all you want, cowboy. But my hope is that you will eventually come around and see this list for what it is: a labor of love that humbly wants to be your buddy. Maybe even your fuck buddy if you're into, you know, pretentious, weirdly organized, technical dissections of genre fiction. Thing is, while good writing can look a thousand and one different ways, bad writing fits a pattern: it breaks certain "rules." And what's more, since erotica is a bona fide genre, there are extra criteria to consider, qualifying "rules" that if broken mean the offending piece no longer qualifies as erotica. Shit, right? Fuck. Rules are a bummer. But rules are also a necessary evil when talking about having fun. Think: have you ever played a game that didn't involve rules? No, you haven't. Not that was any fun, anyway. So hey, maybe this will be fun! Buckle in, grab a drink, hit a pipe, whatever's your thing, maybe slowly, hesitantly masturbate, you know, in case this turns out to be your thing, and let me take you on a journey to the very furthest reaches of fucks givable on the subject of logic and structure in erotica.

1. Introduce any and all potential love interests right out of the gate. Keep each introduction thoughtful, but don't let them bog down your pacing. The round of introductions is a critical thing to finish promptly, so that things can start advancing within each relationship. Which is also to say, so that the story can begin! Wait too long and new characters will start to feel cursory by default.[i] At the same time, however, avoid introducing too many characters too early on. It can be tedious for the reader to have to deduce who is "important" and who will turn out to be cursory before the story's even begun.

2. Your reader should agree with you (the author) on the Optimum Bang (OB) for your protagonist, even if you opt to keep the reader in suspense as to who it might be.[ii] This is both the toughest and most engrossing challenge you will face as a writer of erotica: getting the reader to agree with you about what constitutes "sexy." Granted, genre tags can assure that readers who find your work will share your kinks. And you can simplify matters by having only one partner available to your protagonist for the whole story, but this merely minimizes and does not eliminate the risk that readers will wish the protagonist had bedded someone a little more enticing. How does one accomplish this? Well, the hard way. And certainly by following the rules in this list (and/or only ever breaking them very, very carefully).

3. Do not try to turn a cursory character into an OB after the fact. There are works of erotica that try to do this, particularly in manga, and it is always frustrating: some side character introduced ten chapters later than everyone who matters stumbles in, bats an eyelash, and winds up occupying the protagonist's attention for the rest of the series. This can feel like a betrayal to readers who likely presumed the OB to be among the characters introduced in the early pages. The OB is the reason your reader is reading, after all, meaning it makes very good sense for them to be involved from page one. Characters that appear on pages one and two are (potentially) exponentially weightier than any that wait to appear until pages ten or twenty. While banging these fashionably late (cursory) characters can still be a joy, any author who tries to shoehorn them into the central plot with their much bigger, more important cohorts is both dooming that plot to irrelevance and, worse still, breaking Rule 10, meaning all is lost. Yes, Rule 10 is arguably the most important "rule" on this list. Yes, I know it would make sense to have it at the top instead of at number ten. But I am the one writing this list, and I for one like a little foreplay.

4. Suggest something juicy. Then give less than that. And for good reason: you need to keep your reader in a state of perpetual want. This rule is similar to but thematically broader than Rule 5. Every development that occurs in your story, be it sexual or not, should fit this basic formula. Needless to say, jumping straight to hard sex is a violation of this rule. But I also hate when stories pause at their very outset to give a paragraph description of this or that character's physique. Granted, readers want this information. But that's all the more reason not to give it to them all at once! A clever drip-feed of bodily delights is to good erotica what clues and plot-twists are to good mysteries and dramas. Too little is confusing and, over time, frustrating, while too much all at once spoils the fun and robs the rest of the read of the suspense that makes this genre so potent.

5. Every major development in the direction of sex should be one slow tentative step forward, one clumsy half-step backward. Each time, bring the reader to a new height of excitement, but then leave them wishing they had gone just slightly higher. Do not carry them all the way to the "peak" until your protagonist's story is ready to be finished (see Rule 10). Granted, this wind-up-and-no-pay-off trope is as tropey as erotica tropes get, I know. Quit looking at me like that. The shit just works, ok? Only you need to be careful not to be too obvious about what you're doing. Employ variation. And make sure the reason that the characters can't/don't advance isn't merely because one of them is chaste. There's no drama to chastity, no suspense, just a character too-gradually expanding their boundaries.[iii]

6. Anatomy will generally always be on your reader's mind. Remember to notice the little things. Interesting little observations trump brute statements of fact or declarations of hotness. Avoid repetition: the reader wants information, and repetition is uninformative. Once they know the boobies are big, they know; repeating this fact is tedious and lazy and, yes I'll say it, masturbatory. If you must describe the same body part more than once, let each mention take a different perspective or focus on a new characteristic: pose, texture, bulk, color, flavor, smell, temperature, how it interacts with clothing, any memories it evokes, distinguishing marks, how its owner seems to feel about it, how some other character seems to feel about it. Note, we likely already know how your protagonist feels about the feature. Professions of how a protagonist feels are generally not necessary, common though they may be to the genre, because these feelings inevitably come across in how they act toward their desired partner. Also, don't underestimate the power of not vividly describing a body part. Sometimes a gist is all the reader needs or wants, especially if their preferred body type differs from your protagonist's. A lot of perfectly excellent erotica is curiously light on physical description, and what few images are conveyed are poignant rather than perfunctory.

7. Avoid waxing poetic. Stay focused. Keep things moving. I admit I struggle with this. I like words damn it.

8a. Breaks from the erotic stuff are important. Let's use music as our analogy here. Even your very favorite piece of music, repeated on loop, gets old fast. Eroticism is no different. Or consider even just the structure and variety that goes into making that one piece so good. If sex is the refrain that gets the stuck in your head, then tension and build-up and plot-twists are the verses, bridges, and key changes that provide context/contrast to that refrain and that help give it the catchy impact that it has. Or imagine learning to play a beautiful chord on the piano. Now imagine pounding that chord over and over and over, ad nauseum, until it's hideous. Maybe you'd say, "Well yeah, but that's not music," and I'd say so is nothing but sex scene after sex scene after sex scene.

8b. Breaks from the erotic stuff need to be earned. Give your reader a teensy weensy treat before each break begins, a promise of more to come, a cliffhanger--and then reward them later for their patience. This conditioning is how you get readers to trust you. It also gives them something to look forward to while they trudge through the non-sexy "filler" you're obliged to include. Yeah I'll call it filler. But only because I like filler, and respect it. Filler is where suddenly the rules of the genre are lifted, and a piece of erotica can stretch its legs and be anything it wants. There's no way of stopping readers from skipping your filler as they fast forward to the next sex scene, but (a) wrapping up loose ends before each break, (b) leaving readers with a little promise of more to come (and diligently following through, every time), and (c) making the filler secretly the best part of the story are some things you can do to discourage this behavior.

8c. The breaks should be enjoyable in and of themselves. They shouldn't feel like grinding in an RPG—that is, like your protagonist (or reader) is trudging through randomized bullshit until they slowly, tediously accrue enough experience points to advance to the next sex scene. Plot points, not experience points, are what matter in a good read. And by "plot points" I mean conflict, setbacks, victories, etc. These are also priceless opportunities to mix and match character interactions,[iv] lend screen time to under-developed personalities, and of course, heighten stakes. Tension is tension, baby. Whatever you can do to build tension in your story, trust that it will fuel your sexual tension by proxy.

9a. Speaking more from precedent than from logic, non-OBs can generally be banged from the get-go. It depends on what kind of story you're telling, and how much of a sex fiend your protagonist is. It can also depend on how long a story you're telling, as per Rule 8a, non-OB sex scenes are still sex scenes and will need to be interspersed with non-sex scenes for the sake of pacing. Granted, if you are going for the epic tale and have the stamina not to lose focus on your central plot, then just remember that non-OBs still stand to benefit from well-drawn character arcs like anyone else. On a related note, this kind of bonus content, while delightful, can also be seen as slowing your protagonist's (and your reader's) progress toward that holy grail of sex scenes. (Speaking of which, can you feel that? We are getting sooo close to Rule 10.) Clever writers will find ways to weave these bonus bangs into the plot so that they help drive it forward rather than offering little more than gratuitous side content.

9b. Non-OBs do best when they have focused sexual quirks. If every character has the same fetish (or only subtle variations of it), or if the main character forces their fetish onto every partner they bed,[v] then one of the most important ingredients of eroticism—surprise—is gone. Keep your protagonist's or OB's proclivities from getting stale by making non-OBs distinctly different. Different personalities, different perspectives, different turn-offs, different body-types, different genders/sexualities, etc. It is much harder to go too nuts than not to go nuts enough. So: go nuts.

9c. Relationships and sex-scenes with Non-OBs should still follow Rules 4 & 5. Once their fetish has been established, sexual acts involving that fetish should progress with the same gradual, painstaking, one-step-forward-half-step-backward patience as usual. Don't jump straight to the characters chugging each other's piss. Try to make sure there's always one line that the protagonist and the non-OB keep not crossing. Until finally and suddenly they do. (At which point they may chug all the piss they can stomach! Prost!)

9d. Wrap up all your Non-OBs' sexual arcs before you wrap up your OB's. Not only does it diminish the significance of your OB's arc's climactic resolution, but your OB will have already stolen any thunder the non-OB was hoping to recapture. The ultimate grand finale sex scene should render further scenes moot, even if there are a few more little aftershock-like sex scenes comprising a kind of falling action after the fact. Like, I sometimes see this rule bent or broken in a frame-narrative/falling action/epilogue kind of way, but in these cases it's clearly done with the knowledge that anything that follows the story's climax is going to read as cute and supplementary. Really, even if these last few scenes include graphic sex, at this point they hardly read like erotica anymore; they read more like closure.

10. The OB must feature in the most thunderous and climactic sex scene of them all. This is it, bitches. The one rule to ring them all. The unbreakable contract you have with your reader as a writer of erotica. The OB is by definition the one character the protagonist (and the reader) wants to bang the hardest. And thus they must or else what the actual fuck, dude? Now, is there good erotica that capitalizes on every sex scene, such that it's hard to say for sure which one serves as the coup de grace? No. If there isn't one scene near the end that is OBVIOUSLY the best, then fuck that shit! Sure, I want every sex scene to be awesome. Hell, every sex scene should be awesome. Double hell, every SCENE should be awesome. But if I'm going to keep reading and reading, diligently delaying my ever-building orgasm out of trust that you, the author, have prepared some supreme showstopper at the end of so much text, then, fuck dude, please don't let me down.

11. OBs may or may not live happily ever after with your protagonist, but they should at least fuck the shit out of the protagonist at or by the end of the story. If they are the one and only character never to get a proper sex scene, then you have broken both Rule 10 and your reader's heart. (Sure, there are brilliant works that break this rule, but they are not erotica.)

12. Don't be afraid to keep a sex scene going a little longer past the sex. How people behave in the first moments after sex (or after otherwise resolving sexual tension) is intrinsically interesting, and something that can be plumbed for easy character development. Just remember to think twice before falling on tropes like going to sleep, smoking a cigarette, stepping outside for some air, turning on the TV, etc., unless those are true to your characters' behavior. These are the moments to drop in not-necessarily-sexual observations about body, skin, movement, etc., as everyone is typically in some state of undress and acting un-self-consciously.

13. Sometimes, you know what, fuck it: break Rule 4, just to mess with your reader's expectations. Surprise indulgences aren't what make the best erotica good, but the best erotica does seem to know how to use them. Just be careful not to do this more than once (maaaybe twice). To come back to the mystery genre analogy: having the detective stumble across a useful clue or break in the case can be a lot of fun, but only once. Too much more than that and it kills suspense. The fun is supposed to be in watching the detective figure shit out on their own. Likewise, the driving force behind reading erotica isn't the urge to cum, but the urge to masturbate to a good-ass story and eventually cum.

14a. Appreciate the power of small milestones. One part cheesy self-help tip, one part steadfast rule: the first kiss is never the first development, unless it's by accident. Paced just so, couched in the world of a believable relationship, and written with wit, even just touching someone's hand can be an electrifying turn-on (the first time it happens). Sure, the reader knows where this is headed—and, as ever, is within their rights to skip to the juicy bits—but the best stories I've read have capitalized on the mind-altering rush of possibility real human beings feel at the onset of a crush. Erotica can and wherever possible should lull the reader into this same trancelike state. Once there, even a subtle glance at something sexy can be fucking devastating.

14b. Don't underestimate your reader's patience. They are in this to win this, just like you. As long your story's stakes escalate a little bit at a time and never slip too far backwards (at least without significant narrative justification) between any of those steps, then you can move remarkably slowly and build cruelly, agonizingly, amazingly high tension. That said, don't be a dick. This is erotica. Toss the reader a frickin bone every once in awhile.

15a. Dialog is not that big of a deal. Granted, it's hard for relationships to advance (see Rule 1) without some conversation, but the most meaningful human bonds are built less on words and more on shared experiences, concerted efforts, unspoken disagreements, etc. The tired-as-fuck-but-fuck-you-it's-immortal adage of Show Don't Tell applies. Feel free to summarize a conversation rather than show us the whole thing. If it is time to talk, then (a) keep it realistic but (b) polish away all the ums and likes and false starts (they aren't doing what you think they're doing). Additionally, make sure each character speaks uniquely. If identical twins can have distinctive personalities, then so can your two main characters. Please don't make everyone in your story down-to-earth, endearingly awkward, and prone to just the right amount of playful wit. Mix. Your shit. Up. Play with various personas and dialects you know well enough to transcribe convincingly. Set them loose on each other. Done with the right balance of verisimilitude and story-relevance, readers will derive primordial pleasure from watching interesting characters interact. But alas, they will also tire rapidly of such exchanges if it means the story grinds to a halt every single time a conversation starts up. Some of the time? Maybe, sure, for particularly important conversations. But every time? No, come on. If your characters are chatterboxes, then at least have them talking while moving toward their next crucial story location, or while, idk, destroying evidence, stalking their prey, trying on underwear, prepping for a big interview, naming a baby, etc. And in general, try to have them arrive at their destination (or what-have-you) a little sooner than expected, like before the conversation is able to resolve. Rule 4 isn't just about sex.

15b. Two useful truisms regarding dialog: actions tend to speak louder than words, and (sober) people never say what they're truly thinking. Characters flirting via dialog will almost never be as compelling as characters behaving like one or both of them wants to fuck. Yes, your characters may at some point need to speak their minds, to confess and/or consent, but make sure it's a surreal, cathartic, human thing when it happens. And even then, remember Rule 4.

16. Erotica needs to be written sexily—as in, readers should kind of want to fuck the story itself. And nothing's sexier than confidence. Five ways that confident writing tends to look are: (1) witty (as in clever, observant, nuanced), (2) textured (as in layered, dynamic, unpredictable), (3) focused (as in focused), (4) energetic (as in fun, consistent, inspired), and (5) knowledgeable (as in researched, insightful, impressive). But fuck, is it ever hard to make writing look easy. No one writes a perfect draft on their first try. Whatever you're writing about, do your actual best. Think hard before making major plot decisions. Settle for nothing less than what fills you with glee, compels you to write, forces you to phrase it just so. Let the project take the time it needs to. Take breaks. Take months. Take however long it takes for you to blink away the delusion that nothing you have written needs fixing. Something always needs fixing. Organize. Commit. Revise. Perfect. If at last you run out of meaningful perceptible improvements, fully exhaust your capacity for self-criticism, and if all of a sudden you realize that at some unwitting point in the last couple of passes you inadvertently finished this work of what others will hopefully consider art, if not highly masturbation-worthy fiction, then you my friend are, at long last, ready to enlist an editor (there are free, volunteer editors right here on Literotica.com) and to begin the next round of revisions. Congratulations!