Carmel gets her way

As regular readers will know, I have a tripartite writing personality: Kay Sexton writes literary fiction, Ren Holton writes science fiction and a bit of horror and Carmel Lockyer writes erotica.

Carmel’s been having a good couple of months on the quiet: a story accepted by Forum, another by Scarlet, one in the Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra, which has just been published, and one in the charity anthology Burlesque Against Breast Cancer, where she keeps company with a writer whose own erotic novel has been reviewed here, Donna George Storey.

So what can I tell you about writing erotica that won’t sound like lines from a Carry On movie? You have to love what you do (snigger), it’s important to be able to deliver on time and on target (giggle) and variety is the spice of life (guffaw).

But it’s all true – writing good erotica is as difficult as writing anything else and doing it consistently requires the same kind of dedication as any other writing – but there is one crucial difference and its one that a lot of people simply don’t seem to understand, from the erotica slush piles I read – erotica, by definition, is about good sex. GOOD sex. Not brutal nasty sex, nor depressing miserable sex nor even jokey so-bad-it’s-good sex. For erotica to get into the marketplace it has to allow at least one character, and the reader, to get to the end with a smile on their face. So there. You may now titter.

Erotic flower courtesy of anyjazz65

1 Comment

  1. Kip de Moll
    24th August 2008

    Writing erotica 25 years ago, it was practically the only money I’ve made with my (then) typewriter. My marriage put an end to that, but that being done, I’ve been thinking…and now you’ve inspired me to put a smile on my face.
    Hope you’ll feel well enough to smile again soon

    Reply

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