Issues with writing erotica 4 — being an advisor in real life
There are a number of issues I face due to my choice of genre for the books and short stories that I write, so I’m going to go through a few and see if others have similar thoughts — and any insights!
If you’ve read the previous postings on my writing erotica issues then you’ll remember that I talked about not getting much in the way of feedback or communication from readers about my stories. I have, however, had a few contact me directly via email.
Mostly these are people looking to ask me questions along the lines of when is the next part of a serial coming out, who they think the blackmailer is, or some thoughts on future plots.
(I do ask for suggestions as part of getting feedback from readers. I’ve usually got at least the next part or two, and some chunks of the following sections, all sorted in my head and just needing to get down on paper — time permitting — but am open to a certain amount of external guidance.)
One man has had some pretty explicit emailed discussions with me about his fantasies, and that I’m fine with. He started off with a ‘hello and thanks for your stories,’ and the conversation took off from there as we shared a little back and forth. While it is the sort of thing that I’m very sure he wouldn’t want to get out in public, it is what most erotica readers would probably see as kinky but fine. After all, don’t we read erotic stories for that sort of connection?
However, I recently had another man get in touch for some advice. He’d been reading a story of mine that was, as is often the case, about a young lady being blackmailed by an unknown source, at least at the start of the story. The person doing this gets sexual gratification from the situation — along with money and other things.
This correspondent was profuse with their praise of the story and wondered if the plot would work in real life. I wrote back to say that I didn’t see why not — if the people acted much the same — as the situation I’d written was fairly carefully plotted. I did say, of course, that outside of a story this sort of situation would be morally wrong, and was also likely to end up with someone in jail if they tried to carry it through.
We kicked the general idea around a few times with discussions of how real-life differed from a story and what that meant. The replies then started to get a bit concerning as they started talking about someone close to them, and wondering how my story could be put into play in their situation. At first, I thought that they were joking, or leading me on, but then I started to wonder… and broke off contact.
The email conversation nearly got deleted but, on second thoughts, I decided to keep it, but moved it into a separate folder — now titled ‘fruitcakes’ — and that will be stored away safely for some time to come. Just in case! Given that this person was using a pseudonym, it is extremely doubtful that I’ll ever hear anything of him in the real world, but better safe than sorry!
I know that I write fairly dark erotica, but most of my readers that have gotten in contact so far are pretty normal people — as far as I can tell — and, hopefully, this one oddball is an outlier that is not going to be repeated in the near future. There are a number of loonies out there in the world, and I suppose that some of them are going to be reading our work, but it is another thing entirely when they get in touch!
I’m curious to find out if any of the other writers here have tales to tell where people started to take seriously the stories that they have written and were thinking of taking things forward in the real world?
For my stories and erotica please see my profile — but for other parts of this series just click the link here!
