So, You Want To Be A Porn Writer!
Introduction

Targeting Your Markets
"Porn/erotica as a genre may be different in many ways from what I call mainstream writing, but the basics are still the same. If you want to sell your stories, you need to know your markets. The very first step - even before you set pen to paper, if possible - is to do your research. It is often an exercise in futility to write a story before finding a potential market for it. Unfortunately it honestly doesn't matter how unique and/or well written your piece is if it's not targeted specifically to a magazine's readers..."

Creating Characters With Personality
"Note that I didn't say that editors want exotic locales or sci-fi plots or outrageous never-before-been-done-or-written-about sex acts (although very occasionally they do.) They often want just the opposite, everyday settings and situations that just happen to be exceedingly sexual. This means that you absolutely can write and sell a story that features two married lovers and their fairly ordinary sex life. The trick is to give them (and your story) personality..."

What Will The Neighbors Think?
"When it comes to writing, no other genre is as loaded with negative connotations as porn. Tell someone you're a romance writer and the worst response you're likely to get is a snicker from those with a more literary bent. Most everyone else will still consider you a real writer. Ditto for mystery, technical, play or songwriting. Legitimate professions, all.

But tell them you're a porn/erotica/adult writer and oftentimes you're asking for trouble..."

Fetish Writing Can Be Fattening
"My husband read one of my "large-breasted" stories the other day. When he was done, he shook his head and said, "That was like eating a chocolate chip cookie that is just stuffed with chips." It was actually too "rich" for his taste, he was a little overwhelmed by the total immersion into the genre. There were way too many descriptive words and phrases for him, too much "style." In short, there were too many chocolate chips..."

Lifestyles of the Dull and Boring
"...Perhaps she assumed that I lounge around in silk pajamas while scantily clad supermodels flit around my living room. Or maybe she thinks I'm a regular at the local orgy scene, because if you're gonna write the stuff, you have to actually do it, right? I suppose at the very least she believes that I have pictures of naked women on my walls or that I'm swapping homemade porn tapes with the neighbors.

But the truth is, except for those checks signed by Larry Flynt and my extensive collection of dirty magazines, I hardly personify porn..."

The Letters Market
"Letters aren't necessarily any easier to write than full length stories. But they are shorter, and that can make them more appealing to a fledgling porn writer. They still have all the features of their lengthier cousins; some semblance of lead up and plot, plenty of relatively plausible sex and a satisfying ending. There's just not as much of each component in a letter as compared to a story..."

Putting Out
"The sad fact is that, especially in the beginning, a lot of what you write won't sell. Hell, a lot of what you write won't even be acknowledged; I still run about a 50% no-response rate when I'm sending out unsolicited submissions and I like to think I'm fairly experienced at this game. The truth is, if you want to sell ten pieces, you have to put out twenty or fifty or even a hundred..."

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words
"I got a Federal Express delivery the other day.

In it was the latest copy of a glossy porn magazine, along with six slides of people in various states of undress having sex together. Now that's my kind of delivery! But the best part was I didn't even have to pay for it.

Instead, I was instructed to write about it. Three letters, seven hundred words each, full of hot sex and the bare bones of a plot..."

Writing From Personal Experience - Or Not
"Beginning porn writers often think that the key to good porn writing is good sex. You do the nasty, you write about it and you collect your acceptances and your hefty paychecks, right?

Well, not exactly..."

Using Setting To Spice Up Your Story
"Since your reader already knows the basics of what's going to happen, it's up to you to make the getting there, as well as the act itself, more interesting. You can do this in a number of ways; creative characterization is always good, as is unique plotting. But you can also make your story more interesting by varying the setting. Yes, your characters are going to have sex, but where? On the beach in Puerto Rico? In the men's club shower? On the living room floor..."

Plot And Porn Are Not Mutually Exclusive!
"'Aw, c'mon,' beginning porn writers lament, 'Do I really need a plot?'
Short answer:
Yes.
Long Answer:
Absolutely..."