Tapping Creativity by Writing Erotica

Here's a freebie. The following is an excerpt from my book, Tapping Creativity.

Most often creativity comes from stepping outside your normal approach to writing and dabbling in something different. With its dominance in the life of so many adults, it might be beneficial to try your hand at erotica. Although erotica is not the easiest genre to poke around in, the rewards of a well-worked piece will add a new dimension to your writing.

While I don’t claim to be a fine writer of erotica, I’ve sunk enough into it to know it can be hard. The one big advantage of this particular style to writers who’ve never tried penetrating it before is that each time can be a unique experience and, like its real life counterpart, it is only limited my your imagination.

From the writings of the Marquis de Sade to DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, nothing seems to stir the pot of the literary police quite like erotica, be it crude and vulgar or elegant and highbrow. In your own experimenting, feel free to write to whatever level you wish. Maybe you’re a fairly conservative person who would like to challenge yourself by really pushing the limits of your comfort. Perhaps you’re quite outspoken and detail-oriented in your personal life and would like to be more subtle and intriguing on the page.

I try to show examples of my own work as a way to illustrate the possibilities of the exercise. This time I’m going to pull out, though. I want you to also be able to write in this style without the fear of someone looking over your shoulder. Writing free of inhibitions will produce more convincing episodes. So this time, I won’t show you mine and you won’t have to show me—or anybody else—yours, if you so choose.

Something to keep in mind is this: like every other event that happens to your characters, however, adult scenes should be used to further your story rather than gratuitous episodes to simply fill pages. Again, as in real life, intimacy is often affected by other situations. Keep some of these in mind:

• What is the relationship of the persons involved? (e.g., age, married, affair?)

• Where is it happening? (e.g., hotel room, dorm, in car, on a NYC rooftop during the Macy’s parade?)

• What is your perspective? (first-person, omniscient, peeping tom?)

• What happens after?

• How will the answer to the previous question influence the scene?

Whichever highway your pen leads you down, just remember that the ability to write adult scenes appropriate to your story simply puts another tool in your box. And I can’t think of other writing exercises that wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable.