I've been reading erotica online for years, and often with an undercurrent of 'I could do a lot better than that.' I found that the pieces I enjoyed the most were the ones that took some time to establish who the characters were, in order to give some meaning to what happened between them.
Sure, sometimes you just want a literary quickie and don't want pages of pages of character beforehand, but the stories that lingered with me were the ones that created memorable characters. I'd actually begun work on a much longer novel with several characters, with their lives all happily intersecting with a big plot bubbling in the background, but then one day the opening scene of Almost Chance came into my head.
It started with a simple question - what would it be like to be on a train and meet someone who you felt an incredible sexual draw towards? How far would you go to explore that?
(I was travelling to and from work on trains at the time, so that may have had something to do with it coming up)
What I found was that when I stopped and thought about that situation, I saw the whole story and how it played out. Not down to the level of knowing the exact scenes, but I could see who Jen and Mistress were, why Jen would take such a risk and follow her, how their relationship would develop in the time they had together and just what had brought them together.
Because of that, it was a pleasure to write. When I had the time, I just had to drop myself back into their world, and there they were, waiting for me to reveal what happened next. There were some surprises for me on the way - I found myself writing about Mistress's tattoo without understanding why, but then realised it was all part of another story - but once I'd gone into their world, it felt real and solid.
I originally posted it in parts to a few of the websites I used to get my erotic story fix from, and was very gladdened by the response I received. After I'd finished it, I left it for what was meant to be a while, but then life got in the way and limited the amount of time I had for writing, even though the stories would still float around in my head, waiting for a chance to be released.
Now I have some time to write again, and decided to relaunch myself onto the world by converting Almost Chance into an ebook - and correcting some of the errors in it that time had revealed - and put some more of my imagination into reality.
What will those stories be? That's a tale for another post...
