What do editors look for? Mitzi Szereto

Mitzi Szereto (http://mitziszereto.com) is an author and anthology editor of multi-genre fiction and non-fiction, has her own blog Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog (http://mitziszereto.com/blog), and is creator/presenter of the Web TV channel Mitzi TV (http://mitziszereto.com/tv), which covers “quirky” London. 

Below are the things that Mitzi looks for in short stories that are submitted to her anthologies:

I look for an original voice, freshness in the material, and prose that has style. For me there's nothing worse than stale-sounding material that sounds as if it was churned out to fit some formula or derivative of everything else that's out there. My biggest pet peeves are porn-speak and writers who submit material that bears not the slightest resemblance to what I've asked for.

1) Develop your own voice and style rather than parroting those of others.

2) When it comes to writing sex, avoid the use of trite euphemisms and hackneyed sexual descriptions (especially if you want to get into one of my anthologies!).

3) The sex should not be the story, but be part of the story. Remember that you are writing A STORY, not a script for a porn video. (Do they even have scripts????)

4) Avoid the formulaic. You might sell some work, but it won't necessarily earn you any respect as a writer.

5) Be creative in your writing, not regurgitative. Just because you've seen something written a certain way by other writers doesn't mean you should emulate it. Very often it's just the opposite.


Mitzi Szereto (http://mitziszereto.com) is an author and anthology editor of multi-genre fiction and non-fiction, has her own blog Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog (http://mitziszereto.com/blog), and is creator/presenter of the Web TV channel Mitzi TV (http://mitziszereto.com/tv), which covers “quirky” London. Her books include Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and Fire; Normal for Norfolk (The Thelonious T. Bear Chronicles); Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts; Red Velvet and Absinthe: Paranormal Erotic Romance; In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales; Getting Even: Revenge Stories; Dying for It: Tales of Sex and Death; and Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers. She has pioneered erotic writing workshops in the UK and mainland Europe, teaching them from the Cheltenham Festival of Literature to the Greek islands. Her anthology Erotic Travel Tales 2 is the first anthology of erotica to feature a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Five Tips from Alison Tyler

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Five Tips from Kathleen Bradean

Five tips on how to write erotica from Kathleen Bradean:

1) Write a story you believe in.

2) Patience is your best ally, even if it is annoying.

3) "I meant for it to be ambiguous" is code for "I don't understand why people tell stories."

4) Like any long term relationship, you're going to fall out of love with your novel from time to time. Find new reasons to love it rather than abandoning it.

5) There is no such thing as a muse. There's only you. Feel free to don a toga and strum a lyre if it helps.

Kathleen Bradean is the author of many pieces of fiction including 'Chill' in Violet Blue's anthology Best of Best Women's Erotica 2. More of Kathleen's work can be found by visiting: kathleenbradean@blogspot.com or ohgetagrip@blogspot.com.

Five Tips from K D Grace

Five tips on how to write erotica from K D Grace:

1) Write like the wind! Don’t stop, don’t slow down! Don’t even breathe until you get to the end! One of the worst mistakes fledgling writers make is to rewrite the first three chapters into infinity and never get beyond that. Turn off the internal editor when you write that first draft. Don’t worry that people might think that it’s about you. Everything we write is about us, even when we think it isn’t. Write shamelessly and unabashedly, and that’s true whether you’re writing sex or anything else. Remember, it doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t even have to be average. It just has to be WRITTEN! THEN and only then do you have something you can polish and shape and perfect.

2) Don’t give up! I can’t stress enough that rejection is a part of the package for every writer. It’s included in the deal. It will happen, and there’s a 99.9% chance it will happen a lot. Consider it an opportunity to perfect your craft. Consider it an endurance race. Consider it whatever works for you, whatever will keep you writing until you get there. If you do that, you WILL get there.

3) Write every day, at least a little. Every word you write not only helps you perfect your craft but also primes the pump. The more you write the more you’ll be able to write. And remember, it doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be written.

4) Always remember the same rules apply for good erotica that apply for any other story. Sex should never be gratuitous. It should always serve a purpose. Sex should move the story forward. Sex should give us insight into the characters we didn’t have before. Sex is a fabulous tool to create the chaos or the bliss needed to shape the plot.

5) Have fun with it. You won’t want to press on if you don’t enjoy writing. It’s too hard, it’s too much work. But if you allow yourself to play with it, toy with it, experiment with it, get lost in it, I promise you’ll find that you really can’t get enough!

K D Grace is the author of many pieces of fiction including Body Temperature and Rising. More of K D Grace's work can be found by visiting: http://kdgrace.co.uk or her romantic erotica website: http://gracemarshallromance.co.uk/

How to Write a Good Erotic Mash-Up

by I.J. Miller

Taking a classic novel and combining the story with a completely different genre to form a single narrative has become popular these days.  Mashups have been common in music for quite some time, with artists sampling older classics in their new rap song or pop hit.  In literature, Seth Graeme Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies made the first big splash in 2009.  With the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, publishers soon got the idea that erotic mashups might have an appeal.  This past August I was commissioned by Grand Central Publishing to tackle Emily Bronte’s classic Wuthering Heights.  Once a book is in public domain, you can use original sentences, but if you are just going to use a lot of verbatim text and periodically throw in a few sex scenes here and there, what is the point? 

Having a strong background in screenwriting probably most tailored my approach.  I looked at the project less as an addition of sex to an old story, but more as an adaptation of the original work with an erotic interpretation.  Interpreting the story, rather than rehashing it makes it much easier for the erotic parts to become organic and not stick out like a sore thumb, or for erotic readers used to heightened sensuality, a small penis.

These classic works are usually longer than the final book a current publisher would want in the erotic romance genre.  In addition, you’re adding material.  To make it work, you have to break the story down to its core and have a plan.

Identify the true theme and through line of the book.  What it is about?  What is it saying?

The better you can emulate the voice and language of the original the more your new scenes will flow.

In order to reduce the book to a manageable length, look to consolidate scenes as much as possible, as one would do for a screen adaptation.  Write the single best scene, or scenes that carries the broader drama in the liveliest way.

Very often these classic books have a lot of subplots and many minor characters.  Only use what is important to the through line of your erotic story.  The entire book will usually need to be streamlined and restructured to get the most out of the romance, love, and lust that is there.

Be creative in your approach to erotic scenes.  The more they carry the story line, the more they reveal character, the more interesting they will be.

For Wuthering Nights, my erotic mashup, I got rid of the narrator, Lockwood, who hears most of the story in flashback from Nelly the housekeeper.  I went with an omniscient narrator to get into the heads of both Heathcliff and his love, Catherine.  After all, Nelly couldn’t be present in every sex scene!  I went with a straight, linear narrative, starting at the beginning, finishing at the end.

This was a wonderful book to retell, because the characters are so complex.  No one is above reproach.  There is intense love and romance, but also bitter revenge and dark hate.  It allowed for complex and varied erotic scenes, from deeply loving, to vengeful, to manipulative, to rough dungeon sex with Heathcliff as the ultimate dominator.  The passion always fit what was happening in the story.

I adapted the book to three parts (the original had two long, sprawling sections), emulating a film’s three act structure.  I developed the set up of the story and took it to its breaking point.  Then, as in the original, I brought Heathcliff back with a longer middle section that continued to escalate his conflict of trying to win Catherine back while getting knocked off course with his intense thirst for revenge.  The last section, as in the original, uses the second generation of the two families to resolve the story.  I limited the focus Bronte had on Catherine’s daughter’s relationship with Heathcliff’s son (Linton), which was ultimately unfulfilling and not passionate in the original, and added a greater focus on the love story between Catherine’s daughter and Catherine’s brother’s son (Hareton) to bring about a more interesting and fulfilling end for a romantic love story, which is different from the more tragic, dark last parts of the original.

One of the things that usually make great books classic is the wonderful language and writing.  There is no reason to lose the great description or dialogue if you don’t have to.  Find passages that will add meaning to the new eroticism you are adding.  The combination might be very close to what might have been if the original had been written this way, with a beautiful and interesting result.  For example, Heathcliff ends up marrying Catherine’s sister-in-law, Isabella, in order to make Catherine jealous and as an act of revenge.  It is clear in the original that it is an abusive relationship and that Heathcliff has changed Isabella from a noble lady to a “thorough little slattern,” as Nelly observes in the original.  I eroticized this dynamic by making Heathcliff a dominant, with bdsm inclinations, who breaks Isabella down completely in his dungeon.  As in the original, she is both addicted to and repelled by him.  I used Heathcliff’s exact dialogue from the original that did not necessarily refer to his sexual relationship with Isabella, but fit perfectly right before a dungeon scene:

“She would rather I seemed all tenderness before you; it wounds her vanity to have the truth of her taming exposed.  No brutality disgusts her.  I suppose she has an innate admiration of it.  I’ve sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and she still creeps shamefully back.”

There is no magic formula, but a thoughtful approach will allow one to use eroticism, to use what was not a viable alternative back in the day, to heighten all of the powerful emotions in a classic, while producing a story that pays homage to the great writing of yesteryear and is still powerful and interesting enough to stand on its own.

***

EXCERPT FROM WUTHERING NIGHTS 

The more she rubbed, the more she rotated her finger at the bump of her pleasure, the more clearly she saw, and felt the presence of Heathcliff. She liked that he was so available to her, that she was not locked in her room, that they were not stealing time in the fields, that this was not a clandestine visit to the garret. No one else was around and they were free to be who they wanted to be, and do what they wanted to do. She rubbed more vigorously and Heathcliff looked up from his whittling and smiled with happiness: happy to be alone with her, happy to see her begin her pleasure so freely. There was so much contentment right now within them both. They were with each other in a way that had never been possible before. Heathcliff undid the buttons of his trousers and removed his erect cock. This stirred her mightily, for she enjoyed everything about his cock: the salty taste, the musky scent, the beautiful curved vision of it. She rose to her hands and knees and crawled on all fours to Heathcliff…up close, her face soon between his legs. She took a moment to sniff his member, then she took turns alternating the brushing of each cheek along the sides of his shaft, like a cat purring for affection. She kissed his ball sack, then up along the bulging veins, around the swollen head, tenderly, before she took this glorious specimen into her mouth. Completely without thought, she sucked, fingers still gyrating against her clitoris, applying deep pressure, as Heathcliff’s cock penetrated her mouth, and a passion grew within her body that she had only come close to feeling on that beautiful Christmas night. There was a temptation to quicken her pace with both her hand and mouth and give them both the pleasure they sorely needed. But this was not enough. Christmas night had not been enough. She rose to her feet, pulled her dress over her head, swiveled slightly so Heathcliff could enjoy the sight of her body as the golden flames from the fireplace reflected off it. He leaned forward and kissed her stomach. He said, “Catherine, you are the most beautiful woman to walk this earth.”

Wuthering Heights can be purchased from http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wuthering-Nights-Erotic-Retelling-Heights/dp/1455573027/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1359147830&sr=8-10 in the UK or http://www.amazon.com/Wuthering-Nights-Retelling-Heights-ebook/dp/B00AG0VMWO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1359147971&sr=8-2&keywords=9781455573028 in the US. 

website: ijmiller.com

Twitter: @heathcliffian

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ij.miller.5

Five Tips from Tabitha Rayne

 Tabitha Rayne has been told she is quirky, lovely and kinky – not necessarily in that order or by the same person. She writes erotic romance and as long as there’s a love scene – she’ll explore any genre.

1- Be sure your chosen genre is the very best to tell your story - I think of genres as different artistic mediums - erotica for me, is oil painting in dramatic shades of red. Erotic and sensual connection between people is so much more than the physical and that's what drives me in this style.

2- If, like me, you are a visual writer - try and get right inside the character's skin, viewing and experiencing the world from their perspective as if it were your own.

3- For me, writing erotica has the same rules as any other writing - if you want to elicit a response from your reader, it has to do the same for you. The beauty of using the erotic in your writing palette is that sensuality brings with it every emotion a human is capable of - it is a gift for character study and interaction. So if my couple are making love but about to break up, I have to be aroused and crying by the end of the scene. If they are making up - I want to start out angry along with them and be feeling that golden moment when it flips into passion - oh yes!

4 - Some advice for the physical act of writing: switch off spell check and word count. The more red lines there are when you switch it back on again - the more you were in the zone with your story and letting it pour out on to the screen/page.

5- If you come to at the end of your writing session in a state of dishevelment and exhaustion with barely a coherent word on the page, you can be fairly confident that you have created something authentic and compelling - oh, and hawt!

Tabitha Rayne's stories, long and short, have been published by Xcite, Beachwalk Press, Oysters & Chocolate, Cleis, Ravenous Romance, Mischief, House of Erotica and upcoming with Burning Book Press.

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To find more of Tabitha's work visit: my website is www.TabithaRayne.co.uk

What do editors look for? D L King

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