If you’re asking how to start writing erotica, you’re on the right track. That means you’ve been thinking about erotica and likely picturing at least one sexual or erotic image (though it’s okay if you haven’t). Start with a basic idea in mind—that could be a sex position, a fetish, a setting, a relationship dynamic, a character or characters. The sex position could be 69, which can fit any gender. Then build outward from there—who are your characters, why are they engaging in 69, how does it look and feel for them? What led up to the 69? Is this something they regularly do or something they’re trying for the first time? How do the give and take of 69 interact? For each of your characters, is it more exciting to receive oral sex while also performing oral sex, or is one of them distracting?

Think too about their size and the position of their bodies, but mainly, explore the combination of their physical and emotional reactions.

Start with what drew you to a particular image, plotline, character or whatever your initial impulse for writing was. Maybe your character woke up from an erotica dream and was inspired to fulfill that dream.

I’ve written erotica based on a phrase I’d seen (“necessary roughness”), based on stories I’ve been told by friends, based on my own life and based on news stories or photographs. If you’re unsure where to start, put characters who don’t know each other together and make sparks fly. Try an everyday setting, like a supermarket or office. How do your characters first interact? What do they notice about each other? What attracts them to each other? What fantasies are running through their minds?

Start with the basics of your characters—who are they? What is their daily life like? What is their relationship status? What turns them on? Are they satisfied with their current sex life? If not, why not—and then your job is to make them satisfied. You can’t go wrong if you give the reader a vivid portrait of what your characters are all about, whether they’re a hopeless romantic or someone who gets off on bedding a different person every night, or who’s into threesomes or BDSM or exhibitionism, etc. Pick one scenario and write as much as you can, whether you start with a sex scene or work up to it, although it’s likely easier to work up to the sex scene, because then during the sex scene, you can use what you’ve already written to enhance it. If we know your character has a thing for humiliation, it will be all the hotter when their partner finds new and thrilling ways to humiliate them. If they’re obsessed with bondage, for instance, take the reader right alongside them every step of the way so that even if the reader themselves isn’t into bondage, they’ll be into the bondage of your story.

Readers will likely remember characters more than a particular sex scene, so while you want the sex to be hot, you want your characters to be vivid and feel like real people. They shouldn’t just be generic “man into anal sex” or “woman into submission” or “couple into spanking.” They should feel like people the character enjoys spending time with and would follow into any erotic scenario—because you just may want to keep writing about them.

Want a professional erotica author and editor’s feedback on your work? Check out my erotic writing consulting services, whether you have an in-progress manuscript or are looking for a brainstorming session.