Ask an erotic novelist

[Foxaèr]

Will you go to the forbidden land of gay porn?

[Iroscato]

Do you ever crack one out over your own work?

[downbeatplumb]

How many different words are there for moist?

[Alex K]

This is not exactly concerning novels in particular, but why do 99% of mainstream pornographic film scenes apparently follow a stricter liturgy than catholic mass? (you know what I mean. BJ PIV (PIA) B(B) with only slight permutations).
That stuff is so mindbogglingly boring, and I honestly wonder why people keep producing/buying more of it.

[Esquilax]

Serious question.
Do you feel that any of your other skills and knowledge, eg, logic, science, etc, make you a better writer?
Or would you put it down to just having a vivid imagination and a grasp of the language.

Absolutely, having other skills and knowledge helps, because that gives me more areas I can confidently write on; it's no coincidence that more than one of my characters are themselves writers, after all. But language and scene composition are still the big cards you need to succeed in this business; if you don't know how to make a scene flow, where to build anticipation and exactly how explicit or vague to be in a given sequence, you'll fail.

What inspires you?  Is sex really 99% all in the mind?

It really is: physically, you're kinda limited. Once you get to, say, chapter fifty five of a story, you've probably seen at least as many penis-in-vagina sex scenes, and it's the situations and mentality of the participants that make all the difference. The best thing you can do, as a porn writer, is to make it easy for your readers to imagine themselves as the characters; that's why shit like 50 Shades sells worth a damn, the heroine is so completely bland and tasteless that it's easy to get inside her head. The other way to achieve the same effect is to write consistent, relatable characters with whom the reader can empathize with, and once they've been established as people, then have them fuck each other senseless.

Erotic novelist?  Isn't that just a euphemism for smut lord? 

That is what I have on my business cards, yes.

Will you go to the forbidden land of gay porn?

I actually already have, though that story isn't anywhere near finished; it was going to be far more expansive than my previous works, and I started writing it before I'd gotten into the biz seriously. Gay porn might just be a wider market than the straight stuff, at this point.

Do you ever crack one out over your own work?

Once or twice. Generally I have to wait until I've forgotten what it is I wrote, to find it hot, though. Before that point I just get self conscious.

How many different words are there for moist?

Enough that you can avoid ever using the word "moist," which you should definitely do, as it's a serious mood killer.

This is not exactly concerning novels in particular, but why do 99% of mainstream pornographic film scenes apparently follow a stricter liturgy than catholic mass? (you know what I mean. BJ PIV (PIA) B(B) with only slight permutations).

That stuff is so mindbogglingly boring, and I honestly wonder why people keep producing/buying more of it.

I suspect that's because it sells: the people buying it probably aren't following the entire movie from end to end, anyway. They're probably skipping around to particular parts to get their rocks off, so I imagine porn producers follow a laundry list of necessary components and then just call it a day. More niche stuff, where there's more certainty that the viewers are there for other things, tend to have more variety; kink porn can stand not to have any penetrative sex at all, and I've seen vanilla porn with "alternative" porn stars that does much the same thing. It's why I like the Crash Pad series so much; at least you're guaranteed something different each time.