I don't see a scene or pictures, just the words that form in my head.
"once upon at time..."
actually, i just start writing.
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
Once I've had an idea for a story, I rough out a plan for how it's going to go. Once that's done, I often work at different parts of it at different times. Only rarely do I start at the beginning and just write through to the end. Though it can be good to get the first couple of paragraphs done early, since they can set the style and tone of the whole thing.
03 January 2025 - Why not start the year with a bit of smut by your favourite Lush author? Or if not, try my latest instead. The Jogger And The Flasher | Lush Stories Please read, comment and maybe give it a ❤️ - or even a⭐ if you really enjoy it! Thank you! Annie xxx
I don't have a formula. It depends upon which scene setting you think best suits the story. Feel where you want your story to begin and create from there.
It usually takes me a few days to write a story. I rarely have several uninterrupted hours available to do story in one setting. Often when I come back to the story I feel I need to change something and rewrite. Once I have completed it and proofed thoroughly myself, I send it to someone else to proof again. They always find something I missed. Once I have taken care of that its ready to be submitted.
btw, a hint for writers out there. everyone writes at different speeds, but something to think about. i am in contact with a lot of writers here. the ones you see getting RRs and EPs, the ones whom are names here, like Dancing Doll, Lisa, Jaymal, etc, don't just push stories out. they are painstakingly crafted and take weeks, sometimes months from conception to publishing. this is why they are as good as they are. like anything else, the more effort you put into it, the better it will be - also, these are people who have been doing this for a long time - they learn, they listen, they improve. like any other creative skill, the more you do it, the more your practice, the better you will get - don't be discouraged if the first story you write isn't brilliant - consider writing like playing music - no matter how many guitar solos you've listened to, no matter that you can hear the one you want to play in your head, the first time you pick up a guitar, you are probably not going to sound like Jimi Hendrix. just keep at it until you do.
sorry if i got off the subject a bit, but it reminded me of an incident from a few years back where someone asked me to fix a story for them - apparently they'd spent a whole hour on it and didn't have the time to fix it themselves...
back on the subject, taking it a little more seriously then my once upon a time line...
for me, the stories i write here,i start with a character. before i even begin to write, i find their voice, define their personality, who they are, sort of spend some time getting inside their head - it's a little like roleplay, i guess - then i set them in a scene and write - by then, i know them intimately enough to know how they would react, how they talk, what they would do in the scene i place them in so that the writing part is fairly smooth - what does take time is that i like to play with styles, with different ways of describing sex scenes (let's face it, at it's core, sex if fairly basic - penis/tongue inserted into vagina/ass/mouth, in out in out until climax, followed by cigerette or cuddling). btw, i usually write the story leaving out the actual sex scene with notations such as : blow job here. rim job here. intercourse here. it's like writers foreplay, setting the scene, the build up, really gets me in the mood to write what is, hopefully, steamy sex. it's a little like edging. ;)h
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
I think through the whole story first, which usually gives me a natural starting point. Then I carefully go through it again, ruthlessly cutting anything that doesn't set the scene, progress the plot, or develop the characters.
Once I'm settled on that opening scene, then the agonising begins. With reference to Morgan Hawke's Opening Hook thread, I try and write something to grab the reader. Most of the time, I'll try and engage a few of the senses - sight, smell, sound, touch and taste. It forces your brain to remember those sensations and makes the story more vivid.
Then I'll try and drop in a tease of some sort to get people to keep reading. Why is his nose bleeding? Why is he sad sacking with a bottle of Bailey's? What's he going to do when he gets hold of her panties? Okay, that last ones a no-brainer, but you get what I'm saying.
Then it's just a painstaking process of shuffling around the words until it sounds smooth, and the rest flows on from there.
My latest story is a racy little piece about what happens when someone cute from work invites you over to watch Netflix and Chill. Inspiration, perspiration and if all goes well a little luck on what pushes everyone's button's..
Mostly, I just write...especially when a rush goes through me - when I feel intense emotions that I'll go mad if I don't...listening to music really affects the mood. Then, there are times when I think of a cool plot - a what if this happened - then I plan the whole thing in my head like a movie.
I'm a perfectionist so I do often research things.
Historical things if I'm using an element of history.
Unique names for characters.
Physical locations (not to copy, just to give myself an idea of what something might look like).
And I'm uptight about introductions. Bad introductions can kill of a story for me.
So I spend tons of time writing, mainly as I write in spurts, but also because, well, quality>quantity.
That doesn't really jive with "practice makes perfect" but. I suppose when it comes to publishing stories here, I take the long route. It has to be up to my standards. I mean, I don't read just ANYTHING whether it is erotica, straight fiction, nonfiction, etc.
Usually I start with an idea, often regarding something I enjoy reading that I feel I don't see enough of on lush. Then I just start and let the story go in whatever direction it organically goes.
As for research I try to stay firmly within the land of things I know. When I am writing for non-lush stories I always do research if I don't know enough about a subject.
A lot of times, I just start writing. If I don't lie it, I get rid of it. More often than not, I start riding with it, and a good story comes out of it. Maybe even a series.
Sometimes it's a thing that just comes to me and I write it. Sometimes, it's just a case of me just writing with no real reason to write. The ones that scare me, are the ones where I actually have a plan because those are the ones that I never finish. Though, that said, I don't consider them a waste of time because ideas can always be recycled, which is how some of my stories come from. Re-inspiration can sometimes be better than the original inspiration.
When I get an idea (which normally comes from experience or my own fantasy), I actually start with writing in the middle. After I get a certain point across, I go back to the beginning and officially "start it". Once my new beginning meets up with what I had already typed, I fix the rest to make everything flow.
Well, I'm jumping on this bandwagon a little late, but better late than never!
Starting my stories can be the bear of things. I want to draw my readers in with a hook that'll catch and hold, keeping them with wide eyes on my story until the final words are through, and passion is sated (maybe only temporary?)...
As far as HOW LONG it takes me to write a story? God. "Shelby's Surprise" was written in two hours, from start to final edit. It's had minor tweaks here and there as I learn more, and my writing continues to develop, but for the most part, it was the quickest thing I've ever written. "A Night at the Luau" took almost two months and OMG so many edits before I felt it was anywhere near ready to submit, especially as it was also my first competition entry.
Research... I do bits of research. It depends on what the story is turning out to be. I have a book I've been working on for seven years (and ugh, not even ten chapters in yet!) that has involved MASSIVE amounts of research. Life on the bayou, Cajun French, habits, traditions, dialects, culture, construction ... ALL kinds of things. And that's even before we hit the legalities!
Me, I was readers to FEEL my stories. See things, experience sensation. It's all in the details. The more accurate my descriptions of an area you may have been, or the more descriptive of the sensation you may not have ever experienced... I believe it helps you to enjoy my words more.
I may string together profanity, and talk with a local dialect or use slang ... but my love of writing, I hope that comes out in how carefully crafted each and every single one of my stories is. Even "Shelby's Surprise".
"Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon." -E.L. Doctorow
I usually come up with the people involved, shape them, and let them guide me in writing the story. Essentially let the characters tell it.
It really depends. But always I use lines that will captive, regardless of what I am going for. You may ask well how do you know what will captive, we are all different. I agree with that. However, all can relate, on a primal level. Even if people that we would think were very different from us such as mentally handicaps, sociopaths, or people that speak a different language. We all get frightened, we all get happy, we cry, sometimes we feel like we don't understand whats going on, for mentally handicap people this must be the case more so than people that are not like that. We all want something and that is because we all feel. If you can tap into the primal level you're good to go. Don't worry most writers do not ever achiever this. A very few get lucky and do it by mistake, they get into it and nothing else matter so the 'feeling' we all carry takes over for that split moment.
Don't worry about trying to be like any image just give it all you got and that primal level will show its self without you knowing it. Lol I need to take my own advice I don't try hard enough my talent allows me tocget on this primal level at will. I owe it to myself, and to would be fan to go beyond that. I hope I can get over my laziness.
This is some specific advice that I sent out recently but it might be useful to readers of this thread. (Although I prefer Sprite's example above.)
You want your character to be athletic? Don't have your character tell me (the reader) 'I'm athletic'. Have me (the character) go for my morning run. Have me feeling better for having run 5 kilometers.
You need to tell me, the reader, why seeing my grandparents having sex is sexy for me. This isn't 'normal' so if you can give me a reason, it makes your story stronger.
Maybe she finds it funny at first but then realises that two people going at it with such passion after blah years of marriage is what she wants. "I wish somebody loved me like that," blah thought. She thought about Jack from school. "I want you to suck my cock." The words were those of her grandad but as blah's fingers wandered, she was thinking about Jack. "Oh Jesus, Jack," blah muttered, as her fingers crushed against her teenage twat. The grunts and groans from behind the door became blah's and her grandfather's demands became those of Jack. "Fuck me, Jack. Please." blah dropped to her knees with her hand pulled tightly against her groin. She came, harder than she ever had before; a mixture of guilt and desire taking the orgasm to new levels. As she opened her eyes, she saw that the light was different. With a sense of dread, she turned and saw that the door was open... and her grandfather was watching.
Not my kind of theme but it creates a universe within which odd things might happen.
For erotica, I often start with an image or scene, sometimes a fantasy that I've had. Then I start to think about the context, who the lovers are and how they got to that point. In other words, I kind of roll back from the sex and build the story leading up to it.
The other common one is to set up a situation, then run it through to see where it goes. Sexually unfulfilled man is alone with his attractive and separated daughter-in-law, let's run that through and see what they do (leading to Frustration and Relief). In this case, I pretty much write it as I go whereas in the former I tend to spend more time framing it in my head until I reach what I think is a good starting point.
In either case, I generally open the story with some scene setting material that leads into developing the action.
I usually have a spark for a story, a new story from an event, comment or something I have seen or read. If I am writing a follow up story to a first part then I find it easier to continue the story through to the end. As many of my stories are in a similar genre then it generally begins with my mind imagining my wife and I in a situation that has been at least real, in terms of having been on holiday; or met someone who I think she might have fancied and I just take it from there. Hope that answers your question. 
