The Method to My Madness

  • Posted on June 12, 2015 at 11:57 pm

By Cheryl Taggert

Naughty Mommy, JetBoy, and I have decided to share with you our individual processes for how we write our stories. I will also include where I get my ideas, which is more involved than you might think. We each have our own approach to writing, and while I am certain it is very similar for all of us, it is also different as well. For example, JetBoy, as you have read, labors over every paragraph until he likes what he has and then moves on. I am not like that at all, as you will see.

I start, of course, with an idea. I allow the idea to do what I call “ferment” because I liken good writing to good wine. Fermenting involves the idea rolling around in my head for a few days until I feel comfortable with it and where I think it might go. Things have to meld into a whole in which every part contributes to the other parts, and in that manner, I produce a good story, or at least I hope it is good.

Now, these ideas are nothing new. There are just so many ideas one can generate in this field. Face it, our goal is to allow our readers to become sexually stimulated from our stories to the point of relieving any pent-up sexual energy, usually in the form of masturbation, though I am sure there are those who are lucky enough to be in a relationship with someone who shares this fantasy, which greatly increases the methods of achieving an orgasm. Furthermore, we have male and female readers, and it pleases me that I am able to turn on other women. There was a time I thought I was one-of-a-kind, so finding other women exist who share my tastes is liberating.

So, an idea occurs to me and it ferments. Take for instance my current Nanny for a Night series. This is how that one came about: Initially, an online friend asked me to write a story for him in which I babysit and seduce his daughter and niece and eventually include his wife in the fun. Anyway, a year later when I was considering continuing these two chapters as a series for our website, I was thinking how awesome it would be to be self-employed in a job where parents would entrust their little ones to me, and upon having such a job, find that the little girls I watch over are just as interested in me, each other, and themselves as I am in them. (Consent is important in my stories, and I address it openly in Chapter 7 of this series.) My fantasies about the scenario led to some enjoyable alone time, which also allowed me to consider possibilities and how to go about creating something a bit more unique than the standard babysitting story. After some alterations in which the cousins became twin sisters and “an old family friend” became a unique entrepreneur, I posted the re-worked chapters and a series was born.

Personally, I love the idea of the nanny who has an agreement with hotels to sit with children overnight. This was the solution to a problem that plagued me when I first came up with the idea of making this a series. Having a hotel vouch for the main character gives plausibility to the idea of parents trusting the nanny for a night because she comes recommended by the hotel. I saw immediately the usual babysitter format would not work well because most parents would not trust just anyone to take their children from the hotel and keep them overnight. That would be almost inviting a ransom note. I had several ideas about how to “fix” this problem that I discarded quickly because they lacked plausibility almost as much as the “here’s my child even though I don’t know you” scenario did. This is where we as authors must be creative in our approach. One thing I hate, as do the others in our author trio, is a story that isn’t plausible. It is bad writing and a sure sign of an amateur. If I’m reading a submission and come across something that just doesn’t ring true, I am finished reading that story; case closed.

Another thing I do as I write is allow the story to write itself. One situation leads to another, and often my characters take me in a direction not initially intended when I started writing the story. Frequently, it is quite a surprise to me. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. In fact, this happened with Chapter 8 of the “Nanny” series, and I am still deciding whether or not to allow the story to dictate where things go, or to take up my editing pen and make some changes before allowing the story to continue “writing itself” from there. (It has not been posted as of this writing, so I am letting you travel along with me here as I am writing it without revealing the specific plot development I am considering discarding.) It was odd; I was going one place, and the story, which is a living thing as surely as I am, went somewhere else. That’s why writing to me is sometimes like riding a roller coaster in the dark with only ten feet of track lit enough to see.

Furthermore, the ending of Chapter 6, which has been posted, is not the original ending I wrote. Basically, I had to tell Gina she could not begin her seduction of the girls while the fictional Cheryl was on the balcony with Lynn near the end of the chapter. I’ll let you in on a secret here. In the original ending, Cheryl and Lynn come back into the room to find Gina having sex with her husband while an awestruck and horny Lori watches. They all join in, though the resulting orgy was barely begun in the story, allowing the reader to fill in how it all ended.

I didn’t like this ending to the chapter for a number of reasons. For one thing, it stretched credulity to the breaking point. And while I know there are those out there who are thinking, “YES! Include the husband!” this was one of the things I didn’t like. I included the sex between Gina and her husband in the eavesdropping scene because it was necessary to what was happening. In all honesty, I know very little about the male genitalia, so it makes me nervous to write about it. So this chapter-ending orgy wasn’t necessary, and the way the re-written ending worked out was much better for the story and for me. Finally, one of the measuring sticks I use is whether or not what I’ve written turns me on when I re-read it. The original ending turned me off, mostly because it lacked plausibility, so out it went.

At some point after I finish a story or chapter, I go back and look at it for problems such as typos and grammar mistakes that don’t fit the voice of the story, which even an English/Language Arts teacher like me can make. I usually find them all, but sometimes I don’t and feel real embarrassment when I see something wrong in a posted story I wrote. I also check for continuity and sometimes fail there as well, but I try to do my best. Continuity involves answers to questions like these: Have I somehow changed who is partnered for sex, or did I suddenly move a character from one scenario to another without bridging the events (explaining how she got there)? When I am writing, my mind is moving much faster than my fingers can type, and mistakes are extremely easy to commit, especially when there are multiple partners in a scene. So if you are reading and suddenly the continuity goes awry, please let me know, but do so nicely. Believe me; it’s much easier than you would think to type another character’s name when you have five or six in the scene or story.

Finally, I read the dialogue out loud and ask myself, does it sound like what real people would say and does it sound like something this character would say? Like some of these other easy-to-commit mistakes, stilted dialogue is much easier to write than conversation that sounds authentic. Realism is my goal—in my stories, my dialogue, and even my ideas.

Achieving realism in this genre can be difficult, but it is attainable, and ideas are where that starts. Sometimes my ideas are based on things that happen to me when I am online. For instance, I found a short video interview of a young porn actress who was telling the interviewer that her mom was an actress in the porn industry as well, and that was what got her started in it. I began to wonder what it might have been like to be raised by someone who did that for a living. This gave birth to my Daughter of a Porn Star series. I figured someone like that would have been raised from a very young age in an atmosphere in which sex was natural and open. A mother like that would think nothing of either seeing her young daughter playing with herself, or of having the young daughter walk in on her while she masturbated. This got the first chapter started, and I have plans to continue from where I left off about a year ago. The next chapter isn’t fermenting yet, but it will be soon.

So you see, I am more like a tunnel the story travels through, but I am a tunnel that can change its direction as needed if I see the story driving where I don’t want it to go. I rarely plan my stories or chapters out in advance other than to know the basics. One example is in Chapter 8 of the Nanny series. All I knew when I started it was I would be introducing a permanent character to the story, unlike the hotel guests who come and go never to be heard from again once their episode has ended. (For instance, Chapter 7 is the last we see of Gina, Lynn, and Lori, at least for this series. Life moves on.)

Well, that’s how I write. I hope this has been enlightening or at least slightly interesting. If nothing else, you got a look into how some of these stories originally were before re-writing as well as a hint as to where the Nanny series will be going.

This is already approaching 1,800 words, so I’ll go now. Thank you for reading, not only this blog entry but our stories as well. I can tell you we all work very hard and spend a lot of time writing them. It is a passion and a joy. I would write them anyway, but it’s nice to share them with faithful readers like you! Bye for now!

–Cheryl

 

No comments on The Method to My Madness

  1. drew says:

    very interesting. thank you for giving us an idea of your creative process. I always have wondered if the stories are all sketched out in advance or if they are written as a living breathing organism. I guess it depends on the author. Again thank you for your insightful comments.

  2. Cheryl says:

    Yes, it is definitely a different process, depending on the writer. I tend to be an adventurous person, so maybe my “Let’s see where this takes us” approach is a manifestation of that. Thank you for reading my blog entry. I often fear our readers avoid them because they don’t have any sex scenes in them. 🙂

  3. Evan says:

    Thanks for giving us an intimate view of your mind and process 🙂 good stories can’t be written by just anybody – they take a fair amount of effort, creativity, passion and love – clearly all from you. So carry on! Always looking forward to more!

  4. Jennifer says:

    Hello Cheryl, I really appreciate your description on your writing process, it makes it easier for me to understand how your stories build up and especially how much thoughts all of you authors spend on delivering real high class erotica to our eager eyes, smiles.

    I hope it is clear what I am trying to say as English is not my native language to write in, but I think I somehow could let you know that I really, really enjoy all the hard but satisfying work you do for us readers. =)))

  5. Cheryl says:

    Evan and Jennifer, thank you for reading and commenting on this. It’s nice there are those who recognize that this is not easy. It’s hard work to get a story just where you want it to be, especially for those of us who sometimes write ourselves into a corner. 🙂

  6. jetboy says:

    Thanks for sharing your insights — I hope everyone here reads them. If these thoughts on the craft of writing encourage a few readers to knuckle down and create erotic fiction of their own… well, you’ll have done a genuinely good deed, Cheryl.

  7. 14u2h82 says:

    Thank you for sharing with us how you create these great stories. Several of my favorite authors describe the process much like you. Stephen King talks about his characters being living things, and that he is just telling their stories.

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