It may seem silly, but I find it incredibly difficult to write stroke stories. Stories like Mutual Benefits and Being More Social that have more than ten characters and keeping track of all of their feelings and what happens outside of the main character’s POV is weirdly easy to me, because for a brief time, I’m living that story, and understand all of it. I might get a few continuity errors here and there, but in general, I’m able to write it all not because I had to extensively plan out everything that happened and plan our future plot twists, but instead they’re just… already there.

I have such a commitment to reality and – let’s be real – such a phobia of brevity, that I experience actual difficulty writing stroke stories. If I write about people having sex within an hour of meeting, an alarm goes off in my brain, telling me, “Wait, no, this doesn’t make sense! How would this happen in the real world? This story doesn’t work! Rewrite! Ten thousand words! Twenty thousand words!!”

In a weird way, flirting with actual supernatural elements like mind control actually makes it easier to write realistic stories in this way. People in the real world often need either a solid connection or a pre-decided noncommittal no-strings-attached mindset in order to bang. So when people have neither, we have to fill that gap with something. “They were hypnotized into doing it” is a fantastical way to go about it, but it’s still valid. “Just because,” on the other hand, kind of stinks if you look for reality.

That’s a big “if” though. If you read my stories and blogs enough, and curate your erotica writer list carefully to only include dialogue-heavy “realistic” stories, it’s easy to forget the fact that the grand majority of erotica is flash-in-the-pan to-the-point stroke stories. I’m not entirely sure if I need to add my voice to the pile, and my time is probably better spent in general on more slow-burning stuff with grander themes. Not because I think it’s better, or even because I’m better at it, but because my audience has come to expect it of me, and it’s what makes them happier. Nevertheless, First Impressions was a rulebreaker for me because it was commissioned, and the commissioner was happy with what they got, so that matters even more when it comes to a commission.

Like I said, a commissioned piece will never affect my other output, and you will be getting another chapter of Mutual Benefits this month, as always. I’ll talk to you all next week.