Writing the erotic scene is both easy and difficult. It is easy because the reader wants the erotic scene, more than any other, to succeed. The reader invests his cooperation, his personal energy, and his furthest extremes of credulity. Not to put too fine a point on it, the reader is likely to have an urgent, palpable stake in the matter at hand and to hope feverishly for a satisfactory outcome.
The erotic scene is difficult because the writer wants, or ought to want, to make the scene as good as possible for the reader. The writer spares nothing to produce the desired effect. After all, no matter how well the rest of the story is done, how well crafted its frame, the erotic story will be judged by the erotic scene.
Literature is an art, not a science. However, some suggestions can be made.
Much of what makes the erotic scene work precedes it. Wherever possible, erotic tension should be introduced long before the erotic scene. To reach its greatest peak in the erotic scene, as it should, erotic tension must start at a very low level and be built up with increasing steepness.
A good story also erects other lines of tension. These may be played against the erotic to explore the eroticism more fully. They keep the story from collapsing before the erotic tension can be fully developed. And, since by masculine equation, other forms of arousal with varying degrees of efficiency can be transformed to sexual arousal, other lines of tension enhance the erotic tension.
As the heart of a work of stroke fiction---or of stroke nonfiction for that matter---is the erotic scene, the heart of the erotic scene is the comeshot.
While I encourage the highest literary values in gay literature, especially in gay erotica, which is the principal historic form of gay literature, and while I aspire to the highest standards in my own work, I do not try to kid myself or anyone else about what stroke story is for.
Nine rules for comeshots. I got a little fan mail from the first edition of this book. One of the fans who wrote me became my student. As often happens in such situations, it was I who was to learn more. My student's first piece was a memoir of his bathhouse experiences in pre-AIDS Florida. My student had been an advertising copywriter and tended to describe a foreskin as if it were sort of a matching handbag: "To complete the ensemble, dick had a lovely, thickly veined . . ."
But my student took instruction well, and soon overcame that tendency and several other flaws in his writing.
I still could not get off to his stories.
I was puzzled. My student had hunky men on every page. His characters performed all the basic sex acts and quite a number of not-so-basic ones. Why didn't my student's stories work?
The answer was that he had not written any comeshots. Oh his characters came enough. Sometimes four characters came within the space of a typewritten page. Sometimes one character came four times. They came in every position and combination. They drenched the sheets.
But there was no place for the reader to come.
The story was hot to my student because he worked from memory and his memories were hot. But what he wrote for a comeshot was: "The hairy marine came on the redhead's chest." And in the next paragraph the redhead came in the blond's hand and blond came on the sheets. Then it was on to the next orgy. What the reader got was a box-score, not a play-by-play.
To help my student I gave much thought to what makes a good comeshot. I believe I have some answers.
I have written that however many orgasms occur in a story, one of them is THE comeshot. Some readers will get off when the protagonist's feet are described or at the first mention of his studded black leather jockstrap. But most readers are looking for THE comeshot.
It has to be there. The erotic writer has a contract with the reader. The reader will put up with the writer's literary conceits. In return, the writer will do his or her best to get the reader off. Which means, among other things, that the writer will let the reader know when to let fly.
Potent as the reader is, one comeshot per story or chapter is about all he can handle. After all, he must retain enough strength to get to the newsstand to purchase the next issue. But the reader is entitled to that one comeshot.
So the first rule is: however many ejaculations there are in a story, exactly one of them is THE comeshot.
The second rule is that the comeshot is clearly marked. The reader knows this is the one. If characters have orgasms before THE comeshot, they are the throwaway kind, like the Marine, the redhead, and the blond were having. The reader doesn't want to get off, only to discover that the really hot stuff is on the next page.
Who gets THE comeshot? Most beginners should write in the first person, so the comeshot is either "his" or "mine."
Rule number three is: whoever is coming, we care whether and how he comes. In most first person stories we care about "I." So, "I" can usually be given the comeshot. If "he" gets the comeshot, then "he" should have been in the story long enough so that we care about him. If the story is about "I" having the hornies, "he" may come to "my" sexual rescue in the last few pages. But the point of such a story is to give "I" the comeshot.
Some stories are of a voyeuristic kind, and we may observe the participants without having been introduced to them. Here interest is created by the visual and other clues about who these characters are. Elements of costume and set, nuances of observable behavior, and peculiarities of diction---if they can be overheard---are more important in stories of this kind. If, for example, the scene we spy out occurs in the bedroom of one of the principals, we should see enough of the objects in the bedroom to know whether its occupant is a college jock, a biker, or a longshoreman.
Rule four: from early in the scene, the focus is on whoever has the comeshot. Say there are twenty hunks in a circlejerk and the redhead is to have the comeshot. Naturally the hunks and what they are doing are briefly described. But the key is on the redhead. If one of the hunks does something spectacular, the point is how the redhead responds. As the comeshot gets closer, more of the writing relates to the redhead and the hunks nearest him. Eventually, although the hunks are still there, only the redhead is seen.
Rule five: give the reader a warning. This is so the reader's hand has a chance to catch up with his eyes.
EXAMPLE: "I can't hold out much longer," the redhead gasped.
A good length from warning to shot is about a typewritten page-and-a-half. With any luck, the reader will not encounter the dreaded "CONTINUED ON PAGE 78" within this space.
Rule six: cut the crap. Fancy figures and coinages are best in the early parts of the erotic scene. Readers should not be given complex metaphors to puzzle through in the final lines. Language should draw in until at the climactic moment the diction is strong, direct Anglo-Saxon. This is difficult. The comeshot should be fresh and original. Yet simple, basic language is the most effective. Resolving this paradox is one of the things erotic writers get paid for.
When the reader is not hot, most descriptions of comeshots look silly. So the writer has to see that the reader will be aroused before he gets to the comeshot. Much of what makes comeshots work is in the writing that leads up to them. If handled properly, when the comeshot arrives the reader will be in no mood for detailed literary criticism.
He will just be looking for the green light. This is no license to attempt to pass off inferior work, but it should be reassuring to a writer who does not find quite the same thing in a scene that he reviews cold as he thought he wrote when he was more in the mood.
Rule seven: maintain the point of view. If "I" has the comeshot, "I" can feel it as well as see it. But if "he" has the comeshot, it has to be conveyed to us through "my" senses. That is, "I" tells us what "he" does so that we know "he" is coming good. But "I" cannot tell us exactly what "he" feels. Be in "I's" head or "his" head, but not both at once. In films and videos the model has to pull out so that we can see the shot. That is not necessary in fiction, although a writer who is stronger on visual description certain may decide to have external comeshots. The writer should play to his strength.
Rule eight: little or no dialogue. Let the character's cock do the talking. The place for large amounts of dirty talk is earlier in the story. Characters who have to shout something should make it short and sweet. Trite and no-longer-erotic utterances should be avoided. One exclamation point per utterance is quite sufficient, and if you have not worked the exclamation point to death when it was not really called for, it will be at its most effective. (No "I'm co-o-o-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m-i-ng!!!!!!!!") Biblical references are best confined to earlier stages of the story. ("Jesus Christ, what a horsecock you got on you, sir!") Several anatomical improbabilities may be allowed, but do not make a character enunciate clearly while something substantial is in his mouth.
Rule nine. Get out quick. As soon as the comeshot has flown, jetted, squirted, splattered, splashed, flooded, gushed, shot, popped, or whatever, everybody else in the vicinity comes in the next paragraph without further ado.
If it is the end of the story, it is ended. If it is not the end of the story, there is a prompt fade-out to the next scene. As video producer John Summers once told me: "Nobody wants to spend a lot of time looking at a cock that's already thrown up."
Do not take my word for these rules. Read through the stories you get off to---sometime when you can do so with a cool head. Notice that most really hot stories follow most or all of these rules. Plenty of other aspects of the erotic story offer opportunities for innovation. But until you have a few sales under your belt, do not tamper with this tried and true construction of the comeshot.
If you remember why they call them "stroke" stories, you can easily see that the comeshot cannot be handled in any other way.
I doubt any except erotic writers are still with us in this chapter. However, many principles of the comeshot are applicable to other kinds of writing. The solution is the key moment of the mystery. The final battle with the monster is the key moment of Sci-fi, etc. Check out how well these rules work when adapted to other genres.
For example, the character we feel most strongly about should be present for the climactic scene. We will be most interested in how this scene affects the main character. This is analogous to rule four. The detective in a detective story will untangle many mysteries, but only one of these is the master stroke by which he solves the case. This is analogous to rule one.
As an exercise, see how many of the rules apply to as many different kinds of stories as you can think of. Recast the rules in the form that best applies to each of the various kinds of stories.
Like all story elements, the erotic scene should conform to the reader's expectations. That does not mean that reader knows precisely what will happen. It means that if a story begins with mentions of whips and chains, the erotic scene should make some use of them. The writer may contrive to surprise the reader, but the surprise should not be that reader has been reading the wrong story. If the erotic scene is going to contain bisexuality or other distasteful elements, the reader should have been given fair notice early in the story.
In fiction, as in life, humor is often overlooked in the erotic scene. The protagonist and the romantic interest go to bed with meins so somber that one might think they were going to the gallows. Perhaps this is no time for nonsense, but sex is supposed to be fun, remember? Writers could do worse than to put the play back into foreplay.
For those not intimately familiar with the species: one of the most endearing traits of the supposedly straight trick is his peculiar sense of humor; the joking insults as a defense against intimacy expresses his affection in the boudoir as well as at the construction site. Self-effacing humor goes with the self-confidence of an enormous cock as much as Crisco goes with a knuckle enema. A giggle does no harm to the hard-on that knows what it is about. Lighten up.
Spontaneity in general is not compatible with good writing, but the appearance of spontaneity is. The erotic scene must seem to be, at its climax, both spontaneous and inevitable.
Sincerity covers a multitude of sins. A new writer is well advised to stick close to scenes that he himself finds irresistibly arousing. Even if that scene is a bit out of the ordinary or not to a particular reader's taste, the writer's excitement will communicate itself as surely as a college boy gets horny when his roommate jerks off. Some writers admit to masturbating while they write their erotic scenes, but that is not so easily done by the touch typist. However, no erotic scene was ever harmed by being drafted when its author was exceptionally horny.
One writer I know of, to keep himself honest and to maintain a keen edge on the erotic scene, refused to write fictional erotic scenes until his career was fairly advanced. He adhered strictly to his own erotic experiences, although he recorded them in fictional stories. Yet when he departed from this policy, he was able to write convincingly of scenes that he had never experienced in reality or in his own fantasies. He worked on the fictional scenes, however, until they developed for him many qualities of a memory.
The erotic scene is the jewel of the erotic story. The writer may justify the effort of rewriting this scene many times. When a writer finds himself as much physically affected by the tenth draft as he was by the first, he knows he is on to something.
The writer must be as nude in his own way as the photographic model two pages back in the magazine. The writer must show his literary equipment. Coy clutching of the bedclothes over essential parts, the soft-focus lens of romance writing, the fade-out to a metaphor will not do. The reader cannot be expected to get off while the writer holds back like a five-dollar hustler.
Effectiveness is the criterion for the erotic scene. The rules given here are guides to effectiveness, but if the scene is effective, the rules are off. Make the reader want it. Make the reader wait. Then give it to him as well as you know how. All of it.