Greetings,

Once in a while, I'll provide some helpful tips and techniques for fiction writers. This is part of a pitch to teach classes at furry conventions!

How to Channel Your Furry Sexuality Into Fiction

There's a misconception about erotica: that it has no soul. When it comes to furry erotica, writers tend to keep the story within a sexual context and cast aside the plot -- and that's because writers will often take roleplay sessions and convert it to readable prose. That doesn't always work for obvious reasons.

Plot and character development is very important because that allows the readers to connect with the characters on a very personal level. This is especially important when it comes to sexual foreplay and intercourse. The more detail you provide leading up to the sexual encounter, the more gratifying it is for the reader.

For example, in Brokeback Mountain (2005), we saw the blossoming relationship of two cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. Shortly before Ennis made a sexual pass at Jack, we see these two rugged, very masculine cowboys develop a friendship. The book strongly implied an intimate closeness between the two that was homoerotic, but the author made absolutely sure that the reader was riding on the tension that was simmering beneath the surface. When Jack tells Ennis to join him in his sleeping roll, one night, inside the warm tent, we see Jack reaching for Ennis’s hand and pulls it to his groin. This stimulates Ennis to a point where he spontaneously gets aroused and has sex with Jack.

Gets you hot under the collar, doesn't it?

The reader is awarded with this payoff, which the author worked so hard at building throughout the story. Then it dawned on us that we were expecting this to happen all along. We encouraged it. In retrospect, the movie shed its controversial hype over time because the relationship between these two men actually made sense. It wasn't gratuitous gay sex. It was a love story albeit a forbidden one.

When two furry characters are in a relationship, you, as the writer that facilitated that relationship, need to explain why they're in one. Sex doesn't happen right away. You have to sell it, give it meaning. Show us why it makes sense. Describe the tension, instances of arousal (even if it's insignificant to the plot and minuscule to the grand scheme of your design), and moments that actually stimulate the readership and you at the same time.

In blunt terms, make the reader masturbate along with you.

Be vivid with your descriptions and let the momentum build. Then when the magic happens, engage with the reader and tell them exactly what the sex feels like; what each partner is feeling and thinking at any given time. What do they see? Smell? What do they taste? Touch? Hear? Satisfy all of these senses, and convey them to the reader. And when the characters reach their climax, the reader needs to climax. Leave the reader thinking about why that sex is necessary as they bask in the characters' afterglow. Was the sex necessary because of love? Or pure, feral lust? Give it to us raw, and spare us any unnecessary prose that disrupts the sexual rhythm.