Smut Writing Guide
Rec lists of resources curated by the members of our server.
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i don’t know why you wouldn’t want to write bad fanfic. that’s the point of it – it’s allowed to be bad. by bettsfic
Fandoms: No Fandom
25 Mar 2023
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Bookmarked by leftsidedown
25 Mar 2023
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... and overcoming fear.
Q: I want to write reallllyyy bad, but I have no idea how not to make it seem like a bad fanfic
A: i don’t know why you wouldn’t want to write bad fanfic. that’s the point of it – it’s allowed to be bad. readers expect a certain level of badness. tongues battling for dominance, hot characters smirking at each other every other line, melodramatic love confessions. that’s why we’re here. to be bad, to be the kind of writers everyone tells us we’re not allowed to be, and own it.
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Writing Smut 101: Overcoming Smut Shame by slightlyrebelliouswriter23
Fandoms: No Fandom
25 Mar 2023
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Bookmarked by leftsidedown
25 Mar 2023
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it’s a great way to practice overcoming shame…
Q: Writing smut without cringing the whole time? How do you do it.
A: The short answer, nonnie, is: you don’t.
But rest assured, feeling embarrassed is completely natural. The trick is learning how to overcome the cringe when it does happen, instead of letting it deter you.there’s a LOT of good advice in this post addressing reasons why one might feel shame around smut, and providing lots of great suggestions on how to overcome that.
If you’re nervous about posting smut for the first time, have a trusted friend/mutual Beta read it for you. It’s the online equivalent to someone holding your hand before jumping off the cliff, and works wonders for the nerves.
to anyone who’s looking for a push: this is your sign. go for it. we’re holding your hand. <3
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perhaps the most helpful beginning advice I found was: ease yourself into it! this post coined the term “Steam” to describe a category of fic that’s smut-adjacent but not explicit — think heavy makeout sessions, teasing, fantasies, fingering.
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- Start by incorporating smutty fanfiction/erotic fiction into your regular reading rotation [...]
- Next, I’d recommend having a designated digital space for smutspiration. This can be a list of “smutty” words/phrases kept on a separate document on your computer, for those days when you just can’t think of the right way to describe something. -
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TL;DR: in which I pull apart a sex scene into nine different aspects, giving examples of each, and turn a boring unengaging scene into a hot steamy one, step by step.
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Bookmarked by leftsidedown
25 Mar 2023
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a REALLY comprehensive guide on layering: going over a scene repeatedly, adding different elements each time
step zero: Research. Know your anatomy. Know the basics of how orgasms work. Know what genitalia look like, in all their variations. Watch porn. The RESEARCH NOW edict goes double if you venture into less mainstream sex.
1. actions
2. reactions
3. Physicality - where their bodies are
4. Sensory Language
5. Dialogue
6. Thoughts
7. Uniqueness - characterization & tone/purpose: Is this a quick eager fuck? A slow comfortable screw after a long hard day? A drawn-out tension-filled tease? Are they happy? Sad? Nervous? [there's] I’m-worried-about-you sex, can-I-really-trust-you sex, I’m-trusting-you-a-lot-right-now sex, I-need-to-vent-sex, I’m-sorry-about-all-this sex, I-need-to-know-you-still-love-me sex, and many others
8. Realism (This is a very arguable, personal tastes kinda thing.)
9. Tension-TENSION-release (Sex, plainly said, is a slow build-up to a climax, followed by relief.) -
This work isn't hosted on the Archive so this blurb might not be complete or accurate.
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This part contains the following chapters:
Popping Your Cherry: Your First Smut Fic
Resources
Sex Info
Writing Resources
Fic Archives & Communities
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Bookmarked by leftsidedown
25 Mar 2023
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one of the most helpful insights I found was that a sex scene has a natural progression — use that!!
a sex scene has a natural progression (foreplay, the act, climax, closure) that you can build on and if you just take it one step at a time you'll be done in no time. The easiest way I have found to do this is to build the scene gradually through layers.
- Your first step is to decide what is going to happen in your scene. ... Action->Reaction comes into play on every level of your story.
- Your second step would then be to map out what is going to happen in the scene. This means you have to decide the kind of sex your characters are going to have and who is going to do what to whom. ...
- Your third step is to go through your rough draft and start to layer in the detail.
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all kinks are obsessions, and all obsessions are narrative candy. by bettsfic
Fandoms: No Fandom
25 Mar 2023
This work isn't hosted on the Archive so this blurb might not be complete or accurate.
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Bookmarked by leftsidedown
25 Mar 2023
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on finding and understanding the heart of the appeal of kinks:
all kinks are obsessions, and all obsessions are narrative candy. desire is an innate conflict. i would go so far as to say it’s the only conflict that matters. so when you break apart writing hard kink, it’s all about understanding the underlying desire there, and moreover the cathartic element driving it. it’s all about internality, not physicality.
for example, foot fetishism isn’t as much about the aesthetic appeal of a foot as it is about vulnerability and depravity. our feet are things we covet, that transport us, and that, given their function, are attributed to filth. to see someone barefoot when they shouldn’t be is to see them exposed in a certain way. to affiliate a foot with sex when by all means it shouldn’t be is an indulgence in a minor wrongness.
but also, i’m not into feet, so i’m just making all that up. that’s kind of the point i’m trying to make – smut isn’t about reality but fantasy. when you’re writing kink, you’re a liaison to an audience either trying to understand something new, or finding acceptance for something well-established in themselves. most people don’t read smut for the allure of bodies moving in space doing things to each other. if they wanted that, they could watch porn. they read it for the natural conflict of intimate moments, and the internality presented in prose.