Novels vs. Short Stories

Things have been quiet around here, but that’s because I’ve not only been busy with Strange Tides Book 2, but I also have two more novels in the works!

Some are probably asking, “Why novels? Why not just publish short erotica stories?” Although a good portion of modern erotica offerings tend to fall in the short-story vein (or sometimes as collections of short stories), adult-themed novels are still a viable form in the genre. I am no stranger to writing short fiction, but when it comes to erotica, I wanted to explore the genre from a different angle, and here’s why.

I have always been a firm believer in the importance of stories. A good story will pull you in, make you root for the protagonists and rage against the antagonists; it will stick with you even after you’re done reading it. A bad story will leave you wanting to set the book down and go do something else instead, and maybe never come back to it, if it’s bad enough. So whenever I set out to write stories, regardless of genre, I strive to make the reader feel something, and that effort extends even to adult-themed stories.

By nature, short stories tend to have a less-complex story than longer forms of fiction: by virtue of length, not much can happen in them, especially if the author has a descriptive or florid writing style. (This is not to say ALL short stories MUST be simple. In fact some can deal with a surprising amount of complexity and depth, but that is very difficult to do in such a short space.) By contrast, erotic short stories feel story constraint even more than the average short story, especially if the story wants to cultivate a meaningful relationship between the principal characters: the story not only has to devote most of its length to the titillating aspects of the genre, but it also needs to find some space to frame the erotic encounter that occurs. And although one-off encounters can make for great erotic short stories, the kind of stories I aim to tell require a lot more space than can fit in a single short story.

When I first set out to write erotica, I wanted to write stories that were more than just a single scene or two between characters. My goal was also to write stories that would make for good genre tales in general, the adult-oriented elements aside. To accomplish this goal, I ended up gravitating toward erotic novels instead of short stories: fantasy and science-fiction stories that have loooots of sexy moments organically incorporated into the story. I may occasionally write erotic short stories in the future, but the vast majority of the stories I have planned out to date are far too ambitious for the scope of a short story.

So the advantages of an erotic novel over a short story is I get more room to develop the story, and I can let the relationships evolve to a deeper and ultimately more satisfying level. Plus, I can feature more intimate scenes in a novel than could ever fit in a single short story, which means readers get more bang for their buck.

For me, one of the few disadvantages of an erotic novel, however, is that sometimes it can take a few chapters to get to the really juicy scenes. (Don’t worry: they’re always worth the wait.) Whenever I know that an erotic scene might not happen at the beginning of the story, I include as many hints or sneak peeks of what is coming, to build the anticipation; I don’t ever plan to leaving my readers hanging for too long.

—Andrew

8-22-2019