#love how this meme is like ''post one sentence'' and i'm out here dropping 200+ word excerpts because i have no self control

[thevioletcaptain]

🌹👀

Hmm... shifty eyes. Hope you don't mind it being a mildly smutty excerpt, because a snippet from my accidental-turned-invited voyeur!Cas fic feels like the most fitting for this emoji. It's a five times fic, and the working title is currently "In which Cas likes watching Dean jerk off because it’s the closest Dean ever comes to loving himself" because I can never avoid making things at least a little upsetting.

There's something mesmerizing about it. Not just the physical action, but what's within. He's well acquainted with Dean's soul by now, after all, and while he's always considered it breathtaking, it's even more stunning in this unguarded moment of pleasure. Where it usually radiates love in all directions, toward his brother and toward Bobby and even, to Castiel's endless surprise, toward him, Dean never treats himself with even a fraction of the care that he extends outward. But now… Now Dean's soul caresses itself. Holds itself. Ekes out joy through an act of true self love. His soul and his body shifting sinuously as one, glistening warm under the orange glow of the bathroom lights. Castiel gazes at him for far longer than he should, and only stops when the sudden thud and rattle of the motel room's main door startles him back to awareness. Dean squints his eyes and scrunches his face in annoyance, and when a fist pounds on the bathroom door, accompanied by Sam's voice calling out, "Hey, you gonna be in there long?", his hand falls away from its place between his legs so fast it's like he's been shocked. He thumps the back of his head against the tile with a grimace. "Just a minute!" he shouts back, and turns the water all the way around to cold, gritting his teeth as he shifts fully into the stream. His erection rapidly flags. A bad kind of tension overtakes his shoulders. The unfamiliar prickle of shame creeps up the back of Castiel's neck like a phantom touch, and he leaves without a word. Without a sound. He doesn't visit the brothers for the rest of the week.

[for this ask meme | other responses here]

[vesuviannights]

Hello Claire, I am trying to write smut, and I blame (thank) you. I've never written it before and I'm feeling kinda unsure about how to go about it. Because you're such an inspiration, I was wondering if you had any advice for a someone just starting out like me. 😅 Thanks so much 😊💖

I accept (welcome) that blame.

I’ve written this post for similar purposes, but it’s focused more on getting comfortable with writing it without squicking out as soon as you start. I can definitely add onto it though, with some specific things that worked for me?

Same with the other post, not everything works for everyone and eventually you’ll spread your sexy wings and probably not use any straight advice anyone has given you - and when that day happens, it’ll be the best feeling in the world.

In the mean time, here’s things that worked for me and some things that I still do now:

Establish your preferred language very early on.

You probably won’t feel comfortable writing about sex if you don’t like the words you’re using, so figure out your preferred word for absolutely everything. Start with the genitals and work your way out from there. Some people prefer cock, others dick, some people stick with a plain old penis. Are you a pussy, sex or cunt person? Do you like breasts or boobs? Come or cum? Asshole, second hole, back hole? Write ‘em down. Play around with them. Say them outloud and roll them around on your tongue and in your head. You might find that you like one specific word for everything, or it might change depending on the mood of the piece you write, or even the character you’re writing.

Don’t be afraid to send the plot packing

Plot? Don’t know him. Get straight into the fucking. Don’t even worry about how they got there or making it believable. You’re here for the practise and to get comfortable with what you’re doing, worry about why your character is dropping to their knees in the back of a masquerade ball later.

Do little bitty baby smuts!

Headcanons! 200 word drabbles!! Two sentence stories!! All so amazing. Good ways of getting an idea out that you might want to use later and, just like above, good ways of being able to write smut without having to think about the nuances of plot, or even how the smut is going to end. Just write tiny little things. Tiny.

Refresh your creative writing techniques!!

This is the teacher in me popping out. We teach creative writing techniques for a reason - they work, even if you don’t realise you’re doing them. Want to create suspense or emphasis? Use truncated sentences ( “She cried out. Tight. So tight.”). Want to create a flow? List adjectives and verbs (“He sighed, moaned, keened as they thrust into him.”).

But also, don’t listen to the rules of the English language? It’s dumb. Start every sentence with ‘and’ if that’s how you want to make it flow. Have a sentence that’s 4 lines long, who’s fucking stopping you? Use repetition over and over and over and over again until your point is across. Use italics and capitals in literally any part of the sentence you want to create emphasis on, “Especially when your characters are talking during sex and you ne-eed them to–AH—be heard!”

Don’t be afraid to mimic

I’ll start off by immediately saying this doesn’t mean directly copying/pasting huge chunks of text and dialogue and calling it your own. What it DOES mean is that it’s okay to see a phrase or line in another smutty piece of work, go “oh I’d like to try that”, and play around with it in your writing. This can be from one line to a whole fic concept. No one is expecting anyone who is learning anything to come up with shit on their own, that isn’t how the world or learning works, people learn by seeing examples, scaffolding, doing and practising.

Hell, use my writing for this. Find a line you love but feel too unsure to write and just throw it in there. Work with it until it fits your work. Change a few of the words around. It’s a skeleton and you’re a god creating the meatsuit. You won’t know exactly what you like until you read or write it, and you can mimic another writer or even porn if you watch it, because what’s the harm?

Write it with whoever you feel comfortable

Depending on what you feel comfortable doing, the people you write smut about will change. I personally (and this is in no way shaming ANYONE) have never been able to write about real people because it makes me feel uncomfortable, and as I’ve grown in my twenties I can’t even really write about non-animated characters who are represented by actors because that also feels weird to me. What I DO feel comfortable writing about, though, is fictional characters who derive from books, comics and video games. So that’s what I do. Don’t write something or someone you don’t feel comfortable writing, you won’t have a good time.

Similarly, this can be extended to POV. If using first person makes it feel like too much of a self-insert for you and you don’t feel comfortable, skip to second person. If you don’t like the idea of writing to specific readers, skip to third person.

Use prompts

If any of you are old enough to remember, and it’s very possible this is still a thing, on Livejournal there used to be a thousand communities that were basically just multi-fandom prompt challenges. One of my faves was 50KinkyWays, which gave you a bingo card of 50 prompts and you just wrote a lil drabble or a huge fic for each using whichever pairing you wanted. And when I started writing smut, this was really helpful for me because it challenged me not to just do the ‘kiss, oral, missionary sex’ situation a thousand times over, and also forced me to research what I was writing about.

Way back when I first started this blog, I used this prompt list to steer what people requested. It was great, and gave me plenty of new material to use as a foundation for the requests.

If that’s too kinky or not your cup of tea, here are some other ones I’ve got saved in my drafts that are pretty fantastic too, ranging from mild smut to super kinky: 

Simple kisses prompt list

NSFW alphabet meme

Simple sentence starters

Mildly steamy sexy sentence starters

NSFW sentence starters - punishment edition

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Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk and I am always so happy to talk about creative writing and how amazing and dumb it is.

Biggest lesson: honestly just disregard anything I have told you that doesn’t work and just fuckin’ go nuts love u boo xx