How dirty do we go, baby? Whether to write Fade-to-Black or go for the Smut

[originally posted on the Dark Village Publications Substack, Dec 2023]

Smut isn’t for everyone. Straight up.
Me? Oh yes, it’s for me. 100%.

But even as an occasional erotica writer, I completely understand that it’s not appropriate for every story.

If a hardcore sex scene distracts from a deeper theme in your story, it’s probably not a good fit.

For example, let’s talk about a few of my books, and my current WIP(s).

Beasts of Grey Haven, three books authored by three different women, (His to Keep by T. Heat, His to Protect by Karly R. Latham, and His to ControlMallory CywinskiTorri HeatKarly Latham by yours truly, Mallory Cywinski) were packed full of steamy scenes. The Thanksgiving short story available for free aside, this trilogy hit at least a 3.5/5 on the spice factor. There’s no question about the focus of these stories to anyone who has read them. Are there spicier smut books with more people, more danger, more … tentacles, just... MORE? Of course. (Haunting Adeline comes to mind… Den of Vipers… I could happily go on, but I’ll save that for a future article.) But the point of the trilogy was smut.

Obviously.

But, declaring the series a smuttastically fun project from its inception was what gave all three of us the freedom to write it as such. All of us consider ourselves only part-time smut authors. We have other manuscripts and published pieces with more depth; we tell more complex stories that examine deeper themes. And yes, we did a lot of character- and world-building in Beasts, and we created real, meaningful relationships within the stories. We even tackled chronic illness representation, family trauma, and overcoming toxic past relationships, though sex and sensuality was always center stage.

The books felt like a breath of fresh air, a chance to flex our wings and shake off the weight and intensity of our other projects for a few weeks. And for myself, releasing my first published smut, a chance to go outside my comfort zone and share this side of my twisted brain. None of this is to say these stories didn’t require as much work, attention to detail (Thank you to those of you who caught bits we missed!), and frustration as our other stories. But it felt different. (It also all came together in approximately 2.5 weeks because we are masochistic with self-imposed deadlines.) It felt different, because it was freeing to tell ourselves, “Hey. Sex is appropriate here. Write what you want to write.”

So we did.


As we were writing Beasts, I was simultaneously in the final editing stages of Desperate Creatures. Is this book spicy? Yep, a little bit here and there. It’s nowhere near the level of Beasts when it comes to phrasing, though. There are certain smut words that just bump a book up an an entire red-pepper-emoji bracket. And Desperate Creatures doesn’t have them.

Why? You literally just said it was freeing to allow yourself to write smut. Why not just write smut all the time?

Because that’s not who I am all the time.

And in the case of Desperate Creatures, it would have detracted, rather than added.

There are implied steamy scenes, for sure. There is implied DDLG kink, and my FMC is very free- and forward-thinking with her sexual preferences. She refuses to conform to the traditional model of monogamous love after loss, and sexual freedom is, oddly, an inherent key piece to her grieving process. Physical intimacy gives her something that grounds her, that smooths the rough edges when her confidence falters, and relaxes her so she can push forward in her work and progress through grief. Not to mention, it’s fun. Very fun.


The broader themes of Desperate Creatures examine the parallels of behavior and emotions of different (often opposing) characters. While this story is told from a singular POV, really it could have been written from the POV of several characters, all circling the same themes of love, loss, grief, resiliency, sexuality, and revenge.

Hardcore sex scenes are a blast to both read and write, but as a reader, it’s often difficult to switch gears between how those passages make you feel, versus where the notion of examining grief (or other heavier subjects) takes you. However, I will note: in this story, and I suspect in many undisclosed stories, sex and grief intertwine more than one expects. The tangible appreciation and give-and-take of desire for the physical body, the rush of pleasure to soothe the ache of loss. That’s real.

Sometimes a hint of spice is all it takes.
In Desperate Creatures, the allusions to sex, or vague descriptions were all that was necessary, in this Author’s opinion.


I have two current WIPs, both within the realm of romance, or at least with romantic elements. I’m laughing a bit to myself, following this entire train of thought, because I am unsurprised that I naturally have one WIP of smut, and one WIP that is decidedly more complex and fade-to-black, though perhaps a tad more intense than Desperate Creatures.


My smutty WIP is my contribution to our next anthology. As it is in a short story format, my character development reads fast and furious, before I dive into the good stuff. *wink wink* And in terms of spice level? I would only say that apparently my time writing Beasts ripped away any shame I had showing the world the depths of my smutty mind. I do enjoy a reverse harem, what can I say?


My other WIP is similar to Desperate Creatures, in that I am following the story of a complex FMC making amends with trauma from her past, which seeps into her present in unexpected ways. I find self-discovery fascinating; there are endless directions to take it, with endless results by the time the narrative concludes.

And, because it’s me, there will be sex and paranormal themes. Because, hello.

I’m currently only on draft one of this story; I vaguely anticipate a release in July/August 2024.

When we launched our open call for the new anthology duo, it was a call for either smut or horror short stories. We received a landslide of excellent horror submissions, that trickled in daily, nearly every day the call was open. We received perhaps a quarter of smut submissions as we did horror.

Now, is that because Dark Village did so well, landing on the top ten new release list within hours of its release? Maybe. Did people know us (Mal & Karly) a little better, having watched the process that went into Dark Village, and coming to trust us in that time? Totally. (And thank you, by the way!)

…Is smut somehow scarier to write than horror?

YES.

Smut is stigmatized. We love it. We love it sooooo much. But, even amongst ourselves, even AS smut writers, we hear that someone is “only a smut author” and some pretentious innate judgmental voice in our head scoffs a bit, even as we’re downloading it onto our Kindle to immediately devour.

That is such bullshit.

As I said before, writing smut takes WORK. Even silly smut. Even smut involving hot aliens and sexy monsters with unusual.. appendages. Actually, I dare say monster smut takes even MORE work, what with figuring out logistics of the sex scene… “OK, the right tentacle is over here doing this, where are the other ones? How will they kiss if he doesn’t have a mouth? Are we out of holes?” I have only written human-based smut (so far), so I hereby applaud others like one of my personal favorites, Opal Reyne.

All of this work needs to be considered, not to mention all of the relationship-building that still needs to happen in the story, just like in any other story with romantic elements. Because even a short, spicy tale is made better by knowing your characters, at least a little bit.

So, I think we all need to get off our high horses and appreciate smut writers as much as any “real” author, because a smut author IS a real author. Stigmatizing anything is just getting so lame.

Spice is fun, but changes the trajectory of your story, whether you like it or not.
So, before you start getting wet and wild with your spicy scenes, ask yourself what kind of story you are writing. If the scene enhances or underscores a theme, or if this is fast, easily-digestible spicy lit, full steam ahead. But if you need to just step away for a minute… *ahem* and come back to your WIP with a clear head, perhaps that would do your characters a little more justice.

Whatever you do, whatever your write, please. PLEASE do not use the word, MOIST.