What I do, off the top of my head....
- Sit down and write. Don't kind of write, don't sort of write, don't wish you were writing, but actually write.
- Take your time. Writing 1 good paragraph is better than writing 3 bad paragraphs in the same amount of time.
- Discipline. Set a goal, meet the goal. If you write an outline, follow that outline. If you have no outline, you better have a great memory.
- Patience.
- You're going to have to be able to recognize bad writing, otherwise you'll think everything you write is great. Ask yourself: Would I read this if it wasn't mine?
- Rules to Writing: There are no rules. You take what you like, leave the rest, and if someone says "you must" then you tell them to fuck off and you'll do it the way you want to.
The most important aspect of any good story:
READ & REWRITE!
- Your first iteration is never your best iteration.
- You don't get better at writing by writing a story then starting another right away.
- You get better by rewriting your story until it's perfect or as perfect as you can make it.
- Read, then rewrite. Doing this allows you to see the words, phrases, and sentences that you do not like or make no sense. EDIT: It forces to analyze every part of your writing, from structure, to characters, to arcs...everything that makes writing writing.
- You don't get better by continuously making these mistakes in new works. You get better by reviewing what you've written and recognizing them in your work, which you can later omit from new works.
When it comes to erotica, I typically write a line or paragraph, get the idea down, read it, rewrite it, move on. When I'm done with a chapter, I edit the chapter by using Grammarly, checking only for: Misspellings, Grammar Errors, and Long Sentences. (Never let AI, or some friendly editor, rewrite or reword your stories.) When the story is finished, I read it over again, making changes as I see fit. I take my time, I do not rush, ever. Then I run it through the spelling, grammar, and long sentence checker again. To make it easier, I do this chapter by chapter.
There's other things too. We could talk pacing, atmosphere, tone, character growth, traits, distinct personalities and behaviors, structure, beats, techniques, etc., but hopefully you'll develop that on your own. There's too much to talk about in a reply.
When I write erotica, I keep it simple. I'm writing stories to get off to. All my "great" ideas I save for fantasy and sci-fi. I write fuck stories and fucking is the point. I try to write a male character readers can see themselves as or wish they were, and I write the women as women who are hopefully desirable.
The best advice I have for a beginner is to keep it simple. Start with small ideas and as you get better, and if you want to, write something more complex. You don't want to waste your great Erotic Spy Novel idea while you're in your learning stage.