Turn-off and Deal Breakers for Readers

What happens in an erotic story that makes you walk away? I'm not looking for kinks or topics that you just don't find appealing. I'm more interested in a story that you would otherwise enjoy and something happens that just hits the brakes for you.

My personal example would be bad pillow talk. I've been really into some stories and things get hot and heavy. Then a character rolls off something entirely inane, flow breaking, or out of character. I read a story that was sweet and sexy, then during the act (as a character was losing her virginity) she starts saying things like, "Use me like your dirty whore. Beat me and punish me! Choke me and spit on me!"

I was like, 'damn girl, you just had your first kiss 2 days ago.' When I get pulled from the moment so abruptly I just don't want to go on.

So what about you guys? What sort of things should writers avoid?

You've already hit on a big one for me as both reader and writer: Characters who are inconsistent. I abandoned a story recently because I set up a character who was supposed to be a fifth wheel for two poly couples but ended up making her unlikely to fit into that position. Might go back to it but that character would need a hefty rewrite.

The other, since I read and write a lot of fantasy and s-f, is inconsistent world building. For instance, if you establish that having sex is necessary to get the power needed to cast a spell and then someone casts a spell who hasn't had sex, you need to explain why the exception happened, or making finding out why part of the story.

Real world stories can have these problems, too, though in different ways. For instance, setting a story in Canada but having a civilian legally packing heat shows a serious ignorance of Canada (handguns are very hard to get legally up here).

huge one for me is a story that starts out with 'the laundry list' (Amy had blue eyes and blonde hair, was 5'3" tall, weighed 120 pounds, and had 34DD tits) i'm not going to read anymore. instant turn off. pretty much tells me all i need to know about the rest of the story.

Quote by sprite

huge one for me is a story that starts out with 'the laundry list' (Amy had blue eyes and blonde hair, was 5'3" tall, weighed 120 pounds, and had 34DD tits) i'm not going to read anymore. instant turn off. pretty much tells me all i need to know about the rest of the story.

Yeah, "Huge boobs bouncing as she strutted into the room" paints a better image than a simple number like "34DD".

Dialogue is the big one for me. So much of it just sounds unnatural. I hate when the other person's name appears at the start of every line of dialogue. I don't think I've ever been talking with someone face-to-face and said their name to them. Certainly not after an introductory hello. But so often I see things like:

"Hi Dean, how are you?"

"I'm fine, Cathy, and you?"

"Thanks, Dean. I'm doing great. What have you been up to?"

"Well, Cathy, I've been blah blah..."

No one talks like that!!!

By-the-numbers sex I tend to just skip over. Make the sex interesting! It’s erotica!

Quote by Ensorceled

By-the-numbers sex I tend to just skip over. Make the sex interesting! It’s erotica!

I agree for the most part. I am reading for a fantasy. However some of the hottest lit I’ve read I wouldn’t call the physical actions being done exotic or anything crazy. It’s just been so well executed in terms of buildup, emotions, sensual descriptions.

Don’t think an author needs to shy away from ‘vanilla sex’. But if you go that route you need strong writing skills to make it pay off.

Quote by RowanThorn

I agree for the most part. I am reading for a fantasy. However some of the hottest lit I’ve read I wouldn’t call the physical actions being done exotic or anything crazy. It’s just been so well executed in terms of buildup, emotions, sensual descriptions.

Don’t think an author needs to shy away from ‘vanilla sex’. But if you go that route you need strong writing skills to make it pay off.

I agree with that, vanilla sex can be great in a story, and all you need to do (IMHO) is fully visualize the scene, not just obvious parts. Maybe after some hard-pounding sex, have a three line moment of tenderness, affirmation of love or filth or truth, a moment of indecision, whatever. Something real. Something that really happens.

I don't like reading a story from a male author where he creates an over-the-top unbelievably-perfect sexiest-man-in-the-world character with a 10-inch cock who every woman in the story falls all over. My pet peeve. Has an ego-trip feel to it or something and not authentic.

Quote by KimmiBeGood
Has an ego-trip feel to it or something and not authentic.

Indeed. Though I guess wish-fulfillment is part of writing erotica.

Quote by RowanThorn

Don’t think an author needs to shy away from ‘vanilla sex’. But if you go that route you need strong writing skills to make it pay off.

I often go vanilla because (a) I lack experience of much else and (b) I am a writer who often zeroes in more on character and emotional experience than on how wild I can get with the sex.

Lots of major grammatical errors. A few minor ones here and there are par for the course, except of course in Competitions, where the standards are higher. But I run into three or four glaring ones on the first screenful, I'm out.

It throws me when a story in a non-hardcore category makes an un-signaled left turn into uncomfortable stuff like choking and gagging on cock.

Quote by joe71

Lots of major grammatical errors. A few minor ones here and there are par for the course, except of course in Competitions, where the standards are higher. But I run into three or four glaring ones on the first screenful, I'm out.

LOL. In my old incarnation, I used to re-read my old stories and cringe at some of the grammar issues and typos that got past both me and the verifying mod. Didn't feel like fixing them (these were often 3 or 4 years old) so they got left as monuments to my epic fail.

Quote by CharlotteRusse1

It throws me when a story in a non-hardcore category makes an un-signaled left turn into uncomfortable stuff like choking and gagging on cock.

Amen. Hard stuff needs to be reflected in either the category or tags. Not everyone gets off on rough sex.

Quote by Seeker4
joe71

I often find myself cringing at little errors in my older stories too. Mostly they're pretty minor stuff, but if were a major error I'd probably edit and resubmit with a note to the mods on why.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

I don't like reading a story from a male author where he creates an over-the-top unbelievably-perfect sexiest-man-in-the-world character with a 10-inch cock who every woman in the story falls all over. My pet peeve. Has an ego-trip feel to it or something and not authentic.

I agree, in general, Kimmi. But, perhaps, such a story might be written by a woman who knows what their male readers like? 😉

I'll read almost anything. But there are three big no-nos for me.

One, incest. I don't get it. Step-brother/sister is one thing, But blood relations? Father daughter? When there are so many hot strangers around, why?!

Two, Big age gaps. Icky in real life. Icky in stories. Old men bedding young women, or vice versa. No thanks.

Three, EXCEPT microfiction, stories where the author takes no time to portray the characters as people apart from characters that have sex. I like a story in which I feel like I know something about the people.

I think it’s a lack of characterisation. Generic first person characters leave me cold - why should I care if I know nothing about you and who you are?

That leads me to Point 2. A good fuck isn't a story in itself. The characters need to grow and change. They need to be on a journey of sorts. If the characters don't develop, I feel cheated as a reader.

Quote by Ensorceled

By-the-numbers sex I tend to just skip over. Make the sex interesting! It’s erotica!

In my opinion this can (and often does) go too far the other way - authors trying too hard to make sex interesting when what they're really doing is making it ridiculous, implausible, or just uncomfortable bordering on abusive. My tastes in sex (and sex stories) is pretty vanilla for the most part, so as soon as the sex gets rough or kinky I'm likely to be out of there. Unfortunately for me that's about 75% of the content on Lush.

Apart from the sex itself, I'm far more interested in the actual story and relationship between characters that leads to the sex. Authors of erotic stories need to be skilled at building erotic tension - and it's the tension that sustains the story, not the sex. If a story starts with (or in the first five paragraphs arrives at) a sex scene, I'm not likely to stick with it. And if the story takes a sudden random unnatural and inexplicable turn into sex, I'm usually done with it. However, if the story is well constructed and well-paced with a sense of building momentum towards climax (in all senses), the sex scene itself doesn't really need to do too much, and I'll still be here for it.

Specific turn-offs:

Incest

Violence/abuse

Bad writing (lack of style or mastery of the craft)

Insta-sex that isn't adequately supported by story.

Male/male sex scenes (just not my thing)

KimmiBeGood in the byline (just kidding. Kimmi's a great writer and regular participant in LS competitions. I've enjoyed reading a number of her stories, and others might learn a bit from her).

One more: any talk of “breeding” or making babies. I know some guys are obsessed with the idea of impregnating, maybe especially in cuckolding situations, but for me any chance of pregnancy is the most effective form of birth control.

What happens in an erotic story that makes you walk away?

Now that is an interesting question, though I think it is quite a broad question and my immediate answer was it depends on what the story's author is trying to write.

For me, a red light is if I see the category microfiction, monster sex, sci-fi, mind control etc. etc.

I like things to feel believable, three-dimensional characters in the real world. Therefore I prefer longer multi-chapter stories, rather than shorter ones, though I do read both.

As for specific turn-offs... violence. Male/male sex (it is just not my thing). I also don't like stories without a start, middle and end... or too much sex in them without a story to go with it.

Too much preamble is just boring. Set the scene, but then get on with the sex.

Some stories here are like on-line recipes. You have to scroll and scroll and scroll before you get to the point.

Quote by dlcalguy

Too much preamble is just boring. Set the scene, but then get on with the sex.

Some stories here are like on-line recipes. You have to scroll and scroll and scroll before you get to the point.

This has always been a hard one for me both as a writer and a reader. I need to know about the characters I'm reading about, and it can't simply be vacuous flesh and bone fucking. I don't think I enjoy stories that are simply scenes, rather than stories.

Though at the same time, I've done the recipe scrolling thing too. As in, I'm not into the set up for some reason, but I already started reading it so, so I might as well find something fun.

Quote by wicked_jocelyn

This has always been a hard one for me both as a writer and a reader. I need to know about the characters I'm reading about, and it can't simply be vacuous flesh and bone fucking. I don't think I enjoy stories that are simply scenes, rather than stories.

Though at the same time, I've done the recipe scrolling thing too. As in, I'm not into the setup for some reason, but I already started reading it so, so I might as well find something fun.

I'm really all about erotica with a great story buildup. I figure if I've started scrolling it's probably a failure on the writer's part for having long, unengaging sections.

Normally it's long stretches of really nothing happening or a lack of engaging dialogue. I don't expect a story to be firing constantly without dipping in interest but if I'm scrolling looking for a 'good part' then I feel like it was a failure for me as a reader. Sometimes there is 'less-is-more' in buildups.

Quote by Ensorceled

By-the-numbers sex I tend to just skip over. Make the sex interesting! It’s erotica!

Early on I used to leave the sex scenes and write them last after I had the plot sorted. I've changed the way I do it, mainly as I've started asking myself: 'what is the point of this sex scene and how am I using it to move the plot along.'

So something that seems unrealistic in the context of the relationship of the characters is a show stopper for me: my only gay male story, I asked around Lush to make sure that it was reasonable that two eighteen year olds would have anal sex on the first date so to speak. Having been assured by those who have been there done that, that it was realistic, I wrote the scene, but took care to make it tentative and exploratory as befitted the teenagers first time.

The first task for a writer in writing about a fetish that isn't shared by the reader, is, in my view, to take the reader into the fetish and have the reader understand why the story character 'likes' it. I think that is quality writing, and I hang on every word of writers who do that, even though it doesn't necessarily turn me on (the sex act I mean, the writing, of course, is hot as.)

Quote by CuriousAnnie

Early on I used to leave the sex scenes and write them last after I had the plot sorted. I've changed the way I do it, mainly as I've started asking myself: 'what is the point of this sex scene and how am I using it to move the plot along.'

So something that seems unrealistic in the context of the relationship of the characters is a show stopper for me

I changed how I write as well, but the other way. That temptation to 'get to the good stuff' leaves a disconnect between the characters and the sex they have when I write. I've scrapped a few pieces because the distance between them was so far that I couldn't figure out how to fix it without starting over. Now I start writing a lot with the characters in mind and I'm surprised at the result of how their sexual experiences play out. In my submission to the noir contest, I was nervous about writing a lesbian scene. Being a man I was obviously on unfamiliar grounds to start with but by the time the women made love I knew the characters well enough that it was very easy to write.

Currently, I will only write the sex first if it's a short story and getting a specific feeling is my primary goal. Recently my partner did this incredible piece of art that was her first erotic drawing. I was extremely taken with it and it brought a lot of emotion and sexual feelings and that was primarily what I wanted to express on paper. So I started with writing the scene and now I'm working backward fleshing out characters from there.

For me, it's one or more variations of the "farcical female orgasm(s)".

1. the woman orgasming on first contact: "she exploded in orgasm as soon as I sunk my 10 inch cock into her pussy"; "Otto's tongue touched Mathilde's clit, instantly triggering her orgasm" ... blah, blah.

2. usually when I encounter something like #2, what follows is a flurry of repeated orgasms, the woman cumming multiple times before the guy finally does. "orgasm after orgasm", "she kept cumming over and over again", "after her eighth orgasm, two in each of four different positions, I finally...."; "each orgasm more powerful than the last"

I may be setting myself up for rebuke and ridicule here (I fully admit that I am certainly one of the least sexually experienced Lushies IRL, so I could be wrong), but that's just not how things happen, right? Okay, there may be the rare woman here and there who climaxes very easily, who orgasms rather than recoils when the guy attacks her clit, but I roll my eyes when I read this kind of thing in story after story. I realize that some women are "multi-orgasmic" in that they can keep going after one orgasm and achieve subsequent climaxes, but that isn't the norm. The gal's orgasm is almost always much more elusive than the guy's.

Unless it's obvious parody, which I enjoy as much as anyone else, the absurd orgasm avalanche detracts from the story much more than it enhances it. If I were to be overly critical, I'd say it's just lazy to write as if the male protagonist (especially written as first-person POV) doesn't have to exert any energy to elicit such an improbable response. If the intent is to communicate the man's superior sexual abilities, hearing that he was man enough to work at pleasing her is much more plausible. Fantasizing that he's getting himself off on or in a woman who cums effortlessly is more about her providing cheap entertainment than him demonstrating sexual prowess. "I want to do it with a chick who gets off easily" isn't as relatable to me as "I want to be the guy who treats her to something special, where the orgasm is the culmination rather than the entirety of the experience". I'm not saying this dynamic shouldn't EVER be used, but IMHO it is way OVER-used.

Quote by SebastianTombs

For me, it's one or more variations of the "farcical female orgasm(s)".

1. the woman orgasming on first contact: "she exploded in orgasm as soon as I sunk my 10 inch cock into her pussy"; "Otto's tongue touched Mathilde's clit, instantly triggering her orgasm" ... blah, blah.

I know exactly what you mean. In real life this sort of reaction is performative and I've written stuff where that's either implied or straight out said as part of the narrative. But the 'magical dick that throws a woman into an avalanche of orgasms upon its very sight' is the sort of thing I see from male writers a lot. It's normally one of the dead giveaways where I don't even need to look at the author to know their gender.

One of my favorite parts of the female orgasm is how it differs from mine. I can be like a roller coaster, pull me to the top and ride down the hill. The women I've been with have all been slow burns, very specific needs at the moment, and almost never before me if we both started at the same time, and when they do come it's powerful and can last for a very long time. When I try to write realistically I try to keep these differences in mind. Forums are a great place where I women feel comfortable opening up to strangers about the ins and outs of their O's, which I think many writers need to take more advantage of. Avoiding the 'magic dick' I think is really important if you are trying to hit a wider audience.

Quote by Just_A_Guy_You_Know

Specific turn-offs:

Incest

Violence/abuse

Bad writing (lack of style or mastery of the craft)

Insta-sex that isn't adequately supported by story.

Male/male sex scenes (just not my thing)

KimmiBeGood in the byline (just kidding. Kimmi's a great writer and regular participant in LS competitions. I've enjoyed reading a number of her stories, and others might learn a bit from her).

😳😳😳 I never in a million years thought I'd see my name in a list with incest, violence/abuse, bad writing (ok, maybe this one... I did write a story about sex with a clown), insta-sex, and male/male sex. My parents would be so proud. Not. 🤣