Article - 7 Deadly Sins of Writing - Lust

Lust - An intense and uncontrollable desire, usually sexual in nature.

I bet you're wondering from this description how lust could possibly affect your writing and thus make it into this article?

This might be the most tenuous of the 7 Deadly Sins of Writing, but it may also be the most common.

Consider this, whilst love is something different people experience in varying ways, there are common strands usually agreed on by most as loving traits. Lust on the other hand is deeply personal, uniquely individual and rarely explained by logic or reason.

If you were to create a character based on someone you have lusted over, you may struggle to convey what's so lust-worthy about them. Imagine writing a book whose sole purpose is to make the reader lust after the central character, only to find your description of them just isn't doing it for anyone else.

Without the loving concepts of trust, respect, kindness, companionship, chivalry etc, the audience may struggle to relate to the object of the author's affection. Worse still, if the author spends too much time lusting after the character they've created they're likely to neglect other important elements of the plot or character development.

The Erotica genre is certainly en vogue at the moment, countless new authors are cropping up across the globe to tell their tales of debauchery, but they would do well to remember that lust is an undefinable quality. It takes skill to really get into the psychology behind intense and uncontrollable attraction, but whatever you write it certainly won't be a one size fits all solution!

“The views expressed in this article do not represent those of mjmeads.com and any inference to books or authors past or present is purely coincidental.”