Guidelines

If you’re interested in becoming a contributing author on Twisted Erotica, please also read the Call to Writers and the Author’s Guide.  Please take the time to read and understand all the following guidelines before asking to be a contributing author on Twisted Erotica.  I assume that anyone seeking to become part of this community takes their craft seriously, and doesn’t need specific coaching on grammar, punctuation, etc.  These guidelines apply specifically to the style and intent of this site, which we can expect to evolve over time.

Legal Stuff

By submitting work for publication here, you agree to and understand the following:

  • All submissions are your own original work, and are not subject to any publishing contracts at the time of submission.
  • You are 18 years of age or older, and you are legally able to write, read and publish sexually explicit material from your location.
  • You give Twisted Erotica the right to publish anything submitted by you for publication.
  • No work published on this site will be included in the podcast without specific consent from the author.
  • Twisted Erotica will comply with any legitimate legal request to remove material from this site.

General Guidelines

  • The whole concept of Twisted Erotica is to showcase erotic fiction and poetry that’s at least a little kinky.  I’m a very liberal editor when it comes to content and subject matter, and I assure you that very little could possibly shock or appall me.
  • All submissions of fiction should be sexually explicit in nature, or deal with the psychology of alternative sexuality.  I welcome pieces on pretty much any subject matter relating to exhibitionism/fantasy/sci-fi/kink/BDSM/fetish/GLBT/alternative sexuality (i.e. anything that would qualify as at least a little “twisted”).  That’s not to say that I’m looking for a menagerie of freakishness from everyone, just at least a little something I can hang a “lightly kinky” or “outdoor sex” tag on.  Throw some chocolate sauce, or a blindfold, or something in there.  Please keep in mind the following exceptions:
    • No bestiality.  If you really feel the need to write about beasts I suggest dipping into the supernatural (demons, werewolves, etc.).
    • No minors portrayed as being involved in sexual activity of any kind.
    • Rape is a touchy subject.  It can be a powerful vehicle in fiction, but always has to be handled carefully if included in erotica.  The best I can say is that I’ll look at stories on a case-by-case basis with a conservative eye on this particular topic.
    • No scat.  Watersports are where I draw the line :)
  • Make sure that your contributions are thoroughly proofread prior to submission, and free of grammatical/spelling errors.
  • Erotic Fiction should be at least 650 words, poetry has no minimum length.
  • Use bold text, italics and underlines sparingly.
  • Be careful of long paragraphs.  Reading on a computer monitor is different than reading on the printed page, and long paragraphs can be very difficult to follow.  If they show up on the page as more than 7 or 8 line blocks, they start to become hard on the eyes.
  • Single-spaced text, two spaces between paragraphs.  If you copy/paste out of MS Word the formatting will pretty much be handled for you.

House Style

Over time Twisted Erotica will organically develop a “house style” based on the totality of the work posted here.  The only issue that really needs addressing at the moment is capitalization in BDSM-themed work.  I also mention this issue in this post on capitalization from my personal blog.

For general content, text should be free of indents or special formatting.   The posting interface will strip certain kinds of formatting automatically.  For example, when I copy/paste from MS Word all the indents are stripped out automatically (making life easier, the tough part would be putting indents back in).  While the house style is developing I’ll handle formatting of any headlines, chapter beginnings, etc.

There is a theme often used in BDSM erotica that involves always capitalizing words related to dominants (Sir, Mistress, Master, Madam, etc) and always under-casing words related to submissives; often including the personal pronoun “I” and the first letters of their names.  While poetry obeys basically no grammatical conventions (meaning you’re free to do whatever you like), in prose this makes the work seem sloppy and extremely difficult to read.

For BDSM fiction on Twisted Erotica, we employ a “light” version of this convention that’s even defensible to editors (I wouldn’t let it blow a deal, but at least I’d have a leg to stand on).

If you choose to use an alternate capitalization theme, terms like “Master, Mistress, Sir and Madam” should only be capitalized when they’re being used to replace a proper name; just like we do with Mom and Dad or when we’re talking about our moms and dads. Pronouns such as “his, her, their, our, we, etc.” should never be capitalized unless they begin a sentence.

Examples of “good” capitalization in this style:

  • “My master commanded me to lick his boots last night.”
  • “Thank you for being understanding, Master; I truly appreciate it.”
  • “The other day Master shared me with one of his friends.”
  • “Yesterday Katrina got the flogging of her life.”

Examples of “bad” capitalization in this style:

  • “My Master commanded me to lick His boots last night.”
  • “Thank You for being understanding, Master, i truly appreciate it.”
  • “The other day Master shared me with one of His friends.”
  • “Yesterday katrina got the flogging of her life.”

Posting Your Contributions

Even if you’ve blogged before, I ask all contributing authors to leave some specific parts of the behind-the-scenes work to me.  This is simply to make sure that we have a consistent theme for tagging, categorizing and search-engine-optimizing posts.  When posting new contributions, please do so in accordance with the notes below.

  • DON’T add tags to your posts when writing them or create new tags.  Tags are sensitive to spacing and capitalization, and a bunch of cooks in the kitchen will just lead to chaos regarding search engine optimization.  Rest assured, I’ll add tags when reviewing new work prior to posting it.  If you have specific requests for tags I’m always happy to add them, especially if you’re working on certain keyphrases on your own site.
  • DON’T worry about paginating your work for the moment, I’ll take care of it so we have a consistent format for this throughout the site.
  • DO make sure you select all the categories that fit your contribution, using common sense as a guide.  If something could potentially go in 10 categories because it’s an especially diverse piece, pick the 3 or 4 that fit it best.  I’ll take care of the rest with tags.  While we’re building the list of categories, please just leave a note at the beginning of your post asking for new categories.
  • DO make sure you select the “parent” as well as the “sub” category.  For example, for a BDSM poem you would check “Poetry” and “BDSM” under “Poetry.”  I’ll always double check this, but it will make my life easier and prevent mistakes from me if you take care of it when you’re writing.
  • DO feel free to add an excerpt/tagline/summary for your post in the “excerpt” box below the post box in the Dashboard.  It’s not mandatory by any means, but it will show up in the site search results and some readers’ RSS feeds if it’s there.  Otherwise, the “excerpt” chosen by WordPress will be some random block of text.  That’s OK, but it might not be the right thing to draw someone into reading the whole piece.
  • DO put any notes for the editor right at the top of the post.  They will be read and edited out prior to posting.  Great reasons to do this include requests for new tags or categories, or anything else relating to the post.
  • DO remember that you can go back to edit or revise your work at any time prior to publication.  You don’t have to wait for things to be reviewed prior to editing or revising if you realize something needs changing.
  • DO try to preview your posts/changes using the “Preview” button in the top right of the dashboard inside the “Publish” widget.  It will let you catch formatting problems you might not see otherwise, and let you verify any revisions look the way you want them.
  • DO chapterize/break up long pieces into multiple posts.  As a rule of thumb, anything over about 6000 words should probably be broken up into multiple parts, both for the search engines and the readers.  I’m going to try to keep individual pages to 750-1000 words.

That pretty much covers the basics, and this page will be updated whenever it needs to be.  Thanks for deciding to join the community, and remember to read and follow the Author’s Guide to make sure you’re getting the most out of your contributions here.  The Author’s Guide is still developing, and the first few contributing authors will be welcome to work with me in fleshing it out.

~J.V. Altharas, Editor