WIWAW - More, More, More

Author's Note: This essay contains spoilers for my story "More, More, More". You may wish to go back and read it before going any further. Most of what I wrote below is primarily of interest to fellow Literotica authors, but non-authors may also enjoy it.

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WHAT I WROTE AND WHY - MORE, MORE, MORE

by Eosphorus

Background

More, More, More is a story I wrote which was published on Literotica in June 2025. It is in the Mature category and centers around a sexual encounter between a woman in her forties and two twenty-two year old men. Both men happen to be casual friends with her son who has just left home for graduate school.

I wouldn't say it broke any new areas in terms of plot or character, though I strive for quality in all I write. I wanted to make it scorching hot but also contain the core of humanity I hope infuses my work. Although I didn't set out to, by the time the writing process was finished it wound up breaking a lot of new ground.

The Title

The title was inspired by the 1978 song by Andrea True. It was playing on the speakers at my local supermarket one night. It got in my head. It also occurred to me that it would be a great title for a story.

There was something familiar about it, though, and I was certain it had to do with Literotica. The title of a story I'd read recently, perhaps? I checked. Nope. I looked through my comments and finally my personal feedback. There it was, a single three-word message from 2014: "More, more, more."

Okay, I thought, now I really need to use that title. All I needed was a story. I found it while I was editing Chapter Three of my forthcoming series "The Magnificent Mrs. Rizzio." A character named Erika mentions a threesome she had with two of her son's friends back in San Diego. It was two or three sentences, a minor piece of plot development. What if I told that story in greater detail? I was off and running.

The Experiment

I had a title and the basic idea of a story. But when would I ever get around to actually writing it? And how long would it languish as a rough draft before I got around to editing it?

As of this writing, I have dozens of rough drafts awaiting my attention. This includes multiple works I hope to have ready for publication in the coming months. Adding to the stockpile would only contribute to the problem. But what if I took a completely different approach? What if I gave this one story my top priority, from conception to publication? Doing something like that on occasion would allow me to write and publish all-new material alongside revising and editing older works in progress.

It would be tough. Far different from what I'm normally used to. And I wouldn't be able to give "More, More, More" my complete attention. Too much else was going on. I was putting the finishing touches on Here You Come Again (And Again), for one thing, and preparing the answers to my recent interview on Literotica by Bob_Aganoush.

Here was the challenge: How quickly could I write a six to seven thousand word story up to my standards? Two weeks? Three? It was time to find out.

Zen and the Art of Writing

An astute reader of my recent WIWAW - Mrs. Mandalucci, dirk_hardwell, commented that my writing process resembled the one described by Ray Bradbury in his book "Zen in the Art of Writing." I had just read that same book a few months prior and had noticed much of my process is similar to the science fiction great. There is also much that is quite different. Consider this passage by Bradbury:

"All during my early twenties I had the following schedule. On Monday morning I wrote the first draft of a new story. On Tuesday I did a second draft. On Wednesday a third. On Thursday a fourth. On Friday a fifth. And on Saturday at noon I mailed out the sixth and final draft to New York. Sunday? I thought about all the wild ideas scrambling for my attention, waiting under the attitude lid confident at last that... I would soon let them out." (Bradbury, Ray. "Zen in the Art of Writing." 2917 Rosetta Books edition, page 61)

Work on one draft at a time, day after day? lf someone was paying me and I had a hard deadline and nothing else to occupy my attention, I'm sure I could do that. My usual process involves three or four projects at once and frequent gaps between different drafts. There was no way I could do what Bradbury did, but how close could I come?

Keeping it Fresh

Most authors of erotica have favorite inclinations and themes. Some writers don't include a lot of foreplay or descriptions of kissing. I do. Everyone has their own approach and that's a good thing. But I worry about relying on the same old tricks. I don't want frequent readers to get bored as I trot out the same things time after time. Even if these tropes work well.

So I decided to give myself an additional challenge. What if I avoided, as much as is practicable, my usual toolkit? That meant no extended cooking scene to build anticipation and intimacy. The same for a shower scene, another favorite. No prolonged, detailed stripping off of clothes, either. Many of my female characters love to have their nipples nibbled. What if I backed off that for this story? And also left out anal play, another favorite way for me to ramp up the raunchy factor?

Leaving all that out, how hot could I still make my story?

The Results

It turns out I'm no Ray Bradbury. I wrote the first draft over the course of three days. Not Bradbury speed, but decent. Then began the editing and revising. Over the course of the next month, I was able to do nine full revisions in all before I was satisfied. From conception to publication was thirty days.

Of course, this is a single data point. I was able to complete the process in a month for "More, More, More", but other stories might take longer or shorter. If I didn't have other, time-sensitive writing projects going on at the same time, maybe it would've only been three weeks.

Living in the Present

"More, More, More" is written in the present tense. The last few years, this has become my default setting for writing erotica. I first became interested in that approach after reading Jodi Picoult's magnificent novel Small Great Things and, somewhat later, The Hunger Games (I was extremely late to the game on that one). Both are written in present tense, the former in third-person and the later in first-person.

I know it's not for everybody. It's said to be off-putting to a lot of readers, though I've never gotten a word of complaint about it. Some writing teachers even advise aspiring authors to stay away from it entirely. However, I don't think that applies when it comes to erotica. Present-tense creates an immersive, immediate experience that works well in this genre. The idea is for the reader to experience the story through the narrator's eyes as it unfolds. Combined with first-person perspective (or, in erotica, second person) the effect can be powerful. The visceral, sometimes intense works of PrettyLynne here on Literotica are strong testament to the power of the present tense.

To me, it feels natural. Why that is, I don't know. Perhaps my experience writing scripts (a very present-tense form of writing) has helped shape my brain. Maybe it's a function of my ADHD. It could even be due to the influence of all the graphic novels I read (a form of storytelling that's predominantly present-tense). All I know for certain is that I enjoy writing in it and that's all the reason I need.

The POV Shift

"More, More, More" is written in the first person from the perspective of Erika Warriman, a forty-seven year old woman. Up until the last stages of writing, the story was from her point of view but in third person. Why the shift?

Mere chance. I still wasn't satisfied with the story. Lacking much in the way of plot, it needed more heat. The solution came randomly. Literotica author DJMac1031 mentioned he had to rewrite the point of view on The Seduction of Darkness from third to first person for the audio version. It got me thinking. What if a shift to first-person perspective was what this story needed? I've written third person from the female perspective before, of course. But never first-person. If I was going to do this, I'd better get it right. PrettyLynne did such a great job writing from the male perspective in Room A35 Him that I knew it could be done well.

The story begins in the middle of a sex scene. I took the first paragraph, changed it to first-person, and read it again. It felt alien. I wondered why. Was it a vestige of the misogyny and, by extension, homophobia that had been drilled into me growing up? Or maybe looking at words I'd written about my pussy getting fucked felt alien because, you know, I don't have a pussy. So I took a deep breath and plunged in.

It turned out the shift was just what the story needed. All I had to do was get in touch with my feminine side.

The Story Within the Story

Early on in the story, Erika thinks back to an erotic story she read. A woman of a certain age rents out rooms in her house to two young college men. They wind up becoming her lovers. The story this refers to is What a Cougar Wants by Rob_Royale. I'd enjoyed the story a great deal and thought it would be fun to make it play a factor in leading Erika into temptation. All with Rob's permission beforehand, of course.

The Temptation of Erika Warriman

The story starts out with one of my favorite quotes by Science Fiction titan Robert A. Heinlein (who was friends with Ray Bradbury, by the way): "Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again."

Wise words. The benefits of yielding to temptation is the theme of the story, if it may be said to have one at all. I seeded a few symbols of temptation in it. Erika slices apples, for example. Anthony's last name is Pomeline, which is derived from the French word for apple (pomme). Erika prunes the tuberoses and also grows azaleas. Both flowers symbolize temptation. Finally, the Bruce Springsteen song "Pink Cadillac" includes lyrics about temptation ("And they tempt you with the pleasures/That the flesh does surely hold").

So go ahead, bite into that apple. Give into the occasional temptation. What's life without the plucking of a little forbidden fruit?

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End note: Thanks for reading. I don't expect many people to read this, but these WIWAWs are fun to write. For more insight into my writing process, check out this interview with me: Literotica Authors 15: Eosphorus. Thanks for reading!