Why specifically “erotic”, and then why “fiction”? What’s wrong with “write about what you had for lunch” or “write about your commute to get here”? I think anyone who can write a page on those has a decent sense of how to be specific (although this does NOT train the 5-second-skill of noticing WHEN you need to be specific)
I don’t think it’d necessarily need to be erotic as such, but the “show, don’t tell” concept (a subset of “be specific”) is, if not quite specific to fiction, at least a lot easier to screw up there. If you’re writing about your lunch or your commute to work, you’ve already got a sense of the salient details and probably won’t be tempted to hide behind coarse descriptions of your emotional state; neither’s necessarily true if you’re writing about some fictional character.
I would say ‘fiction’ because you’re forced to come up with details yourself, and ‘erotic’ because that’s where most people, including lots of authors, shy away from specific details...the memory of painful making yourself write very explicitly would be a more memorable lesson than writing about something innocuous like, I don’t know, two siblings playing Lego.
The first thing that comes to mind is “write erotic fiction”, but that has obvious social problems.
When it comes to specificity erotic non-fiction is even better, but the social problems are greater.
Why specifically “erotic”, and then why “fiction”? What’s wrong with “write about what you had for lunch” or “write about your commute to get here”? I think anyone who can write a page on those has a decent sense of how to be specific (although this does NOT train the 5-second-skill of noticing WHEN you need to be specific)
I don’t think it’d necessarily need to be erotic as such, but the “show, don’t tell” concept (a subset of “be specific”) is, if not quite specific to fiction, at least a lot easier to screw up there. If you’re writing about your lunch or your commute to work, you’ve already got a sense of the salient details and probably won’t be tempted to hide behind coarse descriptions of your emotional state; neither’s necessarily true if you’re writing about some fictional character.
I would say ‘fiction’ because you’re forced to come up with details yourself, and ‘erotic’ because that’s where most people, including lots of authors, shy away from specific details...the memory of painful making yourself write very explicitly would be a more memorable lesson than writing about something innocuous like, I don’t know, two siblings playing Lego.