Improbable Press Blog

We often seem to go from you can’t to you must. Unions become as oppressive as the oppression they were formed to prevent. Women tell other women they have to work outside the home. A browbeaten religious group in America works hard to roll back marriage equality. The oppressed sometimes become oppressors. The pendulum swings but you know what? We don’t have to swing with it, and I bring this up because, though this is about writing sex into stories, the thing I hope you know about that is you never have to. You can love reading about the sweat...

By Jamie Ashbird Should you write porn? The answer seems pretty simple really. Yes—if you want to. If you don’t want to, then don’t. Okay, good. We’re done here. Just kidding, it’s time to ramble. First off, two things: I currently sit in the wibbly-wobbly very complicated spectrum of non sex-repulsed, mentally arousable ace-hood. I’m not a person who feels particularly comfortable writing sex scenes. The link here seems like a no brainer but you’d be wrong. To address point 1, sure, asexuality doesn’t always lend itself to having wide experience with all things sex. (Also, despite writing m/m relationships,...

I've been talking with a few fandom people lately about comments they've received on their fic. One writer felt so badly about the feedback they were ready to delete their AO3 account. Because of fucking comments. "I love this but here's how you've failed me…" comments.  "I love this but there wasn't enough sex," comments. "I love this but here's how the plot went all wrong," comments.  "I love this except you didn't write me the perfect thing I wanted and you were meant to know, so I'm going to shit in your kitchen," comments. How god damn dare.  How...

I have written for a living for over twenty years and so a non-writer might figure writing's easy for me most of the time. Ha ha ha. Ha. I write so much crap. So much. Tons of garbage. Words that are ridiculous. Awful. Words a particularly illiterate gerbil would be ashamed of. And yet… …that garbage gets me to the good stuff. It always feels like it shouldn't and yet it always does. Every time. Because writing nothing will never get me there but writing rubbish? Figuring out where the story doesn't go? It helps me find the exact right...

By Sara Dobie Bauer   Arranged marriage. Forbidden love. Age difference. Enemies to lovers. Gay for you. VIRGIN!   These are all tropes. Tropes are so-called “overused plot devices.” They’re plots, conflicts, and characters we’ve seen a hundred times before. Some might say they’re clichéd. Why would you want to write something clichéd? Because these clichés, these tropes, work and they allow readers to relate to your writing and even find the exact sort of story that turns them on.   No surprise, I write BBC Sherlock fan fiction. That show is a trope magnet thanks to all the unresolved...