How to get into contemporary...

I'd say it's a combination of character and kink. Though I have the exact opposite experience. I tend to write contemp, but I keep being told that fantasy/paranormal/sci-fi...well, everything that's NOT contemp sells better. I've been told by more than one publisher that if they're not already publishing fantasy/paranormal/sci-fi, then they will be very soon to capitalize on the growing popularity.

Anyway, I'm going off topic. I think the best thing about contemp is that it can be about ordinary people in extraordinary, but possible, situations. I'll never have crazy hot sex with a shapeshifter from another planet, but I might have super hot sex with the super hot bagboy at the grocery store...ok, that won't happen either, but it's slightly more possible, you know?

veinglory said:

I have a tendency to write in high fantasy settings but I get that most markets/readers go more for contemporary. So far I am just finding this a bit dull as it get into the twist in the world you can make with fantasy/sf/paranormal/historical. Any ideas where to find the spark in contemp. Is it characterisation, kink, ummm? Hmm.

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Like you, I enjoy SF settings because they let me put in a kinky premise without too many backflips, e.g. http://www.pinkflamingo.com/EroticNovels/stories_of_WeekH.htm

However, my published novel is contemporary. The trick is in manifesting underlying kink in the realworld situation. You write fem orientated m/m, right?

So imagine what it would take to let the homoerotic cat out of the bag in, say, a rugby club. Do that right at the start, then narrate the consequences.

This is how I did my novel - used a man in a chastity belt to unleash all the pent up libidos of various sex-shy college girls.

Most of my stuff is contemp. *shrugs* Characterization, for me, nails it in any genre.

Mine's 100% contemporary and depends a great deal on character development. Often at least one character is repressed or reluctant to share some erotic fantasy, until growing trust and circumstance brings it out.

Maryn, who couldn't write shape-shifing werewolf orgies

The drawback of writing contemporary femdom is that it's hard to create power relations which can be entered into voluntarily, but are then inescapable.

I dunno, Exit to Eden managed pretty well...

I've got one 'cooling' (awaiting rewrite) in which person A agrees to allow person B to kidnap him and hold him at the place and time of her choosing for no more than 5 days. (Of course, that requires the characters be self-employed or independently wealthy, able to just drop everything.) I had lots of fun figuring out the place and how she keeps him there without possibility of escape.

Maryn, who learned about urban spelunking