L is for Lust

Now I know what your thinking, I am going to talk about our characters getting down and dirty but your wrong.  The lust I am talking about is the one we want to stimulate in our readers. now again you might be thinking but I don’t write Erotica why do I want my readers lusting well bear with me.

For certain genres when they evoke lust it is literally but for many of us we actually want to illicit the same responses we just don’t realise it.  When you think about lust you think of the actual sex act but that is not what I am actually talking about, many foodies now talk about ‘food porn’ where descriptions and photos of food actually make their mouth water, and this is in part the same sort of thing we wish to achieve.

Think about what happens when when you lust after something, your heart starts to beat just a little faster, the blood pumps through your veins a little quicker, a flush spreads across your skin.  You are hooked, you can’t turn away you want more, your breath becomes shallower and more rapid as you focus on the object of your desire.

Then you turn the page and realise you haven’t taken a breath for the last thirty seconds.  What your reader is lusting after are your words, the images you create in their mind for them.  They want the characters you make real to them, almost like a drug they want more, the want the rush that a great story gives.