The editor of an online erotica site shares 3 tips to make your romance writing immediately hotter

Carly Pifer (left) founded Aurore as a place for women and LGTBQ+ writer to submit confessional sex stories. Readers are craving more romance and sexual intimacy from the stories they read and watch. Carly Pifer, founder of online erotica site Aurore, edits erotica stories professionally. She shared the biggest cliches she's seen and her tips for making stories hotter and more realistic. If the colossal popularity of novels like “The End of Us” by Colleen Hoover and Emily Henry's “Book Lovers” tells us anything, it's that readers are craving more literature about romance and sexual intimacy . Carly Pifer , a content strategist and writer, felt there wasn't a space for intimate stories that involved in-depth conversations and realistic characters, as well as hot sex scenes. It was one of the reasons she started Aurore , an online erotica community where women and LGBTQ+ writers can submit confessional-style true stories. A written alternative to high-budget porn giants like Pornhub, Aurore boasts over 18,000 followers on Instagram and users pay $5.75 a month to access its collection of about 200 stories. As the site's editor, Pifer is keen on giving readers something they can't usually find in mainstream porn: Tension, seduction, and a genuine reason to care about the people having sex. “I want something slow, meandering, I want something that's like a tease…you're not going get straight to sex,” Pifer told Insider. “I want them to seduce me. I want to feel this kind of unraveling of the people involved.” Pifer, who helps writers fine-tune their submissions and hosts writing workshops, shared some of the ways anyone — whether they're a professional writer, aspiring romance novelist, or someone who wants to dabble in erotica — can create hotter sex stories. Carly Pifer. Lindsay Wynn Put an end to cliches like “endless moans” or red lipstick As an editor, Pifer is used to flagging all kinds of cliches and has amassed some pet peeves. “A lot of women describe the men they're hooking up with as having green eyes,” she said. “How many people do you actually know with green […]