Attention All Erotica Writers: The Wellspring Awaits…
The Wellspring is a fictional cul-de-sac, in a fictional town, in a fictional country. Give the residents life with your words…
What is The Wellspring?
Each resident of the street has their own lives, both interconnected with one another, and separate from them. They work, they have families, they socialise with one another on the weekends. They employ cleaners, babysitters, house-sitters when they’re on vacation, and they sometimes host their relatives from out of town…
… and best of all, they all — every single one of them — have their own filthy little secrets.
Meet the Residents of The Wellspring
How does this work?
Each resident of The Wellspring has their own histories, relationships, workplaces, and secrets. You, the writer, can further the story of these characters to give life to them. You’re able to pick a character, or multiple characters, then you write a story that’ll become canon for that character.
Did Roger from number 128 have a phase in college where he experimented sexually with his buddies? Did Angelica, doting housewife from number 134, sleep with the gardner? Did Elena, the eighteen year old babysitter, have sex with Angelica’s husband, Bryce once the kids had gone to bed?
Get Inspired, Then Contribute To This Street’s Sexual Lore
The Wellspring comprises 12 households, total. Turning off Pinewood Drive into The Wellspring cul-de-sac will have you driving past six houses, three on each side, then six houses around the large asphalt turning-circle at the end of the road. The house numbers start at 128, and end at 139.
All the houses were built in the same style in the early naughties, but some have had conversions and extensions put in place around the exterior. There’s no reason to assume that each house has the same internal layout. One of the houses is subdivided (130), meaning at some point in its history, an owner, converted it into two separate properties, which now serve lower-income families.
Get Started
- Do The Stories Need to Stay In The Wellspring?
- How Do I Work With The Characters?
- Can I Modify Current Characters?
- Can I Introduce New Characters?
- Should All The Stories Be Present Day?
- Big, Lifechanging Events?
- What Erotic Niche Can I Write?
- How Do I Get Involved?
- Apply to be a writer
Do The Stories Need To Stay In The Wellspring?
Absolutely not! Each resident has their own lives, workplaces, families outside of this suburb, so feel free to craft a narrative that makes sense for the character. It can take place anywhere you like.
How Do I Work With The Characters?
The backstory of each character, as defined in the introduction to each household, is intentionally vague and simple. This gives you, the writer a lot of scope to build out each character’s history as you like. Provided you don’t introduce something that contradicts another writer’s interpretation then you should be absolutely fine to add whatever you need to help build your story out.
Can I Modify Current Characters?
There should be a good reason! If the change makes sense, and the change doesn’t rewrite history for any previous stories, then it’s absolutely fine to suggest changes. Please inform me via email if you’re planning on changing something.
Can I Introduce New Characters?
Of course, as long as the narrative makes sense to introduce them. For example, Joe Bianchi is from a large Italian family, he likely has lots of cousins with their own families. The only provision is, that The Wellspring character should be the protagonist.
Should All The Stories Be Present Day?
Present or past is absolutely fine, but not future, since we’d be overcomplicating the lore of The Wellspring.
If you wanted to explore a story in the 1960’s about Harry Darren meeting his wife Marjorie, or if you wanted to explore James Hartley’s “coming out” when he was a teenager, or perhaps the present day connection between Eun Kim and Carlos Gutierrez, then go for it!
Big, Lifechanging Events?
Want to do something big? Want to introduce something that’ll have a lasting impact on the residents? Let’s work together to work out how we can do that — big events work best if the story is told multiple times, from unique perspectives, so this sort of thing will require collaboration to get working.
What Erotic Niche Can I Write?
Honestly, anything goes, as long as it adheres to Medium’s Content Guidelines.
You can write vanilla stories, hotwife stories, BDSM stories, straight, gay, lesbian, transgender stories, even the more taboo niches allowed within Medium’s Rules… Ultimately it’s anything your heart desires, provided you adhere to the publication’s one rule on this topic:
It must make sense for the character or characters to engage in this activity
What does this mean? If you want to do something that doesn’t fit with the character’s predefined persona, then you’ll need enough backstory or exposition to explain why they’re doing it.
How Do I Get Involved?
All you have to do is write a story which including one or more of The Wellspring’s characters.
We will accept submissions that:
- Are High Quality — Spellchecked, Grammar-checked, and Edited
- With an Attractive Header — Stock Photographs or Generated Images
- Are Appropriately Tagged — to Correctly Communicate the Story’s Niche
- Respect The Lore — Show That You Respect a Character’s History
- Respect Medium’s Content Rules
The main way that this erotic publication will differ from others, is that The Editor acts also as a Lorekeeper, and may suggest some changes to the story, so that we don’t accidently rewrite history for our wonderful characters.
Apply to be a writer
Email thewellspringerotica@proton.me and include:
- Your Medium Username
- Links to Some Previous Stories
- An Overview of What Type of Niche you Expect to Write For
- Any Characters That Interest You
