Cybersocket Exclusive Interview: Next Door Studios’ Head Writer Dalton King’s Confessions of a Gay Porn Writer

Dalton King is the head writer for Next Door Studios and a Cybersocket contributor with his column (and anonymous persona), Confessions of a Gay Porn Writer. He’s a graduate of UC Berkeley, and hopes to one day transition to becoming a screenwriter. He’s the writer behind some of my favorite porn scenes ever! I could not wait to interview him. Dalton details how he got his first job in porn, his inspiration, and shares his tips for anyone else trying to make it in the adult film industry behind the scenes. Check out my interview with Dalton below!

Growing up, did you always want to be a writer?

Oh absolutely. I've wanted to be a writer since I knew that it was an actually plausible job. I always used to write random little stories based on books and TV shows that I read/watched growing up; in 7th grade, I actually wrote a pilot episode for a sketch variety show that I wanted to do because I was so into All That at the time. Writing's been my dream for as long as I can remember.

Can you tell me about how you got your start in writing for porn?

It's a funny story actually. I was actually hit on by a pornstar on Grindr of all places. Imagine that. He was an exclusive for Next Door Studios at the time (not gonna say who because that's between them and me). We were talking and I told him I was a writer and he mentioned that Next Door Studios was actually looking for a writer. Eventually he got me into contact with Next Door Studios and one thing led to another and now I'm here! I had to submit several sample pieces to show my writing capabilities but seems like they were impressed considering I've had the job almost a year now.

When writing a scene, do you usually know who will be in the scene ahead of time? Or do you come up with the idea and the performers are added later?

This one's a bit tricky. Usually I do know who's going to be in each scene so I'm able to craft stuff specifically for the performers if I need to. But things happen and casting gets changed all the time. So, I could write a scene tailored for a specific performer but then something might happen and they'll be replaced with someone entirely different. Because of that, I try to keep things a little bit more generic.

Tell me about your favorite location you’ve gone to for a scene.

The Next Door Films scene "Just Curious" was shot at this beautiful location up in the mountains somewhere. It was absolutely stunning and also so exciting to be able to write for a location that I normally wouldn't be at.

Do you prefer to write out dialogue for a scene, or give a scenario and let the performers improvise?

I'd say a bit of both. I usually like to write out the dialogue for a scene and then let the performers put their own spin on it. It wouldn't be really fun to watch if the performers were forced to speak in a way that doesn't come naturally to them.

Do you usually like to watch things you’ve worked on after they’re released?

I'll for sure watch the story parts of each scene. To this day, it's still exciting to see the words I wrote come to life on screen. If you're asking if I jerk off to my own scenes, unfortunately I do not. I'm not that egotistical! Haha.

What’s one thing you learned from working in porn that you didn’t know before?

How much planning goes into making each scene. I used to think things were just super simple and it was a quick-and-easy thing but no, my coworkers work fucking hard to make great scenes. Shoutout to the casting team and my other coworkers! Y'all are doing great.

You tweeted once that if you say the word “horse” in a porn, it will get taken down. Is that true? And why?

Imagine if I lied about that. Imagine! Yeah, it's true if you say the word "horse," a scene will get taken down. There's a HUGE list of words that we're not allowed to say. For a few years now, banks and credit card companies have cracked down on what can and can't be said/shown in scenes. If we don't comply with that list, the banks and credit card companies will refuse to allow us to process payments and we'd end up losing so much money. So, one of the words we can't use is "horse." It's really interesting, albeit very restrictive. It feels kind of like the Hayes Code for porn if any of you readers know what that is.

Where do you usually draw inspiration for scenes?

All walks of life, to be honest! A lot of the time I draw inspiration from my own life because as a gay man in his 20s, it's easy to find scenarios that would lead to sex. Other times I'll get inspiration from friends or my boss; I was never in a frat so whenever I write a frat scene I tend to turn to other people to make sure I'm making it more realistic.

Any advice for someone wanting to work in the porn industry behind the scenes?

I'd say remember that you're here to make a product, not jerk off to it. I mean, you can jerk off to it on your own time of course, but you can't really let your own personal preferences get in the way of what you create. There are gonna be some ideas and some performers that you may not personally be into, but our lovely fans will be, and we wanna do everything we can to please them. But also yes, do not jerk off to what you make during work hours, unless you're a performer haha.