Tension in erotic fiction

Desiremakesmeweak said:

And that is no doubt also why Hollywood is so relevant and why they make such amazing and successful blockbusters now - they have honed this thing of following a formula until it is so perfect all the rising population of autistic people (now that vaccines have become absolutely mandatory) love to go watch their films because they (the films) are all of course perfectly regulated now and excellently predictable.

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No one goes to movies to see WHAT happens, that's nearly irrelevant, what matters is HOW stuff happens (and for the small nerdy minority, why).

Of course it needs tension. The tricky thing with erotica is that (I believe) most readers know where the story is heading early on. If it's a LW story about a wife going to conference with her boss, she's most likely gonna end up fucking her boss. If it's posted in Group Sex, she's most likely gonna take on his business partner too. And yet, the reader needsto be kept interested. The suspence isn't just about where they're going, but how how they'll get there.

"what matters is HOW stuff happens"

It used to happen with smoke and mirrors, now it happens with CGI.

I guess the sin of copying and boring repetition was always with us afterall.

Here's how you make a Hollywood movie - (Director's notes): to actor/actress - 'look distressed, frown a lot, open your mouth and gasp or drop your jaw A LOT, turn and look over your shoulder, run, run some more, fall, pour onion juice into your eyes (we'll cut-edit that), jump into a car (IE a vehicle), drive fast, get chased by a car, crash a car, jump, leap, fall again, roll around, get sprayed with a hose (we'll edit-cut that bit), crouch if you're a female, show your tattoos if you're Jason Momoa, stick your fingers in your ears as we blow the Universe apart, close your eyes from the flash, hide your face from the flames, clasp the other actor/actress/other as if in a moment of love and anguish and also relief.'

[Political and Racially charged posts are not welcome in the AH - AH Mod]

RubenR said:

Wrong button

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Over to the left a little. But I digress. Here's some hack wisdom.
IOW introduce tension to advance the story. I guess there's a smut version.
Keep the juices flowing. And if you reach a plot fork with various options, take the least likely and most outrageous. For entertainment, sure. Why be obvious?

Desiremakesmeweak said:

Most of you guys are heaps better writers than me - I have not managed to master the art yet of this prescriptive stuff that most of you are talking about, and clearly since it works for your professional money-making careers, also swear by. And that is no doubt also why Hollywood is so relevant and why they make such amazing and successful blockbusters now - they have honed this thing of following a formula until it is so perfect all the rising population of autistic people (now that vaccines have become absolutely mandatory) love to go watch their films because they (the films) are all of course perfectly regulated now and excellently predictable.


BTW, I happen to think the OP's question was actually a good one, and a really good one at that. For me 'tension' in stories is a much more complex thing (and often 'weird science...') than the wonders of the trick of 'conflict' can achieve on their own.

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I really hope all your talk about autistic people is a unfunny joke.

I think the fog of my own folly might have lifted somewhat this morning. Tension, as has been pointed out here, needs to build over the course of the story...until it explodes...then the pieces have to be all picked up and rearranged into an ending.

I finally figured this out this morning... after many weeks of re-writing, pestering good and kind people and essentially torturing them by having them read the mess...and finally fed up, last night sending the all seven Lit pages of it to the trash.

Finally this morning, it dawned on me that my "tension" was not tension...it was a surprise ending! No build up at all.

The moral of this sad tale is; Pay attention to the build-up of tension. Surprise endings inserted in place of tension come off as blatant contrivances. (It might have worked if I wanted a really miserable ending...but I didn't, and doubt my readers would have either.)

The happy ending here is; I didn't empty the trash on my computer last night and there is yet hope for my two lovers to find that happiness which we all seek...

I'm glad the Mod added 'political' to 'racially charged' because in the instances (that were deleted) which I do agree I might have used some greater restraint in this nice place concerning, neither of the two items I mentioned are 1. either a race, and 2, nor are they an ethnicity - but they are politically charged these days... Unfortunately, and also, because politics is often a case of brutal manipulation against a majority, often, unnecessarily - which of course adversely affects the bulk of ordinary people. I don't think I'm a racist (Uh-oh...?!) but I am political. And that's a fact.

But to explain a bit - one of the words literally means 'dwellers at the outlaw desert foot of the mountains,' but it has come to be taken as some kind of race or ethnicity; it is neither of those. The opposite word from that general region means 'people who dwell on the high mountainside.'

...And having just said that 'it has come to be taken as' commonly, well, yeah, it's not appropriate here. I agree.