SuperWriter
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I usually do it from a guy's, but am going to try a mother in law cheating with her daughter's husband. Should I do it from her outlook? What's the norm for these kind of stories?
Better to write from a female or male's perspective?
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NotWise
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It's probably best to do it from the point of view that you can write the best.
SimonDoom
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My general rule of thumb, when you are deciding from whose point of view to tell a story, is this: whose point of view presents the most conflict? Whose point of view presents the most change or growth?
In the story as you have described it, the mother in law is the character who will deal with the greatest internal conflict and change. She's the one from whose point of view you should tell the story.
I'm a middle-aged guy. I don't pretend to be an expert on how women see things. But, generally speaking, I think in erotica the woman's perspective is more interesting than the man's.
In the story as you have described it, the mother in law is the character who will deal with the greatest internal conflict and change. She's the one from whose point of view you should tell the story.
I'm a middle-aged guy. I don't pretend to be an expert on how women see things. But, generally speaking, I think in erotica the woman's perspective is more interesting than the man's.
Voboy
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No norm. Use whatever voice will tell your story best. It’s your characters and your story, so you get to pick whichever you want.
I’ve had stories that started male (or female), but the story told me VERY quickly that I should switch. It’s always a fun decision to make, even though you’ll never really know if it’s the right choice; road not taken, and all that.
I’ve had stories that started male (or female), but the story told me VERY quickly that I should switch. It’s always a fun decision to make, even though you’ll never really know if it’s the right choice; road not taken, and all that.
nosebone
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As has previously been suggested, going with what you know best is a good idea. That being said, I've had good luck writing small snippets of a female character's thoughts as an aside, as opposed to you writing it solely from the MIL's perspective for example. I've never tried to get completely in her head, just mostly a reaction to a particular situation. I've also written the majority of a story and had a female friend write the aside for me. Both of these methods have resulted in positive responses from readers.
There are many paths you can use. I try to refrain from writing completely from a perspective I don't know.
NotWise
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The wonderful thing about putting effort into the dialogue is that it can make POV less important. If there's a conflict, then good dialogue should make that painfully clear even if it isn't from the perspective of the most conflicted character.
In the story I'm working on now, both female characters have deep-seated conflicts that I couldn't possibly write about from their perspective, but I can write what they tell the fella and how he responds to them.
Emirus
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Surely it’s what achieves the best result?
I’ve read stories and its not been obvious, from the pen name, if it was a man writing as a woman or vice versa. I’ve also read stories in which the tale is told by both man and woman and it’s made the story very interesting.
I’ve read stories and its not been obvious, from the pen name, if it was a man writing as a woman or vice versa. I’ve also read stories in which the tale is told by both man and woman and it’s made the story very interesting.
@SimonDoom's first think is an interesting one - is actually what I would do if I could be consistent in anything. (I think did it okay in "Al'sia Meets Silen") I also has a tendency to write from the point of view of the most reliable narrator, which is almost never the interesting one but is easier to write than figure out how people nuttier than me think.
And I am a big advocate of changing POV as a part of a long story IF can be clear which POV is the current one.
And I am a big advocate of changing POV as a part of a long story IF can be clear which POV is the current one.
ElectricBlue
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Given the dynamic tension on the story is, presumably, going to be the reaction of the daughter to her mother's action, then the pov should be one of the women. The man's thoughts in this case would be almost irrelevant, "Great, I get to fuck my wife and her mom, I'm an asshole, it's Christmas."
Compare his cock oriented response (quite predictable and dramatically dull) to the woman scorned, or betrayed. Assuming you want to write drama.
If you just want to write stroke, then it's a threesome, who's got the biggest tits, how many times does he come and in what combination, and which one drowns in the puddle first. In which case the point of view would be largely academic, I'd have thought.
But pay no attention to me - write the pov that makes most sense for the story - noting you've not said what type of story (in the drama / stroke spectrum) you want to write.
Or you could try writing it from several points of view? It just takes a bit of work on the structure, to make sure readers can follow the changes from one person's POV to another's, and to make sure it doesn't get repetitive? I tried that out for this story and it did pretty well: https://www.literotica.com/s/late-valentine-2
Whatever fits the story best.
I still think that men can't really write a woman's perspective but that has been discussed over and over in this forum.
ElectricBlue
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Many men can't, I'd agree, but I've had many women congratulate me on my female characters.
One wrote just recently:
(It's an extract from my Geek Pride story).
lovecraft68
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When a story idea comes into my head, it comes with whose pov the story would be told best from. Sometimes its a man, sometimes a woman. I don't fuss about it, I do it.
Personally I feel my female characters scream guy writing a woman, but I've had a lot of compliments on them so maybe I'm a little better then I think who knows?
It depends on what the female is like too. If for example I had to write a 'girly girl' I might be kind of lost. But I write a lot of angry women in my EH novels so...its not hard.
Personally I feel my female characters scream guy writing a woman, but I've had a lot of compliments on them so maybe I'm a little better then I think who knows?
It depends on what the female is like too. If for example I had to write a 'girly girl' I might be kind of lost. But I write a lot of angry women in my EH novels so...its not hard.
tomlitilia
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Like others have pointed out, it depends on the story. For me, the most natural voice is the nonomniscient 3rd person, typically focusing on a female protagonist's experience. But my two highest scoring stories actually deviates; Unusual Dinner Party is male 1st person perspective and The Pecking Order is omniscient 3d person with the focus switching between paragraphs.
I've never tried writing 1st person female and not sure I ever will. The male "I" in my 1st person stories aren't actually me, but it still feels easier to take on that voice than female 1st. But challanges are interesting.
I think 1st person is harder for character description. Many authors even fail at conveying the gender of the protagonist. Sometimes I've read stories were the "heroine" suddenly has a cock. On the other hand, I stop reading at anything along the lines of "Hi, my name is Cindy. First a little about myself. I am 5 feet tall and have 40 DD boobs and blonde hair."
I've never tried writing 1st person female and not sure I ever will. The male "I" in my 1st person stories aren't actually me, but it still feels easier to take on that voice than female 1st. But challanges are interesting.
I think 1st person is harder for character description. Many authors even fail at conveying the gender of the protagonist. Sometimes I've read stories were the "heroine" suddenly has a cock. On the other hand, I stop reading at anything along the lines of "Hi, my name is Cindy. First a little about myself. I am 5 feet tall and have 40 DD boobs and blonde hair."
SuperWriter
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Everyone makes excellent points. The advice to let the story dictate the POV, along with the character who will experience the most change and growth make the most sense to me
SimonDoom
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I'm the same way. Every 1st person POV story I've written is from the male POV. When I want to tell a story from the female POV I used third person limited omniscient. This way, I can get into the head of the main character at times and tell things from her point of view, but I also can pull back and relay things from the standpoint of an omniscient narrator. It feels safer to me, and I think I'm less likely to make it sound like I'm a guy impersonating a woman. But someday I may try to tell a story from a female first person POV.
The needs of the story should dictate the POV. Analyze what the essence of the story is, who the most interesting character is, and, in particular, who is the character that faces the primary and most interesting conflict and undergoes growth. If you don't do that, then you're telling the story from the POV of a bystander. Sometimes that works, but usually it's less interesting.
jehoram
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Write it both ways. I did that with "Bigfoot and the Wood Nymph."
https://www.literotica.com/s/bigfoot-and-the-wood-nymph
I wrote that first and, at the urging of my editor, I re-wrote it from the other main character's point of view.
https://www.literotica.com/s/bigfoot-and-the-wood-nymph-ch-02
It gave me a chance to inhabit the heads of both characters in a way that I hadn't done before. I found, to my surprise, that it turned out to be two different stories in the sense that what I had taken for granted in the first story turned out to have some complexities in the second, when I was forced to re-examine the same scenes with a different pair of eyes.
https://www.literotica.com/s/bigfoot-and-the-wood-nymph
I wrote that first and, at the urging of my editor, I re-wrote it from the other main character's point of view.
https://www.literotica.com/s/bigfoot-and-the-wood-nymph-ch-02
It gave me a chance to inhabit the heads of both characters in a way that I hadn't done before. I found, to my surprise, that it turned out to be two different stories in the sense that what I had taken for granted in the first story turned out to have some complexities in the second, when I was forced to re-examine the same scenes with a different pair of eyes.
psiberzerker
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Okay, first of all, that's a really fucking hot scenario. Secondly, the best thing to do is ask someone with Experience. I.E. a woman, preferrably a mother of a married daughter, to get her perspective. That's what PoV is all about, getting the narrator's perspective.
So, really this is a great thread to get women's opinions, and listen to them. Otherwise, it comes off like a male Gynecologist comparing anal prolapse to the pain of childbirth, having experienced neither.
This is the primary reason I alternate narrative. (By chapter.) Different people experience say a gangbang differently. So, for example a devout christian couple at a swinger's gangbang is going to be confused, and overwhelmed. Whereas the swinger's wife, who runs a strip club, is going to pretty much take it all in:
http://www.literotica.com/s/neighborhood-association-swing
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Hypoxia
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For fun, adopt the POV of a family pet observing the human goings-on. The pet is not aroused, merely curious and maybe annoyed. That's similar to a conscious cheap-motel mirror describing cheating and kinks it's witnessed.
NotWise
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Or to the flea in Autobiography of a Flea, who's life story is mostly about the debauching of his hostess, the lovely Bella, and other acts committed among her friends and family.
psiberzerker
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Yeah, unfortunately, I can't interview a family pet, because of the language barrier. In answer to the OQ, write from the perspective you know. Barring that, find someone who has similar experiences to the narrator (Like a mother with a married daughter) and ask her. How she felt, let her read your draft, and tell you how she felt about that.
There's a lot of married women, a lot there who read smut, and many you can talk to on this very site. They tend to like the ones that are written by women, or men who understand women, and the best way to understand women is to ask them. Listen to the answers, take notes, and incorporate them into the story.
Or, write it from the Point of View of the son-in-law. That's going to be a lot easier to get right. Likewise, if you're writing a story about a gangbang in a firehouse, go to a firehouse, and talk to firemen...
SimonDoom
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I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that no one actually does this. Like, ever.
I think sometimes too much emphasis is put on the importance of personal experience. In my view, imagination is much more important. What makes a story work is not realism, but verisimilitude -- the use of just enough detail to create the appearance of reality, rather than the actual mimicking of reality.
psiberzerker
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Bullshit. Crime/mystery novelists in particular do. Thomas Harris wrote about it in the forewards to The Silence of the Lambs, and Red Dragon. Ian Flemming did too. Basically, all serious authors do, when Realism (Or believability. Suspension of Disbelief) is an element of the story.
Where you're talking about is Speculative Fiction. Which basically replaces Research with Worldbuilding. Instead of finding out how the real world works, say a commercial kitchen so you can write about a Waitress/Soux Chef affair, with enough detail that a Restraunt manager can read it without being turned off.
If you're writing as a woman, for women, then you have to understand what might arouse her in a step-son. Otherwise, write for men with a step-mother as the stepson.
Another option is adding a sci-fi/fantasy/horror element, like Mind Control, an Aphrodesiac (Make the stepson a biochemist working at a research lab testing pheromones) and that's basically the only element you have to make up.
However, all the symptoms of her synthetic attraction, arousal, and erotic pleasure derive from the drug, so they don't have to ring true for any of the female readers (You want to turn on, instead of turn off.) They don't know what the drug feels like, because they've never taken it.
Know Your Audience is one of the basic principals of Writing 001. High School Creative Writing Class, before you even get to College.
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R. Richard
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I do my scenes, especially sex scenes, from both perspectives.
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