Sex or the Plot?

loquere said:

When writing a story which is MOST important to you, the sex or the plot?

Click to expand...

I've felt the 'should' from readers. That I should write more sex scenes.

But what I hate is feeling like I need to do something.

I'm writing about people (whether plausible or not), I put them in a context and it's somewhat a development of romance, though not very mainstream. I think for me, writing sex is about details. I'm going to write it with close up shots. But I'm very plot oriented. I love a puzzle that comes together. Where sex falls... is where it just happens to fall. At least, ideally. And if it doesn't then it doesn't. I should listen to myself more.

Having said all that, I have not a problem with sex driving plot. In fact I think making the sex meaningful to the plot in such copious amounts is a damn difficult thing. And then to have the readers on the edge of their seat reading every word. I've said that I often skip sex scenes in plot driven stories, but when sex drives plot in a way that I want to keep reading, I tend to skip the non-sex. Maybe I'm weird and I compartmentalise. But I think what happens is most people search for a premise for their characters to be having sex.

THIS discussion again? You tell the story, or the story tells itself, or nothing much happens. Whatever. I sketch out some plots in more-or-less muddy detail; maybe I know the ending. Others are essentially plot-free: family and/or friends get naked and screw because, well, just because. Throw in some backstory to make it plausible. Don't forget the literary merit: adjectives and adverbs.

electric1 said:

The plot is most important, but in a porn story, the plot should be focused on sex (from anticipation to orgasm). I wrote about this at length here.

Click to expand...

Good howto - voted 5. But you could have built the sexual tension better

I couldn't vote. But the poll seems to point to something that was surprising to me.

Story does have a place here.

One of my higher ranked chapters has a preamble that basically excuses 3 lit pages of character development. I tossed in a sex scene as a shot, then the rest was basically character development chaser.

Now, my work here is basically one long continuing story, and I consciously try to put a good scene two or three scenes into each chapter. Another interesting comment, when I waxed a bit too long on my protagonists doubts and regrets was basically, "Why would he feel distressed, he's been having an orgasm four or five times a day, shouldn't he be swimming in happiness?"

So a balance is probably a good place to hang out in. I also agree with the sentiment, of why write here if you're just going to ignore the sex.