Desiremakesmeweak
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2012
- Posts
- 2,060
I think it is an amazing honour that so many younger people and new writers are jumping in here and submitting all this stuff, admittedly, much of which is not great.
The reason they do it is because they have read a few people here who inspired their desires to write.
Some of these new writers will get a lot better than they are right now.
But the fact remains they have been inspired to write.
'Literary' erotica or adult fiction in the modern era's principally digital format demands a brevity that was somewhat unusual in the past - although not entirely unknown. This is in my view something of a 'new' or 'modern' form of writing in reality and perhaps still subject to a bit of 'pathfinding.'
I certainly get the point of what the OP is saying, but then I also think the whole thing is the other way around - today's world virtually DEMANDS that any serious contemporary writer is going to have to deal with very hardcore sex, sexuality, and the transgressing through or across old social mores. It would be 'false' and artificial if a real literary writer tried to avoid those things now. A real literary reflection of modern people, modern life, modern themes, necessitates the inclusion of pretty hardcore erotic content - I think.
So what does that all add up to?
In my mind it adds up to a redefining of the word 'literary.' You can't create parodies of 'old school' phraseology and writing styles and highly studied English and then assume that you're necessarily being literary; English is a living language.
I just had a conversion with the marketing manager of a major local art gallery this morning - in the middle of a huge proxy fight in a public company meeting...! (Yep. True.) The gallery put on an expensive showing of up-to-the-minute NY and Europe-sourced high brow 'current' art/music/film. The exhibition was poorly attended.
And that's because people are snobs and don't get what's going on -, yet. Chris Martin of Coldplay is an immense talent (my opinion). He isn't any different to say, Van Gogh. His wife won't publish in Vanity Fair - what WAS the world's leading upscale, social, cultural literary venue. Dominick Dunne and Gore Vidal wrote for Vanity Fair's editions.
And I won't have anything published there either. Does that make either me or Gwyneth Paltrow literary writers or literary figures?
Yes it does.
My stories - and many or most of the writers responding in this thread's stories - here are read by more people than anything that would be printed and published in Vanity Fair today.
They are read, and presumably enjoyed too because they keep coming back.
So if you want to amp up the literary tone of some writing, I think there IS a rule to have the work try and fit into the reading styles of today's readers, but I think THIS IS the place to do it.
In the past, really great writers would compete with their perceived rivals' latest works and cutting-edge stories or writing - painters did it too.
I would thoroughly recommend the OP attempt something of the kind he is talking about, let us know in the Authors' Hangout when he sticks it up and I for one will definitely be on the look-out to read it.
To be 'literary' means to say something important about the human condition. And the human sexual condition, the erotic manners and fashions and so on, are absolutely key to any understanding of today's human being and of today's social culture. I'm not sure I ever tried to have 'something important to say' in any of the stories I have put up here so far. But it isn't a bad challenge to think about eventually doing so or trying to. And then again, maybe just straight out 'erotic' stories, ARE the something important about today's culture.
Are we, afterall, living in the best of erotic times?
The reason they do it is because they have read a few people here who inspired their desires to write.
Some of these new writers will get a lot better than they are right now.
But the fact remains they have been inspired to write.
'Literary' erotica or adult fiction in the modern era's principally digital format demands a brevity that was somewhat unusual in the past - although not entirely unknown. This is in my view something of a 'new' or 'modern' form of writing in reality and perhaps still subject to a bit of 'pathfinding.'
I certainly get the point of what the OP is saying, but then I also think the whole thing is the other way around - today's world virtually DEMANDS that any serious contemporary writer is going to have to deal with very hardcore sex, sexuality, and the transgressing through or across old social mores. It would be 'false' and artificial if a real literary writer tried to avoid those things now. A real literary reflection of modern people, modern life, modern themes, necessitates the inclusion of pretty hardcore erotic content - I think.
So what does that all add up to?
In my mind it adds up to a redefining of the word 'literary.' You can't create parodies of 'old school' phraseology and writing styles and highly studied English and then assume that you're necessarily being literary; English is a living language.
I just had a conversion with the marketing manager of a major local art gallery this morning - in the middle of a huge proxy fight in a public company meeting...! (Yep. True.) The gallery put on an expensive showing of up-to-the-minute NY and Europe-sourced high brow 'current' art/music/film. The exhibition was poorly attended.
And that's because people are snobs and don't get what's going on -, yet. Chris Martin of Coldplay is an immense talent (my opinion). He isn't any different to say, Van Gogh. His wife won't publish in Vanity Fair - what WAS the world's leading upscale, social, cultural literary venue. Dominick Dunne and Gore Vidal wrote for Vanity Fair's editions.
And I won't have anything published there either. Does that make either me or Gwyneth Paltrow literary writers or literary figures?
Yes it does.
My stories - and many or most of the writers responding in this thread's stories - here are read by more people than anything that would be printed and published in Vanity Fair today.
They are read, and presumably enjoyed too because they keep coming back.
So if you want to amp up the literary tone of some writing, I think there IS a rule to have the work try and fit into the reading styles of today's readers, but I think THIS IS the place to do it.
In the past, really great writers would compete with their perceived rivals' latest works and cutting-edge stories or writing - painters did it too.
I would thoroughly recommend the OP attempt something of the kind he is talking about, let us know in the Authors' Hangout when he sticks it up and I for one will definitely be on the look-out to read it.
To be 'literary' means to say something important about the human condition. And the human sexual condition, the erotic manners and fashions and so on, are absolutely key to any understanding of today's human being and of today's social culture. I'm not sure I ever tried to have 'something important to say' in any of the stories I have put up here so far. But it isn't a bad challenge to think about eventually doing so or trying to. And then again, maybe just straight out 'erotic' stories, ARE the something important about today's culture.
Are we, afterall, living in the best of erotic times?