Soap Operas?

[Rob_Royale]

I remember watching 80s and 90s porn and some of my favorites were the soap opera spoofs they did. Usually, the setting was a hospital full of sexy nurses and candystripers. And you have to admit, if you watch a soap opera it's hard to keep your mind out of the gutter.

I'm wondering how to give it a go in erotica. I did The Suburban MILFs Club which had a cast of six ladies (our MILFs) and their prospective young paramours. Twelve characters to juggle. It's quite a job and some readers weren't a fan of it. They got confused about who was doing what though I hadn't even gotten to all twelve yet.

So how to pull off a Soap Opera story? A daytime hourlong soap can have up to 35 cast members. Gotta hand it to the scriptwriters on those soaps. That's a lot of story to wrangle.

I thought maybe if I started small, say six characters. And then sort of add as I go. Make it ultra campy, completely ridiculous.

Paging Dr. Hunt. Mike Hunt, please report to Obstetrics.

 

[onehitwanda]

Make it ultra campy, completely ridiculous.

Carry on, Matron.

 

[SimonDoom]

The Ways of our Wives?

Genital Hospital?

All My Jillin'?

 

[onehitwanda]

The Ways of our Wives?

Genital Hospital?

All My Jillin'?

I'm not angry, Simon. I'm just disappointed.

 

[Bamagan]

My main work here is kind of soap opera-ish: serialized, long-running, absurdly unrealistic in many respects, and bafflingly inaccessible if you jump in anywhere after the first few episodes. I found it rewarding to write, as I enjoyed dealing with a large and varied cast who might only pop up here and there but provided unique windows on events.

I think the serialization is the key, and finding ways to re-invent characters along the way, a la the amnesia trope. Keep things going long enough and the cast will probably multiply on its own, but if each chapter only focuses on a few of them, it's probably easier for readers to digest.

I'm wondering how to give it a go in erotica. I did The Suburban MILFs Club which had a cast of six ladies (our MILFs) and their prospective young paramours. Twelve characters to juggle. It's quite a job and some readers weren't a fan of it. They got confused about who was doing what though I hadn't even gotten to all twelve yet.

 

[AchtungNight]

I’ve never been that into soap operas but good luck.

 

[SimonDoom]

A story that reminds me a little of this is SpacerX's epic incest romp Six Times A Day (not on Literotica, although it used to be). The premise is that a young man has been "diagnosed" (falsely, by a doctor in cahoots with a woman who has the hots for the young man) as having low energy, and the only cure is that he must orgasm six times a day. So naturally all the women in his life, including his mom, her best friend, and his sister, get in the act. I think there are over 80 chapters. It has a soap operaish, melodramatic, over the top tone throughout. It plays on all the crazy dynamics between the characters and their schemes and machinations. It's an absurd premise but it's entertaining and breezily written. And it has a serial quality, too--each chapter stands on its own as a melodramatic episode but there's a long-term arc of sorts in which the mom gradually comes to acknowledge her lust and her role in satisfying the orgasmic needs of her son (and herself).

You could set it in a hospital, or make it about several families on a neighborhood street like Desperate Housewives. Add a mystery to keep all the episodes linked by a common story arc in some way.

 

[AlinaX]

(Could be fun as a group project. Create a setting and some characters, be clear about what they must not do, and see where it goes.)

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Soaps ain't my thing. I remember having to sit through ten minutes of Passions, and hating it.

 

[alohadave]

So how to pull off a Soap Opera story? A daytime hourlong soap can have up to 35 cast members.

Soaps are modern Melodramas. Over the top actions and reactions to minor events. Anger and jealousy over slight miscommunications. Heightened passions that cause drama.

Soaps will usually focus on a main storyline, with a B and C storyline that are smaller in scale or less important at the same time. Storylines do not conclude at the end of the episode (many are decades old) so you don't need to rush to a conclusion in each chapter.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Maybe do an American version of Downton Abbey (Down on Abby?), set in the late 1940's? A stupid wealthy family set in the Hamptons. Very servant-master. A dominant matriarch from a wealthy family and her doddering husband who is a successful scientist and professor. Absentminded but sweet. Their children, two spoiled adult girls a few years apart, and the servant staff.

I would do it to avoid incest but set it in a world a little more sexually open-minded. "I mean really, Darlene, must you leave the used condoms on the Chippendale? Hornsby! Hornsby, get this out of my sight this instant! And by the way, were you able to book Gregor for my afternoon massage? I do love the way he loosens me up."

I'm gonna work on this. Maybe do a one-shot and see where it goes. Thanks for the input folks.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Soaps are modern Melodramas. Over the top actions and reactions to minor events. Anger and jealousy over slight miscommunications. Heightened passions that cause drama.

You mean like forums, right?
Maybe, I'll base my characters on you guys.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not angry, Simon. I'm just disappointed.

I'm disappointed you're disappointed! I thought "Ways of Our Wives," in particular, was darn clever. I laughed, and I have high standards. Ahem.

 

[onehitwanda]

I'm disappointed you're disappointed! I thought "Ways of Our Wives," in particular, was darn clever. I laughed, and I have high standards. Ahem.

 

[jaF0]

Add in Vampires and you get ......







.... c'mon you gotta remember that one and I don't mean the silly Depp remake.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Dark Shadows, dude I was 3 when that went off the air.

 

[Handley_Page]

Carry on, Matron.

Starring Hattie Jacques

 

[Rustyoznail]

Starring Hattie Jacques

And Babs...

 

[Rustyoznail]

Although the Carry On movies aren't soapies by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I suppose my Mary and Alvin series could be described as a soap opera in some ways. It's multi-generational, the narrative spans more than sixty years. It's got weddings and divorces, births and deaths. Sometimes it's funny, other times it's a real tear jerker. Nobody ever gets tried for murder, though, that might be a disqualifier.

 

[lovecraft68]

Melhoes Place?

That show was pretty much who was banging who anyway.

 

[RetroFan]

My 'PTA Queen Bee & Teen Rebel' stories posted in Lesbian Sex would qualify as a soap opera considering the bizarre events that take place in an otherwise quiet Long Island town in 1988. It even contains a haunted house.

In one of my other stories 'Cute Celebrity Chloe Comes To Stay' titular character 18-year-old Chloe is an actress in a fictional Australian soap opera in the early 1990s. At the start of the story, two young male identical twins not very bright are looking forward to meeting her, but struggle to tell fiction from reality. For example they think that Chloe was really bitten by a snake and held hostage in a bank robbery, when of course this happened to her character in the soap opera.