Super Hero Parallels with Erotica

[Altissimus]

No, you would be surprised. It's a lot more than that. Often the secondary goal isn't that well developed, but it's still something. For instance, Mom is dissatisfied with husband, and son steps in and fulfills her. Or Mom has some sort of project to do, and enlists son's help, and somehow it becomes sexual.

I don't deny there'll be good stories in any genre, but there's ~8,000 mum/son incest stories on Lit, and if we go with 1% that means you'd have to find me more than 80 that tick that box. Okay, maybe I'm prejudice... I just don't think it's the sort of trope that goes heavy on extra-curricular motivations. Anyway, I'll shut up now.

 

[alohadave]

Wow. You guys think a LOT into this. I just write fun, sexy stories. Anything deeper that happens during the story just seems to happen. I don't actually plan it out.

Well, there is talking about it, and there is doing it. It's a lot easier to analyze what's out there than to intentionally create.

There are a lot of superhero movies, so it's easy to see patterns of what is happened. And when you see that, it's not hard to compare it to erotica, and you see similar things.

You don't have to go into this kind of depth if you don't want to. If your method works for you, I won't be the one to yuck your yum.

 

[Euphony]

you'd have to find me more than 80 that tick that box.

You realize how infinitesimally small that is? Many authors category specialize and double digit submissions is rather common place.

It's not all trope. If anything, incest is a better suited category to secondary motivations b/c the barriers to sex are so high, at least some quasi-relationship hallmarks have to occur if the author at all values plausibility.

Okay, maybe I'm prejudice...

Depends on how restrictive your definition ends up. As is, yes, seems an overgeneralization. Secondary motivation is fairly common in fiction. Erotica has the benefit of sex usually being the main motivation or it easily slides into 2nd place. 1 of the 2 necessary slots already accounted for.

I just don't think it's the sort of trope that goes heavy on extra-curricular motivations.

We're pattern seeking machines. Strokey trope is the categories most obvious pattern. It sticks out too by usually being an example of poor writing (and we naturally scan for in all of reading, especially as authors)

It's like seeing truck beds full of tailgaters choice, Natty Light means craft beer doesn't exist.

 

[EroticCupcake]

I found this recently, and now I try to think about how conflict can amplify a story and give it real stakes for the characters.

https://johnaugust.com/2019/scriptnotes-ep-403-how-to-write-a-movie-transcript

I read another author a while back that made a comment that basically said, that without someone or something to push back against the main character, there isn't much of a story. The character needs a reason to fight for what they want, and there needs to be some threat of not achieving what they are trying to do. Even if you know that the protagonist 'wins' in the end, having a cost to the struggle makes the victory that much better.

John August / scriptnotes is a great podcast and also the source of my writer's block issues. I once set out to define then write the "perfect" action movie. Perfect is obviously subjective, but some of what I'm trying to articulate in this thread came from that experience of writing down everything I liked and wanted in an action movie.

Strangely, "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" checks almost every box of what I wanted. On paper it's my favorite movie, but not in practice, even though it's awesome.

That experience of crafting the "perfect" movie from the ground up didn't go great for me. I'm having much more success with erotica, where I find some sex angle I find interesting, and I can add the other elements in once I have enough inertia.

 

[NoTalentHack]

This is great advice. I should try to follow it more. The secret spice to a great story is the secondary goal/plot. It works in movies and books and it can work in erotica.

To tie this in to the OP's theme, consider the superheroes Spiderman, or Superman, or Batman. They all have love interests of one kind or another. Romance gives the character more depth, more vulnerability, and also complicates the hero's task of saving the world.

Even in a silly mom-son incest story, if you give one or more of the characters a little more motivation than "I saw my son's big cock and couldn't help myself" it enriches the story. It makes it more interesting, and it makes it more erotic, too.

Totally agree. It's part of why I like LW as a genre, even though a lot of the stories end up being "Romance for dudes." Conflict is baked right into the core concept more than in any genre except probably NC/R.

 

[TadOverdon]

Mostly I'm elaborating on fantasy sex scenarios rather than telling stories. And it's somewhat like old Marvel comics, which one of their writers once described as "endless fight scenes punctuated by bad dialogue."

 

[Britva415]

Super Hero Parallels with Erotica

Reminds me of a parenting "coach" talking about how to talk to kids about porn.

(Not that I think we should all be running around talking to random kids about porn, but parents are almost inevitably going to have to at some point in today's internet reality.)

When kids encounter porn and don't understand it and it's probably their first exposure to sex - to seeing sex, that is, I don't mean first time ever hearing about sex or being told responsible, informative, necessary things about sex by their parents - the idea was that, in order to try to help them understand that porn isn't what sex is really like, they can be told that the people in porn are like super-heroes and in real life we can't be super-heroes and our sex and relationships aren't like comic book stories.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Reminds me of a parenting "coach" talking about how to talk to kids about porn.

(Not that I think we should all be running around talking to random kids about porn, but parents are almost inevitably going to have to at some point in today's internet reality.)

When kids encounter porn and don't understand it and it's probably their first exposure to sex - to seeing sex, that is, I don't mean first time ever hearing about sex or being told responsible, informative, necessary things about sex by their parents - the idea was that, in order to try to help them understand that porn isn't what sex is really like, they can be told that the people in porn are like super-heroes and in real life we can't be super-heroes and our sex and relationships aren't like comic book stories.

As I plan to explain it to my kids, “Porn is to sex as Die Hard is to policing.”

 

[EroticCupcake]

As I plan to explain it to my kids, “Porn is to sex as Die Hard is to policing.”

I think this a whole thread on it's own. I'll go first.

Porn is like Die Hard...
Just because a man is dressed as Santa, it doesn't make it a Christmas movie.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I think this a whole thread on it's own. I'll go first.

Porn is like Die Hard...
Just because a man is dressed as Santa, it doesn't make it a Christmas movie.

Now them’s fighting words. Die Hard is the definitive Christmas movie.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Now them’s fighting words. Die Hard is the definitive Christmas movie.

Nah. Brazil.

 

[AlexBailey]

I suppose with the Spider-man analogy, going queer is like going off into the multiverse - so many new plot possibilities ‘cis-reality’ can’t touch.

It might be a little rough for some old-timers but the newer generations are all onboard.

 

[SimonDoom]

Oh, this'll be fun: I hate everything about the original Star Wars except R2D2 and Leia.

Love super hero flicks

I'm pretty much the opposite. I saw the original Star Wars when I was 12 on the weekend that it debuted in 1977, and I remember it as a fantastic movie experience. No movie had ever been like that before. It still has a special place in my heart. Everything since the original trilogy has been "meh" or "blech" for me, although I thought Rogue One was pretty good.

I don't get the super hero thing. It's all so boring and cookie-cutter. How many reboots of Spiderman can there be? An infinite number, I guess. Plus, all the Marvel movies now are suffused with the same jokey/smarmy sense of humor. They're paint by the numbers movies, OTHER than Christopher Nolan's Batman films, especially The Dark Knight, which I thought was the one superhero movie that was actually a good film. And why do people like movies with lots of super heroes in them? The whole point of a super hero movie is that the super hero is weird, almost outcast, and distinctive in his/her powers. When there are lots of super heroes, as in the Avengers films, being a super hero isn't anything special. When I look at lists of top-grossing films and almost all of them these days are super hero movies, I truly feel out of touch with the zeitgeist.