The role of 'The Conversation' in your stories.

[pink_silk_glove]

Why do some people always insist that plot and development are the be-all and end-all of writing? Stories can have plenty of different purposes.

I never said that plot is the be all and end all. I do not assume that you are insinuating that plot is never an element of a good story. I don't jump to those conclusions.

Certainly there can be a good story with little to no plot. I very much enjoyed Erica Jong's Fear of Flying despite its threadbare plot. A novel with almost no plot and still a good read? Difficult to pull off but she did it. I have to applaud.

Stories don't have to have plot, but it certainly makes it harder to hold a reader's attention. The less plot that you have, the harder it is to write something good, and exponentially so the longer the piece becomes. Unless of course one is writing specifically for people with one hand on the mouse and the other guess where. Then plot becomes even less important. There's nothing wrong with writing for that, but if it scores well with no plot, like anything else, that doesn't mean that the story was necessarily good or well written, just that it was popular.

I was not making a statement that plot trumps all in quality of work by any means. I was commenting on that specific template:

info dump
cardboard characters
weak contrived excuse for ...
... (insert) kinky situation (here)
orgasm.

This specific template (which never includes any meaningful plot) is a dead giveaway for hack writing. That's what I am saying.

 

[nice90sguy]

This thread is (the OP began it as being) about "The Conversation", not "conversation" in stories. There's been lots of threads about the latter.

A big problem I have is the cosiness of it -- as others have posted above, it can lower the conflict, and for me, thereby lower the interest in the story.

The fetish forums here are similar -- people are keen to normalize their guilty kinks by forming a safety group of accepting people, which somehow takes the fun out it for me.

But "The Conversation", if handled well, can easily be an exciting thing, when it turns into "The Persuasion", "The Coercion" or "The Realization"

 

[LucyAnneThorn]

But "The Conversation", if handled well, can easily be an exciting thing, when it turns into "The Persuasion", "The Coercion" or "The Realization"

I was just about to write something along those lines.

"The Conversation" is part of the foreplay for me, however stilted and embarrassing it may actually feel to the main character, so it needs to carry excitement and make that palpable. While it is a major step towards the resolution of the main conflict, it mustn't resolve all conflicts. In fact, it's best when it sharpens and/or reshapes the original conflict and adds another layer (e.g. a beloved person who mustn't learn about it, a scheduling conflict, a steep price tag). It's also the perfect spot where the author can make it clear that the main character isn't a Mary Sue, because they make selfish, half-assed and/or emotional decisions. I love having my MCs agree (excitedly and without thinking things through, yet full of self-doubt) to step outside their comfort zone in the course of "The Conversation". The realization that they bit off more than they feel they can chew is what adds spice to the story and introduces all kinds of possibilities for new conflict and unexpected insights. Coming up with the correct level of miscommunication and emotional decision-making isn't always easy, but it's rewarding.

That said, you don't have to have The Conversation in every story. Sometimes, it's fun when the MC stumbles along a line of assumptions that have the potential to backfire spectacularly. It's, after all, what the introvert half of us do day in, day out.

 

[Dnthmn_19]

I loathe long conversations. Hemmingway did it well but in Literotica, not so much. Use enough to establish some context and intention, then get on with it.