What details of an author's style annoy you?

I've been trying to think of what's a "detail of an author's style" thing that bothers me. I think bad anatomy is still what gets me the most often in the erotic writing context: it's really jarring when it becomes obvious that the writer doesn't really grasp where certain body parts are or how they work. I'm not talking about porno-style Great Big Penises and whether those are "realistic," because a certain amount of exaggeration or stylization in some registers of erotic writing doesn't bother me. I'm talking about the anatomy being just flat-out wrong (the placement of hymens is a very common offender).
There's one author I appreciate because he includes a specific disclaimer in his work that the laws of geometry are not necessarily meant to be taken seriously in his group scenes, and asks that you don't think too much about how all the various bodies are occupying spaces without overlapping. He's writing porn and how people are arranged in a fivesome is the wrong kind of question.
 
There's one author I appreciate because he includes a specific disclaimer in his work that the laws of geometry are not necessarily meant to be taken seriously in his group scenes, and asks that you don't think too much about how all the various bodies are occupying spaces without overlapping. He's writing porn and how people are arranged in a fivesome is the wrong kind of question.
*Which is fair. I would say that's a different thing.
 
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Woah, what happened in this thread? I just came back from the pool, all wet, and someone thinks they're right because they literally have "It'sTrue" in Spanish on their names? Don't fall for that obvious bait, authors, even though I arrived too late for that message.

OK, it may be a little more nuanced than I stated in my post, but for all practical purposes it's correct, and Lit authors would write more realistically if they conformed their word choice.

In the erotic(a) context, a woman is almost always going to be wearing a blouse, and not an otherwise buttoned shirt.

No. First of all, I have a huge fetish for business suits and ties, and my women will mostly wear dress shirts instead of blouses. Secondly, my schoolgirls' uniforms are slightly based around the actual school uniforms in my country, but look way cooler than the overtly simplistic things we used to wear. You'd be surprised how much a necktie can change the look of two pieces of clothing, even without a blazer. You don't need to write erotica to make a senior look fashionable on their uniform. Lastly, realism sucks, and I am going to die upon this hill, damnit!
 
To drag this thread away from author bashing and ladies' wear, and back on topic: head-hopping annoys me.

Not shifting between POVs from one scene to the next. But real head-hopping. Most blatantly when the narrator shifts to a different POV in an attempt to "show" the original POV character's outward expression of emotion. But also in more subtle instances, where the narrator knows what's causing another character's actions or reactions. "I watched as she burst into tears as emotions flooded through her." Or "He watched me closely, searching my face for a hint of what I was thinking."

I see what you're saying, but I kind of agree with Cyrano on this one. The reason is that your examples are both in first person, so we can forgive a subjective first person narrator for claiming they know what the other person is thinking. As a reader, I respond, "OK, this narrator is speculating." In my view head hopping is more troubling when it's in third person and there's a sudden and inexplicable from one establish POV to another.
 
I've been trying to think of what's a "detail of an author's style" thing that bothers me. I think bad anatomy is still what gets me the most often in the erotic writing context: it's really jarring when it becomes obvious that the writer doesn't really grasp where certain body parts are or how they work. I'm not talking about porno-style Great Big Penises and whether those are "realistic," because a certain amount of exaggeration or stylization in some registers of erotic writing doesn't bother me. I'm talking about the anatomy being just flat-out wrong (the placement of hymens is a very common offender).
Where is the hymen? And where do people misplace it? I had one that broke, as I recall. But I didn't really know where it was.
 
I really don't like it when characters don't feel alive on the page. If they aren't breathing, thinking, and reacting like real people, the story falls flat. I want readers to feel like they're stepping into a world where the characters could walk right off the page and keep living their lives.
 
Where is the hymen? And where do people misplace it? I had one that broke, as I recall. But I didn't really know where it was.
It is like 1-3 centimeters inside the vaginal opening. Often times it's not even that deep. And for most women it naturally loosens and stretches by the time they're twenty. So unless you're way too young for this site you're not likely to bleed even if you lose your virginity by the time you can legally buy porn.
 
Where is the hymen? And where do people misplace it? I had one that broke, as I recall. But I didn't really know where it was.
The hymen is a membrane around/partially covering the external opening of the vagina. I've run across the odd author who seems to think it's some ways into the vagina and is like... well, it's often unclear what exactly they're imagining it is.
 
I agree. I like some detail when it serves a purpose in the story. It doesn't HAVE to be plot-oriented to be worthwhile, but it has to serve SOME purpose.

I like a certain economy in writing. I know there are plenty of authors and readers here who do not agree with me, but I think Literotica stories are often too long. Too much buildup, too much unnecessary dialogue. If you read books by very good published authors, you'll almost always find that all of the dialogue serves a purpose. Everything extraneous has been cut. There's rarely more dialogue than is needed. This is even more true of good movie screenplays. But if it's done artfully it can give the appearance of natural dialogue, even though it lacks the filler and wandering that real dialogue tends to have.

I'd agree, but I'd note that some purposes are non-obvious, and one that's often overlooked is pacing. Yes, many stories could benefit from pruning, but a story that's running at 100% action all the time gets fatiguing and it can easily end up numbing the reader.

My first story here has a chapter where the two main characters go for a weekend away. Nothing in the rest of the plot depends on anything that happens in that chapter; I hadn't originally planned to include it at all. But when I got to that bit, looking at what I had coming up, it felt like too much tension drawn out for too long, and it needed a little bit of breathing space. Hence that interlude. It may not work for every reader - what does? - but the reader I write for first and foremost is me, and I needed that calm before the storm.
 
It is like 1-3 centimeters inside the vaginal opening. Often times it's not even that deep. And for most women it naturally loosens and stretches by the time they're twenty. So unless you're way too young for this site you're not likely to bleed even if you lose your virginity by the time you can legally buy porn.
Also, sometimes it ruptures naturally. Horse riding and cycling are two major contributors. Someone could easily be a virgin without an intact hymen. It's not common, but does occur, especially in very active girls or those who experience straddling injuries, like falling down onto a balance beam in gymnastics.
 
The hymen is a membrane around/partially covering the external opening of the vagina. I've run across the odd author who seems to think it's some ways into the vagina and is like... well, it's often unclear what exactly they're imagining it is.

Could be worse: I've heard of M/M stories written by young ladies who appeared to be under the impression that butt hymens were a thing.
 
Could be worse: I've heard of M/M stories written by young ladies who appeared to be under the impression that butt hymens were a thing.

*Don't go there... Don't go for toilet humor... This is AH, not Fetish... Behave!*

Going for a callback to a different thread, there are some catholics who do have anal sex to exploit a loophole on the religious disciplines. If butt hymens were a thing, then they are all going to meet Dante when he's touring hell again, and changing Christian canon to his own volition.

All those anal cherries getting popped...

*Oh, fuck it, someone else went there*

How painful must it be to take giant dumps...
 
I'd agree, but I'd note that some purposes are non-obvious, and one that's often overlooked is pacing. Yes, many stories could benefit from pruning, but a story that's running at 100% action all the time gets fatiguing and it can easily end up numbing the reader.
And they often feel unnatural. Even at the absolute height of the Blitz, Churchill told jokes, enjoyed seeing the ducks and fish at Chartwell, listened to music (sometimes performed by his son-in-law) and watched the occasional movie. No one is 100% switched on all the time. Alan Brooke interrupted a pre-D-Day conversation about landing locations to show off a photo he'd taken of a marsh bird. After the Quadrant talks, Brooke and Charles Portal went fishing in the back country and had to leave when Churchill and a Canadian colonel showed up in the same spot; Brooke couldn't stand the sight of Churchill at that moment and didn't want to share that section of lake. Sometimes you need to have that conversation about a photo or go fishing.

A very specific peeve of mine: when somebody's writing a Sexy Nerd Game Story and they write something that doesn't work in the game. Excuse me sir, the sequence of moves you describe would not be possible in a Scrabble game!
Ok seriously if you make up the game and tell me the rules please do not break the rules unless there's a specific reason for you to do so.
 
The hymen is a membrane around/partially covering the external opening of the vagina. I've run across the odd author who seems to think it's some ways into the vagina and is like... well, it's often unclear what exactly they're imagining it is.

So, when I did my Valentine's Day story, it was set in ancient Rome, and the two main characters had sex for the first time and I had him deflower her. I've been with a large number of women in my life, but not once have I ever popped an actual cherry, so I must have spent like a solid hour searching everything about the hymen. I so desperately didn't want to write it and have it sound idiotic, like I'd spent my whole life playing with blow up dolls.

The amount of research I put into smut is kind of absurd when I think about it. Calculators, math, google earth and driving directions - even fucking field trips.

And the funny part is that 9 times out of 10, I am the only one who gives a shit about the accuracy, lol.
 
Could be worse: I've heard of M/M stories written by young ladies who appeared to be under the impression that butt hymens were a thing.
Ohhh. People who don't know anything about anal trying to write about it are a big one.
 
So, when I did my Valentine's Day story, it was set in ancient Rome, and the two main characters had sex for the first time and I had him deflower her. I've been with a large number of women in my life, but not once have I ever popped an actual cherry, so I must have spent like a solid hour searching everything about the hymen. I so desperately didn't want to write it and have it sound idiotic, like I'd spent my whole life playing with blow up dolls.

The amount of research I put into smut is kind of absurd when I think about it. Calculators, math, google earth and driving directions - even fucking field trips.

And the funny part is that 9 times out of 10, I am the only one who gives a shit about the accuracy, lol.
Well, if it helps any, some of us do appreciate the effort. (y)
 
I've been trying to think of what's a "detail of an author's style" thing that bothers me. I think bad anatomy is still what gets me the most often in the erotic writing context: it's really jarring when it becomes obvious that the writer doesn't really grasp where certain body parts are or how they work. I'm not talking about porno-style Great Big Penises and whether those are "realistic," because a certain amount of exaggeration or stylization in some registers of erotic writing doesn't bother me. I'm talking about the anatomy being just flat-out wrong (the placement of hymens is a very common offender).
Calling fuckups like this “details of the author’s style” is extremely over-generous. I’ll allow that someone this amateurish did in fact author something, but I won’t give them credit for having an author style.
 
Calling fuckups like this “details of the author’s style” is extremely over-generous. I’ll allow that someone this amateurish did in fact author something, but I won’t give them credit for having an author style.
Eh. People can write good work that contains pretty major fuckups. Lee Child's first Reacher novel, Killing Floor, is built around a scheme where a very common counterfeiting method is presented as something novel that no one except two mega-brain geniuses can possibly unravel. It's dumb, but it's still a good action novel largely because the dumbness doesn't interfere with the authorial style.
 
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