Stories embracing ambiguity

[FrancesScott]

My second Summer Lovin’ story is laced with ambiguity and people misunderstanding / miscommunicating. The status of the narrator's existing relationship is not described reliably, but via a prism of hurt feelings. The nature of the marriage of two characters is unclear. The relationship of the husband with a male friend is open to interpretation. The appearance of the wife is exaggerated by the narrator’s mental state. And even the gender of the narrator is not definitively established.

Many people seemed incredibly bothered by all this and requested that things be explained. Is this normal around here?

 

[TheLobster]

Readers want straightforward boners, not confused ones.

 

[StillStunned]

I think it depends what the focus of the story is. I have a couple of stories where the POV character's gender isn't specified, and no-one's ever asked about it. But several other ambiguities have been questioned.

Perhaps, in particular with shorter fiction, they want full closure. I don't think many people read short-form fiction, particularly not on an erotica website, to be left wondering.

 

[iwatchus]

My second Summer Lovin’ story is laced with ambiguity and people misunderstanding / miscommunicating. The status of the narrator's existing relationship is not described reliably, but via a prism of hurt feelings. The nature of the marriage of two characters is unclear. The relationship of the husband with a male friend is open to interpretation. The appearance of the wife is exaggerated by the narrator’s mental state. And even the gender of the narrator is not definitively established.

Many people seemed incredibly bothered by all this and requested that things be explained. Is this normal around here?

I think it will be a less universal read, but that does not mean that many readers won't really appreciate it. But some people will make known their discomfort with being made to think.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is a quality over quantity style if story. Many who are here to get off won't like that you're making them think. The people who don't mind thinking and having an interesting tale with their fun will enjoy it.

No matter what you write, some will like it, some won't. There will always be haters and admirers, no matter who ends up the majority just focus on the ones who appreciated it.

 

[Jorunn]

It is also a great issue in the April Fools challenge when you setup up a story and spring a surprise on the reader at the end.

 

[FrancesScott]

I don't think many people read short-form fiction, particularly not on an erotica website, to be left wondering.

Though I’m not comparing the quality of my writing to Hemingway, I took Hills Like White Elephants* as a template. Maybe a poor choice here.

* @THBGato corrected the short story title for me, thanks

 

[FrancesScott]

But some people will make known their discomfort with being made to think.

They did indeed.

 

[FrancesScott]

Many who are here to get off won't like that you're making them think.

That was the distinct vibe that I got. I suppose my story isn’t great jerk-off material. Then it’s a free site, I don’t have to write jerk-off material all the time (I do sometimes).

 

[FrancesScott]

It is also a great issue in the April Fools challenge

From what I’ve picked up, that is a weird competition.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I'm not comfortable with the attitude I'm seeing from some in this topic, that anyone who doesn't like a challenging bit of intellectualism is worthy of contempt.

--Annie

 

[FrancesScott]

If my story was about anything. It was about how hurt feelings (maybe erroneously hurt feelings) can be sublimated into a fixation on another perosn who is mentally elevated to a state of perfection which is very different to reality.

It was about assumed rejection leading to obsession / infatuation with someone else, and the latter being ultimately unsatisfying, even if consummated.

 

[FrancesScott]

I'm not comfortable with the attitude I'm seeing from some in this topic, that anyone who doesn't like a challenging bit of intellectualism is worthy of contempt.

--Annie

I wasn’t saying that. No one has to like my stories. I just wonder what drives people to comment, as opposed to moving on to the next story, which might be closer to their tastes.

 

[Statius]

I've come to the conclusion that people comment because they are allowed to. It's an invitation. Because it's allowed the author must want them comment, good or bad. Also just want to say, and this comes from a mediocre writer, that experimentation is welcome. I don't always try to, but in several of my stories, it is the point. For me, I get bored and don't like format writing, I think most writers would agree. So playing with format, perspective, etc, is always welcome. At some point you know you're going to get skewered for it but fuck it. I'd rather try something new, even if it fails.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm not comfortable with the attitude I'm seeing from some in this topic, that anyone who doesn't like a challenging bit of intellectualism is worthy of contempt.

--Annie

I think it's more about mismatched expectations. Writers who try to inject intellectual depth into a site for sex stories are probably seen by many readers as pretentious.

 

[FrancesScott]

I think it's more about mismatched expectations. Writers who try to inject intellectual depth into a site for sex stories are probably seen by many readers as pretentious.

I wasn’t trying to be Proust! It’s a simple, short story about hurt and obsession warping reality. That’s not exactly inaccessible. And most events are seen through a sexual lens, albeit a distorting one.

 

[iwatchus]

I'm not comfortable with the attitude I'm seeing from some in this topic, that anyone who doesn't like a challenging bit of intellectualism is worthy of contempt.

--Annie

I suspect that I am one of the people you re reacting to. I'm not trying to be contemptuous. People know what they want. At a given time. Some people may want an emotional or intellectual challenge at some point and a simple stroker at another. My point was that writing something that is more challenging will get some pushback, because it's not what everyone wants. But that's okay because none of us should be trying to please everyone.

Personally, I want my stories to have HEA; real life sucks often enough. I think the more complex, challenging endings are considered more erudite by many. But I know what I want (in almost all my fiction). And I have left a (polite) comment occaisionally on a story saying I would have preferred a HEA.Off the cuff, I can remember saying that on one of my favorite stories (Gold Dollar Girls by @MelissaBaby -- definitely not an HEA story, but very good). I think the ambiguous stories are much the same for others.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Stories embracing ambiguity​

There is definitely an audience for more cerebral fiction on Lit. It’s just if there's a bright center of the erotic literature universe, Loving Wives is the category that's furthest from it .

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's not a surprising reaction. My experience with readers is that they like all questions to be answered in a story. They don't generally like the "decide for yourself what happened in the story" approach. Such stories are always a double-edged sword.

I've read such stories where the ambiguity is excellently done and those where it makes no sense.
I haven't read yours, but I think that a good approach to writing such stories is to leave slightly ambiguous clues as to what's a likely explanation, and then let the reader decide for themselves. Leaving no clues and then telling the reader that they have to decide for themselves sucks, in my opinion.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I have two stories that are a bit ambiguous.

The first one, is about a symbiote, and it isn't really clear that it is a first person POV story with the symbiotic creature being the MC. The shift from third person, human mc might be a bit much for some people, and that might be part of why it's got my lowest rating.

The other one, the MC is sure that it's a very realistic dream, and the ambiguity is entirely on whether she's right or not, and that one has pretty good ratings.

So I guess sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

 

[DarkCosmos]

Just speaking from my own experiences as a writer on this site I can tell you that comments tend to be a very mixed bag here. I've been lucky enough to where the vast majority of my comments have been positive. But even then, I'll get one or two where I think to myself "Jesus dude, did I really hurt you that badly?"

Like @Statius said, people comment because they can. It's an open invitation to project whatever personal agency they may have or not. Positive or negative. The best advice I can give is be upfront about what the reader can expect from your work. If they know what they're getting into ahead of time, they may be less inclined to bomb you in the comments.

With that said, speaking from the perspective of a reader, I can tell you that I definitely fall into the "I'll give everything a try so long as it's coherent" category. There's a distinct line between being ambiguous for the sake of drumming up intrigue and making a writing difficult to get into because you're not sure what exactly it is you're reading in the first place. Now, having not reas your work, I have no idea which side of the line you currently stand on, but it may be your readers are intrigued by the premise but confused by the delivery.

Or they could just be impatient jerks trying to project their insecurities and demands on you. You'll get a little of both on this site.

TLDR: the problem may not be ambiguity but coherence. Just my two cents.

 

[FrancesScott]

TLDR: the problem may not be ambiguity but coherence. Just my two cents.

The story is totally coherent, it has some ambiguities.

 

[UncleJunior]

Many people seemed incredibly bothered by all this and requested that things be explained. Is this normal around here?

Yeah, I once wrote a taboo story that didn't explicitly explain the relationship and readers felt bait-and-switched. I assumed that the consistently-expressed discomfort over how wrong this all was and the almost apologetic pacing of the sex would say "taboo" without a clumsy line about going back into mommy's belly.

They...they really like lines like that it turns out.

 

[THBGato]

Hills Like White Mountains

<pedantry>"Hills like white elephants."</pedantry>

As I reader, I like ambiguity in the beginning and middle but I want things to be mostly resolved by the end. A few loose threads are fine (e.g. Bi_Cathy's* brilliant "Taste me" - you are fairly certain what will happen next, but the outcome isn't explicitly stated), but I don't want to be left with a really open ending where there are hundreds of potential next steps.

As a writer, I've played with ambiguity in "What a different a day makes" where the occupation of one of the protagonists is concealed until very near the end. I think readers liked that as it added a little something to what is otherwise a rather rote love-at-first-sight tale. Meanwhile "Clara and the solar system" and "Desire and duende" both require ambiguity as an inciting incident, but both everything is eventually clearly up for both characters and readers.

*If you like stories with ambiguity, then Bi_Cathy could definitely be your jam. Highly recommended.

 

[FrancesScott]

<pedantry>"Hills like white elephants."</pedantry>

Brain decoupled from fingers syndrome!