Can you write more than sex?

[Stella_Omega]

Some writers believe that wherever their characters end up is good enough for a sex scene or even a whole scene. They believe that location is of no consequence, even if they describe it in detail. I come from a film and art background and so I feel that any mise-en-scene elements described in a story are significant. If they are not, then they should not be described because such descriptions without thought are useless to the narrative and make for bad story.

What is your opinion on the significance of location to story and/or about the significance of mise-en-scene in story?

Here's the next ponderment;

What makes a mise-en-scene important? As you say some writers describe everything in detail-- yet I find myself skimming all that scenery because it's so superfluous to the plot. Other times, the location of a tree, the light coming from a window, the texture of a goose-down cushion, the stench in the alley, strike profound notes in the reader. Books I read years and years ago had scenery and rooms that I still remember-- sometimes that's all I remember.

Our characters come to life in their settings. What brings the setting to life around the characters?

 

[Trinique_Fire]

What is your opinion on the significance of location to story and/or about the significance of mise-en-scene in story?

I think location matters, but only to a certain extent. If you're writing a very detailed and specific story, then I think location matters a great deal, and you should not break the fluidity of your story telling by forgetting to talk about the location and background.

There are, however, two exceptions.

1) You can overdo it. And overdone frou frou is boring.

2) There are certain instances in which you want location detail to be limited just enough so that your reader can create his or her own independent setting in their mind.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

Here's the next ponderment;

What makes a mise-en-scene important? As you say some writers describe everything in detail-- yet I find myself skimming all that scenery because it's so superfluous to the plot.

That's exactly the kind of frou frou I'm talking about.

I don't want to read a full page about the bark of a tree or five pages about the detailed markings of cave art.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

That's exactly the kind of frou frou I'm talking about.

I don't want to read a full page about the bark of a tree or five pages about the detailed markings of cave art.

Precisely. One of several reasons I don't 'get' nineteenth century authors, in general, is their obsession with detailed description. A reference or a hint is sufficient. Don't spend a page and a half telling me about the 'dark, satanic mills' of the English Midlands when all I really need is to be told that everything is covered in coal soot. I'll understand the misery and degradation quite well from that alone.

 

[Edward Teach]

Some writers believe that wherever their characters end up is good enough for a sex scene or even a whole scene. They believe that location is of no consequence, even if they describe it in detail. I come from a film and art background and so I feel that any mise-en-scene elements described in a story are significant. If they are not, then they should not be described because such descriptions without thought are useless to the narrative and make for bad story.

What is your opinion on the significance of location to story and/or about the significance of mise-en-scene in story?

The importance of location and mise en scene depends on the story. If a couple merely goes upstairs to a bedroom, there is usually no need in describing whether the house is an eight room Williamsburg with Persian rugs on dark heart-of-pine floors situated seventeen miles from downtown Charleston or a sixties split-level with blue plush carpet in the city limits of Bosie. If the style of house is not germane to the story, the reader doesn't need to be told.

 

[Edward Teach]

I rarely write sex anymore, but in some of my stories, the location was very important.

Possession took place in New Orleans, and would have been meaningless in any other location. I went to great pains to get the atmosphere right.

I Alone was non-erotic, but location (the flat lands of Oklahoma) was also very important to the story.

You know, Cloudy, I've gotten to where writing a sex scene is the most difficult part for me ( I almost said hardest part, but controlled myself). Have I gotten lazy or just too fuckin tired?

Eddie the Jaded

 

[sr71plt]

The importance of location and mise en scene depends on the story. If a couple merely goes upstairs to a bedroom, there is usually no need in describing whether the house is an eight room Williamsburg with Persian rugs on dark heart-of-pine floors situated seventeen miles from downtown Charleston or a sixties split-level with blue plush carpet in the city limits of Bosie. If the style of house is not germane to the story, the reader doesn't need to be told.

Conversely, if they just go upstairs and fuck, there's no reason to write the story; it's already been written and posted here a thousand times.

 

[Edward Teach]

Conversely, if they just go upstairs and fuck, there's no reason to write the story; it's already been written and posted here a thousand times.

Can't get anything by you, can I?

 

[Stella_Omega]

You know, Cloudy, I've gotten to where writing a sex scene is the most difficult part for me ( I almost said hardest part, but controlled myself). Have I gotten lazy or just too fuckin tired?

Eddie the Jaded

You need to get laid.

Or stop getting laid.

One or the other...

 

[Edward Teach]

You need to get laid.

Or stop getting laid.

One or the other...

Get laid, what is that?


Hey Stella

 

[voluptuary_manque]

You need to get laid.

Or stop getting laid.

One or the other...

I need to get laid!

 

[Leto Degeneres]

Precisely. One of several reasons I don't 'get' nineteenth century authors, in general, is their obsession with detailed description. A reference or a hint is sufficient. Don't spend a page and a half telling me about the 'dark, satanic mills' of the English Midlands when all I really need is to be told that everything is covered in coal soot. I'll understand the misery and degradation quite well from that alone.

I need to get laid!

Don't you just love technology?

This is why we don't go to the grocery store while we're hungy...

 

[driphoney]

Here's the next ponderment;

What makes a mise-en-scene important? As you say some writers describe everything in detail-- yet I find myself skimming all that scenery because it's so superfluous to the plot. Other times, the location of a tree, the light coming from a window, the texture of a goose-down cushion, the stench in the alley, strike profound notes in the reader. Books I read years and years ago had scenery and rooms that I still remember-- sometimes that's all I remember.

Our characters come to life in their settings. What brings the setting to life around the characters?

This is a great ponderance. I've gotten bored with details and skimmed aggressively, only to later discover that I raced past important details that had me and flipping back on a mad hunt for info!

So, was I just a bad, impatient reader, or did the writer fall down on the job?

 

[Handley_Page]

Precisely. One of several reasons I don't 'get' nineteenth century authors, in general, is their obsession with detailed description. A reference or a hint is sufficient. Don't spend a page and a half telling me about the 'dark, satanic mills' of the English Midlands when all I really need is to be told that everything is covered in coal soot. I'll understand the misery and degradation quite well from that alone.

Forgive me, Bear, but the dark, satanic mills were not in the Midlands. They were in West Yorkshire & Lancashire. The industrial heartland (the Black Country) round Birmingham was noted for it's heavy industry and lots of smoky dirt (Queen Victoria's railway carriage had the curtains drawn so she wouldn't see the black landscape).

But surely, some detail of the environs of a character says a lot about that character and the attitudes to life or morals ?

 

[Newstart]

Yes the setting is important as is the particpants mental state, otherwise it's just copulation

 

[IsabellaKing]

You know, Cloudy, I've gotten to where writing a sex scene is the most difficult part for me ( I almost said hardest part, but controlled myself). Have I gotten lazy or just too fuckin tired?

I guess there are only so many sex scenes you can write, but the characters, and how they react, will always be different.

'Scuse me butting in - I have nomadic tendencies around here.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Forgive me, Bear, but the dark, satanic mills were not in the Midlands. They were in West Yorkshire & Lancashire. The industrial heartland (the Black Country) round Birmingham was noted for it's heavy industry and lots of smoky dirt (Queen Victoria's railway carriage had the curtains drawn so she wouldn't see the black landscape).

But surely, some detail of the environs of a character says a lot about that character and the attitudes to life or morals ?

Ah! Thank-you. I thought the Black Country and the Midlands were the same thing. That's what I get for being more interested in the Classical World than the Modern.

 

[Liar]

Some writers believe that wherever their characters end up is good enough for a sex scene or even a whole scene. They believe that location is of no consequence, even if they describe it in detail. I come from a film and art background and so I feel that any mise-en-scene elements described in a story are significant. If they are not, then they should not be described because such descriptions without thought are useless to the narrative and make for bad story.

What is your opinion on the significance of location to story and/or about the significance of mise-en-scene in story?

Most of the time, a place is a place is a place. Location is a place where story happens.

Just like time is time is time. And only relevant as a historic marker in which story happened.

And now and then, even people are insignificant, and characters are just people that story happens to.

That takes care of the Who, Where and When.

Now, the What and the Why, that's the bee's knees. Which are the events that makes up the story? And why do they happen?

If a specific Who, When and Where is required to create a Why in which What happens, then yes, create the specific who, When and Where. Otherwise, I would recommend keeping that at a minimum. Too much of it will put up roadblocks and shut doors for the further continuation of the story.

 

[sr71plt]

Nothing is irrelevant to a story that's in the story--character, location, time, senses, action, hooks, dilemma/resolultion. It's all in the content of the story to be read as part of the whole. The difference is that a well-constructed story will make every element serve the story and a badly written story won't.

 

[CharleyH]

Here's the next ponderment;

What makes a mise-en-scene important? As you say some writers describe everything in detail-- yet I find myself skimming all that scenery because it's so superfluous to the plot. Other times, the location of a tree, the light coming from a window, the texture of a goose-down cushion, the stench in the alley, strike profound notes in the reader. Books I read years and years ago had scenery and rooms that I still remember-- sometimes that's all I remember.

Our characters come to life in their settings. What brings the setting to life around the characters?

A good erotic story is built by more than an act of sex, IMO. If you take the sex out of a story, is there any substance to it? If not, is there a story? You have already described things that are part of mise-en-scene, Stell (location of a tree, the light coming from a window, the texture of a goose-down cushion, the stench in the alley). That, IMO, is the building block of turn-on. MISE-EN-SCENE!

 

[harrlequin]

mise-en-scene - would someone please explain what this is?

As for the subject - I believe I can write about things other than sex, one of my stories needed a fairytale to support the plot.

It was a lot of fun for me. Hard work, as is all writing (for me, at least), but it was a delightful change of pace and energized the rest of the story.

I really have to get back to writing that thing.

 

[CharleyH]

mise-en-scene - would someone please explain what this is?

Simplistically, dear harrlequin ... mise-en-scene is a theatrical term. It refers to any visual element on the stage (or in this case in the story). It can refer to proximity of space (how close one character is to another) and it can refer to a director's (or writer's) choice to show (or describe or not) a gun (or a cock) in close-up (or detail). It refers to how you frame and compose your story. It is all those details that reflect on action, some of which one hopes, enhances the story or characters symbolically.

 

[harrlequin]

Simplistically, dear harrlequin ... mise-en-scene is a theatrical term. It refers to any visual element on the stage (or in this case in the story). It can refer to proximity of space (how close one character is to another) and it can refer to a director's (or writer's) choice to show (or describe or not) a gun (or a cock) in close-up (or detail). It refers to how you frame and compose your story. It is all those details that reflect on action, some of which one hopes, enhances the story or characters symbolically.

Thank you so very much. It's delightful to learn something new.

 

[CharleyH]

Thank you so very much. It's delightful to learn something new.

My pleasure, but there is more to it that what I have said.

 

[Stella_Omega]

A good erotic story is built by more than an act of sex, IMO. If you take the sex out of a story, is there any substance to it? If not, is there a story? You have already described things that are part of mise-en-scene, Stell (location of a tree, the light coming from a window, the texture of a goose-down cushion, the stench in the alley). That, IMO, is the building block of turn-on. MISE-EN-SCENE!

Well, yeah, but-- what would make those things important to the story? There is only one thing, and that is their importance to the plot, or the characters.

A pillow is nothing to the story-- a goose-down pillow, tucked under her hip-- that's important. If a quill has poked through and the scratch distracts her from her lover's ministrations thus influencing her reactions-- that's important to the story.

The tree's location is only important in relation to the lovers and their needs. They need to hide behind it, or fuck up against it, or gaze out upon it in shared rapture-- whatever. Or maybe the bad guy needs it to spy from. But if it isn't needed somehow, it's literary dead wood.