Dual Level Writing

[Nathan_Brazil]

How many of you bother with having a theme or a second meaning in your writing?

It seems to me that the REASON most of the stories here are lousy is because very few of them are about anything meaningful.

Now I was always a peasant and slept through my classes when my instructors starting talking about what Animal Farm was really about... Or who Oscar Wilde was insulting at the time...but,

Writing erotica seems to me to merely be an exercise in commercial writing. No goals. No stretch. Nothing gained.

So... Do any of you try to sneak in a moral? Can you be fulfilled writing something that is less than challenging?

 

[SusanJillParker]

How many of you bother with having a theme or a second meaning in your writing?

It seems to me that the REASON most of the stories here are lousy is because very few of them are about anything meaningful.

Now I was always a peasant and slept through my classes when my instructors starting talking about what Animal Farm was really about... Or who Oscar Wilde was insulting at the time...but,

Writing erotica seems to me to merely be an exercise in commercial writing. No goals. No stretch. Nothing gained.

So... Do any of you try to sneak in a moral? Can you be fulfilled writing something that is less than challenging?

Oh, God, yes.

Now, you've reached the master's level, the MFA of writing.

Next you'll be discussing symbolism.

"What did she really mean when she wrote that? Think about what was happening in the time of the world when that story was written."

From Shakespeare to Alighieri to Melville to Hawthorne to Twain to Hemingway to Fitzgerald to King to Rowling and to all of the great writers, they always have layers in the way of an onion. You must peel away the skin to interpret the real meaning.

An easy way to do that, if you're interested is to read the piece the first time for enjoyment. Read it again to see what the writer is doing. Then, read it a third time while tearing it apart.

My creative writing professors read writers over and again, analyzed them in class, and were surprised when a student stumbled over something new that he had not noticed.

The easiest way to do this is to pick your favorite writer and/or story and read it as if you wrote it.

 

[SecondCircle]

On Lit? Many will argue that it doesn't matter. They are right, I suppose. It is a story site that serves a wide variety of erotica. That's the great thing about it. There's something for everyone. Most enjoy the simplicity of reading a story about people fucking. Others like deep involving epics. Some do enjoy stories that have a deeper theme or true insightful meaning to them.

I like them all. I do like the ones you mean. Those that have a deeper meaning. Seems silly to most, on an erotica site. Many will tell you "C'man, dood, it's just porn!" Which I find to simply be a difference of taste. I like reading and writing the ones that carry a deeper overall meaning. Mileage may vary, of course. I don't expect to find anything that will just change my life and make me ponder the stars or anything.

But in my opinion, it does feel good when you read one that is sexy, arousing, good literature, emotional, and makes you think a little bit. I don't see why just because people fuck in the story means that the story can't achieve this.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

“If you've got a message, send a telegram.” Samuel Goldwyn

All the message crap is about going around political correctness. In the old days it was the hallmark of schizophrenia.

I sat listening to a schizophrenic girl. on one occasion, and she blabbered word salad for 30 minutes. At the end I replied, say the same thing with different words, and she said, I'M PISSED.

 

[NotWise]

I think a theme could be pinned on a lot of the stories, but they tend to be simple; "True love conquers all", "Vengence is sweet", and so on.

 

[oggbashan]

Some of my stories have more than one meaning, but many readers don't even get the obvious one.

 

[Gorza]

A deep meaning is as age old as a myth. Every religion seems to have its literalists that refuse to read deeper than the superficial. There are plenty of great stories that don't have any real deep narrative. Although any decent tale should speak to universals of the human experience. There are stories that employ analogy blatantly, often to moralise. They show that having a deeper meaning isn't an automatic badge of good literature. I did write Slick's Swamp Shack as a rather vague analogy for Literotica, in honour of slyc_willie. It was something that evolved under the story rsther than planned out the beginning.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

I guess I just don't understand why anyone who loves good writing and has an ounce of talent (non metric American here) would be happy writing stoker crap.

Why?

Is it the money? A chance for a fleeting bit of fame? I just don't get it.

Now, for a beginning author... Fine. But I've seen some pretty sad stuff posted by folks who seemed to know better... And I wonder, are we failing to challenge them?

 

[sr71plt]

I guess I just don't understand why anyone who loves good writing and has an ounce of talent (non metric American here) would be happy writing stoker crap.

Well, calling it crap prejudices you. I heavily weight stories to stroker material as a foil to what else I have to do. Spend a few years writing and editing academic books on terrorism, and I'll bet you'd look for something entirely different to write for a break too.

In my case I want to extend mainstream works that shut the bedroom door on the sex scenes to not shutting the door.

 

[Hypoxia]

Some of my pieces have "deeper meanings" via backgrounds not flaunted in the writing, only hinted at. That's usually due to linkages with other stories.

But I do not write tales with hidden moral agendae. I write smut. It may be low- or high-key smut, pandering or challenging or snarky smut, historically-informed smut, fucktard-fantasy smut, whatever. Closest I'll come to a moral story is my roughly-planned narrative-by-correspondence tale of the sexual awakening of Yeshua bir Miriam a.k.a Jesus. Socially satirical smut is my goal there.

I see not-so-hidden meanings in stories here promoting fetishes and lifestyles, especially polyamory. I hope my trephination story Like a Hole in the Head does not seem like a moral justification for trepanning or other self-mutilation. Or maybe it's a metaphor for social disintegration.

As for sacred literalists: One may choose from many versions and translations of some holy texts. Pick whatever suits your prejudices. One can assume a text means what it says. Or not -- in which case it can mean whatever the reader / believer WANTS it to mean. Such leads to endless fun and mayhem, especially with bad translations like the KJV.

 

[Gorza]

I guess I just don't understand why anyone who loves good writing and has an ounce of talent (non metric American here) would be happy writing stoker crap.

Why?

Is it the money? A chance for a fleeting bit of fame? I just don't get it.

Now, for a beginning author... Fine. But I've seen some pretty sad stuff posted by folks who seemed to know better... And I wonder, are we failing to challenge them?

Because they can. Some people write as a means of escape. They don't want to craft it. An athlete might love nothing more than running around in the park with her kids. She's not demeaning her talent by doing this, but simply enjoying the simple things. I can imagine a great author wanting to pen a stroke story under a pseudonym just for fun.

 

[DreamCloud]

I guess I just don't understand why anyone who loves good writing and has an ounce of talent (non metric American here) would be happy writing stoker crap.

Why?

Is it the money? A chance for a fleeting bit of fame? I just don't get it.

Now, for a beginning author... Fine. But I've seen some pretty sad stuff posted by folks who seemed to know better... And I wonder, are we failing to challenge them?

Because writing is fun and publishing is hard work. Sometimes, people just want to have fun.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I guess I just don't understand why anyone who loves good writing and has an ounce of talent (non metric American here) would be happy writing stoker crap.

Why?

Is it the money? A chance for a fleeting bit of fame? I just don't get it.

Now, for a beginning author... Fine. But I've seen some pretty sad stuff posted by folks who seemed to know better... And I wonder, are we failing to challenge them?

Why do we eat at McDonalds?

 

[sr71plt]

Because writing is fun and publishing is hard work. Sometimes, people just want to have fun.

I hear Cindy Lauper singing in the background.

 

[Handley_Page]

Because writing is fun and publishing is hard work. Sometimes, people just want to have fun.

I think that's true.

Whilst it is possible that a 'Litizen' may write the 'Great American Novel' (or wherever the author is),
most of us just want to get Something Right, as indicated by the approval of our peers.

 

[ElectricBlue]

A couple of my stories have a bit of a social conscience in them.

One deliberately so (an encounter of an able-bodied man with a woman in a wheel chair); the second a true tale that saw the impact of the Australian Stolen Generation (she was half Aboriginal, but I didn't know that at the time, she never said).

I think those stories with a sub-text and a deeper weave are richer, more memorable. A touch of angst is fine.

There's nothing wrong with setting your aspirations a little higher. If you set the bar too low, you just keep tripping over it. Or, to mine another metaphor: compared to the gutter even the footpath is a high mountain. It's still pedestrian, certainly, but hey, one day you might find stairs!

 

[rjordan]

How many of you bother with having a theme or a second meaning in your writing?

It seems to me that the REASON most of the stories here are lousy is because very few of them are about anything meaningful.

Now I was always a peasant and slept through my classes when my instructors starting talking about what Animal Farm was really about... Or who Oscar Wilde was insulting at the time...but,

Writing erotica seems to me to merely be an exercise in commercial writing. No goals. No stretch. Nothing gained.

So... Do any of you try to sneak in a moral? Can you be fulfilled writing something that is less than challenging?

You were smart to sleep through those classes. I usually didn't and discovered it was total bullshit most of the time. When there are hidden themes, most of the time, I think they were hidden from the author. The author had no idea there was some underlying message he inadvertently spread.

I see nothing wrong with writing with an underlying theme. I just think it is largely wasted on anything but the most literary works. Even then, it probably isn't really there.

Write the damn story you want to tell. That's what I want as a reader. If you waste time on some hidden meaning, you're cheating me out of your full attention to the story I thought I was reading.

rj

 

[SamScribble]

One of my recurrent themes is: things are seldom what they seem to be (because things seldom are what they seem to be). I don’t know if that counts as a second level.

I’m certainly not that interested in challenging readers. Entertaining them? Yes. Challenging them? Not really.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

A couple of my stories have a bit of a social conscience in them.

One deliberately so (an encounter of an able-bodied man with a woman in a wheel chair); the second a true tale that saw the impact of the Australian Stolen Generation (she was half Aboriginal, but I didn't know that at the time, she never said).

I think those stories with a sub-text and a deeper weave are richer, more memorable. A touch of angst is fine.

There's nothing wrong with setting your aspirations a little higher. If you set the bar too low, you just keep tripping over it. Or, to mine another metaphor: compared to the gutter even the footpath is a high mountain. It's still pedestrian, certainly, but hey, one day you might find stairs!

Yes. Yes. This!

This is exactly what I'm looking for! Material that engages the reader above the neck, as well as below the belt.

There is no reason that our writing shouldn't, at least, attempt THIS.

Engage our minds.

 

[sr71plt]

Material that engages the reader above the neck, as well as below the belt.

There is no reason that our writing shouldn't, at least, attempt THIS.

And I see no reason for you to believe that quite a bit of what's on Literotica isn't this. You've read it all?

Would you say that your two stories posted to Lit. are this?

 

[EquinoxRising]

How many of you bother with having a theme or a second meaning in your writing?

Oh, God, yes.

lol...

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

You were smart to sleep through those classes. I usually didn't and discovered it was total bullshit most of the time. When there are hidden themes, most of the time, I think they were hidden from the author. The author had no idea there was some underlying message he inadvertently spread.

I see nothing wrong with writing with an underlying theme. I just think it is largely wasted on anything but the most literary works. Even then, it probably isn't really there.

Write the damn story you want to tell. That's what I want as a reader. If you waste time on some hidden meaning, you're cheating me out of your full attention to the story I thought I was reading.

rj

I think that it is also important to gradually reveal that second level. You are very correct that a lot of meaning is inserted into literature... That just isnt there.

 

[rjordan]

I guess I just don't understand why anyone who loves good writing and has an ounce of talent (non metric American here) would be happy writing stoker crap.

Why?

Is it the money? A chance for a fleeting bit of fame? I just don't get it.

Now, for a beginning author... Fine. But I've seen some pretty sad stuff posted by folks who seemed to know better... And I wonder, are we failing to challenge them?

If you think a writer's purpose is to "challenge them", you might want to consider missionary work. Writing might not be your thing. Just a tip from your Uncle rj.

rj

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

One of my recurrent themes is: things are seldom what they seem to be (because things seldom are what they seem to be). I don’t know if that counts as a second level.

I’m certainly not that interested in challenging readers. Entertaining them? Yes. Challenging them? Not really.

I think entertaining them may be enough, but if thats all a piece is doing, it had damned well better have some new plot element or a twist of some sort, and most of the material here just doesn't.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

If you think a writer's purpose is to "challenge them", you might want to consider missionary work. Writing might not be your thing. Just a tip from your Uncle rj.

rj

Pretty much what I'm doing here already...