What Do You Want In A Story?

[NOIRTRASH]

The question is always WHAT DO YOU HATE. But what do you like to see and read?

 

[SamScribble]

What I want is a story (as opposed to a sex scene) and believable characters. But I'm pretty sure that that puts me into a tiny, tiny minority.

 

[malefica]

Characters with logical depth, who have experiences that are reflected in their psyche with interests, hobbies and skills that add to the plot. Plots with drama always catch my attention more than plots with just pure smut. Character development is a major plus as well.

 

[Ewobbit]

The question is always WHAT DO YOU HATE. But what do you like to see and read?

Thought.

 

[le_kitty]

What I want is a story (as opposed to a sex scene) and believable characters. But I'm pretty sure that that puts me into a tiny, tiny minority.

Well hello there! Here, you can have a seat.

 

[jomar]

Decent pacing. I quit reading Michener because he took 15 pages to describe a cup of coffee.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Michener wrote one excellent book, IBERIA. I own 3 copies. I read it before I went to Spain, and it captured the flavor of Spain.

I tend to think every story, like every person, has a soul. So I wanna experience the soul.I read a Lawrence Block novel that illustrates soul. In it a male character talks about what a cock in his ass does to make copulation with a woman so good. The woman persuaded him to try sodomy with the 2nd guy. And it was the first time in my life I understood what guys get out of it. The woman knew it was a good way to transform horny into pure lust. And the lust is what the girls are after. That's an example of soul.

I want more than realistic, I want interesting. The royal road to success is when you work for Dad (yours or hers). I want luck and pluck.

 

[lovecraft68]

Its seems here that its not the minority who wants plot and depth here.

But that doesn't surprise me because we're on an author's forum. I think if you could get a few hundred lit readers together and poll them, my feeling is one handed reads are more popular.

I base that on looking at a lot of top lists here including top authors. A big misconception I had when I first came here was length equated depth. A one page story must be stroke and a five pages must have a lot of depth and story.

I was wrong. A lot of one pagers are strokers, but many are nice little stories. On the other hand I have seen six page stories which are nothing, but sex, sex, sex with a little 'and then we' tossed in.

One of the top authors on this site has become immensely popular by writing the same couple of stories over and over again with minor changes. Another has titles that would make a porn producer roll their eyes.

But it gets butts in the seats so to speak.

So here, I think we look for more, across the board I think this is a sex site and that's what people are mainly here for.

I know from my experience here there are readers who want plot, but I am willing to bet they are the smaller faction.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Its seems here that its not the minority who wants plot and depth here.

But that doesn't surprise me because we're on an author's forum. I think if you could get a few hundred lit readers together and poll them, my feeling is one handed reads are more popular.

I base that on looking at a lot of top lists here including top authors. A big misconception I had when I first came here was length equated depth. A one page story must be stroke and a five pages must have a lot of depth and story.

I was wrong. A lot of one pagers are strokers, but many are nice little stories. On the other hand I have seen six page stories which are nothing, but sex, sex, sex with a little 'and then we' tossed in.

One of the top authors on this site has become immensely popular by writing the same couple of stories over and over again with minor changes. Another has titles that would make a porn producer roll their eyes.

But it gets butts in the seats so to speak.

So here, I think we look for more, across the board I think this is a sex site and that's what people are mainly here for.

I know from my experience here there are readers who want plot, but I am willing to bet they are the smaller faction.

I just finished a new one that's almost all sex but has a plot. The stories that follow are the same format. The common theme is HOW TO GET IN MA'S PANTS. And I built 4 stories around the theme. Money works, a friend in need works, black mail works, and mom bait works.

 

[loquere]

The unattained fantasies of my reality, gluttony luxury excess.

 

[loquere]

Characters with logical depth, who have experiences that are reflected in their psyche with interests, hobbies and skills that add to the plot. Plots with drama always catch my attention more than plots with just pure smut. Character development is a major plus as well.

Yeah, I concur.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Characters I can believe in. The instant someone says or does something jarringly out of character, I'm gone. Unfortunately I like bright, insightful characters, and people like that don't often go diving into sex with strangers, so believable stories with interesting characters are rare. I only write here, I don't much read here.

The best story ever written in terms of character development was probably _Lord of the Rings_. There's love but no visible sex, females didn't appear in violent action scenes (with one fascinating exception critical to the plot), and people with unusual powers generally demonstrated their power by talking and persuading. In other words the characters, despite being elves and dwarves and strange humans in a strange setting, acted like believable people. Even Gollum, in the text, was believably broken.

Best recent story done in video was probably _Firefly_. With the occasional exception of Inara, all the characters were completely believable and they all said things that made perfect sense from their widely disparate world views. They had strengths and flaws and they worked to get along, just like real folk. It doesn't surprise me the series was cancelled; even with Inara there wasn't enough boobage, and the dialog went over the head of the average viewer.

I sat through _Deadpool_ recently. The audience loved it - almost a non-stop gigglefest, for a lot of them. I came close to walking out, and I'd give the whole thing a C- or D+ at best. Crude and stupid and screwed up and none of it believable even on the level of a Marvel comics character.

 

[49greg]

characters that I can believe who act in a believable manner, in a story with a good plot. Then sex, good erotic sex. Preferably with an erotic build up before hand. The first few pages should be written well enough to make me want to read the rest. Humor and dialog go a long way to making me like it as well.

In a non sex story I like good characters, a good plot, good dialog, and action, adventure or mystery. Humor along the way is fun to. Like a sex story it should flow well, and grab me within the first few pages.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

I like to see the other person's ideas and hear from their way of looking at things - I already know mine.

But at the same time, I don't want this either:

"Crude and stupid and screwed up and none of it believable even on the level of a Marvel comics character." Quoting a previous post by HandsInTheDark.

Hollywood has lost its way, for me. They have the money to make the high production values but all they know how to do now is 'play to the peanut gallery.' Which is the easiest thing in the world to do - I also don't believe the fixation that this is where the easy money is. I have seen too much fraud in my previous life in economics and finance to accept all the crap from the media these days about pretty much anything!

'Top grossing.' 'World's most successful.' 'Biggest.' Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever.

I don't mind some of the big cgi 'events' - Transformers still has a certain 'feel' to it and the plot makes sense and the gags are in the right places.

But generally, modern films have no connection with what makes stories really go and flow. And modern books? Good god! I'm, here because there are some respectable writers around the place here.

I don't want writers to compromise themselves to what they 'think' I or any reader might accept from them - I want to read what they want to write, not what they think I might want to read.

 

[DreamCloud]

I want to be surprised by the plot.
I want to ride certain story lines to their conclusion. Don't leave holes.
Foremost, I want to be entertained.

If your story is ultimately about unresolved misery, let me know up front so I don't read it.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I agree that the Author's Hangout is probably heavily biased--at least as far as this site is concerned--toward more story-based, thought-provoking erotica.

I also don't see this as strange or wrong or a problem.

In fact, it seems to mirror non-erotic writing pretty closely.

In the world there is literary fiction, that brand of writing that appeals to writers and followers of writing who aspire to complication and progressive experimentation, and there is commercial fiction, the variety that caters to popular appeal and monetary gain. There is, of course, no small amount of crossover.

You won't hear much about All The Light We Cannot See, despite it being perhaps the most universally acclaimed novel by critics in the last twenty years. Unless it is made into a movie, it will never reach the saturation point of popular pulp novel, and even then, it would be a meager haul of eyes when compared to The Hunger Games, or Twilight, or any other media sensation.

The divide isn't better or worse, it simply is.

I try to take each story for what it is, appreciate what I can, rather than impose a preconceived criteria on a story.

Still, I have my own bias; but I try to dip in the common trough and the refined one with equal measure. Keeps my palate from becoming bored.

 

[Jose_Rick]

You won't hear much about All The Light We Cannot See, despite it being perhaps the most universally acclaimed novel by critics in the last twenty years.

I haven't read it, but I believe I understand your point. At the movies, the bar keeps getting raised for insane levels of action supported by A-List eye candy. San Andreas, for example, couldn't just destroy one major city, it had to destroy two of them, dressed up by Dwayne Johnsons biceps and Alexandra Daddario's boobs. Still, some stories lends themselves to movie adaptation better than others.

It seems most of the well-written stories here fall into the good characters and plot development or the hot sex camp. Only the best of them do both, and I want both. People need a reason to have sex. The story doesn't need to open with that, but it has to come in somewhere. I can't handle the "mom bent over and looked so hot I had to fuck her" level of plot development, but I also am not fond of elaborate plot development leading to "and then we fucked. The End."

 

[lovecraft68]

There are seven Fast and the Furious movies with plans for three more. That is all anyone needs to know about where Hollywood is at right now.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1976, Saul Bellows used the platform as a rallying cry against what he thought of as the great "dimming" of the American mind. He was convinced that he stood on the precipice of danger to the world's intellect, to its appreciate for culture and art.

Voltaire feared the same thing hundreds of years before.

I'm sure that if we traveled back to pre-history there was a man of above-average intelligence scribbling mammoth pics on the cave walls of Lascaux and Altamira, telling the symbolic story of his people and the struggle to create art in a world where survival threatened to swallow any notion of higher purpose, while most of the other dudes were standing around, taking turns burning their pubic hairs on the campfire and comparing the smells, thinking, "These fuckers are never going to make it."

This is an old issue. Our idiots are most likely no more idiotic than the idiots of yesteryear. They may even be less so.

Then again, a recent study in Forbes did offer evidence that the average IQ had fallen by nearly 14 points in the last fifty years. So....

Bring on Honey Boo Boo vs Predator vs Alien vs Flo from the Progressive Car Insurance Commercials!

 

[GoldenCojones]

What I want depends on my mood. Sometimes I want deep thought provoking stories with complex characters and an intricate plot with a veritable plethora of sub plots spinning away and then swirling around to come back at just the right moment.

Sometimes I want porn. Just a quick little story with lots of sex and lust going on.

Sometimes I want something in between.

I always want the characters to be larger than life: John Wayne, Sgt. Striker, John Bolan, Errol Flynn, on and on. (Yeah, I know I was mixing actors with characters: sue me )

I never want reality. Got too damned much of that in my life already. I read to escape not to make myself contemplate suicide.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

I just want authenticity. Plot, story? Not enough. There are plenty of fantastic stories with absolute crap eroticism and faked fetishes.

 

[SamScribble]

Well hello there! Here, you can have a seat.

How can I refuse such a kind invitation?

 

[NotWise]

I want to be entertained. Exactly what that means changes from time to time. Sometimes a hot sex scene does it, but not usually. I want things to surprise me, to challenge me and to amuse me.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I prefer the revelation of great truths to political messages. I wanna expose the soul of life more than its legs or ass or tits, tho these aspects are fine by me.

 

[JKendallDane]

I tend to go for in-depth stories. Ones that are far more than just strokers. Show me the LIT in Literotica. My list would be:

A well thought out plot whether it's reality or really pushing the believability envelope. IE: Everything from historical-based to vampires works for me if the plot works.

I want fully developed characters I can either fall in love with or love to hate. You want me to invest in your story, give me more than names and police blotter descriptions.

The sex must be accurate and creative...and something you wouldn't find in a high school health class teacher's manual. Nothing destroys an erotic story quicker than clinical, mechanical sex scenes of "Tab 'A' into slot 'B', ram, rake, rotate, rinse and repeat."

An automatic five-star rating is earned if the story makes a statement along with being entertaining.


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