Good prose vs. good erotic prose

[SimonDoom]

Do you think there's any difference?

My first thought is to say no, that good prose is good prose -- that the rules or principles of good prose, such as they are, apply in the same way in erotic fiction as they do in any other type of fiction.

But I wonder. I know from my own experience reading erotic fiction that I like certain things in erotic fiction that I might not like in other types of fiction.

For example: In most fiction, I appreciate an economy of words. I want the author to get to the point. But in erotic fiction, the erotic impact can be heightened by drawing a scene out to a degree that might be intolerable, or ridiculous, in a different type of fiction.

I'm curious what other people think.

 

[someoneyouknow]

If you like an economy of words you must love Hemingway.

 

[sr71plt]

If there's a difference, I'd say that good prose might spend more effort in describing setting and action and good erotic prose more effort in showing emotions. But I'd have to think on it a while to believe there was a difference.

 

[hylas_]

I have a much higher tolerance for pandering, wish fulfilment, ridicuous power fantasies, etc. in erotic writing.

 

[jehoram]

For example: In most fiction, I appreciate an economy of words. I want the author to get to the point. But in erotic fiction, the erotic impact can be heightened by drawing a scene out to a degree that might be intolerable, or ridiculous, in a different type of fiction.

I think that's probably true of horror fiction as well. The idea is to put you in an emotional moment, and then keep you in that emotional moment for as long as possible. That's usually not an issue with more conventional fiction, which is more plot-driven than emotion-driven.

 

[NotWise]

I suspect that is a poorly-posed question. There is a lot of good prose that is not good erotic prose, so the two are necessarily different.

 

[SamScribble]

If by ‘prose’ you mean the author’s selection and arrangement words, construction sentences and paragraphs, and deployment punctuation for clarity and style, then, in an ideal world, there shouldn’t be any difference. The prose is there to tell the story.

Of course, there are many stories (erotic or otherwise) that are not as well told as they might be. And, every now and then, there are snatches of excellent writing that say nothing. I must confess that I have a preference for the latter over the former.

 

[Nezhul]

I like erotic fiction to be plot-based. In other words, I want a story that has some sex in it, not the actual sex part on its own. THat's why I disagree with the notion of "economy of words"

At the same time, most of what I've read is horrible to a point i can't really read that. Thank god for Amazon previews, because that feature saved me dozens of dollars, maybe a couple of hundreds.

But in any case, personally I feel that erotic fiction should follow the same rules as a standard one. The only difference should be the presence of sexual scenes in it or an erotic content of other sorts.

At least that's what I like writing. And that's what I love reading. I hate when by the second page the protagonist is already getting brutally fucked by a huge big-dicked stranger who is so beautiful that she can forgive him forcefully taking her virginity in the dark alley, because she knows - she will be his for the rest of her life, and that's okay...
Literally, I've read something like that several times and that makes me CRINGE.

 

[Nezhul]

If there's a difference, I'd say that good prose might spend more effort in describing setting and action and good erotic prose more effort in showing emotions. But I'd have to think on it a while to believe there was a difference.

I think that's a basic genre difference. Like in non-erotic prose there are action books and there are romantic novels, the same is true for erotic. There are stories that focus on the feelings and emotions, and those that are all about the action.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I think erotic prose can get away with a longer, slower build that works on a cyclic pattern, building up tension and the reader's attention (arousal) with small details and descriptions, digging in deeper to emotions and feelings. Following an arousal cycle, I suppose, with more repetition, getting some kind of a rhythm going. That's how I write, at least, it seems to work. But I don't write "wham, bang, thank you ma'am".

One reader summed it up well for one of my pieces:

"still tingling...what a beautiful read. I felt it in my toes. Only way it could be any sexier is if someone read it to me... Mmmm."

The idea of hearing a story told was interesting, shifting senses. After all, that's what arousal is about, engaging more senses.

That might be one of the differences for good erotic prose, allowing the reader time to get their arousal up a few notches. Less story, more moments, more going around in circles, like fingertips on skin.

A good question, thanks for it. Got me wondering.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

There's a difference. All prose should engage the emotions - anything else is a book of math formulas - but erotica aims at a very specific part of the brain. That part of the brain is less critical and less intellectual; it's where the more animal parts of our nature live. As a result you can get away with things in erotica that wouldn't fly in more serious writing.

Scores here bear it out. Even a brilliant 4.9 romance story doesn't compare well with actual classics.

 

[Hypoxia]

I have a much higher tolerance for pandering, wish fulfilment, ridicuous power fantasies, etc. in erotic writing.

I think that's probably true of horror fiction as well. The idea is to put you in an emotional moment, and then keep you in that emotional moment for as long as possible. That's usually not an issue with more conventional fiction, which is more plot-driven than emotion-driven.

I'll repeat my fiction triage:

Non-erotic: sex is incidental to the story
Erotic: sex is central to the story
Pr0n: sex IS the story

Some come to LIT looking for fast intense strokers, just as some go to horror fiction or old EC comics for fast intense scares. Others (or at other times) look for an engrossing plot-driven story with emphatic elements of sex / fetish, horror, revenge, bizarre fantasy, whatever.

Authors can dial-up the pandering to any desired level -- but hey, pandering is what genre fiction is all about. We're taking readers off to alternate realities. We pretend that triad daisychains, foot-long dildos, BTB vengeance, succubi, horny unicorns, sultry aliens, and consensual incest are normal. How do these differ from faster-than-light travel, superspies, Sherlockian puzzle-solvers, or intrepid cowgirls? Different audiences, different panders.

Get-em by the emotions and their eyeballs will follow.

 

[Morwen]

Fuck yeah it matters. Try selling erotica on Amazon then tell me all this doesn't matter.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

The secret to effective prose is timing. The best jokes are short. The best humor is a bit longer than a joke. The best music captures the timing right.

Some examples:
SIEGFRIEDS FUMERAL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXh5JprKqiU
10 minutes

THE MONTAGUS AND CAPULETS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1_JUTAO0SA
Violence usually lasts 5 minutes.

BORODINS 2ND STRING QUARTET, NOCTURNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTtyBJTstVk
shorter than a funeral 8-9 minutes

GERSHWIN
LADY BE GOOD: faswcinating Rhythm (FOXTROT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BTM07B0U64
2 1/2 MINUTES hum orous

STRAVINSKY
RITE OF SPRING 10 MINUTES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF1OQkHybEQ
most sex doesn't last more than 10 minutes
sex is violence with prelude and epilog

Make the action fit the time for it.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Really good topic. I think so...

The reason I write so-called 'erotic fiction' is because I used to be a T-Rex of a reader and consumer of movies and entertainment, be it dance, opera, music or stage plays.

And then I realized that A LOT of the previous decades and decades of creative material was done by people with utterly naiive conceptions and attitudes to sex.

Not all, of course, but far and away the majority of.

I think I pretty much live in the real world, and certainly when a little younger lived in the VERY real world of actual 'underground' (let's call them so that no one thinks I'm TOO arrogant) sex parties and the professional music and film world - and during a major phase, in the fairly 'up there' world of high finance.

Consequently it got to the point where I could not give ANYTHING that I wanted to write or write about to a mainstream publisher or any editor I knew, or even discuss it with executives in the advertising businesses whom I knew quite well - because I saw them all as living in the past and completely out of touch with society and young mature adults, and many enlightened older ones too. There was this veneer of 'we are superior in knowledge and experience' around the middle class and professional world's pool parties and barbecues - and for me that was where the real arrogance was.

I found and still find virtually all the mainstream Hollywood movies completely hackneyed. And utterly sexually illiterate, to be blunt about it.

What I wanted to do was just write what I wanted to write in terms of how I saw what I knew of parts of the modern, real world. It has sex in it!

And some of it, has really powerful, knowledgeable sex in it - as part of 'normal' human social, cultural experience.

When Demi Moore's character in 'Disclosure' sexually exploits Michael Douglas's character the audience tended to be told by the mainstream critics and reviewers that 'this shows the Moore character was bad and wrong,' and 'Douglas's character to be the subject of reverse sexual harassment (the male was being harassed) and so we can 'be empathatic' towards him(?)...

I've been in that world. I recognized some of the Asian electronics sub-contracting factories (I can tell you where they literally are and what they are in RL) depicted in the film (one of them was the Martin Marietta plant in Singapore).

So it was not how I viewed the film and I know some of the screenwriters on the movie. I knew from where they were drawing their ideas.

But the producers in the cutting room pushed a slant that to me was the same old 'living in the past' template of society.

Societies morals haven't changed. But most of society has begun to deal with new environmental factors from technology and communication and a spreading modern culture. And this means YOU CAN AND MUST reflect this to be able to write in ways that truly reflect today's real world.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is no surprise to me.

What is a surprise is how little of what is going on NOW, has escaped into the pop entertainment media and the MSM.

Good prose MUST reflect the contemporary real world. And it cannot be stilted when it does it.

Today, good prose consists of discussing JK Rowling's pussy. Whether it is really hairy, or hungry, or insatiable. And believe me, the world's leading hedge fund owner is a woman, and she can turn the tables on anyone who discusses her pussy - or Rowlings.

The present 'snowflake' women's groups - do not reflect ALL of today's reality about women or men.

I can't write ANYTHING unless I can say what I need to say about the real people I know and how they talk and what they talk about and what they actually do and the ways they do them.