Can a story ever be too descriptive?

[JGittes]

You can over-describe things if you are John Updike, but he usually pulls it off (except when he had about three pages about an amateur golf match). In the "Rabbit" novels, he describes the city of Brewer, actually his hometown of Reading, PA, in such detail that it becomes a character in itself.

However, most of us are not Updike. We have to be more selective in what we chose to include. Like I don't try to describe the interiors and the staff of every bar and restaurant my characters might be in. Updike would do that.

Updike and Hemingway are the two authors I thought of when I first read this thread. Both have a sterotypical, and diametrically opposed, style in thier descriptive language, yet both frequently contridict that stereotype when it suits their purposes. They know how to do whatever it is they do, and whenever they need to, they'll do the opposite.

 

[oggbashan]

Some of my stories have too much in the way of description of the scenario, the non-sexual events, or the surroundings. They rarely have much description of the people's bodies or hair colours etc. I prefer to leave such things to the reader's imagination. If he wants a stacked blonde, the female character can be a stacked blonde - a or a flaming redhead.

Some comments complain about too much detail; others want more - for the same story.

You can't win. But there are so many Lit users that you are bound to find some who like it (and some who hate it).

 

[JanusGoneAwry]

That's a great reply. I'd love to know your take on spontaneous stories, the kind that play out in the duration of 1 day or 1 evening. The actual plot is often quite short in such stories and it's more about the action that takes place.

Is it okay to pour in more words into the sex scene in such stories??

My work tends to fall into the one-night, one-scene trope. I'm not sure if they fall into the stroker bucket though. No one has ever commented "Thanks for getting me off," but perhaps that's because they only have the use of one hand.

The truth is I tend to write for a male audience so my descriptions of sex are overtly descriptive or perhaps overly descriptive, I don't know. Thus far the stuff I've published has received a relatively good reception and I've even earned a couple of red H's but I don't feel that I live up to a certain literary standard that many of the more experienced authors here have attained.

In the end, I write the story that is in my head. I write for my enjoyment and when others enjoy my stuff too, well, that's icing on the cake. So to your question, I think it's fine to write what you want, as descriptively as you want if it makes you happy because the chances are pretty good that it will entertain someone else on this site too.

My 2 bits...

 

[JGittes]

That's a great reply. I'd love to know your take on spontaneous stories, the kind that play out in the duration of 1 day or 1 evening. The actual plot is often quite short in such stories and it's more about the action that takes place.

Is it okay to pour in more words into the sex scene in such stories??

The first story I published here was the description of a four hour figure drawing session. The main charachers were a married, part time, nude modeling couple who hoped to spice up their sessions. Every foot placement or handhold is important to the design of the pose and the creation of an erotic environment. I took nearly 38k words to describe those four hours.

It probably goes without saying that I write in a very detailed style. In a previous life I was a petroleum geologist and earned my keep by writing detailed descriptions of my detailed observations of microscopic images. I was very good at what I did then, and am now too old to change that approach. I am certain that many potential readers would avoid my lengthy prose descriptions. Yet, I've been well received by those who appreciate what I do.

A couple of years later, I'm probably half way through a sequel that advances the story two weeks. If I kept to my 38k words per 4 hours, it would take 2.5 million words to get through the sequel. I definitely won't live that long and have had to learn new writing skills to get this far.

I frequently get bogged down in the tension between description and plot advancement and try to ignore it in the first ejaculation of words on the page. My second, third and fourth edits focus on balancing that tension of advancing the plot, heightening the sex and enhanceing the character development to produce a compelling reading experience.

What's a compelling reading experience? Shit, if I could figure that out, I'd be Stephen King.

 

[Handley_Page]

Hi all,

An oft mentioned complaint in the literotica space happens to be that, a certain story ISN'T too descriptive.

Do you think the reverse can ever be true? Do you think there's a possibility that a story has too little substance and the author compensates for it with overtly descriptive sex scenes? Have you personally ever come across such a story?

Do comment down below and lemme know what you think!!!

I believe it is possible to read an 'excessive' description. Personally, I ain't too keen on page after page of sexual activity with no particular story going on.
And I really get annoyed when an author assumes that all readers will understand the implication for [for example] a Pass in NFL football or the intricacies of some Basketball activity - without a short explanation of what makes it important.

 

[Bramblethorn]

And just now I got an anonymous comment complaining the sex wasn't detailed enough. For sex I've tried emphasizing the emotion and less of the mechanics and clinical detail, which readers have said they appreciated.

Like Bramblethorn notes, lurid detail of body parts and multi-page sex scenes placing elbows here and tongues there like a play-by-play of a pornhub skit is counterproductive. But maybe I left too much out this time.

Like Ogg says, you'll never please everybody. I get "needs more sex" and "too much sex" on the same stories. If I was consistently getting just one of those two I'd take more note, but while it's one anonymous commenter, don't put too much weight on it.

 

[TadOverdon]

You can write bad descriptive prose. You can write too much descriptive prose in a scene. I don't think that's the same as a story being too descriptive as a story.

I'd heard about the Great God Tolkien all my young life and when I first cracked The Fellowship of The Ring in middle school I thought his descriptive passages of the proto-English countryside would put me into a coma. Now, over time I came to appreciate what he wrote and realize that it was not bad writing just because it wasn't for me, just then. But I've never learned to love his writing style as my dad and many others do, either.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Like Ogg says, you'll never please everybody. I get "needs more sex" and "too much sex" on the same stories. If I was consistently getting just one of those two I'd take more note, but while it's one anonymous commenter, don't put too much weight on it.

For sure. And I don't. I rarely get negative comments and that's the first I've had with that opinion. And just when I thought I'd finally learned to strike the right balance. On a previous story a reader commented they appreciated I didn't go into graphic detail "unlike lesser writers" (big ol' boost to the ego there, eh?).

Can't please everyone, but I keep trying to please most.

 

[astushkin]

My writing style is an homage to historical erotica. That combined with my own preferences happily leads to lurid details of body parts and multipage sex scenes. I laughed at myself when I saw the above comment about describing the placement of elbows -- I've done that in a story! I've always preferred erotic stories to porn videos, so I like sex scenes that really paint a picture for all the senses that are relevant for that scene. I wrote a scene that was in pitch darkness after an explosion, so no visuals and no sound due to ringing in the ears...I leaned into the description of sensations.

My approach combines "show, don't tell" and the consideration that some readers are reading a story because they want the author to create the scene...if they were content to imagine it all themselves, they would do so. There's also a fair amount of sex in mainstream fiction, so if they are on this site, doesn't that suggest something?

I do a fair amount of description of the non-sexual elements due to the historical settings. Without the details of the garments, streets, rooms, etc., it's harder for current day readers to fill those in and lose themselves in the setting. But I try to make them not gratuitous...they also serve a purpose in creating a mood or contributing to the action: a room in mansion is described because a fight scene occurs there in a later chapter that involves many aspects of the space...a sex scene outdoors is accompanied by details of the sky, flowers, birds, bees, stream, etc. to contribute to the mood of the primal, instinctual rutting like behavior of the lovers.

My stories are a niche thing, I guess, and clearly not to everyone's taste...many fewer views on second chapters than firsts, but for those who seem to get into them, they are well received. Although, one of my favorite comments was on ch 1 of a novel appropriately posted in novels/novellas: "Could have ended at page 1 everything that followed was padding". Kind of a puzzle when the female MC hadn't even been introduced on page 1 (of a 95 Lit page novel). Was it meant to be ironic? An existential comment? A complaint about the excess description? Just messing with me? Or was it just posted on the wrong story?