The suspension of disbelief paradox in erotic fiction

[EarlyMorningLight]

If anyone’s interested in reading the story that prompted this thread, and you don’t mind reading about super queer sex, it just went live:

https://www.literotica.com/s/juxtapositions

 

[ChloeTzang]

....How do you make a certain outcome feel natural?....

Creating that suspension of disbelief is the writers challenge, especially so the more improbably our scenario gets. I really went for that in "I Married a Heptapod", a romamce between an alien squid and a cute chinese girl living on the moon. It's all in the story building,the step by step suspension of disbelief as you lead the reader in, making it seem as if it could actually happen. For that stoy, I think I pulled it off, altho one reader was thrown out of the story because I misspelled a chinese word.

As one reader said... "love the anonymous above who said they stopped reading because you misspelled a word lol. So they clicked on a story about a Chinese virgin being deflowered on the moon by an alien space squid but that misspelled word was just too immersion breaking. Love it lol."

 

[neuroparenthetical]

As one reader said... "love the anonymous above who said they stopped reading because you misspelled a word lol. So they clicked on a story about a Chinese virgin being deflowered on the moon by an alien space squid but that misspelled word was just too immersion breaking. Love it lol."

It's incredibly harsh, but it's perfect. That's a great example of the difference between a legitimate request for suspension of disbelief, and something that takes a person out of the story because it's clearly not part of the contract being offered by the author to the reader.

"Bitch, it's a story about aliens and moon colonists, so get on the ride or GTFO the line." - totally legit.

"Bitch, it's gonna have some typos, so get on the rilde or GTFO the lilrne." - not really legit, unless it's meta/deconstructive.

It's still fine to laugh about how one typo made somebody peace out. That's a question of degree, however, and not one of kind.

 

[StrangeLife]

... So they clicked on a story about a Chinese virgin being deflowered on the moon by an alien space squid but that misspelled word was just too immersion breaking. Love it lol."

Hey, don't go shatter my illusions! Rapey alien space squids happen to be among my favorite erotic fantasies...

 

[gunhilltrain]

The way that I have written something like this is...

Sister home from college on holiday break and her high school senior brother inadvertently watch their divorced father and their former (sister) / current (brother) English teacher having sex. Brother and sister talk about it as they sit on the sofa that evening and make JiffyPop. Then the next day the brother goes to school and their father is making out with their teacher in his English class at school. He calls his sister who comes to the school and by this time the class is basically involved in a full blown orgy...

Poof, segue, brother and sister wake up on the sofa, it's still holiday break-- the last few paragraphs was a dream-- and the story continues.

I don't think I've ever done dream sequences - well, not since a long-ago unfinished screenplay, and there was no sex in them. "Day dreaming" fantasies - those are another matter, and there's plenty that can be done with them.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Hey, don't go shatter my illusions! Rapey alien space squids happen to be among my favorite erotic fantasies...

I think I went for the first forty years of my life without knowing that anyone had tentacle fantasies. I think I saw my first depiction online - probably it was a Japanese artist.

 

[staciliv]

if they screw on a table in the cafeteria in front of many other teachers, students and school support staff and nothing happens and nobody reacts to it as unusual or different, it is there where you lose your audience.

Aw damn! I was just about to post that!

Oh well...

 

[staciliv]

My own preference is a story that is obviously total fantasy BS but written is such a way that I WANT it to be real. I recently read (and reread several times!!!) a story posted elsewhere which includes pillory stocks in a public park. Women put themselves in them naked in order to win a cash prize.

Obvious BS - but the way it was written it allows me to suspend disbelief, identify with the protagonist, and immerse myself in the story.

 

[PennameWombat]

I think I went for the first forty years of my life without knowing that anyone had tentacle fantasies. I think I saw my first depiction online - probably it was a Japanese artist.

Quite possibly this one... The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (Female Diver and Octopuses), 1814, by Katsushika Hokusai. Note the date...

View attachment 2151792
The same artist did another print that is familiar at least by sight to many people, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think I went for the first forty years of my life without knowing that anyone had tentacle fantasies. I think I saw my first depiction online - probably it was a Japanese artist.

Me too. I lived most of my life not having any idea that tentacle sex was a thing. But once I found out it was, I HAD to write a story about it, so I did! It was a lot of fun. Lots of suspension of disbelief with that one.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Quite possibly this one... The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (Female Diver and Octopuses), 1814, by Katsushika Hokusai. Note the date...

View attachment 2151792
The same artist did another print that is familiar at least by sight to many people, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa.

Fun story - when I was in Japan I bought a lovely thick art book of the complete works of Hokusai for my mother. I flipped thought it briefly in the shop, but somehow missed the huge tenticle porn section...

 

[gunhilltrain]

Quite possibly this one... The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (Female Diver and Octopuses), 1814, by Katsushika Hokusai. Note the date...

View attachment 2151792
The same artist did another print that is familiar at least by sight to many people, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa.

It was either that one or something like it.

 

[gunhilltrain]

My own preference is a story that is obviously total fantasy BS but written is such a way that I WANT it to be real. I recently read (and reread several times!!!) a story posted elsewhere which includes pillory stocks in a public park. Women put themselves in them naked in order to win a cash prize.

Obvious BS - but the way it was written it allows me to suspend disbelief, identify with the protagonist, and immerse myself in the story.

There are a lot of variations that could be done with that. It makes the Handmaid's Tale (the TV show) look tame. But it shows up a lot as a porn trope, so in that sense it's real. There are also male BDSM versions (both straight and gay), so there is no discrimination by gender. There are also a number of dominatrices around, in real life and on video, and many of those ladies play really rough. I wonder how those "red pill" guys who think that all women want to be "submissive" to a man (they use that word) can explain that phenomenon.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Fun story - when I was in Japan I bought a lovely thick art book of the complete works of Hokusai for my mother. I flipped thought it briefly in the shop, but somehow missed the huge tenticle porn section...

Your mother may have learned something new. Did she ever comment on it?

 

[lovecraft68]

Found this one this morning on a new story

Pet Peeve. No guy EVER leaves the door wide open while rubbing one out with his mom in the house. Sorry.

Okay, first, at least they said pet peeve meaning its a glitch they personally can't overlook, we all have them, and this person is 100% entitled to theirs.

But... my first thought is you're reading in the taboo section so this is a kink you enjoy, meaning its fine that moms have sex with their sons in stories, but leaving the door open is unrealistic?

Also, the door was barely open, couple inches, which as we all know can happen in old houses, a breeze or somethings just not being shut until it clicks. The mom in question is described as easing the door open to see what's going on because she heard a woman's voice and thought he'd snuck a girl in the house, that's when she sees him. Door wasn't wide open.

These comments make me laugh way more than they annoy me, but I thought it was a good example of the paradox we're discussing here.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Found this one this morning on a new story

Pet Peeve. No guy EVER leaves the door wide open while rubbing one out with his mom in the house. Sorry.

Okay, first, at least they said pet peeve meaning its a glitch they personally can't overlook, we all have them, and this person is 100% entitled to theirs.

But... my first thought is you're reading in the taboo section so this is a kink you enjoy, meaning its fine that moms have sex with their sons in stories, but leaving the door open is unrealistic?

Also, the door was barely open, couple inches, which as we all know can happen in old houses, a breeze or somethings just not being shut until it clicks. The mom in question is described as easing the door open to see what's going on because she heard a woman's voice and thought he'd snuck a girl in the house, that's when she sees him. Door wasn't wide open.

These comments make me laugh way more than they annoy me, but I thought it was a good example of the paradox we're discussing here.

Some interior doors in houses and apartments don't even have locks, or these are so old that they don't work any longer (this situation in my place), or people don't bother to use them. I've had a few, ah, door mistakes or near misses in my own life. But, yes, how she got in there is a trivial point.

 

[lovecraft68]

Some interior doors in houses and apartments don't even have locks, or these are so old that they don't work any longer (this situation in my place), or people don't bother to use them. I've had a few, ah, door mistakes or near misses in my own life. But, yes, how she got in there is a trivial point.

Our spare room has what my wife calls the "Ghost Door" its old and when you close it if you don't push on it until you hear the click its not completely closed, then at some point it will open on it own and it has a nice little creak to it. My wife claims I don't replace it because I think its cool. In reality I'm lazy

 

[TheRedChamber]

Your mother may have learned something new. Did she ever comment on it?

There are mothers who comment when their son buys them a book of tentacle porn. Those are mostly found in the I/T section of this site. In the real world however...

 

[Magineer]

Writers who find it hard to convince and keep their readers with them, at any point in their story, could do worse than examine its starting point in terms of realistic, believable settings and characters... never mind starting to slap sticking plasters over inconsistencies in later developments...

I'm afraid this is something of a hobby horse of mine. Yes, one can set matters in a galaxy far, far away. Yes, one can have the elvish protagonists coming, complete with tentacles, from the Planet Blurg. It is factually possible to do so. On the other hand, unless one's readership itself consists of expatriate Blurgish elves, why put up this totally obvious and gobsmackingly huge barrier to verisimilitude and 'suspension of disbelief'?

It's as if such writers actually have no interest in their readers but are on some kind of ego-trip. Personally, I don't want to inhale whatever they're on.

IMHO, the typical reader wants to be carried along easily by a narrative and reassured/persuaded that, yes, the described events are real, by the authentic presence of familiar surroundings, i.e. the world out there as we know it, and characters that he/she might know or have passed in the street.

Mind you, I'm talking about stories here... not unconstrained ego-fantasies...

 

[SimonDoom]

IMHO, the typical reader wants to be carried along easily by a narrative and reassured/persuaded that, yes, the described events are real, by the authentic presence of familiar surroundings, i.e. the world out there as we know it, and characters that he/she might know or have passed in the street.

Mind you, I'm talking about stories here... not unconstrained ego-fantasies...

Nobody's "humble opinion" about the "typical reader" matters in the slightest. Not yours. Not mine. All that matters is what readers actually read. The data. And what the data show, based upon my experience over the last 5 1/2 years of writing and posting stories here, and over five decades of reading, is that there's no such thing as a typical reader. Readers vary, almost infinitely.

My impression is quite different from yours, as both a reader and an author. My impression is that many, perhaps most, readers are only too happy to read stories about things that are fantastic and impossible.

My own impression, which is no more valid than anyone else's, is that if one were to plot a bell curve of thousands of readers' willingness to suspend disbelief, about two-thirds of them would be pretty easy. You don't need to do much, as an author, to suspend your average reader's disbelief, you just have to do SOMETHING. Just a little thing. Most readers aren't picky when it comes to believability. They just want you to make a little effort as an author. The other thing to keep in mind as an author is not to inflict too much magic on your reader. Readers have an almost infinite ability to suspend disbelief about one big thing, but then much less of a willingness to suspend disbelief about a second thing, and so on. Limit the magic, make a little effort regarding believability, and, as an author, you'll probably do just fine.

 

[lovecraft68]

Nobody's "humble opinion" about the "typical reader" matters in the slightest. Not yours. Not mine. All that matters is what readers actually read. The data. And what the data show, based upon my experience over the last 5 1/2 years of writing and posting stories here, and over five decades of reading, is that there's no such thing as a typical reader. Readers vary, almost infinitely.

My impression is quite different from yours, as both a reader and an author. My impression is that many, perhaps most, readers are only too happy to read stories about things that are fantastic and impossible.

My own impression, which is no more valid than anyone else's, is that if one were to plot a bell curve of thousands of readers' willingness to suspend disbelief, about two-thirds of them would be pretty easy. You don't need to do much, as an author, to suspend your average reader's disbelief, you just have to do SOMETHING. Just a little thing. Most readers aren't picky when it comes to believability. They just want you to make a little effort as an author. The other thing to keep in mind as an author is not to inflict too much magic on your reader. Readers have an almost infinite ability to suspend disbelief about one big thing, but then much less of a willingness to suspend disbelief about a second thing, and so on. Limit the magic, make a little effort regarding believability, and, as an author, you'll probably do just fine.

Don't you think though that if the readers were broken into genres you could get more of a general feel of what they want? Example I can safely say most taboo readers do not like non con elements introduced in a story. I base this on 12 years of writing, reading and getting comments and feedback in said genre.

If we went further into sub genres as in...taboo...now break down into mom/son we could better an even better feel?

But in general you're right about not being able to quantify into 'typical reader' but I think to the topic I could safely say every reader has something that for whatever reason they can't accept even within a book or story in a genre they like.

I see a lot of comments on youtube channels that do movie reviews that remind me of this. Its okay the serial killer did this and that, but when they did this it took me out of it, meanwhile no one else in the thread has a problem with said "this" but instead its something else.

For discussion purposes this is an interesting topic, but when it comes to writing advice, I always adhere to write the story and let the reader decide, getting caught up in what they might think will never lead to anything being written.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Writers who find it hard to convince and keep their readers with them, at any point in their story, could do worse than examine its starting point in terms of realistic, believable settings and characters... never mind starting to slap sticking plasters over inconsistencies in later developments...

I'm afraid this is something of a hobby horse of mine. Yes, one can set matters in a galaxy far, far away. Yes, one can have the elvish protagonists coming, complete with tentacles, from the Planet Blurg. It is factually possible to do so. On the other hand, unless one's readership itself consists of expatriate Blurgish elves, why put up this totally obvious and gobsmackingly huge barrier to verisimilitude and 'suspension of disbelief'?

Because a lot of readers like reading that kind of thing, for various and sundry reasons.

It's as if such writers actually have no interest in their readers but are on some kind of ego-trip. Personally, I don't want to inhale whatever they're on.

IMHO, the typical reader wants to be carried along easily by a narrative and reassured/persuaded that, yes, the described events are real, by the authentic presence of familiar surroundings, i.e. the world out there as we know it, and characters that he/she might know or have passed in the street.

If this argument were correct, SFF would not be a popular genre. And yet it is, which suggests you're missing something. Are you sure your idea of "the typical reader" isn't just a projection of your own personal tastes?

Mind you, I'm talking about stories here... not unconstrained ego-fantasies...

SFF has its share of escapist wish-fulfillment, but it doesn't have anything close to a monopoly. "Woman with difficult life finds single guy who's not an arsehole" and "ageing dude meets young woman who really gets into the idea of fucking him" are just as much escapism as anything in Tolkien.

 

[SimonDoom]

Don't you think though that if the readers were broken into genres you could get more of a general feel of what they want? Example I can safely say most taboo readers do not like non con elements introduced in a story. I base this on 12 years of writing, reading and getting comments and feedback in said genre.

If we went further into sub genres as in...taboo...now break down into mom/son we could better an even better feel?

But in general you're right about not being able to quantify into 'typical reader' but I think to the topic I could safely say every reader has something that for whatever reason they can't accept even within a book or story in a genre they like.

I see a lot of comments on youtube channels that do movie reviews that remind me of this. Its okay the serial killer did this and that, but when they did this it took me out of it, meanwhile no one else in the thread has a problem with said "this" but instead its something else.

For discussion purposes this is an interesting topic, but when it comes to writing advice, I always adhere to write the story and let the reader decide, getting caught up in what they might think will never lead to anything being written.

When you've been around here long enough and written a broad enough range of stories, you can observe patterns in reader responses. You're right about that. But you can make mistakes about those patterns, too.

For instance, I agree that many incest readers are picky. They like their incest to be sweet and romantic. They have no problem with Mom getting it on with Son, but God Forbid he should stick his finger up her butt or put handcuffs on her. But that's not true of all readers.

The most misunderstood category is Loving Wives. Because, while it's true that there's a big incel contingent, and a big contingent of readers that for reasons I don't understand want to see women punished, there are also plenty of readers who like cuckold, hot wife stories, the type of stories for which the category was created in the first place. People overlook this fact because of all the downvoting and nasty comments. But those readers are there, and if you write for them you will get praise from them, although you'll have to put up the vile incel crap.

The bottom line is it's a big, big site and there are readers out there for almost every kind of taste. I don't write for "typical" readers. I write for "me" readers. That seems to work OK.

 

[lovecraft68]

When you've been around here long enough and written a broad enough range of stories, you can observe patterns in reader responses. You're right about that. But you can make mistakes about those patterns, too.

For instance, I agree that many incest readers are picky. They like their incest to be sweet and romantic. They have no problem with Mom getting it on with Son, but God Forbid he should stick his finger up her butt or put handcuffs on her. But that's not true of all readers.

The most misunderstood category is Loving Wives. Because, while it's true that there's a big incel contingent, and a big contingent of readers that for reasons I don't understand want to see women punished, there are also plenty of readers who like cuckold, hot wife stories, the type of stories for which the category was created in the first place. People overlook this fact because of all the downvoting and nasty comments. But those readers are there, and if you write for them you will get praise from them, although you'll have to put up the vile incel crap.

The bottom line is it's a big, big site and there are readers out there for almost every kind of taste. I don't write for "typical" readers. I write for "me" readers. That seems to work OK.

I think Loving wives can be summed up in the analogy of a bad element moving into a neighborhood and bringing it down. Still some good people stuck living there who remember when it was a nice place to live, but surrounded by riff raff and vermin.

I've mentioned before-and suggest it when it fits-that I'm seeing more real hotwife and cuck authors and readers heading over to fetish where the male readership(look out, I'm going to generalize!) are the type to enjoy it, and man enough to admit they like stories where its about the wife's pleasure and them being fine with another guy pleasing her, they're not full of the insecurities of the petty little boys who stomp their feet in LW-as if they're the ones who are right, and the category is wrong.

Too bad, there used to be a much bigger number of real and more loving and fun stories there....back to there goes the neighborhood.

 

[LiverpoolMaster]

Nobody's "humble opinion" about the "typical reader" matters in the slightest. Not yours. Not mine. All that matters is what readers actually read. The data. And what the data show, based upon my experience over the last 5 1/2 years of writing and posting stories here, and over five decades of reading, is that there's no such thing as a typical reader. Readers vary, almost infinitely.

My impression is quite different from yours, as both a reader and an author. My impression is that many, perhaps most, readers are only too happy to read stories about things that are fantastic and impossible.

My own impression, which is no more valid than anyone else's, is that if one were to plot a bell curve of thousands of readers' willingness to suspend disbelief, about two-thirds of them would be pretty easy. You don't need to do much, as an author, to suspend your average reader's disbelief, you just have to do SOMETHING. Just a little thing. Most readers aren't picky when it comes to believability. They just want you to make a little effort as an author. The other thing to keep in mind as an author is not to inflict too much magic on your reader. Readers have an almost infinite ability to suspend disbelief about one big thing, but then much less of a willingness to suspend disbelief about a second thing, and so on. Limit the magic, make a little effort regarding believability, and, as an author, you'll probably do just fine.

Er... it strikes me that you're confusing two concepts:

readers (people who want to be entertained by a story which has inherent credibility and has been skilfully crafted so as to capture their imagination)

and

wank merchants (wank merchants)

The post you were commenting on, I'd guess wildly, was referring to the former - but there will indeed be almost "infinite variation" if you're willing to extend the label to the latter. Just be careful, as you're performing said extension, that you don't slip in the accumulated drool or trip over the hanging-out tongues.