A Happy Medium

[SecondCircle]

I write what I would call realistic fantasy, where the fantasy elements are made far more realistic by stories and characters that reveal themselves plausibly within the internal logic of the world I have created.

Realism is boring. Realism is average looking, insecure people fumbling at each other and then feeling awkward afterward, as they realize they don't like each other very much. Realism is STDs, headaches, kids interrupting, and inconveniently timed farts.

Fuck realism.

Pure fantasy is too impossible. Perfect people are annoying. Partners who exist soley to fulfill our sexual fantasies don't exist. I am knocked out of the story when I roll my eyes.

Fuck perfect fantasy.

But make the fantasy something I can believe, immersed in a story, with realistic characters I love, and I am lost. The supermodel roommate who walks in during see and says "may I join?" makes me snort. However, if the far-more-beautiful-than-she-thinks roommate with a cloistered upbringing listens to the sounds of sex through the walls, feeding her fertile imagination to the point where she hides in their closet the next night, peeking through the slats. Oh my God, what's he doing to her? She shifts to a better angle and slips, making a sound. The sex stops, and resumes with whispers. They know she is there...

Yeah, I can buy that, and when done right, it's fucking hot.

That's probably the perfect balance. Stories that have one foot in reality, while sticking another into fantasy (sometimes tumbling in).

I always want something plausible, something real, a scenario or setting that I could easily find myself walking past one day. But I don't think it would be any fun without slipping further and further into fantasy.

Everyone has a bunch of wild fantasies. Doesn't matter how farfetched they seem, we want to see them brought to life in some way or another. But we want it to seem like it could "really" happen. Someone's fantasy could be participating in a gangbang, or spying on a hot couple, or falling for someone of the same sex and giving in to the sinister urge. But if a scenario seems like it could actually happen (something that a reader can immediately relate to) it makes the fantasy all that more exciting.

Of course, like anything, plausibility or "going too far" or "stretching belief" is entirely subjective. What seems out there for me may not be for Stella, JBJ, or Hydra.

So... in a way when we read a story and think to ourselves "man this guy is a bit too outlandish" or "that's not really plausible, that'd never happen" are we sometimes viewing a reflection of ourselves?

<twilight zone theme plays as poster fades into another dimension>

 

[PennLady]

I always want something plausible, something real, a scenario or setting that I could easily find myself walking past one day. But I don't think it would be any fun without slipping further and further into fantasy.

Aha, this. Plausible is what I think many of us aim for. I always say I aim for plausibility over realism. Which is to say, most of what I write is pretty realistic in setting -- contemporary time, things like that -- but the situations? I don't know. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, I suppose. But I try to keep it "plausible within its bubble." I try to put out the rules of my story's universe and then keep the rest of the story plausible within those guidelines. And it has worked with my nonhuman-type stories as well.

 

[Ironiclaconic]

I think the broader challenge is including drama. The way most people fulfill a fantasy is by asking a partner, or swapping fantasies. You want a threesome? Let's try Craig's List. But that isn't very dramatic. All the conflict is in the asking and agreeing. Everything after is just a sweaty denouement. But a very hot guy with a confident, easy manner and great stories, approaches two best friends in a bar. They both really like him, but aren't sure which one he is hitting on, so they ask. "Both," he replies. The conflict there continues through the entire night.

 

[CDWilder]

I, too, was expecting a thread about a psychic who had a winning scratch-off ticket...

I'm also around 85/15 in favor of reality. Like "House", I'm willing to exchange a little probability for possibility, but ALL of the characters - let alone a character's TRAITS - need to be realistic. I don't want to read about a bunch of 38DDs getting railed by several 8" guys. HUGE difference to me, at least in my little world.

 

[sunandshadow]

Realism is boring. Realism is average looking, insecure people fumbling at each other and then feeling awkward afterward, as they realize they don't like each other very much. Realism is STDs, headaches, kids interrupting, and inconveniently timed farts.

Fuck realism.

Yeah, that. The characters' psychology has to make sense and feel plausible, and the world also has to be have its own logic and be consistent, but as long as I've got that minimal amount of verisimilitude I want to read about the romantic and sexual adventures of aliens, mages, dragons, etc, not boring-ass unpretty real people.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

I really love Ironiclaconic's take on this. I like the idea that the way people try to reach their own fantasies is that they ask a partner or try to swap fantasies. And then he added the unexpected into it as well.

I personally think 'the unexpected' is the most important thing to me by far. 'The unexpected' is the sort of stuff that has really happened to me throughout my life. In my own life, in a way - although people may not believe this - I started out and still am pretty oblivious about everything, and I have continuously been shocked by events and incidents with the result that whatever experiences I have had would simply not be believed at all if I wrote accurately about them and so for the most part everything I write is an absolute cut-down version of whatever might have happened.

The fact is, from a young age I have always been a prodigious reader with the result that I basically approached adult life as a kind of a novel in its own right... And waddya know, things indeed started to happen from out of left field as they say and I just kept right on 'reading that novel of life.' Some of it's drama all right. And some of it is comedy.

The only things now that I am interested in are the unexpected ones.

And I spend effort seeking them out deliberately. I gravitate towards people who have got that touch of the intelligent risky about them, although they are actually extremely rare types. And I have learned a lot from them. What it is, is that I am just so happy to talk to these kinds of people and am so open to them that they kind of accept me and let me into their world - or they have done so far.

What IS the 'happy medium?' Fundamentally, there has to be a truth inside the story somewhere otherwise people know in their guts it's all just some kind of unfounded and uncertain wish-fulfillment. It's purposeless to me to just write as fantasy or wish-fulfillment; I don't have that kind of real life where there would be a point to it. I have escaped things that I look back on and am amazed I survived at all... Yet they never touched me in bad ways. And the journey was sensational. And the people were brilliant. They were not me - they were other people. THEY are the story. And THEY were all real.

Some of the most interesting people I have ever known were also the most outrageous and sometimes downright dangerous but they have never posed any threat to me (as far as I ever was aware of it, although that may only be my naiivity again).

I dunno... Are people - readers - going to be deeply interested in just fantasy? I think they are interested in other people, especially real people, and in things they may themselves contemplate, but not do, or may want to do and have not yet (done). And see from those who have done them.

I try to know interesting (real) people, and get a lot of material from there.

Interesting real people, just plain generate real drama in their lives! As well as unexpected events. And I mean interesting people, not crazy people.

Some of my stories I know are really jumpy because I have to cut so much out that would inevitably lead back to some real incident, real person, or real group which will identify way too much.

Fantasy is what 'everybody' wants to do or to have happen. Reality - interesting reality - is what those charismatic and incandescent real people really get up to. And stories are the reduced product of knowing such people or knowing about them.

I do not know of any well-known writer who, at the heart of the stories, was not working from a basis of his own actual genuine experience, either of himself/herself, or people he/she knew well enough.

I don't know about this idea of fantasy at all frankly... I don't think for real writing it exists at all. Not within the principles of the story, although maybe for the physical details, science elements, timing, historical placement and so on - but as for the character dynamics, this is all, has to be, all real.

Sex act fantasies are not interesting of themselves over any long term effect of a story.

The extraordinary beauty of some people - and their potential for down-in-the-gutter acts and behaviour and involvements, is a totally real thing. It's not in any way fantastic.

Less superficially good-looking people - even inwardly not so nice people - still can be wildy sexually attractive to individuals oriented that way toward them.

And so, I don't regard outward appearance as any kind of barrier in a story.

Some people here are making the incorrect assumption that wildly good-looking people are not going to be attracted TO THEM, and so they are not letting such storylines be given a chance to express their truths.

You never know what can happen in life. You just plain never can tell beforehand. A hermit will try to withdraw and he will be utterly confounded in his plan by somebody else's plan that will crash into his world. That is life.

We mostly all tend to dwell on the bad experiences where the 'confounding incidents' were the bad ones, forgetting altogether about those good ones that have happened.

Yes, it's fantastic to 'hope' for some dream lover to appear tonight unheralded or uncalled into your room as you are sleeping, awaken you and invite you to the acts and pleasures of sex.

Only 'hope's' time frame though, is fantastic. Unexpected things really do happen. At some point.

Whether you can spontaneously choose to make yourself a better person, a more interesting, more amenable, more engaging, more dynamic living being yourself - is entirely a real choice, and not a fantasy at all. And nothing to do with hope. And that's the fire that makes the fantasy aflame and take on a life that has a very real impact.

Erotic stories are not about 'other' people. They are about you.

And the more erotic you are, the more sex you will get - at every level of the whole thing without limits.

That is the nature of the universe for ever and ever world without end. You're holding yourself up not believing in what you are calling 'fantasy.' There's no such thing as fantasy. What you are doing is just holding your breath because real life is breathtaking. And in holding your breath you are going unconscious from reality as it magically is.

Too large breasts and non-functionally long dicks are stupid things, not fantasy things. Don't confuse fantasy with stupidity, ignorance, or mysogeny of ideas; there is such a thing as mysogeny of ideas. It is when someone experiences too many bad ideas and becomes a hater of all ideas generally.

So, I go for interesting things as a potential for a story. I don't care at all whether anyone else believes them. That's not the point for me. If someone thinks anything I write is a fantasy that's entirely their call and their perogative too. Which I don't have a problem with. But I never do write from fantasy, at least I don't think I do.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

All people really know is what they bring to the table.

 

[sr71plt]

All people really know is what they bring to the table.

Google is your friend. It can be dragged to the table.

 

[TxRad]

All people really know is what they bring to the table.

Ever heard of a thing called imagination?

 

[sr71plt]

Ever heard of a thing called imagination?

That too.

 

[NaokoSmith]

But for me? As a reader? That's not enough. Strong adjective here and straightforward description there. Why did that chick go down on the guy under the table?

The supermodel roommate who walks in during see and says "may I join?" makes me snort. However, if the far-more-beautiful-than-she-thinks roommate with a cloistered upbringing listens to the sounds of sex through the walls, feeding her fertile imagination to the point where she hides in their closet the next night, peeking through the slats. Oh my God, what's he doing to her? She shifts to a better angle and slips, making a sound. The sex stops, and resumes with whispers. They know she is there...

I think what this points to is that people are often not as interested in realism as we are in whether a story takes us on a journey. It's more enjoyable when characters come to a realisation about themselves. That might or might not also help us come to a realisation, even if it's as simple as: You don't have to be a supermodel to enjoy great sex in a threesome. That movement in the story is more enjoyable than the bouncing up and down in a story which just describes improbably large tits and cock.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Yeah I think that's dead right too, NaokoSmith. Likely the correct word is 'improbable' rather than 'fantasy' or 'fantastic.'

Sometimes I get the feeling people are inclined to think of 'fantasy' as something entirely pejorative, whereas science fantasy and science fiction regularly precedes science fact. People often find ways to create in actuality what their intelligent minds dreamed up in imaginative efforts.

There is a slight novelty or gee-wizz effect of out-and-out fantasy - which also may have usefulness in a story, but the 'people/human dimension' is by far the one that provides the deepest levels of interest. One would think...

It's a good proposition to think about the range between 'realism' versus 'fantasy,' but it might turn out to be both a false antithetical proposition after some considering, and it might point to an entirely different centre-of-gravity in any erotic story - which would be the human interaction one.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The extraordinary beauty of some people - and their potential for down-in-the-gutter acts and behaviour and involvements, is a totally real thing. It's not in any way fantastic.

Less superficially good-looking people - even inwardly not so nice people - still can be wildy sexually attractive to individuals oriented that way toward them.

And so, I don't regard outward appearance as any kind of barrier in a story.

One of my favorite things is to see a plain-to-our-eyes couple that look at each other and you know they are the center of each other's universe. What they see when they are alone together is hidden from the blind world. They are each other's secret treasure. They share the bliss of paradise.

That's so fucking sexy.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Ever heard of a thing called imagination?

STFU sissy boy

 

[NaokoSmith]

Sometimes I get the feeling people are inclined to think of 'fantasy' as something entirely pejorative, whereas science fantasy and science fiction regularly precedes science fact. People often find ways to create in actuality what their intelligent minds dreamed up in imaginative efforts.

There is a slight novelty or gee-wizz effect of out-and-out fantasy - which also may have usefulness in a story, but the 'people/human dimension' is by far the one that provides the deepest levels of interest. One would think...

What I like most about writing fantasy is that it allows me to create a context that would be impossible/improbable if I were writing realism. This can sometimes allow for a more interesting human development plotline. For example, a world where sexuality is irrelevant, gay men and women marrying their partner is normal. Then I can strip that away and focus on how class is often the driver to whether you get things or not.

One of my favorite things is to see a plain-to-our-eyes couple that look at each other and you know they are the center of each other's universe. What they see when they are alone together is hidden from the blind world. They are each other's secret treasure. They share the bliss of paradise.

That's so fucking sexy.

Hullo my dear! I managed to pick up some nice little gifties on a trip to London for people on here, including you.

 

[drunkenphilosophy]

I write what I would call realistic fantasy, where the fantasy elements are made far more realistic by stories and characters that reveal themselves plausibly within the internal logic of the world I have created.

Realism is boring. Realism is average looking, insecure people fumbling at each other and then feeling awkward afterward, as they realize they don't like each other very much. Realism is STDs, headaches, kids interrupting, and inconveniently timed farts.

Fuck realism.

Pure fantasy is too impossible. Perfect people are annoying. Partners who exist soley to fulfill our sexual fantasies don't exist. I am knocked out of the story when I roll my eyes.

Fuck perfect fantasy.

But make the fantasy something I can believe, immersed in a story, with realistic characters I love, and I am lost. The supermodel roommate who walks in during see and says "may I join?" makes me snort. However, if the far-more-beautiful-than-she-thinks roommate with a cloistered upbringing listens to the sounds of sex through the walls, feeding her fertile imagination to the point where she hides in their closet the next night, peeking through the slats. Oh my God, what's he doing to her? She shifts to a better angle and slips, making a sound. The sex stops, and resumes with whispers. They know she is there...

Yeah, I can buy that, and when done right, it's fucking hot.

Well said, IL. *raises glass*

 

[TxRad]

STFU sissy boy

Ah yes, the end all answer by the completely clueless.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Ah yes, the end all answer by the completely clueless.

STFU Stella Impersonator

 

[patientlee]

I know that I don't care to read anything I can find in my own bedroom. If I'm going to take the time to read a story, I want to experience something different from my own life through the characters. That being said, I also prefer to stay within the realm of what might actually be able to happen.

I also prefer when the physical descriptions are a little vague. If I don't know just how big, for example, my mind fills in what I think is big. I feel more connected to the characters, adding a layer of realism for me.

 

[CDWilder]

I also prefer when the physical descriptions are a little vague. If I don't know just how big, for example, my mind fills in what I think is big. I feel more connected to the characters, adding a layer of realism for me.

I always go back to Stephen King in "On Writing". To summarize / paraphrase: Writing is telepathy. Picture a table with a red tablecloth. On top is a rabbit in a cage. On the rabbit's back in blue ink is the number eight. We might visualise the tablecloth differently - blood red with fringe or a simple red linen - or the cage or even the rabbit, but the important thing is that we both saw the blue eight on the rabbit's back.

The same can be said about erotica. Why do I need to know the guy's cock is eight inches long? Or the girl's breasts are 36C? Let the reader fill in non-essential details in their own mind.

 

[Ironiclaconic]

I always go back to Stephen King in "On Writing". To summarize / paraphrase: Writing is telepathy. Picture a table with a red tablecloth. On top is a rabbit in a cage. On the rabbit's back in blue ink is the number eight. We might visualise the tablecloth differently - blood red with fringe or a simple red linen - or the cage or even the rabbit, but the important thing is that we both saw the blue eight on the rabbit's back.

The same can be said about erotica. Why do I need to know the guy's cock is eight inches long? Or the girl's breasts are 36C? Let the reader fill in non-essential details in their own mind.

That actually points to one of my gripes about a lot of modern literature - too much time wasted describing details of setting and physical character description, even if in wonderfully written language. I think many writers have too much confidence in the reader's interest or patience in seeing every detail the same way the writer does. Most of the time it doesn't matter. Pick your battles, and when a writer then chooses to focus on details in a specific scene, they will have earned the reader's trust that this is important. Even great writers do this. I love Raymond Chander, but there is this scene in Farewell My Lovely where Marlowe describes the view in a bay, which is never mentioned again and has no plot relevance and is inefficient as a way of revealing character. It's as if Chandler thought that this is what good writers are supposed to do - describe tangential stuff that the reader is perfectly capable of imagining on his own.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

That actually points to one of my gripes about a lot of modern literature - too much time wasted describing details of setting and physical character description, even if in wonderfully written language. I think many writers have too much confidence in the reader's interest or patience in seeing every detail the same way the writer does. Most of the time it doesn't matter. Pick your battles, and when a writer then chooses to focus on details in a specific scene, they will have earned the reader's trust that this is important. Even great writers do this. I love Raymond Chander, but there is this scene in Farewell My Lovely where Marlowe describes the view in a bay, which is never mentioned again and has no plot relevance and is inefficient as a way of revealing character. It's as if Chandler thought that this is what good writers are supposed to do - describe tangential stuff that the reader is perfectly capable of imagining on his own.

Chandler was a scenery writer, and his plots are identical. When people go to the park all they remember is how big the statue was and the pigeon shit on it. Sherlock Holmes is all attitude. That was his attitude about writing.

 

[sr71plt]

Sherlock Holmes was a writer? Bet those are some wild stories.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sherlock Holmes was a writer? Bet those are some wild stories.

Just proves youre always the last to know

 

[sr71plt]

Just proves youre always the last to know

For a good many of your posts, that's a blessing.