All fiction is essentially fantasy - discuss

[bumblegrum]

Sorry to sound like an Eng Lit exam, but I'm fascinated by the truly fantastic turn that some Literotica stories take. I'm an incest afficionado - I've written a couple myself, but I do try to write so that, with the aid of a very powerful telescope, readers can just see the faint boundaries of the foothills of possibility. But some stories pole vault over those boundaries.

For example, a guy is screwing his mother in a double bed she is sharing with her sleeping husband; she's making suitably enthusiastic noises, but the husband doesn't even notice. I mean, duh!

I accept that the occasional uninhibited fuckfest can be great fun if well written, but shouldn't we expect some degree of rationality and logic. Even the horror genre has its own internal logic, but sometimes I feel our credulity is pulled just a bit too far.

 

[oggbashan]

You are reading the wrong stories.

 

[bumblegrum]

You are quite right, oggbashan, I need to be more discriminating in what I read. But my reading tends towards the same mental processes that have bystanders goggling at car crashes, train wrecks etc. "What has happened here?" "What a dreadful thing" etc.

Memo to me - just read the stories with ratings approaching 5.00 - but I'm still likely to get hooked in to the bizarre, improbable and downright impossible

 

[oggbashan]

Some of my stories are impossible.

Try Absorbed or The Virgin Unbirth.

 

[D_Lynn]

Sorry to sound like an Eng Lit exam, but I'm fascinated by the truly fantastic turn that some Literotica stories take. I'm an incest afficionado - I've written a couple myself, but I do try to write so that, with the aid of a very powerful telescope, readers can just see the faint boundaries of the foothills of possibility. But some stories pole vault over those boundaries.

For example, a guy is screwing his mother in a double bed she is sharing with her sleeping husband; she's making suitably enthusiastic noises, but the husband doesn't even notice. I mean, duh!

I accept that the occasional uninhibited fuckfest can be great fun if well written, but shouldn't we expect some degree of rationality and logic. Even the horror genre has its own internal logic, but sometimes I feel our acceptance is pulled just a bit too far.

I once pointed out in a review that the story was not realistic. Someone commented on my review stating that it was fiction and, by that definition, didn't have to be real. The point that I was making, by stating examples, was that, unless you have defined alternative reality constructs in which the story takes place, you have to abide by laws of physics. This, to me, is the difference between pure fantasy and fiction. Sound travels, limbs move slower through water than through air, anal glands do not produce lubrication, unprotected sex can create children and/or unwanted diseases. (I'm not suggesting that all erotic fiction include condoms, otherwise they aren't realistic. Or that you have to explain not using protection. I am illustrating, however, that a story that spans several years and includes unprotected intercourse across multiple partners is likely to produce something if carried out in our world today.)

I know exactly what you're saying here. I like pushing boundaries and reading works where others have done so, as well. However, there has to be some common law that defines reality and creates the context in which the story is played out. The story should play within the construct defined.

 

[lovecraft68]

Sorry to sound like an Eng Lit exam, but I'm fascinated by the truly fantastic turn that some Literotica stories take. I'm an incest afficionado - I've written a couple myself, but I do try to write so that, with the aid of a very powerful telescope, readers can just see the faint boundaries of the foothills of possibility. But some stories pole vault over those boundaries.

For example, a guy is screwing his mother in a double bed she is sharing with her sleeping husband; she's making suitably enthusiastic noises, but the husband doesn't even notice. I mean, duh!

I accept that the occasional uninhibited fuckfest can be great fun if well written, but shouldn't we expect some degree of rationality and logic. Even the horror genre has its own internal logic, but sometimes I feel our credulity is pulled just a bit too far.

Would have done this in a Pm but you have not enabled that feature.

I have the same issue. I know these stories suspend reality and are about fantasy, but some of them are just idiotic. Personally I like a little depth to my smut.

I will put out a shameless plug for my work because I think it is what you are looking for. None of my incest stories are ridiculous "grope and goes" I do not write "sis looked hot so why not" with the follow up chapter being Mom and Dad jumping in.

All my stories have a good amount of build up and I work hard to "justify" the taboo attraction.

If you have the time, check out my "At the feet of my Mother" be warned it has a lot of foot fetish elements to it but it did well with votes/score.

My long running SWB series is frequently complimented for both depth as well as scope. It chronicles the 20year relationship of a very troubled brother and sister, their battles with their inner demons as well as their sexual relationship.

My link is in my sig. If you end up checking it out let me know what you think.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

b-g, by definition, all fiction is fantasy because no human beings are involved. I laugh at lit's 'non-human' cat 'cos all the stories are non-human.

Characters only go to the bathroom if that is germane to the plot, anal sex requires no preparation, sex doesn't require condoms or contraceptive pills - they're not human!

With the (understandable) restrictions Lit imposes on underage sex, incest here has become an X-rated fairy story cat. One has to work with that.

In popular tv series, the crimes get solved by a star detective or PD (or medic, or patholgist, or forensic scientist) without any nod to the fact that here is a team of hundreds working the case. We read such stories with a strong dose of fantasy.

Fiction requires simplification to make the story interesting. Suspension of disbelief is a part of the diaspora and defines a good writer.

 

[autoplot]

To me this is the difference between realism and verisimilitude. Much of what we write is inherently unrealistic, but the story should do its best not to stomp all over the reader's suspension of disbelief. That's the whole goal, really, isn't it? Make the reader buy into the story you're making up?

 

[sr71plt]

The plots, setting, characters in fiction don't have to be "real" as long as at the foundation of the story there is some read human condition/dilemma/irony/emotion.

This is why the "Star Trek" stories worked. They might not have been wearing seat belts as they zoomed around in hyperspace, but the programs always had a human dilemma/classical truism at their base (albeit often a cliched one).

 

[Neonurotic]

I have nothing to add to the discussion other than to say, ew? Some fantasy shit in writing should stay in fiction and never have a stroke of reality.

 

[bumblegrum]

I know exactly what you're saying here. I like pushing boundaries and reading works where others have done so, as well. However, there has to be some common law that defines reality and creates the context in which the story is played out. The story should play within the construct defined.

Thanks, D_Lynn, I completely agree. I was rather more curious about the issue of probability. Some authors strain our credulity to breaking point even within that "common law that defines reality" by making the plot, or parts of it so highly improbable that it becomes laughable.

That doesn't necessarily make it bad writing, but in the end, I'm sometimes left with the feeling, "Oh yeah?" rather than begging the author for more, which sometimes happens with the better stories.

 

[sr71plt]

Of course a lot of that feeling could come from a lack of imagination and humor.

 

[DeeZire]

....Memo to me - just read the stories with ratings approaching 5.00 - but I'm still likely to get hooked in to the bizarre, improbable and downright impossible

I don't think high ratings are the answer. If you want your fiction to be more realistic, that realism may turn off some readers, resulting in a lower score. Perhaps finding better authors, and those author's favorites, would lead you to some more interesting reading material.

Last year, when I was spending more time at LIT, this author caught my eye. Unfortunately, it looks like her last submission was in January.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=1224674&page=submissions

You'll notice out of roughly 50 stories, there are only 9 red H's, and yet I'd put any one of her stories head and shoulders above some of the dreck you'll find on the top lists. IMO.

Here's another author with great stories - 7 submission, no red H's, 3 green E's (editor's choice.) If you were searching for stories based on ratings numbers, you'd never find any of her work. In my eyes, her writing is some of the best I've ever seen here. She left LIT years ago. Too bad.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=17146&page=submissions

 

[BONNIEBREA]

Some fiction is more so and some less so.

Mostly the distinction has to do with whether a story is running on internal or external realities.

To me a fantasy story operates on internal realities (werewolves exist, people can teleport from one place to another, characters have magic powers, etc.). To be effective the story has to be true to those internal realities, but the realities have little to do with the real world that you and I know.

Fiction is literature that tells a story rooted in the realities of the real world (realities external to the story). People can't teleport or fly, characters do things or not based on real motivations most readers can understand, most people hold jobs. For the most part the story has to be written around and in recognition of those realities.

So to me there seems to be a clear distinction between the two genres.

You might consider the original Star Trek series. When Gene Roddenbury and the original script consultants were developing the show they had very practical matters to decide for how the show was to operate. They knew they didn't want to go through the whole screen-time consuming process of having the ship land to get the characters onto the surface of a planet. They didn't even want the necessity of characters having to fly down in a shuttle craft every time. So they came up with the idea of being able to 'transport' down. But then they also didn't want the characters to be able to just on a moment's notice transport out of every dangerous situation. Where would the jeopardy come from? So they had to set up elaborate internal realities to strike a balance (characters couldn't transport through defensive shields or ion storms, the transporter was a delicate piece of technology that sometimes was off-line, etc.) To me that makes the show more science fantasy than science fiction.

On the other hand 2001 A Space Oddessy is to me more science fiction. Yes the end gets into pretty far out theories about wormholes and space children of some superior race. But most of the film is rooted in scientific realities. The ship has to travel for months to get to Jupiter (it can't 'warp' there in a few minutes). There is no gravity plating like in Star Trek. The next best thing to gravity has to be generated by the crew quarters and operational areas being a giant spinning drum to create centifical force.

 

[sr71plt]

Fiction and fantasy aren't separate; fantasy is a subset of fiction.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Incest especially can't be too realistic. To me, a realistic incest story would be some man raping his nine year old daughter or niece or sister and forcing her to keep quiet abut it. However, we can't write about that. Most incest stories here are just sex stories about some people who happen to be related. That is not intended to be a complaint, BTW.

I have written quite a few incest stories, and I try to describe why the characters are doing what they are doing, at least in the first of a series. At the same time, I don't like to use a couple of thousand words building up to a sex scene; I'd rather do it a lot faster than that. If this is unrealistic, sue me.

 

[bumblegrum]

Ah well, you see SR71plt, this is where we disgree and I get pedantic - apologies for that, by the way. My trusty Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines fantasy (among other definitions as "(A product of) imagination; the process, faculty, or result of forming mental representations of things not actually present;" On that definition, fiction is a form of fantasy.

Now if you're actually talking about "sword and sorcery", Lord of the Rings type fantasy, I would claim that's a special case of fiction.

 

[sr71plt]

Ah well, you see SR71plt, this is where we disgree and I get pedantic - apologies for that, by the way. My trusty Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines fantasy (among other definitions as "(A product of) imagination; the process, faculty, or result of forming mental representations of things not actually present;" On that definition, fiction is a form of fantasy.

Now if you're actually talking about "sword and sorcery", Lord of the Rings type fantasy, I would claim that's a special case of fiction.

There are two forms of prose literature: fiction and nonfiction. That's not up for a vote. Written fantasy is fiction.

Where fuzziness appears is in what can qualify as nonfiction. Fantasy is no part of this discussion, though.

 

[3113]

Deliver to the reader the fantasy you and they want

Fiction is literature that tells a story rooted in the realities of the real world. People can't teleport or fly, characters do things or not based on real motivations most readers can understand, most people hold jobs. For the most part the story has to be written around and in recognition of those realities.

Nicely said, and I like the way you explained it all. Kudos!

Sorry to sound like an Eng Lit exam, but I'm fascinated by the truly fantastic turn that some Literotica stories take.

All Fiction isn't "essentially" fantasy...it *IS* fantasy. It didn't really happen. You made it all up. What you're discussing is "realistic" fiction vs. fantasy fiction. Or levels of wish-fulfilment fantasies in otherwise realistic fiction--which is the basis of most erotica. One character just happens to find the other character who is into their favorite fetish. A young man's mother just happens to be beautiful and wants to have sex with him, etc. The deal is always this: in every story there is a contract made between reader and writer. The writer sets up the "rules" of the fantasy. Sometimes that means there are hardly any rules at all (Alice in Wonderland style--one never knows what is going to happen), other times it's going to be as real as real can be, all the gruesome details of real life. The reader either agrees to these rules and reads on, or doesn't and goes onto a different story. Once the reader has agreed to the rules, the writer must keep to them--must be logical and consistent within the story however fantastic or "real" it is. That's the agreement.

Say the "fantasy" you are writing is "Real-ish." Meaning that while we may never see people going to the bathroom or women having their period, the reader can assume they do all that off screen. If our main character is a college professor, then he will get a teacher's salary and be living on that as expected (no driving a Porsche); he'll be worried about tenure, be publishing papers, dealing with bitchy colleagues and, while he is going to have sex with the student, he will worry about getting caught and fired. If the writer presents all this then, in the middle of the story, the professor gets kidnapped by a student to Rio and has a wild adventure involving international spies...then the writer risks pissing off the reader. Why? Well, because they picked that story because they wanted a realistic tale of a sexy student coming on to a realistic professor--not a crazy spy fantasy in Rio.

If the writer had started off with the professor going off to Rio, then the reader would have said, "Oh, it's going to be one of those stories," and agreed or not agreed to reading that. In this story a professor in English lit can somehow hold his own against international spies. In this story cars tumble down hills but no one is hurt or hospitalized. Busty women come onto the professor left and right, not just one sexy student asking for help on her essay. Etc. And this nonsense is fine because that's what writer and reader agreed they wanted.

Which is all to say: What matters isn't how much realism you decide to put in or how much fantasy. What matters is that you maintain LOGIC and CONSISTENCY. If the professor in Rio can fall from a five story building, get up and run away, then he can't fall from a one-story later on and land in the hospital. Logic & consistency. And if he's a Professor in the "real world" worried about tenure, then he also has to be worried about getting caught having sex with a student. Logic and consistency. If he's not real world, then he can't be worried about the college learning he had sex with a student (he's worried about international spies shooting him instead, right?).

Play fair with your reader. Give them the kind of story you promise to give them. Real professor means you're going to find out what it's like to be a real professor and put in those details. Fantasy professor means you're not going to bother, but you'll give them all the fantasy elements they might be after in that kind of adventure story, like stereotypical busty co-eds. What are you promising them? Deliver.

 

[1sickbastard]

Sorry to sound like an Eng Lit exam, but I'm fascinated by the truly fantastic turn that some Literotica stories take. I'm an incest afficionado - I've written a couple myself, but I do try to write so that, with the aid of a very powerful telescope, readers can just see the faint boundaries of the foothills of possibility. But some stories pole vault over those boundaries.

For example, a guy is screwing his mother in a double bed she is sharing with her sleeping husband; she's making suitably enthusiastic noises, but the husband doesn't even notice. I mean, duh!

I accept that the occasional uninhibited fuckfest can be great fun if well written, but shouldn't we expect some degree of rationality and logic. Even the horror genre has its own internal logic, but sometimes I feel our credulity is pulled just a bit too far.

What your asking about, and what other's have expounded at greater length here is the dicotomy between a good story and a story that is "above and beyond the call of disbelief". Most stories on Lit fall somewhere in between.

I've longed for a dual rating system. Most stories on Lit get rated on "stroke factor", (i.e. does the story get you off?). Rarely have I seen really good writing (IMHO) rewarded with the much sought after "H" or the very hard to obtain, green "E". Badly written stories rarely get the 'hot' rating. Very few stories get the green 'E', or are chosen as contest winners.

Do remember that, in the end, this is a porn site. Writing ability and style come in second to the all important stroke factor.

If incest rocks your boat, I'd suggest checking into 'Siblings With Benefits' by Lovecraft, 'A Back Rub for Julia' by Fist of Fury, 'Incest Birthday' by Kevin 88, 'Slut Mommie' by fantasy69, 'Mother's Submission' by Fortunata, or 'Big Changes at Home' and the sequel, 'Reformation' by Polyman.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It's not wise to base your literary discussion on porn, especially not incest porn, because any story that portrays incest as a mutually satisfying sexual experience is by nature bullshit right out of the gate. Porn itself is almost always bullshit because it's sexual propaganda. It portrays sex not as it is, but as we wish it could be.

What you're calling "fantasy" in some porn stories doesn't look like fantasy to me as much as it looks just plan shitty writing. Fiction -- even porn --doesn't have to be real. It just has to seem real. It's the writer's job to make those weird happenings seem believable through his or her skill as a writer, and when he or she doesn't do that, all it really shows is that this he or she are shitty and incompetent writers who just can't do their job.

 

[crystallan]

hello all...

This is nice forum site..I am happy to join it. Thanks for accepting my request as a member of this forum site..............
crystallan here




Coach Outlet
Coach Factory Outlet
Coach Bags

 

[bumblegrum]

Which is all to say: What matters isn't how much realism you decide to put in or how much fantasy. What matters is that you maintain LOGIC and CONSISTENCY. If the professor in Rio can fall from a five story building, get up and run away, then he can't fall from a one-story later on and land in the hospital. Logic & consistency.

3113, far be it from me to cavill at such an erudite and realistic answer. In other words, yeah, right on. But I would like to add just one little comment. The word is CONTEXT. If the daring professor falls from a five storey building, but his fall is broken by a canvas awning that he drops slowly through into the arms of a well endowed passing matron, who clasps him to her ample bosom and says, "Oh you poor man, let me comfort you", then he is uninjured - and the story takes a different turn. Then if later our professor, severely affected by vertigo, falls from a one story building and in so doing, impales himself on a metal spike and lands up in hospital, it is neither inconsistent nor illogical (but very painful ).

These things do require an understanding of the context in which they happen, and it is the author's duty to make that context clear. Yeah, peole can get theri strokes from reading fuckfests, but, IMHO, the strokes are more intense and rewarding if the story is well written and the context clear.

 

[Handley_Page]

hello all...

This is nice forum site..I am happy to join it. Thanks for accepting my request as a member of this forum site..............
crystallan here


Coach Outlet
Coach Factory Outlet
Coach Bags

Welcome to the AH.

 

[Tyro999]

Looking for counterfeit Coach handbags and accessories are you, HP? That's all crystallan is here for, simply spamming.