Arousing the Reader

[English Lady]

Dear doctor..your PM box is full!



*normal broadcasting now resumes*

 

[wildsweetone]

thank you Diane Marie and Pookie_grrl, i was wondering if i would ever make my point clear. i'm glad i managed to.

Yes. It is a dodge to cover up a failed piece

yep it's possible some people use 'intention' in such a manner to cover their failures. i don't though.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Well I just want to go on record disagreeing with those who say that if you develop a good plot and good characters then the sex scenes will be inherently terrific. Dickens had great characters and great plots but if any of his people ever hopped in the sack I would have dropped the book and fled in horror. That's like saying that your dad and mom could make a great X-rated film because you know them so well.

I'm tired of seeing the sex scene and the stroke story disparaged as the erotic equivalent of the knock-knock joke. Sure it's easy to wrote a bad one, but it's easy to write a bad anything. The problem is that all we've seen are bad ones, because so few people can write good ones. So if you can't write one, have the grace to say so and don't pretend that it's infra dig.

Plot in terms of character development is bandied about here like it's the secret of the ages. It's way overrated. So is character in the cintext of these stories. Saying that a guy is 32 and good-looking isn't character. Either is the fact that he's divorced and sad or pensive. Character is being introduced to someone you really don't know and getting involved in him enough that his personality becomes the story.

I deplore the mindless stroker too, but I recognize that it's the fault of the author and not the genre itself. The sexual act is one of the most intense and miraculous things humans can experience, right up there with birth and death, and I don't think there's anything wrong with a literature dedicated to the exploration and description of the act itself and commensurate with our experience of it.

---dr.M.

 

[wildsweetone]

The problem is that all we've seen are bad ones, because so few people can write good ones. So if you can't write one, have the grace to say so and don't pretend that it's infra dig.
---dr.M.

okay i can't write one.

 

[TheEarl]

I can and indeed have in the past. I just don't like them. The equivalent of a quick fuck vs a 6 hour tantric kneetrembler. I'll take the first, but I usually prefer the second if I can get it.

The Earl

 

[English Lady]

Doctor..wow oh wow oh wow...you put your finger on the button with your last comment.

i totally agree with you! I cannot stand these stories where you get a list of statistics at the beginning..like bra size(like someone can tell that by just looking anyways...well maybe a bra fitter could....) height,weight etc etc. i believe these things should become aparent as you read, a little discription of clothing..of general stature can be needed at times but thats all.

A well written sex scene to me has all the different senses of the body stimulated, so it talks about scent, sight, sound as well as touch. Involves peoples tthoughts and emotions aswell as their actions and words, its an amalgamation of all those things. Sex scenes are difficault to write because the are so intense, so explosive so very very special and unique and it is difficault to write down the essence of good sex.

 

[Octavian]

dr_mabeuse

No one is saying that if you develop a good plot and characters the sex scenes are therefore inherently terrific. They have to be well written too. And all three are necessary for good erotica in my opinion. And yes, character is more than giving a person’s age just as plot is more than a woman taking her underwear off and inviting all around to have sex with her.
There may be readers who regard such characterisation and plot as sufficient just as there may be others who regard anything other than the graphic description of the sex act as a waste of words. But I for one would not regard either as erotica.

 

[Pookie]

Well I just want to go on record disagreeing with those who say that if you develop a good plot and good characters then the sex scenes will be inherently terrific.

I agree with you completely. The author needs to write the sex scenes as well as the rest of the story. All I meant with what I said in my prior post is that the characters having sex don’t have to be doing kinky or wild things to make the sex hot if the story around that sex scene is well developed and written.

Dickens had great characters and great plots but if any of his people ever hopped in the sack I would have dropped the book and fled in horror. That's like saying that your dad and mom could make a great X-rated film because you know them so well.

I hope none of my characters remind anyone of Dickens characters. The characters have to fit the story being written. Dickens didn’t design plots or characters for erotic stories. Nor would most of our parents make a great X-rated film. But then again, I don’t think I would think about them when I did my casting call either.

I'm tired of seeing the sex scene and the stroke story disparaged as the erotic equivalent of the knock-knock joke. Sure it's easy to wrote a bad one, but it's easy to write a bad anything. The problem is that all we've seen are bad ones, because so few people can write good ones. So if you can't write one, have the grace to say so and don't pretend that it's infra dig.

I have read some wonderful flash stories by some excellent authors. In those the best authors are able to paint a picture of the characters in my mind, they just have to be very selective with their words. Also, there is some type of plot to them ... even if it is just dealing with a five minute period in a bar. It’s very easy to write a bad one. Very difficult to write a great one.

A “stroke story” to me is just sex with little if any attempt to go beyond something like .... “I whipped out my foot long cock and fucked her this way, then I fucked her that way, then I made her lick me clean, then I stuck it up her ass, then I passed out.”

Plot in terms of character development is bandied about here like it's the secret of the ages. It's way overrated. So is character in the cintext of these stories. Saying that a guy is 32 and good-looking isn't character. Either is the fact that he's divorced and sad or pensive. Character is being introduced to someone you really don't know and getting involved in him enough that his personality becomes the story.

I agree with you up to a point. Character development goes WAY beyond a listing of the person’s characteristics. Listing age, weight, cup size, and penis length is NOT character development at all! Paint me a picture of the person. It goes way beyond a listing of characteristics. But well written character development can never be over-rated in my opinion.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Okay, Pookie, I agree with everything you say. And yes, good characters will get you through a bad plot better than a good plot will save bad characters.

I'm just sensitive about stroke stores, because I started out writing strokers just to blow off erotic steam, and up until lately, that was always my favorite part of my stories, the part I used to wait to get to. But I define a stroke story as a story that only involves the sexual act; I don't define it by the quality of the writing. ANd you're right. Most of them are very bad.


---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

Interesting (lively) discussion........

I received a great feedback email the other day...went something like this:

"Dear Sandman...I started reading one of your stories, sounded pretty good. Then I saw how long it was. I can't wait that long to cum. Sorry......"

Obviously this individual could have cared less that I like time to develop my characters. LOL.........

You win a few.....lose a few. Don't we all?

And.....wildsweetone? (You do so!) <wink>

I remain,

 

[Diane Marie]

Sex scenes, is that what some of you think erotic writing is about? I couldn’t disagree more. Of all my stories here at Lit, the best reviewed and at least according to the men who reviewed it, the most arousing, didn’t have one sex scene in it. Tons of possibilities for someone with an imagination but not one sex scene.

I may someday rewrite that story, way, way to many errors, but it had plot and good characterization. Admittedly some very sexually charged scenes but not one description of a sexual encounter.

Imagination!!!!!!!

 

[English Lady]

surely it depends what you mean by "sex scenes" in my mind anything form a sexually charged conversation to an all out orgy is a sex scene......

 

[its Leslie]

I can put my usual spin on this topic (ie say something no one will agree with hehe).

I think the term erotica is the root of the problem here.

You call it erotica and maybe someone else thinks you really meant romance story.

Is it a jack off story, or is it merely shameless lowest common denominator erotica.

Is the jack off piece merely comic book grade erotica?

If I write a romance story that never once actually mentions anything steamy and descriptive, and yet women end up with moistened cunts and all dreamy, is it fair to call it erotica.

This debate actually reminds me of another debate I have been involved with elsewhere (totally unrelated off Lit subject).
I am a wargamer eh (no shit hehe).

Among the gaming scene there are those that are fervently sure that RTS games (Real Time Simulations) are deserving of the term "wargame". But me I am not so generous.

And I am of the opinion the FPS games (First Person Shooters), are most certainly not wargames (takes more than a looney with a gun to rate the term wargame). I am fully ready to call those games arcade games and leave it there.

So a term can often cause a lot of the trouble.

I wrote one of my stories with the specific intent to get guys to jack off.
I wrote my original story though mainly as a wierd form of therapy. So regardless of its influence on the reader, my original point for writing it will likely never be apparent to a reader.

I think it is fair to say that any story that includes specific highlighting of the sexual act is definitely erotic in nature.
I think it is fair enough that if it is done well it will result in a good number of readers getting off.

I think it is entirely likely though, that the average male reader is not nearly as demanding of the writer as the average female reader. We guys tend to be a bit less complex than the ladies.

If I was going to write for the female audience, you can assume the plot will be incredibly well developed, and you might wait for several chapters before anything happens at all. I will do my best to write characters that are fully developed long before i have them initimately involved.

If I was going to write for a male audience, odds are you won't have trouble having your squirt reading my story. Being a guy myself, I am generally aware of what I want out of erotica.

Last point. I have been reading Terry Goodkinds literature. His first book in the series I am reading is called Wizard's First Rule.
His books are written with whatever style he wrote them in, but I know this, his 4th book had me so incredibly angry at the main villian I was unable to read more than a page or two at a time. I would get so furious and have to put it down.
I doubt Terry had this reaction in mind eh.

The reason the writer wrote a piece, and the effect it has on us are not always the same eh.