Discussion: Introducing Main Characters

[Pure]

The topic of this thread is Introducing Main Characters. I mean the main person(s), protagonist(s), around whom the story revolves.] By this, I mean, how the reader first learns of what a main character is like, whether in physical terms, mental terms or by actions and speech. This seems to be a problem or challenge for many writers of porn/erotica, i.e. there is often woodenness or stereotyping, focussed on the physical appearance (T & A):

"She was a 44-DD California Blonde with bronzed legs that ran impossibly far up her coastline."

What are some of the issues? how much is shown, told, suggested. As well, placement in the opening (or later) paras is a pertinent topic. I have tried to indicate placement, but readers may refer to the original if they want to see the full context. I've included descriptions as well as actions, as best I can, for a full picture.

This thread is meant to be complementary to wishfulthinking's thread about character *development* which is a larger and more complex issue.

Although I've made requests of the authors and given them notice, I've heard nothing. However, imo, 'fair use' applies here regarding critical and educational purposes. And these excerpts are not going outside Literotica, where the whole story is posted.

I've chosen three authors' stories among Literotica's "most read" (over 750,000), as an indication of appeal. Below are excerpts from the beginning portion of each story, to do with character.

It is fine with me, once the thread is underway, if others volunteer [excerpts from] their works. (Check with me first, about selecting an excerpt. Be direct, but polite and charitable!


Questions about the excerpts: [pick one excerpt--more if you like!-- and pick a question from below, or take all of them, or make up your own]

1.How, by what process, is(are) the character(s) [main persons of the story] introduced?

2. How well does this 'introduction' read? On what aspects of the person is it focused? What of its pacing?
(Does it get you interested? make you want to keep going?)

3. How well has the writer integrated description and action? Is there too much description (be it physical ['pretty'] or personal ['friendly']?

4.How has the writer dealt with physical description? Is the focus on sexual attributes? Is your sexual interest piqued? Is the character 'rounded' (human, even unique) at all? How is that accomplished?

5. How is the personality (the person's basic qualities and dispositions, considered as a whole; 'character' in another sense) suggested or implied--e.g. in dialogue, action, etc.? and initially developed, if it is

Note: I have made some 'breaks in longer paras. for ease of reading, hence the number if the para that I give refers to the *author's* original formatting.

Please be respectful of the authors, and they are, of course, invited to 'drop in.'


From very popular stories, all over 750,000 'reads', all in top 20,

From "Cheerleader" by 'TryAnything' [560]
http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=73843

[opening, first para]

Jamie was exhausted as the cheerleading coach dismissed them from practice for the day. Since transferring to City High a month ago, her life had certainly changed. She had found herself making friends easily and had won a position on the cheerleading squad after her first tryout.

As she made her way to the locker room with the rest of the girls, she wryly thought about how hard she had thought it was going to be to leave the school and friends she had known all her life to begin anew. It sure had been a lot easier than she had imagined. Even her twin brother James had found it easy to fit in to the new school and routine. Even as she started to undress to take a shower, James was out at football practice competing for the quarterback position.

[third para]
Jamie self-consciously examined her own body in the mirror. Her tits were nice and firm, very upright with big, dark-cherry nipples on the end. Her waist was very slim, showing a nice flat belly with her thick bush of red hair sticking out below. Her long, thick red hair hung down past her shoulders. She couldn't see anything to complain of, so she joined the others in the shower.

[a bit later]
With that they all went their way as they walked home. As Jamie lived in the opposite direction from the other three, she walked home by herself, reflecting on her new friends. They were always nice to her but she still felt a little like an outsider. Face it, she was.

I've only been here a month, Jamie reminded herself. They've known each other for years. As she continued on her way, Jamie thought about how happy her parents had been to move to Friend, Nebraska. She couldn't believe it when they had told her and James that they were moving from Portland, Oregon to Nebraska. […]

Just as she got to the street she lived on, Jamie heard her name shouted from behind. Turning around, she saw it was James, running to catch up to her. She really loved James. He was so good- looking and nice. Everyone seemed to like him. He was tall, athletic, always did great at everything he tried. As he caught up to her, he grabbed her in a big hug and swung her around.

"I'm going to be the starting quarterback," he announced gleefully. "They told us today."

"Oh, James, I'm so happy for you," Jamie said, hugging him fiercely. "Now I'll really have a reason to cheer."

"How's cheerleading going?" he inquired. "Is it as much fun as you hoped it would be?"

"Well, it's a lot more work than I thought, but I like the girls and it's a good workout. In fact, I'm going out with some of them Friday night," she said, deciding that it was going to be fun watching Sheri in action.

"What about you, any dates in mind yet?" she asked James.

"We'll see," he smiled. "I want to see what being quarterback brings my way. You found anyone yet?" he teased, knowing how shy she was.

"I'm not in any hurry," Jamie said. "Besides, no one's really paid any special attention to me yet."

"They will, especially when they see you out there jumping around in your cheerleading outfit."
------

"A Reluctant Nudist" by SteveP [675 wds]
http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=58056

[beginning, first para]
From my now, rather more knowledgeable experience of life, I've discovered that it's not too unusual to find that the full erotic significance of a particular incident or situation that occurred some time in the past, was not always fully appreciated or even realised at the time in which that specific episode happened. […]

[third para]
Without doubt, the one most consequential episode that comes to mind occurred early in the Australian summer of 1974. Only having very recently arrived in Melbourne after migrating from England and making good use of one of our first free week ends to explore the northern beaches of Westernport Bay, south east of the city, Helen, my wife of just a few months and I, came across a beautiful stretch of beach near a small town called Somers. Getting down on to it required some considerable effort as it involved a hike down a fairly rough track from a makeshift car park and a further fifteen minute walk along it's length to the area of beach that the owners of the many parked cars had painstakingly sought out and chosen to patronise.

[fourth para]
Coming from conservative England, the sight of so many completely naked bodies stretched out on the sand, in the dunes and splashing around in the calm blue water came very much as a shock to the senses. Both looking straight ahead and fearing to make eye contact with any of these nude people, we walked a short distance past the last over exposed body on the beach to a point where we sat ourselves down and had a bit of a laugh about it.

"Well, what are we supposed to do now?" I asked.

"If we just walk straight back past them, it will look as though as if we were only going past to check them out and if we stay here we will look a bit odd if we don't strip off too, and to be honest, that doesn't appeal to me very much." [...] .

[ninth para]
Watching her apply sun lotion to herself, I appreciated just how lucky I was to be married to such an attractive girl. At a tender twenty one years of age, Helen was truly stunning. At close to six feet tall with long, redish dark brown hair, lovely ice blue eyes and a gorgeously well proportioned figure, she looked like she could easily have been a movie star. With her hair cascading down over her ample but firm breasts, she was truly a vision to behold. The curvy lines of her narrow waist flowing on down to those beautiful but lightly sculptured hips and then on down again to those long, slender legs which seemed to go on for ever, confirmed my belief that every part of her was indeed in perfect harmonious proportion. Even her skin was perfect, very fair and smooth, the only blemish being that of her many sexy facial freckles that gave away the subtle clue of her Irish ancestry. […]

"Would you put some lotion on my back where I can't reach?" She asked.

Kneeling down in front of me with her back to me, her long dark hair falling forward over her shoulders, I rubbed in the coconut smelling lotion all over her back. Hesitantly, I untied her top bikini strap so that no area would miss out, half expecting that she might get upset by this. I was pleasantly surprised when she reached behind and undid the main strap herself and took the top off completely.

Then resting back on her hands, whilst turning towards me, she teasingly asked me if I could also rub lotion onto her front as well. After looking around to make sure that no one would be able to see us, I did as she requested using both my hands to apply the lotion. Feeling her normally large nipples starting to shrink and at the same time go nicely erect as they pushed against the soft slippery skin beneath my palms, I began to get an ominous feeling down the front of my togs.

Hindsight, by rgjohn 660
http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=98708


paras 1 and 2
Mary Ellen Jakowski sat in her kitchen with her good friend Dana Carter having their usual morning coffee. The two women had been friends since the Carters moved into the neighborhood five years ago. Their husbands, Richard and Drew, had become buddies as well. They were "backyard" friends, as their privacy fences were connected. In fact, they rarely went to one another's house through the front door. It was a one-block walk around the neighborhood to get to the front door.

The two women normally shared a lively morning conversation but today for some reason, Mary Ellen seemed quiet. She had just had her 35th birthday and was feeling a little down. However, it wasn't only the age thing that was bothering her. It seemed that her relationship with Richard was losing its spark. She knew that that wasn't unusual for a twelve-year marriage and after two kids, but it was difficult to accept nonetheless.

paras 11-15

Drew was in his twenties when they met and married and he had wanted children right away. Dana had refused at first but she was young and eventually gave in to his pressure. It had all worked out for them anyway. They were financially well off now and life was good.

Mary Ellen sighed and gazed out the window at the children playing in the back yard. At least the kids were happy and well adjusted, she thought.

Rockmont was a great upper-middle class community with good public schools and plenty of public parks for kids to play. It had been a strain when they had bought the house eight years ago but it had been worth the struggle. Richard was making great money now with his PC support business and they had even joined the local country club.

She knew that she should have been very happy but, unfortunately, there was a price to pay at home for Richard's success. He was rarely home since he started the business. He had promised in the beginning that the long hours and hard work was only temporary, until he got the business going. However, that was five years ago and he still worked eighty hours a week.

While Richard's work was a big part of Mary Ellen's problem it was not the entire issue. Sometimes she thought he worked just so he didn't have to be around her. It seemed they rarely even touched anymore. Then there were the issues in the bedroom. It had been a long time since they had been intimate. For a while she thought that maybe Richard was having an affair and even considered hiring a private detective. However, deep down she knew that there was a major gap between their desires for sex.

Unfortunately, the gap was about as wide as it could get now. Besides that, Richard had always been hung up about sex and refused anything but the basic missionary position. She had tried to talk to him about it but he refused to even discuss the subject.


On the other hand, it appeared to Mary Ellen that Dana had the perfect life. Drew seemed to be around her all the time. The fact that he worked out of the house had something to do with it, however it was more than that. She could see how loving the two of them acted around each other. They were like newlyweds, always touching and whispering little secrets to one another. They just seemed compatible.

Besides that, Drew was incredibly handsome and sexy. He was in his forties but looked younger, even with his slightly graying hair around the temples. He was tall and well built as well-the rugged outdoors type. He owned some kind of marketing company and appeared to make it work by the sheer power of his personality. Mary Ellen was envious. Not because he was so handsome, but because he was so attentive to Dana.

Dana knew that something was bothering Mary Ellen.

 

[CharleyH]

First of all, I had no idea there were discussions regarding actual writing on the SDC, I always thought it more of a "here is a story, critique it" forum. Thanks Pure, for pointing this out. IT’S A GREAT IDEA.

Lets see. Characters. Well, I personally believe ones style of writing is influenced by what they see and experience. I have a degree in film, and love film and theatre and art and often approach my stories in this way. I also try to put myself in character, a method (Stanislavski way, not that the American, Strasburg(sp) is much different) when thinking of character. I think of whom this person is, what is their goal, and how, with these traits will they achieve it.

This is my process as a writer thinking of character … simplistically.

One mistake I find in newer writers is that they put too much of themselves, life and desires in a story, and I am certain Dr. M is more capable than I to talk to the 2nd person.

As a first person writer, I often introduce my characters in a situation. I have never given back story about why someone is the way they are (except once in Raison D'Etre because there was no other way for me to get the one character across) I write what they are thinking and doing, I hope.

Character comes across best in movement and senses: how one looks at things … what they see and how …touches things, smells, hears and feels or observes what their lover does … in response.

The sexiest thing to me is how someone describes (as we do in writing ) the way someone enters a room, or observes the first exchange of looks between themselves and another character. It tells me a lot about the character, what they see, how they move, what they smell or taste and feel.

I will more specifically comment on the excerpts tomorrow or Saturday, and in my opinion only, of course.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

First of all, I have to say that I don’t think there's a very strong link between a story's popularity and its quality. That might just be sour grapes on my part, but I'm pretty sure that the way the characters are introduced and described in the examples Pure's given have very little to do with those story's particular popularity, so I would dispute that any of those character intro's is especially good or well done.

My opinions only, of course, but what you have there are three "static" descriptions. A static description is where you stop the story while you go about the business of telling us who this person is and what they look like, their history, who they're related to, what they’re doing there, etc. etc. It's a very common technique—probably the most common—and probably the least skillful or graceful way of introducing a character, but it's one you see all the time in beginning writers' work, and most commonly just as it's done here, with a first line or two of action to "put us in the story," and then the break or freeze frame as he describes the person.

Check it out:

Jamie was exhausted as the cheerleading coach dismissed them from practice for the day. Since transferring to City High a month ago, her life had certainly changed. She had found herself making friends easily and had won a position on the cheerleading squad after her first tryout.

Mary Ellen Jakowski sat in her kitchen with her good friend Dana Carter having their usual morning coffee. The two women had been friends since the Carters moved into the neighborhood five years ago. Their husbands, Richard and Drew, had become buddies as well…

You see the pattern: the initial "action" sentence to make us feel we're in a story, then the immediate freeze and static description of who these people are and what they're doing. That's the formula, and once you've noticed it, it jumps out and grabs you by the throat every time you see it. It becomes a gimmick.

A common variation is the quote opening:

"Damn it! Now where did I put those keys?"

Mary Jones shook her pretty head as she looked through her purse. She'd just moved into this new house four days ago and…

The static character introduction always reminds me of the mental hygiene films we used to see in high school, where the film would start with some teens hanging around outside the school, and then the camera would freeze on one of them and the announcer would say, "Meet Billy Smith. Billy's a student an Middleberg High, popular and a good student, the captain of his football team, but like so many young men his age, Billy's confused about masturbation…"

It's not necessarily a bad way to open a movie. Just corny and graceless, and, as I say, once you notice it as a gimmick, it's really annoying.

The middle example—the Australian beach scene—is different only in that it uses more action before it gets to the description. The description is still static. We're told about the character as the story stands in the background tapping its foot impatiently.

It seems better to me to avoid the initial "action" sentence, and, if you're going to tell us, just tell us. There's nothing wrong with telling. It's when it gets gimmicky that it's bad.

The alternative to the static description is, of course, the dynamic description, in which we’re allowed to assess the character by the things we see him or her do and say. This, to me, is a much more interesting and effective way of going about introducing a character. It’s also much more difficult to pull off, which is why beginners avoid it. But when done well, it gets us right into the story and forces us to use our imagination and understanding to make sense of the things we’re seeing. It makes us participate in the story rather than just be the passive recipients of information.

There will probably always be some background and information that can’t be shown in a dynamic description, but at least the dynamic introduction avoids that high school English feel inherent in the static description.


I think it's interesting that what Pure is calling "character" in those three examples is really only physical description. As far as I can tell from these excerpts, these 3 women are interchangeable as far as personality and real character goes. One's a HS student, one's a housewife, one's a newlywed. Other than that, I defy anyone to tell me what sets them apart from one another as "characters" or human beings.

These are porn stories, of course, and all three examples are (I think) written in typical male fashion, where the characters' physical appearances are more important than any issues of personality or character. The question of just how important a character's appearance is to the enjoyment of a story is probably for another discussion, but in my mind, appearance doesn’t matter much, especially when we’re just told what they look like, as if the fact that she has red hair makes her hotter or more interesting than if she’s a blonde or brunette.

It’s what you do with the looks that count, and most beginners overlook this. You tell me she has big tits at the start and maybe I’ll remember or maybe not. But you show me her tits surging back and forth on her chest as she has sex, and I’ll remember. Again, the fact that she has long hair doesn’t mean much to me if that doesn’t enter into the story imagery. It’s the way her hair falls like a curtain around her face when she leans over him that matters, and if you expect me to supply that image based on your having told me back in paragraph one that she has long hair, then you’re not doing your job as a writer. I need to see the dynamic manifestation of her appearance for it to matter at all.

It’s sometimes seems a little sad to me when I read detailed physical descriptions of characters, because you can almost sense the author’s conviction that if he could only convince you of how sexy they look, then you’d love his story and find it as hot as he does. It never works that way though.

I do use physical description, but only when it’s significant. I gave my leather-clad lady vampire cascading blonde curls because I liked the idea of making her look like an angel and thereby playing against the usual vampire type. I might have a woman wearing glasses because I want to show that she’s maybe a bit remote and intellectual. In other words, I use physical description as clues to personality.

Personality. That’s what character is to me. The only reason physical description matters, in my opinion, is in what it tells us about the person’s real character. I don’t see the point of making someone 6’2” 190 lbs of pure muscle if he’s going to be giggling and picking his nose in the story, unless you’re playing against type. If you show me everyone stopping what they're doing and looking up when this guy enters a room, I don’t really care whether he’s 6’2” or 7’9” or 5’4”. I know his character, and once I know his character, I’ll supply my own image of what he looks like. So appearance is high;y overrated in my opinion.

I’ll go ahead and put my own ass on the line with an excerpt of one of my stories. This is from a new story called “Snow and the River” which is supposed to be a very Zen-like scene of a man and a girl having a kind of goodbye sex on a snow covered bridge in the middle of winter. I wanted the beginning of the story to be right up front, with all the back story and character development done in real-time dynamic fashion, so that we learn who they are and what’s going on by watching and listening to them.

He saw her coming through the snow. Her black coat and tights and the black scarf she wore made her look like a Chinese character drawn on rice paper. Even at this distance there was no mistaking the way she walked, arms folded over her chest and back straight, eyes on her feet as if they interested her. He knew though that she saw everything around her. She always did. He stuffed the envelope he'd been drawing on into his pocket and capped the black marker and put it away. The poor paper was already wet with snow and making the ink bleed.

Now I have a very clear idea myself of what this girl looks like, but I didn’t want to start talking about her short dark hair and slight frame, her delicacy and intelligence, so I used the fact that she looks like a black Chinese character against the snow to give the idea that she was thin, and I think her black clothes already suggest that her hair’s dark too. Her delicacy is further conveyed by the fact that she’s obviously cold (her arms are crossed over her chest), a certain amount of pride by her straight back, and her intelligence by his comment that she saw everything around her. The way he hurriedly puts away his drawing stuff shows that she has an effect on him, and the fact that she’s come out in the cold to meet him says that he has an effect on her too. Something’s going to happen between these two, and all that without telling you her cup size.

What I really wanted to convey was what she was to him--his experience of her character. I don't want to seem like I'm crowing about this rather pedestrian description, but this girl has character. She's not a cipher with tits. It’s not the smoothest piece of writing in the world, but it fits the overall tone of the piece and keeps me from having to stop the action while I sit the reader down and describe her to him and tell him just who she is and what she’s doing here. And—I hope—it makes you curious as to just what brought her out here to this bridge in the snow.

Of course, I didn’t consciously do all this. I just saw the scene in my mind and described it, including those details that seemed instinctively important to me. I think it has to happen instinctively.

One last thing I’d mention is that we might look to at Charley’s last story here, the one about the reluctant Domme. I don’t recall a single character description in there, but I have a perfect image of what everyone looks like. That’s a fine example of how character determines appearance. Make your people real, and it doesn't much matter what their cup size it

--Zoot

 

[Penelope Street]

None of the three openings above interest me enough to even finish reading the portions posted, let alone the entire story.

The cheerleader is particularly dull. Where's the conflict? Does she have any problems? I don't care who she fucks anymore than I care what shampoo she uses.

The housewives Mary and Dana aren't much better. Although I was told Mary is feeling down and why, I was shaking my head by the end of the second paragraph. Two women, good friends no less, are chatting- where are their words? The saddest part is the women could have discussed Mary's issues. Although it's omitted above, the women end up discussing their children and then the story degenerates into historical backfill about Dana, who isn't the character with the issue.

Of the three, I think the tale of the reluctant nudist is by far the most interesting simply because one of the characters has an immediate dilemma. Also, there's some action. Not exactly riveting action, but it's better than a summary of the couple's relationship to this point. Unfortunately, the character with the dilemma is not the one telling the story, a poor choice, imo.

Most stories I enjoy start with an unhappy person- or at the very least a happy person with an immediate problem. The opening scene is still a scene and it should start with a person and a goal, right? The best way to introduce the character is to show them doing something that allows me to understand the nature of the problem and the character's goal. I don't need to know that much about the character- this I can learn as I go- initially I only need to understand the dilemma. It can be something simple, like running to catch a train. It doesn't have to be *the* major conflict of the story.

Show me a character with a problem that I can relate to and I'll read on. Bore me with some ramblings about the characters and you've most likely lost me.

Even brushing one's teeth is an activity with a goal and thus is better than an opening like Lolly looked out the window and sighed. She had met Jeff five years ago. They hit it off well at first, but two years ago after their first child was born... *Yawn*

I'm not sure if there's a proper term for this method of character development, but I refer to it as historical backfill. Seeing it is almost a back-click trigger for me now, even though I must confess I've done the same things a few times myself. *sigh*

 

[CharleyH]

I am not sure I can add much to what Doc and Penny have said, and said so well. I am not perfect, but read the first paragraph of Try anything and was not interested. No offence. I'd have been more drawn with a lead in that was an action sequence with Jamie performing and winning her first try out.

I think the one thing from this passage that stood out was this:

[third para]
Jamie self-consciously examined her own body in the mirror. Her tits were nice and firm, very upright with big, dark-cherry nipples on the end. Her waist was very slim, showing a nice flat belly with her thick bush of red hair sticking out below. Her long, thick red hair hung down past her shoulders. She couldn't see anything to complain of, so she joined the others in the shower.

The thing about mirrors is that it’s a given to examine oneself, its always been the stereotypical thing for women, theoretically. But, I would rather a description that SHOWS me how she examines herself. I never understand in this paragraph why she is self-conscious, or what she is self-conscious about if she has nice firm tits and a slim belly. It seems contradictory in the description, especially if she sees nothing to be self-conscious about at the end of the paragraph.

I hate to use my own story in such instances, but I had a mirror scene in the story Doc (who humbles me way too much!!!) speaks of, and which I am very proud of (mucho thanks to Lauren Hynde and Black Shanglan for their suggestions on the chapter as a whole):

I pinched my stomach and grimaced, more crunches. Domination had always been something I felt was natural and familiar to me, and it was overly visible in my features, in my posture, my voice and particularly in my ice green eyes. I turned forward, my hair slicked back behind my ears, my lips dripping with crimson and the light polishing the stiff swatches of leather on my clothes.

“Madame Phoenix, your eight o’clock is here,” Miss Lenore said, standing in the door.

“Thank you.”

I grabbed my strap-on harness, slipping in one leg, then bending my fingers around the leather, pulling it securely through my crotch, and taut around my waist. I didn’t have much in the way of hip. I turned toward the mirror. The leather blended nicely, as if it were a natural part of my body. I turned to the side, adjusted the purple jelly dildo, let go, and watched it bob and stiffen. There was still a bit of give – too much. I readjusted it against my pussy, tightened the straps and then walked out of the room down the hall, my boots clicking on the wood floor of the Victorian house.

I like this because my character shows us her self-consciousness, never tell us she is - we see it, and is flawed ... she grabs her belly, merely comments she does not have hips. She notices the dildo not tight enough to her body, and she needs it to be perfect for her client, an attentive detail to give a good product and attentive to detail, which she revists later in the chapter. The lips are good, and the leather is natural even if it's not, its a dichotmy that reflects her main question: is a mistress made or born .

But, it at least shows her self-consciousness about something, her flaws, rather than telling that she is flawed and self-conscious and then going on to describe how she isn't self-conscious and is perfect after all, like the paragraph I just read. My character is human.

People don't examine themselves closely in a mirror – they look at themselves and determine whether or not they look good enough, or hot enough today or tonight and it changes from day to day. For example, think of how you look in a mirror in this story (and it’s a good exercise for writing a mirror scene for anyone male or female to look at themselves in a mirror and determine what they see before writing a character). Does one really think, "oh, I have dark cherry nipples" for example? Or a huge thick cock that can rip a pussy? I doubt it, lol. (just an observation).

Others may have a different opinion.

 

[CharleyH]

Most stories I enjoy start with an unhappy person- or at the very least a happy person with an immediate problem. The opening scene is still a scene and it should start with a person and a goal, right?

Do you say this in short stories only, or do you expect the same from novels you read? Curious :

I understand the scene aspect in a movie - next time you watch one? The first 5 minutes always sum up every metaphor and theme. Watch closely and you will see (sorry to ruin it, lol)

What are the same 5-minutes in reading a novel or short story? I am curious about this.. Is it a paragraph in a short story and a chapter in a novel? For example?

 

[Penelope Street]

Do you say [the above] in short stories only, or do you expect the same from novels you read? Curious

I expect to see a character doing something within a couple of paragraphs. A novel may get a few extra paragraphs to establish setting, but that's about it.

I understand the scene aspect in a movie - next time you watch one? The first 5 minutes always sum up every metaphor and theme. Watch closely and you will see (sorry to ruin it, lol)

LOL. You're going to have to tell me a lot more than that before you spoil it for me.

I'd have been more drawn with a lead in that was an action sequence with Jamie performing and winning her first try out.

So true. Even though I might not ever have liked Jamie, I could have at least understood what she wanted in such a scene.

 

[Pure]

Question for discussion:

How do these excerpts accord with the theory that there must be immediate action, statement of a problem of the protagonist, etc.; with the theories that say 'avoid description'.

these from a bunch of public domain 'great short stories' at

http://ee.1asphost.com/shortstoryclassics/index.html

or use
http://eserver.org/books/poe/

Poe, The Black Cat

FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not -- and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified --have tortured --have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror -- to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place -- some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.


From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.

[added, 11-28, next paras.]

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point - and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character - through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish - even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

=======

The Little Convent Girl

by Grace King



SHE was coming down on the boat from Cincinnati, the little convent girl. Two sisters had brought her aboard. They gave her in charge of the captain, got her a state-room, saw that the new little trunk was put into it, hung the new little satchel up on the wall, showed her how to bolt the door at night, shook hands with her for good-by (good-bys have really no significance for sisters), and left her there. After a while the bells all rang, and the boat, in the awkward elephantine fashion of boats, got into midstream. The chambermaid found her sitting on the chair in the state-room where the sisters had left her, and showed her how to sit on a chair in the saloon. And there she sat until the captain came and hunted her up for supper. She could not do anything of herself; she had to be initiated into everything by some one else.

She was known on the boat only as "the little convent girl." Her name, of course, was registered in the clerk's office, but on a steamboat no one thinks of consulting the clerk's ledger. It is always the little widow, the fat madam, the tall colonel, the parson, etc. The captain, who pronounced by the letter, always called her the little convent girl. She was the beau-ideal of the little convent girl. She never raised her eyes except when spoken to. Of course she never spoke first, even to the chamber maid, and when she did speak it was in the wee, shy, furtive voice one might imagine a just-budding violet to have; and she walked with such soft, easy, carefully calculated steps that one naturally felt the penalties that must have secured them - penalties dictated by a black code of deportment.

She was dressed in deep mourning. Her black straw hat was trimmed with stiff new crape, and her stiff new bombazine dress had crape collar and cuffs. She wore her hair in two long plaits fastened around her head tight and fast. Her hair had a strong inclination to curl, but that had been taken out of it as austerely as the noise out of her footfalls. Her hair was as black as her dress; her eyes, when one saw them, seemed blacker than either, on account of the bluishness of the white surrounding the pupil. Her eye-lashes were almost as thick as the black veil which the sisters had fastened around her hat with an extra pin the very last thing before leaving. She had a round little face, and a tiny pointed chin; her mouth was slightly protuberant from the teeth, over which she tried to keep her lips well shut, the effort giving them a pathetic little forced expression. Her complexion was sallow, a pale sallow, the complexion of a brunette bleached in darkened rooms. The only color about her was a blue taffeta ribbon from which a large silver medal of the Virgin hung over the place where a breastpin should have been. She was so little, so little, although she was eighteen, as the sisters told the captain; otherwise they would not have permitted her to travel all the way to New Orleans alone.

Unless the captain or the clerk remembered to fetch her out in front, she would sit all day in the cabin, in the same place, crocheting lace, her spool of thread and box of patterns in her lap, on the handkerchief spread to save her new dress. Never leaning back - oh, no! always straight and stiff, as if the conventual back board were there within call.
She would eat only convent fare at first, notwithstanding the importunities of the waiters, and the jocularities of the captain, and particularly of the clerk. Every one knows the fund of humor possessed by a steamboat clerk, and what a field for display the table at meal-times affords. On Friday she fasted rigidly, and she never began to eat, or finished, without a little Latin movement of the lips and a sign of the cross. And always at six o'clock of the evening she remembered the angelus, although there was no church bell to remind her of it.

 

[Penelope Street]

In The Black Cat the narrator certainly has a problem, and a goal. There's even implicit action- he's writing the story on the eve of his death. If I am to believe it's truly a document written under such circumstances, then it needs to have a distant, even rambling, feel, no? Still, it's a dry read for me and I found myself wanting to skim. Much more of the same and I'd probably give up on it. What do I know about this character fifteen minutes after I've read it? All I remember if that he's about to die and has what he thinks is an extraordinary tale to tell. I think he was married. The rest of his history, I'm afraid it's already slipped my mind. On the other hand, he is establishing some character, I think he's moody (I would be too in his shoes) and at least a tad self-important.

In The Little Covenent Girl there is some action as well, but it is described in a passive way, starting with the opening line. I suspect this is intentional, but I'm still not sure I like it. The description in the third paragraph is far too long, imo. By the end of this opening, I still don't know the girl all that well. My intuition is I'd know her much better if I'd simply seen her in one scene that exemplified her devoutness. So what do I know about her? She's meek, devout, and I can infer she has a problem and it's at least someone's goal that she reach New Orleans. What's lacking is her emotion, thus I'm not yet able to share her experience.

One of the reasons static descriptions agitate me is that they often answer questions and remove intrigue. Not so in the case of the above two openings, I'm left to wonder why is it the man will die tomorrow; and why the girl is being sent to New Orleans? Questions are good and the biggest reason I'd be tempted to read on is to answer them.

By my definition, the above two openings aren't really scenes; they're more like introductions. As little as I thought of the excerpt Rumple provided from Dan Brown's story, at least Dan's opening to his other story is a true scene:

Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.

Even though I prefer this style of opening, I don't recall that anyone said there must be immediate action. My preference is for the story to start with a true scene, but given the multitude of stories that exist there are bound to be a number of well-written examples that use a different recipe and still work.

 

[Pure]

Another example:

Hi Penny,
Thanks for your thoughts.
I've added the next piece to the Poe in the posting above. I'm not sure when you will say there is a true scene, but we get to a shocking one. The virtue of having that in para. seven is that we slide into it, subtly and with a whiff of menace, yet still are surprised.

As to Brown's opening, Penny, I take it you admire the action, despite the atrocious writing. In my view it's archetypally bad writing. The 'renowned' fellow, staggers, lunges, grabs and heaves-- and along the way we learn of a vaulted archway and the fellow's exact age. It's a bid to grab the read[er] without any finesse or subtlety.

But I do not object, in itself, to the formula of immediate action. What do you and others think of this opening?

The author is a well known, very talented published writer of erotica

http://www.susannahindigo.com/writingonline.html
http://www.eclectica.org/v6n1/indigo.html

Mapping Charlotte
by Susannah Indigo


The night before my wife disappeared, she turned to me at twilight and said, "I have unruly thoughts." I hoped she was referring to me, and the fact that our three-year old daughter was sound asleep at an unusually early hour after a long afternoon garden party celebrating my parents' fiftieth anniversary. I moved toward my wife, Charlotte, and ran my hands down the back of her red party dress. I remember that she did not shiver and withdraw from my touch that night the way she had begun to do so often that summer.

But that last night in our home in Montreal in late August was different. Charlotte came to me willingly, right there on our patio, lifting her dress and climbing up on my lap. I don't remember that she smiled during any of this, but a man starved for affection could easily overlook that fact. She looked as beautiful to me as she did the night that I had first met her in Paris ten years earlier, even though for quite some time she had taken to changing her look every few months without explanation. She straddled me and kissed me with her full red lips, the one part of her body she had not yet tried to alter. She wore the same lipstick every single day, even when she was in her eating-nachos-for-breakfast phase. There were often lipstick tubes of the shade called Burnished Rose to be found in bathrooms and cars, and somehow this stability reassured me. She didn't say anything to me that last night as we made love--not a word, not the murmur of my name, Michael, not even a small sigh--but I looked in her eyes and she was right there for me.

No matter what everyone else says now, almost two years after her disappearance, no matter how often it is suggested to me that if my wife isn't dead she has to be crazy and it's not my fault, I believe that none of these things can possibly be true.

 

[Penelope Street]

re: Brown
I first read that piece during a trip when I couldn't sleep while staying at a friend's home. 'Renowned' brought a smile to my face at once. I was also good and drowsy before the end of the second scene. Probably a coincidence.

re: Poe
LOL. Well, that's moody enough for me. Good thing I'm a dog person. I admire the style in that the story reads how I imagine a journal would, but it doesn't really move me.

re: Indigo
This opening is interesting in that it introduces a character with a problem. I think I might liked it better if the story had started with him explaining his wife's disappearance to Lt. Whoever of the local police or when he first sees her again.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

One thing we should say at the outset is that there are no hard and fast rules in ficition. All you have to do is tell me "show, don't tell" os a Law of Fiction and I'll find you a dozen examples of great stories that are done entirely in "tell" style, so I'm sure there are any number of stories with dead-static character descriptions that work just fine, and I know that, like Penny, I've used them myself. The key of course is to be aware of what you're doing and in control of it, and that's why we do critiques.

So I don't realy cotton to any rules about how to go about introducing your characters or whether a story should start with action or description or scene or what. I just came down on the one-line-of-action-followed-by-static-description opening because I think it's trite and formulaic and too many people use it. It's become a gimmick, which means it's lost its freshness. I have no doubt that it can still be made to work, though, as anything can be made to work.

(Just as an example, look what you get if you take the first action sentence of The Little Convent Girl and combine it with the third paragraph's static description:

SHE was coming down on the boat from Cincinnati, the little convent girl. She was dressed in deep mourning. Her black straw hat was trimmed with stiff new crape, and her stiff new bombazine dress had crape collar and cuffs. She wore her hair in two long plaits fastened around her head tight and fast. Her hair had a strong inclination to curl, but that had been taken out of it as austerely as the noise out of her footfalls.

It reads a lot like a typical Literotica story now, doesn't it?)

The Poe example is interesting, because Poe wrote over 150 years ago, and fashions do change. (In fact, most of the stories I see on Literotica are modelled on a circa 1950's model of story writing--Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest style fiction--which is kind of weird. If Literotica were a music site and the same conventions were followed, people would be posting Perry Como and Doris Day songs.) Poe had more time to play with; his readers were more patient. Plus, they expected High Language and a certain literary bombast in their prose, and they required more emotionalism in their fiction. They were perfectly willing to sit and watch the author pull his hair and beat his breast and blubber and follow him through his tragic descent into madness or whatever. They wanted their stories to be filled with big emotions and grotesqueries.

You can't get away with that stuff today unless you're working in a genre where that's expected. No one talks like that anymore. No one even feels like that anymore, and when I read Poe (or HP Lovecraft), I'm always resisting the urge to shout, "Oh get a grip, man!"

We're cooler and hipper now (for good or ill) and more psychological, and in my stuff at least, I like to see into people rather than just watch what they do. I think that's why mere physical description is so disappointing and unsatisfying for me. I really liked Charley's mirror scene (I didn’t even notice it was a mirror scene when I read it, in fact) because it's so revelatory about her character's inner person. That's very slick—getting to know the inside and the outside at the same time. It seems to be one of the keys to character description for me.

Poe's example is interesting too because it's first person, and you've got to ask youself what it means to "introduce" a first-person narrator. Does it even have to be done?

"Convent Girl" is interesting too, because that's a perfect example of killing two birds with one stone. You may think you're just getting phjysical description, but actually the author's telling us all about this girl, what she thinks of herself, how her family treats her, what the crew thinks about her, so that by the end we even know what her family and the boat crew are like. And all that's done in the context of describing the girl, which is pretty cool. (Think how clunky it would have been had the author used separate paragraphs to describe the girl's family and the crew.)

The author even uses her style to reinforce the girl's character, making her description of her clothing so tedious and fussy that we get a feel for her tight and meticulous personality too. The prose is a little too dense for me to really like, but I do admire the author's skill. She's in control.

As for Dan Brown… Well, who can resist kicking a millionaire author when he's down? Not I.

Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.

The gaffe is immediate: "Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere…" "Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne…" "Handome man-about-town Nick Charles…" That went out with the pulps. It's the "Renowned" that does it, that almost pitiful attempt to give his story importance at the start by shoving his "renown" in our faces. It's a big "tell." There's no problem if it's "Chief curator Jacques Sauniere…" It's that irrelevant value judgment that makes us feel that he's trying to cram too much stuff into there.

Same thing happens when he refers to him as " the seventy-six-year-old man". His age seems to have nothing to do with what's happening, and so it's gratuitous and awkward. If he had grabbed the frame in "hands crippled by arthritis" it might have been a little better and we wouldn't have to be counting birthday candles.

I liked "Mapping Charlotte." Great title, great, great first line: "I have unruly thoughts." You've just got to read more and find out what she's talking about. That second sentence is a little information-rich for me, but it works because the author immediately snaps back into concrete sensual imagery—the feel of her red party dress under his hand.

And then we have a very nice dynamic description of her character as revealed by her appearance, and all in the conext of woman-on-top sex. She's described in all these terms of things she didn't do, and that, combined with the symbolism of her makeup (false face) makes us feel that she's already missing. That touch about him being reassured by all the tubes of lipstick she left around is brilliant: he's reassured by her very falseness, her cover-up. She's described in terms of negative space, and it's obvious that he doesn't know her at all. Very nice.

 

[Pure]

Good points, mab. The convent girl is a well known and respected piece by a Southern white woman writer, early 20th cent iirc, with excellent control of her craft.

Same for yours, Penny. Maybe look at either story Black Cat or Convent Girl and see what you think.

As to

Penny: Good thing I'm a dog person.

Me too. But in fact the story should be in the SPCA digest: the progression of cruelty to the pets, then the shocking cruelty to the cat,
[and more to come] mark the character's utter moral degeneration and eventual end in hell.

I rather like this, since several serial killers are known to have been cruel to animals, early on in life; in child, it's often a sign of budding psychopathy.

 

[CharleyH]

LOL. You're going to have to tell me a lot more than that before you spoil it for me.

lol, cigarette burns have ruined my cinema experience ever since learning of them - I will refrain from explaining, and let you enjoy your movies! lol

Pure: wonderful sequay to a next question about Poe. I will read Penny and Doc and respond if I can ... and when. The samples are intriguing.

 

[drlust]

Better late than never...

Hi all:

Sorry to be a late comer to this thread. It's that time of the semester when it seems that all I do is grade, grade, grade papers. Does anyone know if high school teachers in the US require students to include verbs in their sentences any more? It sure seems to me these days that they're missing this basic rule of writing. But I whine...

Thanks so much Pure for launching this thread. As I've struggled to get good at writing fiction, I've thought long and hard about how to let me reader know who my characters are, what their motivations are, and what they look like. I've had to fight the urge to tell rather than show and, as I reflected on this thread and then thought about some of the stories of mine that have been popular, I had to laugh to (at?) myself, because some of my more popular stories have way too much tell and not enough show. I suppose this lends credence to Dr. M's point about popularity and quality not being linked.

I want to join the chorus here, though, to say that mostly I found all three of the original examples uninteresting enough that I probably wouldn't have read on in any of the stories. Like Penny, I want to have the sense that something is going to happen here, and none of those introductions of characters gave me the sense that something interesting, scary, suprising, erotic, was going to happen with any of them. Mostly, I felt like the author was just pointing -- "look, she's going to have sex" -- so that I wouldn't miss what was coming. Or, in the case of the women having coffee, I was just bored.

The best writing teacher I had in college told us that she selected books to read by walking into a bookstore/library, pulling books off the shelf at random, and reading the first paragraph. If the first paragraph didn't grab her, she put it back and tried another, and another, until she was hooked. I do that still and often come up with some really good things to read that way.

So, in my own writing, I try to focus on that first paragraph. Before I sat down to write this posting, I went back and re-read the first paragraphs of all my stories posted in Lit and, alas, I can't offer up one example that I would be proud enough of to say it's an exemplar of what I'm talking about here. Instead, how about this, drawn from something that happened to me this afternoon:

Standing next to his car, Allan paused, key hovering at the lock and looked down. What were black satin panties doing there on the ground next to his car?


This is only a first version of an idea drawn from the real life experience of finding a black satin thong on the ground next to my car in my regular parking space at the University. I thought about them all the way home, because it seemed to me that a simple moment like that opened up all sorts of intriguing possibilties. Had they been left there on purpose? Were they dropped in the midst of a crime? Had they fallen from a woman's purse as she walked past my car? Was a transvestite colleague looking madly for them? Simple moments like this can be pregnant with possibility and, with a better introductory sentence or two than the ones I just wrote above, those possibilities can be mined in a way that suck the reader in.

So, here's a suggestion for the thread. Take that moment--someone finding a pair of black satin panties on the ground next to their car and write no more than four sentences to start the story. I know you can do better than what I just wrote.

Allan

 

[Penelope Street]

The convent girl is a well known and respected piece by a Southern white woman writer, early 20th cent iirc, with excellent control of her craft.

I finally made time to read The Little Convent Girl. My reaction was something akin to a shrug. I'm not sure if it's just not my kind of story or if there's some profound meaning that simply eludes me.

Added:
Upon reflection, I don't think much eluded me after all. I can see how the story was probably quite sobering to the audience of a century ago. It's tighter than I originally gave it credit for being and I especially like where the girl must have acquired the intolerance that caused to become so distraught. That she is so devout was probably endearing to the intended audience, but for an agnostic like me I think it served to keep me at too safe a distance.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

The best writing teacher I had in college told us that she selected books to read by walking into a bookstore/library, pulling books off the shelf at random, and reading the first paragraph. If the first paragraph didn't grab her, she put it back and tried another, and another, until she was hooked. I do that still and often come up with some really good things to read that way.

This is exactly the way I will pick something to read... and why my husband constantly laments, "How come you can ALWAYS find something when we go into a bookstore and I can't?" Because you're reading the back of the book, sweetie, and I'm delving in... it's the difference between standing outside of the bakery and actually going in to taste a sample...

So, in my own writing, I try to focus on that first paragraph. Before I sat down to write this posting, I went back and re-read the first paragraphs of all my stories posted in Lit and, alas, I can't offer up one example that I would be proud enough of to say it's an exemplar of what I'm talking about here.

I just did this too... went back to look at any of my stories to see if they passed my own test...

I liked fewer than I thought I would...! This one might grab me... "I asked her what the hell had she left on my kitchen table, and she said it was an advent calendar."

Or maybe this one: "It was a 1978 Nova, technically a classic according to Paj, and it was all hers, a summer waitressing job at Denny's later, only she couldn't bring it home."

but the rest? Um, probably not... sucks when you fail your own litmus test...

 

[Penelope Street]

It was a 1978 Nova, technically a classic according to Paj, and it was all hers, a summer waitressing job at Denny's later, only she couldn't bring it home.
Even though I had some reservations about the start to this story, I liked the above as an opening line. While lacking action, it made me wonder who Paj was, what was the relationship between the two characters, and why she couldn't bring her car home.

 

[V M Willyams]

This is exactly the way I will pick something to read... and why my husband constantly laments, "How come you can ALWAYS find something when we go into a bookstore and I can't?" Because you're reading the back of the book, sweetie, and I'm delving in... it's the difference between standing outside of the bakery and actually going in to taste a sample...

I also try to open the book to a few random pages and see if those pages are of similar quality to the first paragraph. These days, commercialistic writers often focus almost solely on the first and last few pages and assume that the rest of the book follows naturally.


To follow on Dr Mabeuse's point earlier on, I just wanted to note that physical descriptions are something which it is difficult to do without in erotic fiction. Whilst in other genres, it *may* be possible to get away without outright describing the character, erotic fiction (in my admittedly limited experience) seems to necessitate an explicit degree of "telling" when describing the physical side of a person. However, I do agree that a writer should attempt to integrate this into the general weave of the story rather than simply doing as most of the stories on this site do: A single paragraph that sums up the individual's appearance.

Incidentally, when speaking of dynamic introductions, you've got to bear in mind that you are in fact writing a short story rather than a novel. Dynamic introductions come in four different ways (IIRC):

- How the character acts.
- How the character speaks.
- How others treat the character.
- How others speak about the character.

Since this is a short story of erotic fiction (therefore almost always focused on two people), the 4th is most likely going to be barred to us, unless we are willing to bog down the story with a third character who may be hard to work into the piece effectively. Since the interaction with others is frequently limited almost entirely to sex, you are frequently confined to the mind of one character, which does not give you a very effective ability to explore that one character. Before anyone says anything, a first person perspective does not give you the right to make your narrator completely devoid of personality.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that dynamic introductions are both considerably more difficult and considerably more important in short stories than in other forms of prose. In a novel, you can lay aside a few scenes or even chapters and devote them almost entirely to character description and growth. In a short story, every single line should be devoted to advancing the plot as quickly as is possible, so that the story does not grow stale. This is often particularly important in erotic fiction, where the audience is frequently interested primarily in the sex scene and the build up to the sex scene. If there are extraneous character interaction scenes devoted solely to telling the backstory, then unless the backstory is excellent the reader will soon grow bored.

(Incidentally, I think the form lends itself best to humour or romance backstories rather than anything of deeper meaning or symbolism. The reader is unlikely to be looking for a work of art, merely something with a deeper sense of immersion and eroticism than typical pornography provides... not a huge feat by any standard)

So there's my rambling contribution to the discussion. Do with it as you see fit.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Whilst in other genres, it *may* be possible to get away without outright describing the character, erotic fiction (in my admittedly limited experience) seems to necessitate an explicit degree of "telling" when describing the physical side of a person.

What degree, do you think? I have to remind myself to describe my characters, and usually stop at eye/hair color for women, usually even just hair color for men and maybe a description of his body type (tall, stocky, whatever) woven in somewhere... I usually leave a LOT to the reader's imagination... in that way, I like gentle brush strokes, suggestive lines, rather than fully painted pictures... as a reader, I prefer this kind of description as well... long, descriptive paragraphs put me to sleep So I probably tend to write more in the style I like to read... which is probably the case for most of us...

and, too, I think that erotic fiction "necessitating" a telling kind of physical description is a misnomer... perhaps it is the formulaic view of erotica... but read "The Story of O" and tell me what she looks like, really? I would bet that our images of her wouldn't match... that's the beauty of fiction...

and don't underestimate your readers... I hate it when an author assumes that I won't "get it" unless they directly tell me. This goes for everything from descriptions to plot twists. Yes, *sometimes* there are a few who aren't going to get it... but I'm not going to write for them. If a majority of people CAN get it from a few suggestive lines, I would rather leave it at that. <shrug> It's probably a personal preference kind of a thing...

 

[Penelope Street]

I'm with you, Selena; I think it is a myth that readers expect a physical description of the characters. Depending on the plot and the narrator, my stories include descriptions ranging from detailed to none.

 

[Varian P]

Whilst in other genres, it *may* be possible to get away without outright describing the character, erotic fiction (in my admittedly limited experience) seems to necessitate an explicit degree of "telling" when describing the physical side of a person.

I'm inclined to agree with Selena and Penny. I think I've only done a head-to-toe check-out on a character once, and it was because he's meant to be so darned pretty as to be mesmerizing, and it's a key to his character and the plot.

When reading erotica or anything else, I usually find inventory style descriptions of characterss physical appearance off-putting, first, because it's usually done in a formulaic manner that just makes it feel like "one of those" stories, and second, because an author's notion of idealized erotic appeal is his or hers, and very seldom mine, so I'm less attracted to the detailed picture than I would have been to the subtler allusion.

Usually I give a glimpse--a mention of hair or eye color, or body type, but little more, at least at introduction.

However, when I get into how the characters are responding to one another--looking at and noticing little things about one another as they get close, start to have feelings of one kind or another, I do give details about little nuances of the person's physical appearance, or how their lips feel to another's lips, how hard or soft a part of their body is under someone's fingers, etc., as a way of trying to convey a sensual experience.

-V

 

[V M Willyams]

I'm inclined to agree with Selena and Penny. I think I've only done a head-to-toe check-out on a character once, and it was because he's meant to be so darned pretty as to be mesmerizing, and it's a key to his character and the plot.

When reading erotica or anything else, I usually find inventory style descriptions of characterss physical appearance off-putting, first, because it's usually done in a formulaic manner that just makes it feel like "one of those" stories, and second, because an author's notion of idealized erotic appeal is his or hers, and very seldom mine, so I'm less attracted to the detailed picture than I would have been to the subtler allusion.

Usually I give a glimpse--a mention of hair or eye color, or body type, but little more, at least at introduction.

However, when I get into how the characters are responding to one another--looking at and noticing little things about one another as they get close, start to have feelings of one kind or another, I do give details about little nuances of the person's physical appearance, or how their lips feel to another's lips, how hard or soft a part of their body is under someone's fingers, etc., as a way of trying to convey a sensual experience.

-V

Which is precisely my point... I wasn't saying that you need to have a paragraph or two devoted solely to the character's physical description. I was saying that it's difficult to write a compelling sex scene without adding any descriptors to body parts, thereby illustrating a character's physical form.

Come to think of it, that's usually showing rather than telling, isn't it... Gah, damn vague descriptions for writing style...

 

[Pure]

Example

Tina Hess is an accomplished, published writer of erotica, with her own site: In this story of about 1400 words, she's very 'tight' and economical, and obviously the 'telling' is going to have to be minimal.

Here's the url and the opening. I urge you to look at the whole thing, since I think it's quite good.

Comments on the introduction of the characters??

Land of the Zipless Fuck

http://www.tinahess.com/excerpt.html

[verbatim excerpt for review and discussion purposes]

When I saw him board the train, I knew right then that I had to have him. Perhaps it was his wild-man look: the long blonde hair in need of a brushing, the five o’clock shadow that was thickening into a beard, or the restless look in his eyes. Then, again, maybe I had been reading too much Henry Miller. The Land of Fuck had been sounding better and better each night that I spent alone with my eternally limp boyfriend. Besides, Jong talked about the zipless fuck a lot lately. I’d never been to the Land, and never with a virile stranger.


It just so happened the young suit in the seat next to me fell to the floor as this unkempt, wild man looked my way. (Damn my elbows anyway! I always did have quick reflexes.) While the yuppie whimpered curse words from the floor, the wild man took the vacated seat, seeming quite unaware of the sacrifice made for him.


I didn’t know what to do next. To be quite honest, I was riding by the seat of my moist pants. What the hell had gotten into me? Just the sight of this savage looking stranger who reeked of motor oil made my clothes feel like a prison. Maybe it was just too long since I’d gotten my jollies, but why was he exciting my libido? Having him seemed as necessary as food. All inhibitions and shyness fell to the floor with the yuppie.
[end excerpt]

 

[Penelope Street]

Tina Hess is an accomplished, published writer of erotica, with her own site: In this story of about 1400 words, she's very 'tight' and economical, and obviously the 'telling' is going to have to be minimal.

... I urge you to look at the whole thing, since I think it's quite good.

You're right; it is good. I loved the part about clothes feeling like a prison. The narrator is developed just enough that I'm willing to believe her behavior. When I first read the excerpt, it stirred me a bit, but my level of arousal dropped as the story progressed. I like things to simmer a bit before going to boil and this one was just a little too fast. Ok, it's a lot too fast. Still, 1400 words- hard to imagine an erotic story of this length being any better.