Do you plan for a climax in your stories?

[Pure]

I don't mean sexual necessarily, but do you plan for ONE height of tension, or feeling; crisis or turning point, or one special moment for the reader; one point to which there is a roughly steady or fluctuating buildup? Subsequent to that point, tension is reduced and typically there is some kind of resolution.

Do your stories usually HAVE such a point or moment?

Or do they, in contrast to these two approaches, have a steady or continously fluctuating state of drama or tension? (i.e., several small ups and downs of tension or minicrisis.)

Please tell about your approach to this issue, or whether it just 'happens' (and if so, what generally 'happens').

 

[Honey123]

I don't mean sexual necessarily, but do you plan for ONE height of tension, or feeling; crisis or turning point, or one special moment for the reader; one point to which there is a roughly steady or fluctuating buildup? Subsequent to that point, tension is reduced and typically there is some kind of resolution.

Do your stories usually HAVE such a point or moment?

Or do they, in contrast to these two approaches, have a steady or continously fluctuating state of drama or tension? (i.e., several small ups and downs of tension or minicrisis.)

Please tell about your approach to this issue, or whether it just 'happens' (and if so, what generally 'happens').

Good question, Pure.

I have to be honest, though. When A story comes to me, it comes in an instant. I see everything! I immediately know where I will begin, how the story will progress and how it ends.

I know I don't write masterpieces. The stories I write are erotic fantasies.

It's funny, but when the story shows itself to me, I become completely involved.

I see the people, I know their feelings...if I don't have an orgasm from the scene I am playing out in my head, it's not used in the story. I don't write the story and then add the sex in, it flows together.

There have been times when I am laying in bed and I see a whole scenerio and wish I had a laptop that I could type it all out!! But when it "works" it staying in mind.

I think my favorite story of mine is "Joey's Sunset" ~ it's not a typical happy ending erotic story. It wasn't even my story to begin with. I spoke with a wonderful friend of mine, Joe, and he had this idea of a story...he told me about and I needed to write it! I felt it in my heart, my soul....he was generous to let me run with it and it just worked out perfectly.

I don't know if I answered your question precisely as to what you are wanting to know, but this is how it "happens" for me.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Mine generally have one... although I don't plan for it, per se... in erotic stories, the climax tends to be, well... the climax... funny, that... Although not always... sometimes it depends on the category... erotic horror's climax usually isn't about orgasm... although there are exceptions... in nonconsent/reluctance and BDSM it's often the point of surrender that's the climax... Romance, it's usually when they tension finally breaks and they end up together... although Doc's latest, "The Lighthouse" comes to mind as having a climax that isn't erotic and defies that...

 

[Recidiva]

If there's no tension, there's no story.

Interesting fiction is about the details of a conflict.

 

[Pure]

yes, but it's quite hard to detail the 'tension' that we all agree is crucial.

but its link to my question is patent: the climax (which might involve sex) of a story is at a peak of tension, followed by a sudden drop off of it.

 

[Recidiva]

yes, but it's quite hard to detail the 'tension' that we all agree is crucial.

but its link to my question is patent: the climax (which might involve sex) of a story is at a peak of tension, followed by a sudden drop off of it.

In a lot of my writing, I'll try to build to moments of what might generally be considered "social" tension and then the climax can just be the idea of relieving that tension by not addressing it at all, not making it an issue.

So a lot of building or relieving is predicting how you think someone might be thinking about what you're writing, and then veering away from it. Creating a dissonance and resolving it harmonically, or letting it hang.

There are a lot of authors I love who build up a difficult thing...a wife finding a husband in a compromising position...and then, voila, she trusts him. Artistically created issue, creative resolution or nonresolution.

It's a relief from overly dramatic social cues where people are expected to express a certain emotion and then do just that.

Most of my stories will hinge around something resolving in an unexpected way, sexually or verbally. I tend to use humor a lot. So I'll tend to have something more resembling music and a theme to it than a climb up a mountain. Lots and lots of harmonics.

 

[kbate]

I do not plan my stories. I get story ideas and they either go as I type or they do not. If I'm feeling the mood, they will naturallly move toward some kind of climax, all stories do. but if not, often they ramble along.. waiting for the next idea to move them along.

 

[Pure]

sounds good, recidiva

supposing there is a cheating husband, what makes a story.... hmmm

i don't think the discovery of it, per se, and the wife chewing his ass is a story.

you could have a story about the process by which he's discovered--e.g., the wife's search for clues, finding more and more, .....

the other kind of story on this, has the cheating and discovery, then the wife falls apart or hates men. the 'story' then is of her coming back, learing to love and trust.

in writing this, i just got an idea: WHAT does it take to make a fuck scene a climax-- or even a group-fuck-orgy? the answer is not obvious, except the 'long search' (for it) plan, somewhat like that mentioned above.

perhaps the difficulty of the porn or erotic story is just that---how the fuck can a fuck scene be a climax????

 

[Guest]

My method of writing has altered over the years. Once it was impossible to plan a story at all. I just started writing. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn't. Planning just killed the story -- I had no interest in writing a story when I already knew how it was going to go. So, now I've got a compromise where I'll start writing and plan just a little ahead, with a couple of "goal" points -- usually climax or turnaround plot points. This seems to work best.

One story I'm working on started out with a climax scene, and then roughly 8 chapters of flashback leading up to that particular climax, and then more dealing with the aftermath of that event which will lead to another climax. It's sort of a figure 8 design (in my head) and I had no idea why it worked that way, but when I try to move the first climax scene to where it happens chronolocally, there's less impetus for the reader to read along -- the opening provides TONS of impetus and marks out a sort of trail for the reader.

It's also weird. I admit that. It's very weird.

If I were to diagram a particular story, usually I find a certain rise and fall of action (based on the length of the piece, of course) with a gradual increase in the size of the "peaks" as I head toward a plot goal. Those aren't usually planned, but often come about as part of asking and answering a question within the story.

So, I guess the short answer would be...Kinda sorta maybe sometimes

 

[sunandshadow]

I plan for my stories to have a conclusion, which sometimes naturally creates a climax just before the conclusion, but usually the level of drama peaks in assorted places in the story, wherever the viewpoint character for that section is the most worried or closest to getting what they really want.

 

[Pure]

hi mal

If I were to diagram a particular story, usually I find a certain rise and fall of action (based on the length of the piece, of course) with a gradual increase in the size of the "peaks" as I head toward a plot goal. Those aren't usually planned, but often come about as part of asking and answering a question within the story.


good point. i think that's a classic pattern but I simplified things in the question, i.e., smoothed the curve. there's a generally rising curve, but with fluctuations, indeed, iirc, some writers want a main secondary peak, kind of a prelude semiclimax.

do you see any problem in writing a story like that, with graphic sex at the core? can the big peak be a superfuck? how would that work?

---
PS, after misperceiving your name I finally 'got it', malachite ink (the former being a green mineral or stone, iirc.). duh.

 

[Guest]

good point. i think that's a classic pattern but I simplified things in the question, i.e., smoothed the curve. there's a generally rising curve, but with fluctuations, indeed, iirc, some writers want a main secondary peak, kind of a prelude semiclimax.

Oh yes, I have memories of a creative writing class and a very earnest instructor drawing wiggly lines on a blackboard to illustrate. It shows up in any number of "How to write" books, too. I suspect that it is a natural part of narrative and most of us absorb it while reading (or even watching movies) and then translate it into our fiction. The terms 'Rising action" and "denoument" -- which I probably mispelled -- come to memory. One "How to author" -- Ansen Dibell -- recommends that, as a loose rule, a character attempts to do something three times -- some large plot item. The first two times are failures and the last is ALMOST a failure with a pull out success at last, which conforms to the idea of secondary and tertiary peaks, I think.

do you see any problem in writing a story like that, with graphic sex at the core? can the big peak be a superfuck? how would that work?

My erotica writing is limited as yet, but two of the stories I have on Lit seem to follow this model. One is a short humor-ish piece, and the climax is the climax -- there's only one sex scene, and the action after it is all concluding action. The second is a longer story (and an evil, horrible, oh-how-could-I-sink-so-low fan fiction! -- are you shocked? -- but I treated it just like it was, well, a story) that had sex that wasn't sex for the usual reasons. (It's involved to explain, but it worked). Each fuck was a little peak as it brought about a change in the condition of the characters, and the final fuck was, literally, the climax again. It's a handy device.

As far as I can tell, a story is a story and all the rules are the same, no matter if the characters are sliding body parts or solving mysteries. The whole rise and fall of action seems true throughout -- even in my flash fiction pieces, there is a climax. Just, due to the shortness of the story, the climb isn't very high, and the denoument is REALLY short, like sliding on the kiddy slide at the park.

PS, after misperceiving your name I finally 'got it', malachite ink (the former being a green mineral or stone, iirc.). duh.

No fear, it's been a problem all around the forums. I use it elsewhere with a line between "Malachite_Ink" but Lit doesn't allow that. If I weren't so attached to it, I'd change it, but now...no point.

 

[Noor]

I write by characters. I develop them and then follow where they lead. Its similar to my life, I don't try and control my relationships, I just get to know people and see where we go.
I don't like being controlled myself and planning a conflict/climax whatever seems artificial to me.
I used to study screenwriting Waldo Salt method if I remember correctly, and we were taught that unless one writes an independent film, you follow of format of sorts- show your characters, present a situation to your main character, explore them deciding what to do about it, let them do it, and then explore the fall out basically. That was a simplistic way of describing it, but if you look at films like midnight cowboy, last tango its there, even in Thelma and Loise was a female version of a typical guy road trip movie.
I have notice that some erotica is also written in that sort of a rote manner. Like there has to be conflict and a cum scene at least a 1/3 way in. The first erotica story I wrote had only one climax near the end, so I guess that kept the tension in it. It wasn't planned, it was just where the characters ended up.
I am not sure if I am answering your question though.

 

[Guest]

I kept thinking about this and about the whole "climax as climax" question. I'm reading a book right now called "Master Class in Fiction Writing" that discusses the need for conflict -- the character needs something -- and the solving of the conflict or failure to solve it as the high point of a story -- in effect, the climax.

I've looked over the stories I've written, and the actual sex acts are NOT the conflict in them. There is sex and it is associated with solving the conflict, but it is not the conflict itself. I'm going through in my mind a number of the better (published) erotica I've read and the majority of the time, the conflict and solution are not the sex, but something that the sex helps with. Although sex is prevalent, it is not CENTRAL -- there's always something else, usually something larger.

So, while orgasm might be a culminating moment, I don't know if it is an effective climax to the story -- if all the character is seeking is sex, and that's the conflict, I guess then achieving orgasm would be the point, and that would resolve the issue, but I don't know if I'd read a story like that. I tend to like stories that use the erotic to underscore, illustrate, or achieve something else.

 

[Noor]

I kept thinking about this and about the whole "climax as climax" question. I'm reading a book right now called "Master Class in Fiction Writing" that discusses the need for conflict -- the character needs something -- and the solving of the conflict or failure to solve it as the high point of a story -- in effect, the climax.

I've looked over the stories I've written, and the actual sex acts are NOT the conflict in them.

The above sounds like the idea of traditional film writing too, only its it even broken down more in terms of time, act and scenes. I highly disagree with this method. However much of life is also this way: school, marriage, children... things that soceity would like you to do in a certain order and in a certain time frame.

I prefer character/internal person driven stories. The most recent Sam Shepard /Wim Wenders film, "Don't come knocking" is a good example of a character driven plot that works, in fact I think films/stories like that stay in your mind longer.

As far as sex acts in erotica, I think they should come naturally, not be forced. I have read some stories on lit, esp in srp areas where sex not only drives everything, but is everything to the point that only in a person's most unrealistic fantasies could such a story occur. From my point of view good stories draw you in, they are realistic enough on some plane to make you feel a part of them. Where sex drives a story to point of the characters being easily replaced by bots. the story is in trouble.

just my crabby opinion.

 

[Guest]

My stories usually come to me in fits and spurts... one moment I know pieces of maybe the ending and at other times I know pieces of just the middle.

I don't have a deciding moment of climax or suspension... I write until the story is done telling itself or there is a good stopping point for the next chapter of it to begin.

 

[elsol]

How about both...

Small peaks and valleys as subplots open and climax.

And one big one (which all the subplots supported).

---

I write MFF(FFFF )...

Each new F is her own 'subplot' working to bring the M's overarching plot to a climax and denoument.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Pure]

climax and climax

malachit So, while orgasm might be a culminating moment, I don't know if it is an effective climax to the story -- if all the character is seeking is sex, and that's the conflict, I guess then achieving orgasm would be the point, and that would resolve the issue,

I've had some striking realizations here on this topic. In 'real' fiction, the sexual climax would not usually be a climax. Why not.

Because if as you say, if someone is seeking sex-- as in a romance-- then when they get it (start intercourse), might be the climax.

To have a climax be a climax, somehow the story would have to be about, for example, some woman without a climax, and a serious of things occur, including sex, but still there's a problem, until.... Right person, setting, whatever, BOOM.

A relative of this is the old porn plot in 'Deep Throat' when the issue of coming arises in connection with sex by throat.

So if a sex act is the climax, there's a work up, and a somewhat rocky-road romance plot is the standard key.

So a 'rape' story has that also, if there's a climactic rape. the forced sex act. Like a romance, a rape story often has some unity, provided there's some setting of the stage; for instance if it's an act of revenge, e.g. by a spurned wouldbe lover.

If it's a stranger, this just can't happen 'out out the blue', unless the stranger is around for a while to show some character.

Just having lots of ideas here. I guess another way to have sex acts be peaks is if the story is of the sexual awakening (or kinky awakening) of someone-- again a standard plot. Of course it violates mainstream porn, since their participants are almost alwasy avid from the start.

 

[MidnightSun]

Good question, Pure.

I have to be honest, though. When A story comes to me, it comes in an instant. I see everything! I immediately know where I will begin, how the story will progress and how it ends.

I know I don't write masterpieces. The stories I write are erotic fantasies.

I agree with Honey123 here... I have a few notebooks full of stories I have written (just submited my first on to the site though) and usually they just come to me and I'm trying to write to keep up with the story as it plays out in my head, lol... I don't usually "plan" anything that happens in one of my stories, unless its one I write for a friend as a gift for their spouse....(BTW I'm new to the erotic fiction community as far as making my writing public in more then a blog site, lol, so any feedback on my story as soon as it is put up would be wonderful!)

 

[Guest]

.....

 

[Pure]

OK, dran

but I did address one question to the 'spontaneous' folks: Looking over your stories, do you find they generally have a climax, peaking of tension near middle or towards the end that is followed by some kind of 'dropping off'.

dran said,
I don't "plan" anything, I just let it happen. More often than not it's just a small snippet of story, usually an opening line or a significant event, and I start writing. The story will build itself from there.

 

[hyulhyulhyul]

They tend to crop up at the ends of long chapters or at points within the stories that seem to call for them. Planning usually has nothing to do with it. The stories reveal themselves to me as I write. If I discover any inconsistencies along the way, I go back and iron them out in my second or third rewrite.

 

[Penelope Street]

I'm not sure if I plan the dramatic climax or not, but my stories almost always start with a character and a dilemma. Sometimes the situation grabs me and I start writing and keep writing until the conflict is resolved. More often I write the first scene I envisioned, then leave the story for a while, often weeks, occasionally making notes or maybe even adding a scene, until I see how to the characters will resolve the dilemma. Only then do I start writing scenes to fill in this outline, rarely in chronological order. Whether I write through spontaneity or with an outline, I always consider the tension within the characters while I'm writing.

Some of my stories peak with a kiss, others a proposal, one with a homicide, and at least a few during sex. If any of them climax with a climax, it might be 'Lick Me There', in which the heroine decides to defy her family and move in with her co-worker once she sees what she's been missing by living her life to please others.

Is the true dramatic climax when the character changes, or when the reader realizes the character has changed? I tend to believe it's the latter.

I'd love to read a few climactic scenes, to see if our ideas of when a climax occurs are the same. Anyone willing to share one where the dramatic climax is also a sexual climax?

 

[Guest]

Some of my stories peak with a kiss, others a proposal, one with a homicide, and at least a few during sex. If any of them climax with a climax, it might be 'Lick Me There', in which the heroine decides to defy her family and move in with her co-worker once she sees what she's been missing by living her life to please others.

Is the true dramatic climax when the character changes, or when the reader realizes the character has changed? I tend to believe it's the latter.

One writing instructor says that the climax of the story is when the protagonist gets or doesn't get what she/he wanted and the reader knows it. Every protagonist wants something specific, concrete and dramatizable and the story demonstrates how they go about getting it or fail to get it. He uses several well known novels and short stories to demonstrate this (although it's not as easy or even present in "modernist" stories like those by Chekov, it's pretty consistant in most everything else).

I know it's true of my stories. The final climax happens when the main character either gets or doesn't get what he/she wanted. If what he/she wanted was an orgasm, then that's it. If not, then it happens elsewhere. If it's good enough for Homer, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen, I figure I can live with it

 

[Noor]

If it's good enough for Homer, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen, I figure I can live with it

Homer? Homer didn't write in that fashion at all, in fact he may have merely been a recorder of song tales.

Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen predate central heating, typewriters, antibotics, telephones, air travel, computers, internet, world wide web, polio vaccines, Singer's Sewing machine, rayon, pasteurisation, washing machines, bikes, plastic!!!!, dishwashers, coke, zippers, motion pictures, roller coasters, vaccuum cleaners, stainless steel, air conditioning, radios, television, bandaids, insulin, traffic signals, loud speakers..... the list goes on and on

and let's not even talk about what Homer predates ;-)

Are you sure that if it was good enough for them you can live with it?