Does the writing kill the fantasy or give it life?

[GuiltyCowboy]

Do you find that the process of writing ruins or elevates the initial fantasy?

I’ve found, frankly, that many of my finest fantasies burn brightly in my mind (slash loins) but the drudgery of writing takes all the fun out of them sometimes.

What made the fantasy so ineffably hot gets lost as I build all the scaffolding - the scene set-up, the depth of character, complexity of relationships - that’s necessary to make the damn thing stand up. To make it work on the page.

And sometimes, admittedly, it does the exact opposite: the need to put them into words is extremely hot and invigorates the fantasy itself.

It’s a little mysterious to me which way it’s going to go. What makes one fantasy die on the page and another come to life?

Do you have this? Is this the mark of a writer who’s still green? Have you worked through this? Any thoughts on managing the dynamic?

Anyway, here’s to all those fantasies that were killed by the writing process…

 

[AG31]

Definitely gives it life. Every improvement in phrasing makes it more real. I'm happy to revisit them over the years.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I find it easy to write sex scenes. I’ve lived out many of my fantasies and maybe that’s why. Even when I haven’t - notably a Lesbian threesome - extrapolation isn’t very difficult.

I spend most of my effort on plot and characters, the sex scenes tend to augment these, and not to be the central purpose of the story. Indeed, whenever I start from wanting to include some specific type of sex, a story and motivations tend to come rushing in. I’ve stopped trying to keep them out.

So, no, I’ve never killed a fantasy writing about it.

 

[crookedletter]

What draws me to erotica, in large part, is that to me the payoff is stronger when there's some build up and anticipation. If there's no tension to relieve then it's less of a relief. If I find I'm writing something that's detracting from the eroticism then I would investigate that, try to work out why that is.

What made the fantasy so ineffably hot gets lost as I build all the scaffolding - the scene set-up, the depth of character, complexity of relationships - that’s necessary to make the damn thing stand up. To make it work on the page.

Looking at this, I would question what is strictly "necessary." If your payoff is losing punch because of what you deem necessary, then I would play with cutting that stuff out, or at least changing your approach to it. Maybe it's necessary to write some of the background, so that you get a good idea in your mind of where your characters are coming from, but experiment with trimming things out and alluding to some background on the page rather than explicitly including it.

It's also worth looking deeper into what makes the fantasies "ineffably hot." If that derives from a sense of mystery, then maybe you're overwriting your ramp up. Every story is different -- some benefit from lots of backstory and development; some don't.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I have some fantasies that if I think about them too hard, they're no longer enjoyable. Those I can't write, and I quickly figure out which ones those are, and reserve them for my most tired of fantasizing.

Usually though, I wait until I've thought about a story to a point of near obsession before I start writing it down though, so I rarely run into that problem.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

Interesting topic. I think you’re on to something with the idea of “something dying.” But for me, it’s more like a hardened cocoon () making way for a beautiful butterfly of a story. It’s (hopefully) a rewarding trade off.

 

[SimonDoom]

This might have something to do with the kinds of sexual fantasies you have.

If your sexual fantasies are escapes from reality, then I can imagine that as you write, and wrestle with questions like, "Would this person actually do this? What is their motivation? What would plausibly come next?" that the process of crafting a story that meets minimal standards of plausibility might interfere with the fantasy. It might spoil the fun. If that's the case, though, it might suggest taking a different approach to the fantasy.

I find that writing, over time, forces me to dive a little deeper into exploring the nature of the fantasy and what motivates people to engage in it. Looked at one way, it's a roadblock, but looked at another way, it's opening a door to a new way of exploring the fantasy, one that's richer and more interesting.

So, I sort of understand what I think the OP is getting at, but I would suggest trying to look at it as a fun challenge.

 

[iwatchus]

I'm probably weird here, but I'm not writing my fantasies (except my very first story). My fantasies creep into the stories, but I discovered I like writing stories with sex, rather than sex with a story. Which is probably why some of my stories have very little sex. But many of mine do have lots.

 

[Rob_Royale]

When I first started writing it was about the fantasy, mine specificlly and writing them was a joy, a way of reliving them, fully imagining the stories beginnings and endings, giving them scope and letting readers enjoy them too.

But since then, I have written most of my fantaisies and now it is about the story. It's about the characters and that is when the sex feels like a bit of a drag, as it's a rest stop on the road to the rest of the story.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

If your sexual fantasies are escapes from reality, then I can imagine that as you write, and wrestle with questions like, "Would this person actually do this? What is their motivation? What would plausibly come next?" that the process of crafting a story that meets minimal standards of plausibility might interfere with the fantasy. It might spoil the fun. If that's the case, though, it might suggest taking a different approach to the fantasy.

Yes, this is what I’m talking about. The fantasy can be a delicate thing - it disappears if too many demands are made of it.

Perhaps it’s an obvious thing to say but, as the originator of a fantasy, you automatically understand every aspect of the situation (the who, how, why) which makes it all so hot. You don’t have to put it all into words in your own head because you just know it implicitly, you feel it.

I don’t know why some fantasies are killed by having to do all the work and some fantasies come alive precisely because of the work.

I think it might have something to do with pantsing vs planning but I’m not sure yet.

When I started writing here, I made a little list of all the fantasies that had been floating around very happily in my head - fantasies that I wanted to be relived on the page. It’s notable to me that I haven’t been able to bring myself to write a single one of them. And, what’s worse, just the prospect of writing them has significantly diminished my interest in them.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

It's also worth looking deeper into what makes the fantasies "ineffably hot." If that derives from a sense of mystery, then maybe you're overwriting your ramp up. Every story is different -- some benefit from lots of backstory and development; some don't.

Yes, good point. The more one pins down the particulars of a fantasy, the more it loses its ineffable quality.

Personally, my own interest in writing erotica is to create little dream-like scenarios. Dreams have the texture of life - and the plausibility of that texture is v important to me - but that doesn’t mean they require the full scaffolding of story and plot and so on.

 

[AG31]

What made the fantasy so ineffably hot gets lost as I build all the scaffolding - the scene set-up, the depth of character, complexity of relationships - that’s necessary to make the damn thing stand up. To make it work on the page.

Have you ever tried forgetting about the scaffolding? Some people refer to this as strokers, but I think sex is a powerful enough human quality that it can stand on its own, literarily. See my simple erotica post.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I have some fantasies that if I think about them too hard, they're no longer enjoyable.

At some point, they get so complicated and convoluted ... like ... you can't get there from here.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Have you ever tried forgetting about the scaffolding? Some people refer to this as strokers, but I think sex is a powerful enough human quality that it can stand on its own, literarily. See my simple erotica post.

Thanks for this. Yes, I’m definitely in the stroke category.

My analogy would be that strokers are like poetry while erotic stories are like novels. They each require their own type of magic and it would be bizarre to think of one category as intrinsically more respectable than the other. It's hard to do either one really well.

But, yes, I think you're on to something: don't write a stroker as if it's in the other category.

 

[AG31]

What made the fantasy so ineffably hot gets lost as I build all the scaffolding - the scene set-up, the depth of character, complexity of relationships - that’s necessary to make the damn thing stand up. To make it work on the page.

Definitely gives it life. Every improvement in phrasing makes it more real. I'm happy to revisit them over the years.

I would add to this that I come to Literotica for pure erotica. I get my character and plotting from the local library. Here I find that plot and character are distractions.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

At some point, they get so complicated and convoluted ... like ... you can't get there from here.

Like this: https://forum.literotica.com/threads/what-the-hell-happened-while-i-was-gone.1641183/


The premise and the imagery are fun, but it isn't practical in any way. It just wouldn't make sense.

 

[StillStunned]

Definitely gives it life. Every improvement in phrasing makes it more real. I'm happy to revisit them over the years.

I'm in this camp too. If a fantasy inspires a story, it's generally only an image or two in my mind, perhaps a few moments of interaction.

But writing it down makes me examine it in minute detail. I live it. I'm there, brushing my lips over hot skin, breathing in the scents, hearing the soft moans. A scene in my mind is just a thought. A scene that I've written is a complete experience.