Dual Level Writing

[AlwaysHungry]

The thing, I think, that most people tend to forget is that such as Shakespeare or Tolstoy or Chaucer wrote first and foremost to entertain. And to make money.

I'm prepared to buy a lot of what is being said on this thread, but I'm not prepared to buy this.

These men were artists, and they aspired to be good at what they were doing. They probably were interested in the respect of their peers. They measured themselves against the standards of the cultures in which they lived, which were higher than those of ours. They were not "entertainers."

I think that what is missing from this conversation is a sense of history. There are ebbs and flows of culture, peaks and valleys. We are living through a low point.

 

[sr71plt]

Oh, I think that Shakespeare put entertainment and getting the bills paid high on his list of what to give priority to. That doesn't take anything away from his art, but I don't think he was all that "high brow" in his time. I believe that both Tolstoy and Chaucer were born wealthy enough that there wasn't pressure on them to write or not and what to write. So, they didn't really have to think about what writing needed to be done to pay the bills.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

lol.

But yes, exactly! And it's the same for any other art form. Students can analyse and dissect work and marvel at how smart they were for bringing this idea back, and doing that there and this here. But the truth is they probably were not applying that framework at the time.

I've met few students able to get at the soul of any writing. Near the end of my life such souls are obvious tho yet invisible to youngsters. Kids believe Romeo & Juliet is a love story. Its the antithesis of IT TAKES A VILLAGE. Its how whole villages fail.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Poems are the stuff of meaning. But I've not collided with one LIT poet who gets it. A real poem is a long aphorism or slogan, and such things make points, LIT poems do not.

 

[SlightlyGone]

Poems are the stuff of meaning. But I've not collided with one LIT poet who gets it. A real poem is a long aphorism or slogan, and such things make points, LIT poems do not.

Poems are moments ... an idea ... I have a sister that lives a great life ... she used to write poems, mainly about death, which makes no sense ... singular ideas thought upon ... they aren't all telling, they aren't insights into the future, they aren't life lessons ... poems are moments ... try to put to much into your poem, TRY I'm saying, really try ... and no one will give a shit about what you wrote.

 

[Bramblethorn]

[Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Chaucer]

I'm prepared to buy a lot of what is being said on this thread, but I'm not prepared to buy this.

These men were artists, and they aspired to be good at what they were doing. They probably were interested in the respect of their peers. They measured themselves against the standards of the cultures in which they lived, which were higher than those of ours. I think that what is missing from this conversation is a sense of history. There are ebbs and flows of culture, peaks and valleys. We are living through a low point.

I'm far from convinced on this. Our perceptions of the past are heavily skewed by selective memories.

Chaucer wrote some lovely erudite verse. He also wrote farce about people farting in one another's faces, getting jabbed in the arse with a red-hot poker, and climbing into bed with the wrong person. Shakespeare wasn't above a cheap "cunt" pun, or indeed pandering to the powers of the day for political favour (cf: any of his English histories). And then there's Rochester...

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Before anyone becomes an artist, they need to master their tools. So, am I writing with a deeper meaning in mind or writing to improve my technique? For Lit, it's mostly to improve my technique, and I see nothing wrong with that.

I'm skeptical about the quality most budding writers will create if they start with the premise "I want to SAY something!"

Let's start with trying to tell a story from beginning to end with characters who encounter problems and a recognizable story arc. If you can manage to squeeze a deeper, hidden meaning into that, go for it.

Beyond that, what qualifies as a deeper meaning? Many of my stories strive to normalize male bisexuality. Does that count or do I need to make a political statement, too? IDK. However, I do know that if I failed to entertain the reader, if I failed to take them on a bit of a journey between Point A and Point B, then I probably didn't accomplish my job as a fiction writer.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Before anyone becomes an artist, they need to master their tools. So, am I writing with a deeper meaning in mind or writing to improve my technique? For Lit, it's mostly to improve my technique, and I see nothing wrong with that.

I'm skeptical about the quality most budding writers will create if they start with the premise "I want to SAY something!"

Let's start with trying to tell a story from beginning to end with characters who encounter problems and a recognizable story arc. If you can manage to squeeze a deeper, hidden meaning into that, go for it.

Beyond that, what qualifies as a deeper meaning? Many of my stories strive to normalize male bisexuality. Does that count or do I need to make a political statement, too? IDK. However, I do know that if I failed to entertain the reader, if I failed to take them on a bit of a journey between Point A and Point B, then I probably didn't accomplish my job as a fiction writer.

One of my characters is a queer. He is what he is but I don't make him wear a sandwich board or a rainbow striped tie. He'd rather brawl than suck a dick, and that's the idea I get across to readers. He hates Muslims and niggers.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

I just read something that I thought was wonderful.

There is no sex in it, and it is only the start of a longer piece, but it is as ambitious as anything I've seen here.

Check out Mate ch. 1, by risgrynsfisk.

I don't know this person, so if you hate it, please don't drag our drama to them. This is an honest plug.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

[Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Chaucer]



I'm far from convinced on this. Our perceptions of the past are heavily skewed by selective memories.

Chaucer wrote some lovely erudite verse. He also wrote farce about people farting in one another's faces, getting jabbed in the arse with a red-hot poker, and climbing into bed with the wrong person. Shakespeare wasn't above a cheap "cunt" pun, or indeed pandering to the powers of the day for political favour (cf: any of his English histories). And then there's Rochester...

Who says art has to be solemn? I don't. But I do say that it's different than mere entertainment.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

I find this an odd outlook for porn/erotic authors.

It's like you go into a strip joint, and everything about the décor has to look good. Décor only gets you a few extra points. If some chick is shaking her gorgeous boobs in your face, you're generally looking at the boobs, and reacting accordingly.

Why ma'am, I think er, yes, you have wonderful "technique."

There's something very odd when a critique of "writing tools" is applied to erotica. Especially when you have say a really raunchy juicy sex scene and everyone's there only talking about the metaphors. If you're looking at the tools, you're suppressing your instinctual reaction, or implying, that's what you have to table or rise above to intelligently critique the writing.

There's also someone's "erotic mindset." That's not exactly a question of tools you can study or learn in a classroom.

Personally, I always read for erotic content, and that's what I respond to and comment on generally.

Before anyone becomes an artist, they need to master their tools. So, am I writing with a deeper meaning in mind or writing to improve my technique? For Lit, it's mostly to improve my technique, and I see nothing wrong with that.

I'm skeptical about the quality most budding writers will create if they start with the premise "I want to SAY something!"

Let's start with trying to tell a story from beginning to end with characters who encounter problems and a recognizable story arc. If you can manage to squeeze a deeper, hidden meaning into that, go for it.

Beyond that, what qualifies as a deeper meaning? Many of my stories strive to normalize male bisexuality. Does that count or do I need to make a political statement, too? IDK. However, I do know that if I failed to entertain the reader, if I failed to take them on a bit of a journey between Point A and Point B, then I probably didn't accomplish my job as a fiction writer.

 

[legerdemer]

...
There's something very odd when a critique of "writing tools" is applied to erotica. Especially when you have say a really raunchy juicy sex scene and everyone's there only talking about the metaphors. If you're looking at the tools, you're suppressing your instinctual reaction, or implying, that's what you have to table or rise above to intelligently critique the writing... .

A lot of what's here is a matter of personal taste, but I find that the delivery and expression of the eroticism can either add or detract. I read erotica because I don't get much satisfaction out of watching porn. If I find straight porn here, it works (or rather, doesn't) about as well as visual porn, which is to say hardly at all.

Which isn't to say that I don't enjoy reading raunchy writing, and even more, writing raunchy.

But stories that offer something above and beyond are always more attractive and satisfying than ones that don't. That's simply my own taste.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

A lot of what's here is a matter of personal taste, but I find that the delivery and expression of the eroticism can either add or detract. I read erotica because I don't get much satisfaction out of watching porn. If I find straight porn here, it works (or rather, doesn't) about as well as visual porn, which is to say hardly at all.

Which isn't to say that I don't enjoy reading raunchy writing, and even more, writing raunchy.

But stories that offer something above and beyond are always more attractive and satisfying than ones that don't. That's simply my own taste.

Help me out. I read what you write and remain clueless of your meaning.. What do you mean ABOVE AND BEYOND?

 

[legerdemer]

Before anyone becomes an artist, they need to master their tools. So, am I writing with a deeper meaning in mind or writing to improve my technique? For Lit, it's mostly to improve my technique, and I see nothing wrong with that.

I'm skeptical about the quality most budding writers will create if they start with the premise "I want to SAY something!"

Let's start with trying to tell a story from beginning to end with characters who encounter problems and a recognizable story arc. If you can manage to squeeze a deeper, hidden meaning into that, go for it.

Fair enough, but it's a stage writers go through, like musicians going from practicing their scales to actually playing something that their audience will appreciate listening to. After all, we don't practice scales, or writing methods, to be better at doing scales or being better mechanical writers. Not that you said so. I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Ultimately, the mechanics will hopefully become better nature, and the thing that is worth striving for is the telling of a story with the medium at hand, in this case erotica. Life experiences that go beyond my own is very much what attracts me to reading stories on Lit, and it's not just about the quality of the stroke. My curiosity is piqued by what others feel and do - and that includes your stories about bisexuality, which I would find hard to experience outside reading.

Beyond that, what qualifies as a deeper meaning? Many of my stories strive to normalize male bisexuality. Does that count or do I need to make a political statement, too? IDK. However, I do know that if I failed to entertain the reader, if I failed to take them on a bit of a journey between Point A and Point B, then I probably didn't accomplish my job as a fiction writer.

Challenging a reader beyond their comfort zone, bringing them along to experiences and viewpoints they wouldn't otherwise encounter - that's always been part of the job of writers and joy of readers.

 

[legerdemer]

Help me out. I read what you write and remain clueless of your meaning.. What do you mean ABOVE AND BEYOND?

I think I set it out better in my response to Bucky. I mean reading a Le Carre or Chandler novel and going beyond the high quality mechanics of their writing to learning something about history, politics, economics, human relationships, and the darkness (and lightness) of the human heart.

Hopefully not all at once in the same short story.

 

[legerdemer]

I'm prepared to buy a lot of what is being said on this thread, but I'm not prepared to buy this.

I agree that the evidence definitely suggests that these writers earned their living writing, and cared much about their success. I am certain there were tens if not hundreds of other scribblers whose stuff didn't make it down to us - most often because it didn't touch us the way these other writers did. But entertaining, making a living at it, and high culture are not mutually exclusive by definition.

But then, Dan Brown is no Raymond Chandler.

These men were artists, and they aspired to be good at what they were doing. They probably were interested in the respect of their peers. They measured themselves against the standards of the cultures in which they lived, which were higher than those of ours. They were not "entertainers."

I think that what is missing from this conversation is a sense of history. There are ebbs and flows of culture, peaks and valleys. We are living through a low point.

Being GOOD can really help get the entertainment across. How many are the examples of stuff that attempts to be high art and falls flat not only because of lack of technique, but also because the story telling simply can't carry the message?

And I disagree that we are living through a low point - we may be, but it's much harder to judge an age as you live through it, without the perspective given by hindsight. I daresay the world in the 1800s were not very impressed with the quality of the art being put out as the Impressionists came on the scene and "took over" from the Realists etc.

 

[legerdemer]

How many of you bother with having a theme or a second meaning in your writing?

It seems to me that the REASON most of the stories here are lousy is because very few of them are about anything meaningful....

Writing erotica seems to me to merely be an exercise in commercial writing. No goals. No stretch. Nothing gained.

So... Do any of you try to sneak in a moral? Can you be fulfilled writing something that is less than challenging?

Yes, there are authors here who do what you're wishing for. The problem is finding them. One of the best examples I can give you is dr_mabeuse - he's written across a number of categories, and I still think his writing is among the best I've seen on Lit, in addition to being very erotic. YMMV.

I have written out and out strokers, and I've written stuff that aims higher. Or tries to. Again, YMMV.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

Very much agree with 'demer. Every age has criticised the current generation of artists. Critics tend to be pedantic anyway. New forms of expression generally confuse them.

 

[oggbashan]

...

And I disagree that we are living through a low point - we may be, but it's much harder to judge an age as you live through it, without the perspective given by hindsight. I daresay the world in the 1800s were not very impressed with the quality of the art being put out as the Impressionists came on the scene and "took over" from the Realists etc.

One of my nephews did his PhD on British Victorian novelists. I lent him a few hundred appropriate books from my extensive library.

The bad or poor authors are forgotten even if they were popular in their era. They are more available now because of Project Gutenberg and the internet than they were in the 1980s, but they are still rubbish.

The good authors are remembered and reprinted.

Except for the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night..." who would read or remember Bulwer-Lytton? Yet he nearly outsold Dickens.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I think I set it out better in my response to Bucky. I mean reading a Le Carre or Chandler novel and going beyond the high quality mechanics of their writing to learning something about history, politics, economics, human relationships, and the darkness (and lightness) of the human heart.

Hopefully not all at once in the same short story.

Okay. Thank you. When I write historical erotica I spend years collecting the material that matters, because the times are alien to modern readers, and take pains to recreate the context of the times. If I do that with psychiatric material, my profession, few will get it regardless of how detailed the material is, because its so arcane. Borderline personality means squat to readers, but if the MD sez, I CANT BE AROUND THAT BITCH TEN MINUTES BEFORE I WANNA STAB HER THRU THE HEART WITH MY PENCIL, he says it all. And some experiences are so generic no details are necessary. REGGIE AND DAPHNE WENT TO MCDONALDS.

 

[Nathan_Brazil]

Yes, there are authors here who do what you're wishing for. The problem is finding them. One of the best examples I can give you is dr_mabeuse - he's written across a number of categories, and I still think his writing is among the best I've seen on Lit, in addition to being very erotic. YMMV.

I have written out and out strokers, and I've written stuff that aims higher. Or tries to. Again, YMMV.

I will try a story by him. Her? Suggest one, I will be in a waiting room this morning.

Try the Mate story that I recommended and let me know what you think.

 

[legerdemer]

Okay. Thank you. When I write historical erotica I spend years collecting the material that matters, because the times are alien to modern readers, and take pains to recreate the context of the times. If I do that with psychiatric material, my profession, few will get it regardless of how detailed the material is, because its so arcane. Borderline personality means squat to readers, but if the MD sez, I CANT BE AROUND THAT BITCH TEN MINUTES BEFORE I WANNA STAB HER THRU THE HEART WITH MY PENCIL, he says it all. And some experiences are so generic no details are necessary. REGGIE AND DAPHNE WENT TO MCDONALDS.

You might be the perfect person to ask this question - why does darkness (of mind and heart) appeal? And why do people read erotic horror? I ask you in all seriousness, appealing to your experience.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I agree that the evidence definitely suggests that these writers earned their living writing, and cared much about their success. I am certain there were tens if not hundreds of other scribblers whose stuff didn't make it down to us - most often because it didn't touch us the way these other writers did. But entertaining, making a living at it, and high culture are not mutually exclusive by definition.

But then, Dan Brown is no Raymond Chandler.




Being GOOD can really help get the entertainment across. How many are the examples of stuff that attempts to be high art and falls flat not only because of lack of technique, but also because the story telling simply can't carry the message?

And I disagree that we are living through a low point - we may be, but it's much harder to judge an age as you live through it, without the perspective given by hindsight. I daresay the world in the 1800s were not very impressed with the quality of the art being put out as the Impressionists came on the scene and "took over" from the Realists etc.

I disagree. Euro culture wasn't lost on Amerinds exposed to it. They got horses and guns on sight. The Cherokee went the whole hog in no time.

 

[legerdemer]

I will try a story by him. Her? Suggest one, I will be in a waiting room this morning.

Try the Mate story that I recommended and let me know what you think.

I will.

Here's one of my favorites of his, The Lighthouse, romance with just a tinge of bdsm, nothing very heavy or bothersome. His attraction for me has nothing to do with BDSM stuff, btw. It's the writing.

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-lighthouse-3

 

[NOIRTRASH]

You might be the perfect person to ask this question - why does darkness (of mind and heart) appeal? And why do people read erotic horror? I ask you in all seriousness, appealing to your experience.

We haven't evolved much in ten thousand years. Julian Jaynes claimed humans were functionally psychotic until 500BC. I think he was a crazy optimist. What we call maturity (our better angels) barely contains our demons. That's the short answer. Its the ground floor of what I write. Nice is a thin veneer over the abyss.