Eternal Foreplay

[Liar]

Hello authors, I need your advise. I am writing on my first Lit story, I have been doing that on and off ever since I came here basically.

And that is the whole problem. First of all, I rarely write short stories. Either poetry, or novel sized work. Now I try to write a approx 2 Lit pages thing about sex. And I've also never writter an erotic story before. I've got my outline all set and ready and the timeframe for the story should be perfect for the 'I'm looking for more than a stroke story, but not much more'-reader. Just what Iä'm aiming for.

The problem is, it just keeps getting longer and longer, because I tend to fill it out with redundant fluff, because I feel the need to explain every damn detail at length all the time. Now, that ain't a problem when writing a long novel, but here it will just bore the reader to bits. And I never ever get to the actual sex. It's just an ever growing fungus of too much background that noone will care about, and foreplay that lasts forever.

I don't mind a truckload of foreplay myself, but in a short story, it gets kind of ridiculous after a while.

Any advise for an aspiring smutster? How do I self sencor my padding?

#L

 

[cloudy]

I'm just a novice, myself, at erotica, but I start with the sex scene, and build around that, instead of the other way around.

Maybe that'll help, I dunno. I'm sure there's others here that have some sage advice.....that's just how I do it.

 

[Guest]

Write how you write, Liar. When you think you've finished, and if you still want to submit to Lit. as other than a novella or chapter length piece, go back and delete as much extraneous stuff as you can. Look for the centerpiece of the story (even if it's not the sex scene) and cut around it. Ask an editor for help if it's too hard.

Just my thoughts; best,

Perdita

 

[Zanzibar]

And you can always add the line of dialog...

"Good God <catchy name>, you're driving me crazy. Quit teasing me and just fuck me now!"

Instant segue from extended foreplay into the sex scene...

(or add something much classier, but you get the drift)

 

[minsue]

Write how you write, Liar.

Yes, please do! Some of us Lit readers like foreplay and details, dammit!

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

LIar,

Congratulations of taking the plunge. Writing a short story is different from working on a novel, isn't it?

While I agree with Perdita, there are a couple things you might want to consider.

As with a novel, you should know what you're trying to accomplish with a lengthy description of foreplay. Is it essentially just an end unto itself or is it supposed to somehow advance the storyline?

That's an important issue for, unlike a novel, unless the short story is going to approach novella lenght or have no plot, only a limited number of sex scenes can appear and even fewer can have detailed descriptions of the foreplay.

As the writer, you're the only one who can decide how often and how much is right for your story.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I wouldn't put down anyone's personal writing method, but it's hard for me to conceive of needing an outline for a short story. A short story usual involves two or three people and one episode or event in a person's life, and, since this is Literotica, that event is probably sex. It just seems to me that anyone who needs an outline for that knd of thing must have a touch of attention deficit disorder.

It's hard to say what your problem is without seeing a sample of your writing, but I'd guess you're having trouble with focus. There's focus in stories, just like there's focus in movies. Sometimes you want to pull back for a long shot and tell the reader in a few broad strokes what's happened or what's happening, and sometimes you want to move in tight for a close-up where you show all the details. You save the close-ups for the critical parts: the telling gesture, the moment of revelation. It's how you differentiate betwen what's important and what's just background information in a story.

The advice I'd give you is just to go and read your ass off, and not on Literotica. Go to the library and get some books of good short stories and study them. See how the authors put the story together and how they give weight to the crucial parts and how they avoid getting bogged down in detail. Despite what most people say, I think you learn more about writing from reading than you do from just practicing on your own.

---dr.M.

 

[damppanties]

dr. m's last paragraph is good advice.

I'd also like to add that reading will not help you totally. Write and post. I think of Lit as a learning place and a large experimental playground. I love sounding off my stories here. Mostly I learn a lot by the kind of response I ge to my own story. You cannot do that with anyone else's tale.

I've had some good results, some predictable and some totally low results. It's good learning though.

I would say write what you want to. Don't worry about getting it right. Post and wait for the reactions and then try to see where you went wrong. It's a process.

ps. One of the stories which I read, which I remember out of the thousands I have forgotten, was entirely about foreplay. The sexual act was not mentioned at all. If you can do magic with foreplay, you don't need much sex.

Decide what you want to write, how you want to write it and, well, write it.
If it's written well, anything will work.

 

[Liar]

Thx everyone. I fear I was a little fuzzy when I posted this. It was 5 in the morning, and I had been up all night writing and chewing the fat here and elsewhere, so my lids were about to collapse on me.

But you gave me some new things to try and consider. I think there's hope for this growing ball of banter yet.

#L