Frame stories are harder for us, aren't they?

[joy_of_cooking]

Thinking about literary devices and realized that the taboo nature of sex in most social circles makes it a lot harder for us to use frame stories.

Not impossible, of course. We can have diary entries, or an author working on a manuscript for publication, or very close friends bragging to each other, or inexperienced kids making stuff up. But by and large, there aren't many occasions where someone would realistically narrate an erotic story at the level of detail that our readers expect.

This musing was prompted by my attempt to write a Hammered story. I wanted a reformed bad guy telling someone a story about his past, only to realize that such a person might say something quite explicit, like "we fucked" or whatever, but he wouldn't narrate the sex blow-by-blow, "and then I stuck my tab into her slot!". Especially not to a troop of boy scouts, which was how I originally wanted to show that he'd become a pillar of his community.

Maybe this can work for me, though? My plot requires some sex and violence, but I don't really want to dwell on the details. Having him tell the story to a bunch of boy scouts might be a good way to signal to the reader, hey, this isn't going to be a stroker.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Talking to Boy Scouts about sexual topics might run afoul of the 18+ rule. But one option might be to tell most of the story in this style, switching to a different frame when you need to cover something he can't say in front of children. That also gives some room to play with contrasting versions of the same events - how does the version in his head differ from the version he describes, and what do those differences say about him?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Thinking about literary devices and realized that the taboo nature of sex in most social circles makes it a lot harder for us to use frame stories.

Not impossible, of course. We can have diary entries, or an author working on a manuscript for publication, or very close friends bragging to each other, or inexperienced kids making stuff up. But by and large, there aren't many occasions where someone would realistically narrate an erotic story at the level of detail that our readers expect.

This musing was prompted by my attempt to write a Hammered story. I wanted a reformed bad guy telling someone a story about his past, only to realize that such a person might say something quite explicit, like "we fucked" or whatever, but he wouldn't narrate the sex blow-by-blow, "and then I stuck my tab into her slot!". Especially not to a troop of boy scouts, which was how I originally wanted to show that he'd become a pillar of his community.

Maybe this can work for me, though? My plot requires some sex and violence, but I don't really want to dwell on the details. Having him tell the story to a bunch of boy scouts might be a good way to signal to the reader, hey, this isn't going to be a stroker.

I did something like this. To get the details, I switch to 1st person for the sexy story parts.

This can even work if the main story is told 1st person. Just a change in POV.

Kind of like a story within a story.

Heck out Boat Talk to see what I did.

 

[Euphony]

Especially not to a troop of boy scouts, which was how I originally wanted to show that he'd become a pillar of his community.

Yeah, million ways to show "pillar of the community" that don't involve children. Doubtful you are looking at any titillation but too many tried to abuse it so lines were drawn.
And, unless it really reads as a necessity, invoking chillins when you could reasonably write otherwise is gonna get looks.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I did some framed narrative chapters several times in my Mary and Alvin series. Here is an example. Mary has asked Alvin to tell her about his first wife, Bonnie.

"There was an ice storm..." he began, then paused. Mary reached across the gap between the couch and the chair and touched his arm. He squeezed her hand and continued.

"I was down to the wharf checking that everything was alright, and I slipped and fell. Landed on my arm and stove up my wrist wicked bad. Wasn't broke, but pretty jacked up. I went to the E.R. and she patched me up. She was brand new too, hadn't been there but a few weeks."

"How old were you?"

"Nineteen. She was twenty. See, it hasn't always been the younger ladies for me."

"So, let me guess. You asked her to go sailing with you?"

Alvin chuckled. "No. Turns out she hated sailing, hated being on boats at all. What she liked was her hands in the dirt."

He stopped talking and Mary thought he had said all he was going to say. But then he began speaking again. Mary lay quietly listening. He told her about helping Bonnie clear the ice from her car windows, struggling to use the scraper with his one good arm. He told how she had given him her number, but it had blurred in the rain,and how he had come to the hospital again the next day to find her.

"Funny thing, though. When I found her and asked her out, she said no."

"Why did she say no?"

Bonnie had a boyfriend, or at least, a guy she was seeing. His name was David LePierre. He was a paramedic she had met while doing her nurse's training. Alvin asked her why, if that was the case, she had given him her number.

You see how that transitioned the narrative into the past? From that point I just wrote it as i would any third person pov, with dialogue and details that would not be realistic in a conversation. The way I see it, once the reminiscence begins, what we are reading is Alvin’s memory of the events. Later, I came back to the present time simply like this:

Alvin lowered the foot of his recliner and stood up.

"Still with me, Miss Mary?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm still listening."

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I did some framed narrative chapters several times in my Mary and Alvin series. Here is an example. Mary has asked Alvin to tell her about his first wife, Bonnie.

You see how that transitioned the narrative into the past? From that point I just wrote it i would any third person pov, with dialogue and details that would not be realistic in a conversation. The way I see it, once the reminiscence begins, what we are reading is Alvin’s memory of the events. Later, I came back to the present time simply like this:

Same thing I did. You explained it better.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Oh, man, I totally forgot that boy scouts are, well, boys! (All the ones I know are super-old.) Thanks to everyone who pointed that out, which is, uh, everyone.

 

[AchtungNight]

My advice- try an AA meeting or something similar. Maybe sex issue therapy? I have an FMC into that who's willing to take on new clients. Her bartender husband also has a sympathetic ear.

 

[AlinaX]

Or like Lecter in his cell, he uses Starling's need for him to control the conversation.

You could have your criminal speaking to a society of concerned ladies, all prim and posh.

"Lucy was my first," he said eventually, his eyes turned inwards. "Claimed she was a virgin, but that was a lie. Sweet as it was, I could tell her cunt had seen some traffic."

"You can skip the vulgarity," Mrs Haltwhistle interjected.

He glowered at her. "I'll tell the story my own way, or not at all." He grinned lecherously. "Nice pair you have there. Lucy's tits were huge too, just like yours. I sucked her nipples till they were red and swollen, and her cunt was so wet... Has your cunt ever been wet, Mrs Haltwhistle?"

 

[KachinaDoll]

Did anyone else have to Google 'frame story'?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Often called a “prologue”, a frame story is a literary technique where the author tells a story at the beginning of the work that sets the stage for the main story to come. A frame story is a part of the story as a whole and not to be confused with an exposition, a disclaimer, or author’s note.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

Did anyone else have to Google 'frame story'?

Scheherazade telling her btb-styled husband a thousand and one stories to keep him from chopping her head off is the GOAT of frame stories.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Frame stories are harder for us, aren't they?​

Not replying to your specific case, more in general…

It’s just a case of thinking about an appropriate social setting. Maybe an older woman entertaining a beau and then reminiscing with him about her youth. Or some guys waiting for a gang bang to start and shooting the breeze about other experiences. Or an author writing their first erotic story and going back to recall past events.

Em

 

[Kelliezgirl]

You could also have the storyteller internalize some of the details. Could even make for an interesting passage contrasting the memory with what the narrator is willing to share.

Jim was relating his experience with the boys at the pub. "She took her blouse off", he began, remembering how she had the most amazing breasts he'd ever seen, the way the pale skin seemed to glow in the firelight was mesmerizing.
"She had some amazing knockers," he continued.

 

[Lifestyle66]

My understanding of a "frame story" is that it's not just a prologue but can be an overarching device which allows the author to describe other events, tangents to the current story arc.

My lastest story (publishing soon to Loving Wives for the Pink Orchid event) has the MFC talking to a counselor her boss at work insisted on, due to her abrasive attitudes at work. Those counseling sessions become the frame in which she describes her past to build her character toward the current story ending.

I'm using that counseling venue for her to describe some of her attitudes and sexual adventures, i.e.:
****
I decided to give him one of my most risqué examples. “We were on vacation, attending an adults-only costume party in a bar. I was sitting at a table talking to a woman when her husband came over wearing a kilt. His T-shirt said </i> “Good girls ask what’s under a kilt. Bad girls find out.” </i> So, I reached under his kilt, found he wasn’t wearing underwear, and I started stroking him.”

“You gave a hand job in a bar?” he asked in surprise. “Did your husband see you doing it?”

“Ted stood nearby watching me. The guy’s cock felt rather good, getting hard under there, so I kept it up, with a few others watching his kilt moving as I worked him. One guy standing near my husband asked him, <i> ‘Is this the line?’ </i> Ted let him go on for about two minutes making comments like seeing me do it every night in that club, which wasn’t true, and asking when Ted was going to get his turn. Ted calmly said <i> ‘I get her every night. She’s my wife.’ </i> The guy was shocked, and said, <i> ‘My God, you’re a lucky man!’ </i> Ted sees my flirting as making others jealous of him.”
*****

I build her character with things like this showing she's a sexual adventurer, in charge of her own agenda.

 

[Britva415]

There are "frame stories," and then there are the frames which all stories can have.

It doesn't necessarily have to be discernible as a frame, it doesn't have to be bookends around "a story within a story," but the absence of any framing details at all can weaken a story.

The example I've been talking about lately is first-person POV stories, where as a reader I don't appreciate it when I never understand the narrator's motivation in telling their story or what audience they're supposedly telling it to. This information frames the story even without it being "a frame story," and without these frame details, I personally find that there's really something missing from the story. Hopefully there's enough more to it that what's missing doesn't cause the story to suffer.

Writers don't always succeed at that. And this isn't the only example. I've read third-person POV stories which also suffer from a lack of framing.

 

[MelissaBaby]

My understanding of a "frame story" is that it's not just a prologue but can be an overarching device which allows the author to describe other events, tangents to the current story arc.

My lastest story (publishing soon to Loving Wives for the Pink Orchid event) has the MFC talking to a counselor her boss at work insisted on, due to her abrasive attitudes at work. Those counseling sessions become the frame in which she describes her past to build her character toward the current story ending.

I'm using that counseling venue for her to describe some of her attitudes and sexual adventures, i.e.:
****
I decided to give him one of my most risqué examples. “We were on vacation, attending an adults-only costume party in a bar. I was sitting at a table talking to a woman when her husband came over wearing a kilt. His T-shirt said </i> “Good girls ask what’s under a kilt. Bad girls find out.” </i> So, I reached under his kilt, found he wasn’t wearing underwear, and I started stroking him.”

“You gave a hand job in a bar?” he asked in surprise. “Did your husband see you doing it?”

“Ted stood nearby watching me. The guy’s cock felt rather good, getting hard under there, so I kept it up, with a few others watching his kilt moving as I worked him. One guy standing near my husband asked him, <i> ‘Is this the line?’ </i> Ted let him go on for about two minutes making comments like seeing me do it every night in that club, which wasn’t true, and asking when Ted was going to get his turn. Ted calmly said <i> ‘I get her every night. She’s my wife.’ </i> The guy was shocked, and said, <i> ‘My God, you’re a lucky man!’ </i> Ted sees my flirting as making others jealous of him.”
*****

I build her character with things like this showing she's a sexual adventurer, in charge of her own agenda.

That's basically how I see it, although I would not say the framed events are necessarily tangential to the main narrative. My primary usage of a frame is as in the example I posted above; to incorporate flashbacks into the narrative as naturally as possible. I don't think of flashbacks as tangents, but as fragments of the overall narrative that are presented non-chronologically.

 

[Lifestyle66]

That's basically how I see it, although I would not say the framed events are necessarily tangential to the main narrative. My primary usage of a frame is as in the example I posted above; to incorporate flashbacks into the narrative as naturally as possible. I don't think of flashbacks as tangents, but as fragments of the overall narrative that are presented non-chronologically.

Exactly.

In my story, it occurs over a five-week period from the beginning of the story to the end. But instead of flashbacks, I use the "frame" of counselor sessions to bring out descriptions of the supporting past events and the MFC's opinions of tangential issues, which help explain why she behaves as she does.

The story starts with her boss saying everyone at work thinks she's abrasive and sarcastic, and she must attend counseling. By the end of the story, after her counseling sessions and other interactions outside of work, she indicates her positive attitude toward herself with:

"You may think I’m a scheming, selfish bitch, … and you’re damn right I am!"