Is real better, or does it matter?

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

A story has to be true within itself. Half of the things that actually happen to me-- don't make sense, because real life is a lousy storyteller. If I want to give someone something worthwhile, I'll have to edit and change things, come up with a theme, and a good last line...

If you can write well enough, you can have group sex with alien unicorns and the president of the United states, and your reader will get off on it.

Hmm. Plot bunny?

Indeed!

I recall an occasion when a very crazy woman walked in the ER and told me about the dead body outside under the orange tree. Sure! There really was a dead body under the tree.

 

[oggbashan]

Even true stories can be unbelievable.

 

[Dyslexicea]

I do react with a lot of skepticism if the story claims it's true but I'll still read a few paragraphs. If it's interesting and literate, not necessarily grammatically correct, I'll continue to read.

I think for the most part people like true stories, especially written as a confession by a woman. True Confession Magazine has been around since 1922 and it's still published. Women just love scandalous confessions by other women, add in some really good sex scenes, of course not the bullshit wham bam thank you mam sex scene so many of you men write. Confession, scandal and sex sell.

I'm sure a lot of us realize those True Confession stories weren't true and they were mostly written by professional writers. Just one of the old titles I found when I researched it was "I Can Have Sex 24 Hours a Day", that really confused me, no woman is going to be that stupid so I figured it must have been written by a 60 year old man wishing he was a woman.

 

[mynameisben]

It is always the primary duty of a writer to make the story real, whether it is fiction or not. If the author doesn't make realism his priority, then I will tell within the first couple of paragraphs and go read something else. A story is it's own reality and makes no difference to me if it's real or not unless, like some one else mentioned, I know and have the hots for the author.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Indeed!

I recall an occasion when a very crazy woman walked in the ER and told me about the dead body outside under the orange tree. Sure! There really was a dead body under the tree.

Ba-bump tish.

I was staying in a four star hotel in the south of france, when this Russian maid flipped her shit and terrorised the entire hotel for a night. The details are so funny, but-- where's the plot? Where's the growth? Where's the money shot?

 

[oggbashan]

Indeed!

I recall an occasion when a very crazy woman walked in the ER and told me about the dead body outside under the orange tree. Sure! There really was a dead body under the tree.

I have found too many dead bodies in my life but the circumstances were usually extemely ordinary and not plot-worthy.

 

[mynameisben]

Ba-bump tish.

I was staying in a four star hotel in the south of france, when this Russian maid flipped her shit and terrorised the entire hotel for a night. The details are so funny, but-- where's the plot? Where's the growth? Where's the money shot?

There is no true story that can't be made better by artfully embellishing the facts. We write fiction, damn it, not history texts.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

It is always the primary duty of a writer to make the story real, whether it is fiction or not. If the author doesn't make realism his priority, then I will tell within the first couple of paragraphs and go read something else. A story is it's own reality and makes no difference to me if it's real or not unless, like some one else mentioned, I know and have the hots for the author.

Call me contrary but I think the writers job is to feed the need of the reader.

 

[NoJo]

If a story starts: "This is true, it happened to me" I immediately assume it isn't, didn't, and will possibly be badly written.

Seconded -- and I've been guilty of that in my first story I ever posted here, and was roundly bitch-slapped for it too. Which I kind of enjoyed.

 

[Que]

No, I'm not talking about breasts. I'm wondering about stories. Is it hotter for the reader and/or writer if they know a story is true? Or does a story always stand on its merits alone? I just was curious about what your thoughts were.

I think plausability is the key.... I guess I don't care if it's actually real if I believe it when I'm consuming the story

 

[Stella_Omega]

Seconded -- and I've been guilty of that in my first story I ever posted here, and was roundly bitch-slapped for it too. Which I kind of enjoyed.

Any time, darlin

True story!

 

[SamScribble]

Reminds me of a lawyer-turned-feature-writer with whom I used to work. 'Yes, we could tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' he used to say, 'but who'd believe it?'

 

[sr71plt]

Reminds me of a lawyer-turned-feature-writer with whom I used to work. 'Yes, we could tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,' he used to say, 'but who'd believe it?'

And, quite often, how dull it would be.

 

[RodenAddison]

If a story starts: "This is true, it happened to me" I immediately assume it isn't, didn't, and will possibly be badly written.

"This is a true story. The names, events, and ages have been changed to protect the guilty."

 

[damppanties]

Seconded -- and I've been guilty of that in my first story I ever posted here, and was roundly bitch-slapped for it too. Which I kind of enjoyed.

God, wasn't that a story that happened on a boat or something? How they navigated the gates on a river? Fuzzy brain.

 

[Dyslexicea]

If you can write well enough, you can have group sex with alien unicorns and the president of the United states, and your reader will get off on it.

Or a SNOWMAN!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I studied the American Civil War since I was 11 years old but didnt visit Gettysburg till 1992. It was the strangest experience, driving in to town it was like I knew the place as well as a resident.

 

[MatthewVett]

I think knowing that someone really happened makes it better, but I mean, nothing stops the author from making that claim. They'd have to make the story plausible, too, or else it's just going to feel like when movie companies say something was "based on a true story."

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Oh dear. Here I go again... My take is a little different on this - although I do agree with quite a few of the things already said here.

Erotic writing IS SEX and it is also REAL SEX. In case anyone hadn't realised it.

And just like any other thing in real life including the commonly-understood physical sex act and all of its physical derivatives, there are some who are good at it and others who are not so good. And then there are some who will progress to become very good too.

I understand the point of the question, but the actual answer is about what the reader responds to - and so if someone is genuinely causing arousal, THAT IS SEX. Real sex. Everything we say and do is potentially an extension of our sexual capabilities, which includes writing words.

There is literally a frisson that I feel when I think that I am opening up intimately to someone - including the anonymous someone - who is prepared to read intimate words and thoughts and feelings from me and open themselves up to the potential of being aroused.

And then too, it works the other way - in the sense that to an extent there is some kind of fictional thing going on in my mind in which 'the reader' is also 'fictionalised' back to me: 'the reader' might be someone I would, or could and would, have as an in vivo sexual partner as it were.

It's all real. Reality has different facets - the physical, the mental, the visual/conceptual, and so on. To me the thing turns on the threshold of what or where the level is of actual sexual 'arousingness' in the storytelling rather than on whether the thing is more or less a factual documentary. And this is then all about the Sex Quotient of the writer...

A highly-sexed, sexually turned-on and capable writer... ...IS really erotic! And is therefore 'real' anyway.

But I get the point of the question and real physical actually happened 'REAL' IS better if it is also really well-written. More is more. In this case.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Oh dear. Here I go again... My take is a little different on this - although I do agree with quite a few of the things already said here.

Erotic writing IS SEX and it is also REAL SEX. In case anyone hadn't realised it.

And just like any other thing in real life including the commonly-understood physical sex act and all of its physical derivatives, there are some who are good at it and others who are not so good. And then there are some who will progress to become very good too.

I understand the point of the question, but the actual answer is about what the reader responds to - and so if someone is genuinely causing arousal, THAT IS SEX. Real sex. Everything we say and do is potentially an extension of our sexual capabilities, which includes writing words.

There is literally a frisson that I feel when I think that I am opening up intimately to someone - including the anonymous someone - who is prepared to read intimate words and thoughts and feelings from me and open themselves up to the potential of being aroused.

And then too, it works the other way - in the sense that to an extent there is some kind of fictional thing going on in my mind in which 'the reader' is also 'fictionalised' back to me: 'the reader' might be someone I would, or could and would, have as an in vivo sexual partner as it were.

It's all real. Reality has different facets - the physical, the mental, the visual/conceptual, and so on. To me the thing turns on the threshold of what or where the level is of actual sexual 'arousingness' in the storytelling rather than on whether the thing is more or less a factual documentary. And this is then all about the Sex Quotient of the writer...

A highly-sexed, sexually turned-on and capable writer... ...IS really erotic! And is therefore 'real' anyway.

But I get the point of the question and real physical actually happened 'REAL' IS better if it is also really well-written. More is more. In this case.

There is interpretation when the Reader brings their fund of experiences and knowledge to the story. When I think of blowjobs I recall a Spanish girl named Ana who loved doing blowjobs more than anything, it was her reason to live. She didnt stay sngle long.

 

[carlieplum]

Some times real is worse. There was one story on here that I recall, about the first time a woman was meeting her "Master" IRL. The story was written at his direction.

She described what lie she told her husband to get out of the house, who she got to watch her kids, etc. It didn't matter what happened in the hotel room or how well she described it, there was no way that was going to be an erotic read for me.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Some times real is worse. There was one story on here that I recall, about the first time a woman was meeting her "Master" IRL. The story was written at his direction.

She described what lie she told her husband to get out of the house, who she got to watch her kids, etc. It didn't matter what happened in the hotel room or how well she described it, there was no way that was going to be an erotic read for me.

Define EROTIC

I checked the dictionary definition and EROTIC means designed to arouse sexual feelings.

Gay themes and BDSM do nuthin for me so are they non-erotic?

 

[Dyslexicea]

Erotic writing IS SEX and it is also REAL SEX. In case anyone hadn't realised it.

You are so very wrong. Erotic Literature is about human sexuality, desire, lust, arousal, emotions and so much more. Yes sex can be part of an erotic story but it does not have to be. Here at Lit there are many good erotic stories that don't have any sex scenes. Some stories here that are not erotic at all, just porn. Those porn stories may be your thing but they are just that sex stories, erotic literature is much more than just sex scenes.

As far as it being REAL SEX, you don't know of what you speak. Sex with a vampire, for some, can be very erotic. Being abducted by aliens and forced to have sex can, for some, be erotic. There are many erotic stories that deal with creature that aren't real. What is REAL SEX, is it your definition of sex or is it mine. Is a story written by a woman about sex alone in her bed with her toys, sex? To some of us it is, to other not so. How about having sex with Frosty the Snowman? Which by the way there are several e-books for sale about snowman sex. I find the very idea laughable but others must think it's sex because those books do sell.

You my dear boy are wrong on both points. Of course you're a man so we have to make allowances for stupidity.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I studied the American Civil War since I was 11 years old but didnt visit Gettysburg till 1992. It was the strangest experience, driving in to town it was like I knew the place as well as a resident.

As an avid study-er, I've had the same experience.
You can turn down a street that you know will being you to an intersection and a monument-and-- whoah, there's the monument, just like you've always pictured it!

Dyslexicea, I'm not sure what your point is there. It seems to be that REAL SEX is the sex you have-- the sex other people have doesn't count. "It's just porn."

I am also not convinced that erotic writing is REAL SEX either, per Desiremakesmeweak. At least, not for me. A real tool for orgasms, sure. And my hand in my crotch, the jilling, the orgasms are real sex. But as much as I've gotten off on writing and reading, it's never felt... real. Just what I wish was real.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

As an avid study-er, I've had the same experience.
You can turn down a street that you know will being you to an intersection and a monument-and-- whoah, there's the monument, just like you've always pictured it!

Dyslexicea, I'm not sure what your point is there. It seems to be that REAL SEX is the sex you have-- the sex other people have doesn't count. "It's just porn."

I am also not convinced that erotic writing is REAL SEX either, per Desiremakesmeweak. At least, not for me. A real tool for orgasms, sure. And my hand in my crotch, the jilling, the orgasms are real sex. But as much as I've gotten off on writing and reading, it's never felt... real. Just what I wish was real.

But real real sex isnt always that great. Ever go down on a gal with a yeast infection? whew! How do you tell them! Or go out with a woman who runs hot & cold all nite then drags you to her cave! A friend of mine picked up a woman who shit on his bed while he was brushing his teeth! Some of its divine, and a lot of its madness.

I'm tending to the conclusion that its prolly better to write about real events and people and the unusual events and novel situations they have, without the Las Vegas/Circus histrionics. To give readers an idea of whats out there for real.