Is this overly pretentious?

[impressive]

You'll never please everyone all at once

Oooooooo - group sex story!

 

[Guest]

Every muscle tensed, locking up, then collapsing as her body surrendered to the waves of rapture that overthrew her senses and her sensibilities.

Is that any better?

The Earl

I'm with Lauren on the locking and collapsing. It just doesn't sound right somehow. It does weaken the sentence, you need something stronger. And, eep! I'm not a huge fan of "waves of rapture" either. I think "pleasure" is better - less clichéd. And I'd use "which" instead of "that". And "drowned" instead of "overthrew" - they are waves. Oh gawd, I bet you wish you hadn't asked now. It's your story, Earl, just take our opinions with a pinch of salt, unless you happen to agree with them!

My version:

Every muscle tensed, locked up, then collapsed as her body surrendered to the waves of pleasure which drowned her senses and her sensibilities.

Nah, I still don't go much on the senses and sensibilities bit. Sorry, hon. It's just my personal taste, others obviously really go for it, so please feel free to ignore me.

 

[mlady_france]

*grins*

Earl love.

Go with your gut.


You'll never please everyone all at once

As this thread has proven very well.

There's always going to be those that pick up on those unexpected and unintentional refferences to other novels, stories, movies and what have you. But then there are those who won't get it even when it is intentional. So for the most part, if you like it, then I think you should go with it.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Noticed it. I didn't find it pretentious, but I did find it distracting. I'm trying to picture a woman having an orgasm and then suddenly, it's long frocks, parasols, and tea at the vicar's.

Not that those couldn't be an interesting combination.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Lauren: What do you mean about the two continuous tenses? Don't understand that bit.

As for waves of rapture; do you really think it's that's bad? I wouldn't have picked it as coming from a 19C romance novel or as being particularly cringeworthy, but I can't judge my own writing when I reread it. Any suggestions for a replacement?

The Earl

When I talked about the continuous tenses I was referring to "...locking up, then collapsing..."

It's a matter of personal style, I guess, but those -ing verbs always weaken the impact of sentences for me. The "then" that you were forced to use because of it doesn't help either. On the previous sentence, I would also do without the "which". When grammatical structure gets in the way of the action, it's never a good sign.

Waves of rapture sounds terribly clichéd. It's up there with the thralls of passion. To come up with a suitable substitute I'd need to get a feel of the whole story, the language you're using. With as little frame of reference as I have here, I would say that even simply replacing "rapture" for "orgasm" would break the Victorian cliché feeling.

 

[TheEarl]

Picky picky picky picky. How's this?

Her cries melted into one breathless wail of pleasure and Elsie’s body shuddered as her pussy pulsated to the beat of his strokes, which were growing faster and harder with her every moan. Her muscles tensed, locking up as her body arced in sheer ecstasy. Then she fell into her orgasm, her body surrendering to the waves of pleasure that overthrew her senses and her sensibilities.

I don't want to change the structure of that last bit, as I like the way it flows. If anyone can think of a word that means sensibilities which isn't sensibilities, then it'll be gratefully accepted.

The Earl

 

[mlady_france]

Picky picky picky picky. How's this?

Her cries melted into one breathless wail of pleasure and Elsie’s body shuddered as her pussy pulsated to the beat of his strokes, which were growing faster and harder with her every moan. Her muscles tensed, locking up as her body arced in sheer ecstasy. Then she fell into her orgasm, her body surrendering to the waves of pleasure that overthrew her senses and her sensibilities.

I don't want to change the structure of that last bit, as I like the way it flows. If anyone can think of a word that means sensibilities which isn't sensibilities, then it'll be gratefully accepted.

The Earl

Personally, I think it works better that way. It doesn't have the same, almost reminisant, antique feel to it that your original did. Style wize that is.

 

[Guest]

Picky picky picky picky. How's this?

Her cries melted into one breathless wail of pleasure and Elsie’s body shuddered as her pussy pulsated to the beat of his strokes, which were growing faster and harder with her every moan. Her muscles tensed, locking up as her body arced in sheer ecstasy. Then she fell into her orgasm, her body surrendering to the waves of pleasure that overthrew her senses and her sensibilities.

I don't want to change the structure of that last bit, as I like the way it flows. If anyone can think of a word that means sensibilities which isn't sensibilities, then it'll be gratefully accepted.

The Earl

Main Entry: sensibility
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: responsiveness
Synonyms: affection, appreciation, awareness, discernment, emotion, feeling, gut reaction, heart, insight, intuition, judgment, keenness, perceptiveness, rationale, sensation, sense, sensitiveness, sensitivity, sentiment, susceptibility, taste, vibes

EDITED TO ADD: Personally, I like "awareness".



That's much better, btw, but I'm not sure about this bit: "which were growing faster and harder" - too passive and clumsy. "Which grew"?

 

[TheEarl]

Main Entry: sensibility
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: responsiveness
Synonyms: affection, appreciation, awareness, discernment, emotion, feeling, gut reaction, heart, insight, intuition, judgment, keenness, perceptiveness, rationale, sensation, sense, sensitiveness, sensitivity, sentiment, susceptibility, taste, vibes

EDITED TO ADD: Personally, I like "awareness".



That's much better, btw, but I'm not sure about this bit: "which were growing faster and harder" - too passive and clumsy. "Which grew"?

Awareness still isn't sensibility. Sensibility has an aura of propriety as well; it's not just awareness, it's restraint and judgement rolled in there as well.

The Earl

 

[Guest]

Awareness still isn't sensibility. Sensibility has an aura of propriety as well; it's not just awareness, it's restraint and judgement rolled in there as well.

The Earl

True. Well, why not knock out the word "senses" then? And just have "sensibilities", because senses come under that umbrella, and sensibilities does pinpoint something more definied than senses. I think it's the use of both words that's the problem.

 

[yui]

Noticed it. I didn't find it pretentious, but I did find it distracting. I'm trying to picture a woman having an orgasm and then suddenly, it's long frocks, parasols, and tea at the vicar's.

Not that those couldn't be an interesting combination.

*cough, cough* smart horse *cough*

 

[Samandiriel]

Isn't this horse dead yet?

 

[gauchecritic]

Every muscle in her body tensed, locking up, then collapsing as her body surrendered to the waves of rapture that overthrew her senses and sensibilities.

I think I've sussed it The. To simply soften the Jane Austen Just add (I think someone's mentioned it already) 'both her senses and her sensiblities.'

The "tensed, locking up, then collapsing" threw me. (overthrew threw me as well, I don't think I've ever actually seen the word written down) 'her body tensed, locking up and then collapsed' is perhaps wrong tense wise (no one said the original was wrong so I assume it was right) but reads better.

The nub which you've had pointed out appears to be that sensibilities doesn't actually fit the circumstances. It seems (to me) that her sensibilities have been compromised much earlier and led her to this predicament (embarassment?) of which she is only now reaping (will reap) the consequences (guilt etc)

Strictly by dictionary dot com definition 'sensiblities' in this case is quite apt. I was thinking more in terms of perhaps if she were gay and this was her first hetero encounter then it would be going against her sensibilities. Viz 'better judgement'.

As for 19 century I think the paragraph would fit quite easily into my newest work (in the new list now "Dear Betsy") actually set in the 19 century with what I hope is language to match.

If I was going to worry about the paragraph itself (and I wouldn't) I'd be more concerned with the tense thing at the beginning.

 

[CharleyH]

Every muscle in her body tensed, locking up, then collapsing as her body surrendered to the waves of rapture that overthrew her senses and sensibilities.

An editor has picked up the 'senses and sensibilities' section as throwing her out of the moment and into Jane Austen. I want to say it because it describes exactly what I'm looking to say, but I don't want to sound like I'm name-checking Austen.

Does it sound pretentious?

The Earl

Pretentious? LOL, well ok, so I immediately think of the book, and look for correlations, but the phrase in itself is not pretentious, however, the rest of the sentance, don't mind me, reads stuffy.

Her muscles tensed, locked, collapsed as she surrendered.

Would probably do it, but thats just me, so ...

Edit to add: LOL sorry, I had not read all the pretentious answers yet (joking) just came at it fresh.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Every muscle tensed, locking up, then collapsing as her body surrendered to the waves of rapture that overthrew her senses and her sensibilities.

Is that any better?

The Earl

I love this! Writing by committee! It's bound to be great.

But shouldn't it be:

Every muscle tensed, locked up, then collapsed as her body...?

How about "...overthrew her senses and drowned her sensibilities?"

Or "...overwhelmed her senses and drowned (flooded?) her sensibilities."

"Overthrowing" her senses doesn't quite seem right.

Or how about "...overthrew her pride and cured her prejudices."

Okay, I'm kidding.

I was just going over a story of mine where the heroine was thinking what a perfect place this would be for an affair because, "Everything that happened here would stay here."

It's an old cliche, but it also happens to be the slogan for a recent TV ad campaign for Las Vegas. It pissed me off, but I had to pull it. I didn't want readers to think this was a bachelor party.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

What Doc said; me too.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[TheEarl]

I was just going over a story of mine where the heroine was thinking what a perfect place this would be for an affair because, "Everything that happened here would stay here."

It's an old cliche, but it also happens to be the slogan for a recent TV ad campaign for Las Vegas. It pissed me off, but I had to pull it. I didn't want readers to think this was a bachelor party.

Thanks DrM. This decided me; I may like the phrase, but its gonna bring the wrong connotations to a lot of people and so it's not worth it.

'Overwhelming her sensibilities' it is then.

The Earl

 

[Liar]

That's not really a compliment. You think it's hyperbolic?

The Earl

It wasn't meant as niether a complimet not a critique. Just noted that in the context of the general style of the text, it fitted in. Hyperboles as any other stylistic device is a good thing if you use them well. You know what you're aiming for - I don't. So you are the better judge than me if the "flowery" level, for lack of a better word, of the language is apt or not.