Making characters realistic?

[LizzyDark]

We'll chat further maybe when you get around to addressing what I actually post.

I love it when a poster who has been on Lit. all of one month and has only one story in the Lit. story file is telling "beginners" how to write and what flies or doesn't fly in erotica.

I love when some pathetic loser on a message board thinks their 14,000+ posts mean they know anything but how to post on a message board.

Tell you what, we can chat further when you get around to writing something that isn't terrible. I've read your crap. Maybe you should spend less time posting on message boards and more time taking a basic creative writing class so you won't look like such a pathetic douche bag when you spout off about writing, which you clearly know nothing about.

All I see from your little guru status is you spent 14,000+ posts not writing fiction. You should aspire to being called a "beginner" by me--it'd be a whole lot better than what I'm calling you now.

 

[Safe_Bet]

We'll chat further maybe when you get around to addressing what I actually post.

I love it when a poster who has been on Lit. all of one month and has only one story in the Lit. story file is telling "beginners" how to write and what flies or doesn't fly in erotica.

Wow. Arrogant much?

What difference does it make how long she's been here. There are a lot of writers who have NEVER been here that can help other people.

BTW, how do you know that she isn't a professional writer who has REAL books published? (as opposed to being so proud of having a few E-books published by Excessica - which doesn't impress me all that much, BTW)

Face it, SR, you write dirty stories on a porn story site. You ain't all that and you sure as shit have no right to get all "condescending" towards ANYBODY.

Oh, yeah, I forgot that you're a supersonic spy plane flying super secret agent who's one of Pete Dupont's kids or some such BS.

(and yeah, I' believe that about as much as I do anything else you say - so back on iggy)

P.S. LizzyDark: Just watch. He won't be able to keep himself from trying to get the last word.

 

[veronica_james]

I read in an article once, and I wish I knew who to credit this advice to, but he suggested that you write down key points in YOUR personality. What are you afraid of? What are your best traits? What are some of your hobbies and why do you like them? Questions like this help you to understand yourself and what drives you. Your characters, if you want to create life-like characters, you need to give them drive and motivations to do the things they want to do.

Hope this helps.

 

[LizzyDark]

I read in an article once, and I wish I knew who to credit this advice to, but he suggested that you write down key points in YOUR personality. What are you afraid of? What are your best traits? What are some of your hobbies and why do you like them? Questions like this help you to understand yourself and what drives you. Your characters, if you want to create life-like characters, you need to give them drive and motivations to do the things they want to do.

Hope this helps.

Great advice, Ronnie! I think that might have been from Stephen King's book on writing. He's a big believer in letting his characters motivate themselves through the conflicts he puts before them. It's a good way to go, especially in something as organic an animalistic as sex.

 

[sr71plt]

Well, this is fun. The crazy zealot safe_bet has shown up too. (She hasn't written any stories here either, I think.) And she certainly isn't here because she's an erotica writer.

Again, it's so great to see those who show no writing expertise here showing off what they don't know about writing.

Developing writer beware. Do some checking on folks here before falling for their line of "expertise."

 

[LizzyDark]

Again, it's so great to see those who show no writing expertise here showing off what they don't know about writing.

Developing writer beware. Do some checking on folks here before falling for their line of "expertise."

Very rarely will you see someone warn someone off of their own advice. Congratulations on posting something that made all your other posts irrelevant.

You're right, people shouldn't listen to you or any of the utter nonsense you spewed and you certainly did show how little writing expertise you have, but, then again, your shit stories do that on their own.

Oh, and posting one pathetic positive comment you received on a horribly written story in your signature is fucking pathetic.

 

[harding]

When I portrayed a middle-aged mom with "saggy boobs" I caught hell for it.

I agree with sr71plt - readers here do want realistic characters. But describing like this is the same as saying she had 38DD boobs. You don't have to describe physical characteristics because the reader will invent them for you far better than you can describe them.

Might have been better to say something like:

"She never seemed satisfied with her body. Other women always seemed so much more glamorous and pert than her."

Then the reader can imagine them as they want them to be...

 

[JackLuis]

When I portrayed a middle-aged mom with "saggy boobs" I caught hell for it.

I agree with sr71plt - readers here do want realistic characters. But describing like this is the same as saying she had 38DD boobs. You don't have to describe physical characteristics because the reader will invent them for you far better than you can describe them.

Might have been better to say something like:

"She never seemed satisfied with her body. Other women always seemed so much more glamorous and pert than her."

Then the reader can imagine them as they want them to be...

Or "Pendulous Paula, she had been called by her so called friend, Lovey Mc Perky."
eh?

 

[Weird Harold]

--you have just stopped their creative writing development dead in its tracks.

Unlike you, I give novice authors some credit for being able to understand the concept of "overuse ... may cause ..." and learning to see the difference by avoiding the passive mind set that leads to unintentional overuse.

Purging a tendency to overuse passive voice in my writing led to a story that was chosen for inclusion in the Literotica anthology -- it didn't seem to stifle my creativity much and Until proven otherwise, I give people concerned enough to ask questions credit for being as intelligent about writing advice as I was.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I watched an organ masters class last night. The instructor had no hestitation about correcting his ham fisted pupils.

Somewhere along the way we got the idea that its okay to skip DO IT RIGHT and leap to HAVE IT YOUR WAY.

 

[Safe_Bet]

Wow. Arrogant much?

What difference does it make how long she's been here. There are a lot of writers who have NEVER been here that can help other people.

BTW, how do you know that she isn't a professional writer who has REAL books published? (as opposed to being so proud of having a few E-books published by Excessica - which doesn't impress me all that much, BTW)

Face it, SR, you write dirty stories on a porn story site. You ain't all that and you sure as shit have no right to get all "condescending" towards ANYBODY.

Oh, yeah, I forgot that you're a supersonic spy plane flying super secret agent who's one of Pete Dupont's kids or some such BS.

(and yeah, I' believe that about as much as I do anything else you say - so back on iggy)

P.S. LizzyDark: Just watch. He won't be able to keep himself from trying to get the last word.

Well, this is fun. The crazy zealot safe_bet has shown up too. (She hasn't written any stories here either, I think.) And she certainly isn't here because she's an erotica writer.

Again, it's so great to see those who show no writing expertise here showing off what they don't know about writing.

Developing writer beware. Do some checking on folks here before falling for their line of "expertise."

Told ya!

 

[3113]

Unlike you, I give novice authors some credit for being able to understand the concept of "overuse ... may cause ..."

Heh. I don't give novice that kind of credit--because believe me I've known plenty who take such advice and go waaaaaay overboard with it. Myself included back in the day. If you'd given me that passive advice when I was starting, what sr7 said would have happened would have happened. I'd have destroyed the good stuff along with the bad trying to get that 100%.

And screamed in frustration when the best parts of the story were now shit because I'd done that. I'd have had to learn the hard way not to overuse. And I wasn't unique. I've been in and even taught a writing workshop/class and, really, it's not about giving them credit for smarts--it's about knowing how eager they are to learn and write. They want it so much that they will over do it.

New writers, I've found, tend to fall into two categories: The "I know what I'm doing!" category, in which case all advice falls on deaf ears no matter how good or bad and the "I'll do anything you say!" category. In which case they will go overboard trying to do what you tell them to do unless you remind them to execute all advice in moderation.

 

[R. Richard]

If you want to involve your reader in a story, you have to make the story realistic. In order to make your story realistic, you have to have some experience with the character that you write about. If yu want ot write about a big tit blonde, about to pop out of her skimpy dress, it helps to have actually interacted with several such BTBs, in a variety of social situations. What did they say, how did they say it, to whom did they say it, what were the results?

Obviously, you want your BTB to say and do the things that will lead to erotic situations. However, those things need to be realistic, but slanted to get the effect that you want.

JMHO.

 

[Weird Harold]

Heh. I don't give novice that kind of credit--because believe me I've known plenty who take such advice and go waaaaaay overboard with it. Myself included back in the day. If you'd given me that passive advice when I was starting, what sr7 said would have happened would have happened. I'd have destroyed the good stuff along with the bad trying to get that 100%.

If you ever succeeded in writing 100% passive voice, I hope you bottled it as a sleeping aid.

I'm pretty sure that I "went overboard" when I was first told I had a problem with passive voice, but I learned from seeing the effect seeing how stories were different from the first version after passive voice was completely eliminated.

I give you and anyone else who want to improve their writing credit for enough inteligence to learn from mistakes and recover from the one terrible story that you gutted by going overboard with the advice you got from the internet.

Consider this: IF an author is getting complaints of flat and uninteresting and you found passive voice in the writings -- especially in the sections that are the most flat and uninteresting -- what advice would YOU give?

 

[3113]

Description matters when it serves the story

I agree with sr71plt - readers here do want realistic characters. But describing like this is the same as saying she had 38DD boobs.

I don't think it is the same. If a woman naturally has 38DD boobs she doesn't think to herself, "I have 38DD" unless she's shopping for a bra. So describing the number and cup size is obviously artificial. It's even more so if a guy describes them so as how would he know the bra size? But it is absolutely, positively realistic for a woman to look down and say, "Aw, shit. Look at how they're sagging....." Even more so if she's shopping and glances over at some young thing with pert breasts. She'll shake her head and think, "Mine were once like that. Now look at 'em!"

And it's absolutely perfectly realistic for a man (admittedly an obnoxious one) to say, "Sorry, Babe, sagging breasts turn me off."

I mean, come on, we obsess about our flaws and differences from the moment we hit puberty if not before--and we never, ever stop ("My ass is fat! My nose is funny!"). Not only that, but we spend way too much time looking at everyone else and whispering about their flaws--that from childhood on. We even talk obsessively about movie and rock stars when they let themselves go. Look at the check-out stand newspapers ("Who's anorexic?" "Five television stars who need to lose weight....")

So thinking of breasts as "sagging" is not the same as thinking of them as 38DD. One we do all the time, the other we'd never do (we'd think, "Whoa, look at the size of those things! Are they real?). Nor do I think that leaving those sagging breasts out for the reader to "imagine" would have been the right thing for the story. The whole idea, I presume, was to indicate that gravity and time have an affect on all of us, and it shouldn't make us feel like our sexuality is over.

And that, I think, is the important point. When writers put in 38DD, they're not putting in anything that is useful to the story. If the character is young and pretty, then the writer can trust the reader to imagine her with whatever size breasts appeal to them. But a character who notices her sagging breasts tells us something about the character--her fear of aging or just losing her sex appeal. And that creates both an inner conflict and a story. "Sagging" is a decidedly unsexy word--and one that isn't going to let character or reader get away with pretending that those breasts are sexy, as they might if they were left undescribed or as pendulous.

So, both character and reader must take this reality of time and age and see if they can find a way to turn "sagging" into "pendulous" and come to love breasts that have lost their perk.That is what the "sagging" description gives us (or might give us depending on the author) that the 38DD does not. And so it matters--or, at least, it can matter.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

NOTE: If the character is passive, use the passive voice; if aspects of the scene are acted upon, use the passive voice.

 

[LizzyDark]

I agree with sr71plt - readers here do want realistic characters. But describing like this is the same as saying she had 38DD boobs. You don't have to describe physical characteristics because the reader will invent them for you far better than you can describe them.

Might have been better to say something like:

"She never seemed satisfied with her body. Other women always seemed so much more glamorous and pert than her."

Then the reader can imagine them as they want them to be...

This really depends on your desired readership and it also has an edge of too much perfection, which can damage how well your readers identify with your characters, because there are simply very few perfect people out there. Characters having flaw and quirks is a good thing, it's all in how you describe them though.

Example description 1:
"Paula had sagging, lumpy breasts that threatened to cover her bellybutton within the next year..."
The major problem with a description like that, even though it is technically accurate, is that it's not hot, and we're here for hot stuff.

Example description 2:
"Time had taken its toll on Paula's body, as it tends to do with women her age, but she knew her breasts could still be something worth displaying with the aid of a push up bra."
Accurate, the flaw is still there for aging women and men attracted to aging women to identify with, but it's written in a tone that let's it still be sexually appealing.

To completely abandon description to let the reader fill in the blanks is lazy and boring writing, which are precisely the notes the OP received on his story when he tried it. To only allow perfect men and women with perfect bodies and perfect genitalia into your stories is also boring and you're going to run into a lot of readers who would really rather just watch porn at that point.

You can describe physical characteristics without being gross, overly clinical, or stereotypical.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Mmmmmmm Good vs Evil sells better than Damaged Goods With A Heart of Gold. People want to believe theyre better than they are cuz they know Gravy Stained Losers dont have hearts of gold.

They want Rocky; they want heroes who are better than they appear to be. They want Cinderella NOT Chelsea or Michelle or Hillary.

 

[LizzyDark]

Mmmmmmm Good vs Evil sells better than Damaged Goods With A Heart of Gold. People want to believe theyre better than they are cuz they know Gravy Stained Losers dont have hearts of gold.

They want Rocky; they want heroes who are better than they appear to be. They want Cinderella NOT Chelsea or Michelle or Hillary.

Every character ever played by Seth Rogan, Adam Sandler, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Kirsty Alley, Kristen Wiig, Marlon Brando, Will Ferrel, Amy Adams, and Vince Vaughn would probably argue otherwise. You've never heard of the lovable loser trope? It's been around since before Shakespeare. Shakespeare loved flawed protagonists: Loves Labors Lost, A Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, Othello, any of the Richard plays, he liked Falstaff so much (the fat, drunken, scheming old knight) that he gave him his own spin-off play when the Henry IV series was done (see Merry Wives of Windsor).

We love underdogs. We love seeing people we know shouldn't succeed actually succeed. Rudy, you're too short and weak to play football for Notre Dame. Cyrano, you can never woo your love because you're such a lousy public speaker. Frodo, you're just a hobbit, go back to the shire. Did you see the face they hung on Josh Brolind for Jonah Hex? Did you watch ANY of the Austin Powers movies? Anything with Jack Black in it? In romantic comedies the character everyone hates, who never gets the girl, is always the perfect one, the rich one, the good looking one. Patrick Dempsey's entire career is based on playing the other, less attractive, but good-hearted guy.

 

[sr71plt]

I love when some pathetic loser on a message board thinks their 14,000+ posts mean they know anything but how to post on a message board.

Ummm, no. The topic is writing stories, not writing on a message board. And it's quite telling that you didn't do any research before doing your other empty slamming of me here.

As I said, it's obvious you're going to be a real charmer and highly respected expert on writing erotica around here on the basis of your one-month's tenure at Lit. and your one posted story.

But since you're being such an obnoxious bitch, I'll leave this thread to you.

(Cyrano was the one who COULD speak, incidentally. I'll take this as reflective of the quality of your demonstrated expertise.)

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

oops. Double clicked.

 

[Bianca_Sommerland]

Which, again, could very well turn out to be 4%. When you tell a developing writer they need to use 0% passive voice and no adverbs--and they believe you--you have just stopped their creative writing development dead in its tracks.

This is 100% true. The best peace of advice I've ever read about the writing process is 1. Forget the rules during rough draft and 2. Know the rules when you're editing. I went on a trip for awhile where 'was' was an evil word. When you're trying too hard to avoid certain words or a certain voice to write properly, it shows.

I might suggest making sure a sentance can't be said in a shorter, snappier way--but only if it comes out naturally.

We will agree that erotic literature is fantasy literature to a point. But to say that means that all characters need to be stereotypically ideal is complete and utter bullshit. B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T.

Have you even LOOKED at the categories of pornographic "fantasy" literature that are offered to readers on this site? Literotica has something like twenty-six categories including "Mature" (that means older characters--so your DDD porn slut is in her 60's), "transexuals" (that means your DDD blond slut has a dick) "interracial" (DDD slut is Asian and wearing a blond wig), and "Toys" (DDD porn slut is a doll!).

All these categories have tons of stories in them, and all those stories have been read by tons of readers. Which means that readers of porn have fantasies that include characters above and beyond (sometimes waaaaaay beyond) the "mainstream" stereotype. Some of these readers are women who want to read a story with a heroine who looks like them--meaning flat, or fat or old. Some of them are men who want to read a story with a girl who looks like the woman they're lusting after--meaning skinny or fat or a with a dick (it may shock you to your core, but not all men want that DDD blonde). Some of them don't want a girl in the story at all. Some want a creature with tentacles!

I promise, promise, promise you that if you write a story with whatever looking hero/heroine having whatever kind of sex (so long as it's allowed by the site), there will be readers out there to appreciate it.

And I promise you that whatever you write, even if it includes a DDD blond slut, you won't please every reader. What else is new, right? Pick out the donut from the box that you like, not the one glazed with sugar because that's the most popular. Those that are bored with the glazed will thank you for giving them one covered in nuts or dripping with chocolate instead.

Besides, those who have only the glazed, day after day, really aren't worth going after. They tend to read stories and move on, never favoring any, never leaving comments or feedback or votes, never remembering who wrote what. Why should they? To them, all such stories are the same.

I think this covers lit. Hell, probably covers writing for others in general.

 

[Weird Harold]

This is 100% true. The best peace of advice I've ever read about the writing process is 1. Forget the rules during rough draft ...

The way one of my very early mentors said, "Sit down at the keyboard and jsut tlet the words flow through your fingers until you run out of words. Then delete the two thirds that is total crap and edit what's left into a story."

That didn't work for me, BTW -- my fingers are so stupid that I can't understand what I was trying to type if I don't pay at least some attention to spelling and grammar when composing the first draft.

 

[sr71plt]

The way one of my very early mentors said, "Sit down at the keyboard and jsut tlet the words flow through your fingers until you run out of words. Then delete the two thirds that is total crap and edit what's left into a story."

That didn't work for me, BTW -- my fingers are so stupid that I can't understand what I was trying to type if I don't pay at least some attention to spelling and grammar when composing the first draft.

I never did that either. Different strokes for different folks. But this is yet another reason not to give detailed instructions--especially to beginners--on what "the answers" are (or that you think they are).

 

[Bebeslut]

Surprising character quirks that seem tangential at first but later turn out to be key to the story are also particularly effective. (E.g., that sharp metal nail file that the blonde starlet is using to destraction or the gum she's always irritatingly popping help define her character, but they can also become key to the story when she fights off a rapist with said nail file or when the wife of her lover finds a wad of chewing gum under the edge or her nightstand.)

Or when she uses the gum to fight off the rapist. Now, that would take a little imagination.