Making characters realistic?

[sr71plt]

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

Maybe we should all write stories requiring that element.

 

[LizzyDark]

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.)

LMFAO, wanna take a guess at how many people sent me PMs about how much a douche bag you are when I started mocking you? I think making fun of you could only help my popularity here. You've been around here so long nobody can stand you. Now, a normal person wouldn't hang out that long where they clearly weren't liked, but here you are.

Here's my research:
I read your stories and laughed at how bad they were.
I read your posts and laughed at how insipid they were.
Then I read your signature and laughed that you put praise for one of your stories along with its current star ranking in there.
Then I noticed you just said you'd leave the thread and you posted twice more after.

For how much experience you claim to have as a writer, you'd think you'd be better by now.

 

[YoursSINSerely]

LMFAO, wanna take a guess at how many people sent me PMs about how much a douche bag you are when I started mocking you? I think making fun of you could only help my popularity here. You've been around here so long nobody can stand you. Now, a normal person wouldn't hang out that long where they clearly weren't liked, but here you are.

Here's my research:
I read your stories and laughed at how bad they were.
I read your posts and laughed at how insipid they were.
Then I read your signature and laughed that you put praise for one of your stories along with its current star ranking in there.
Then I noticed you just said you'd leave the thread and you posted twice more after.

For how much experience you claim to have as a writer, you'd think you'd be better by now.

LMFAO! Do you want to talk about how many disrespectful people are out there? You can learn something from your elders if you want to.

 

[driphoney]

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.

I agree with the fact that we love underdogs. I think, however, both of you are right here, so it might not really be an either/or situation. I would think most of your examples prove JBJ's point, in a way. Frodo is good, Jack Black is good in The Holiday (I'm not familiar with his other stuff), Ben Stiller, ditto.

A flawed character can be good or bad, or even both. Bad can win out and then we have a tragedy, right? Audiences like a variety.

 

[Stella_Omega]

LMFAO, wanna take a guess at how many people sent me PMs about how much a douche bag you are when I started mocking you? I think making fun of you could only help my popularity here. You've been around here so long nobody can stand you. Now, a normal person wouldn't hang out that long where they clearly weren't liked, but here you are.

Here's my research:
I read your stories and laughed at how bad they were.
I read your posts and laughed at how insipid they were.
Then I read your signature and laughed that you put praise for one of your stories along with its current star ranking in there.
Then I noticed you just said you'd leave the thread and you posted twice more after.

For how much experience you claim to have as a writer, you'd think you'd be better by now.

Yanno, Pilot isn't my favorite person-- but you sound like a real asshole saying this.

I have never read a bad story from him, either. They aren't always to my taste, but he's got the chops.

 

[LizzyDark]

I agree with the fact that we love underdogs. I think, however, both of you are right here, so it might not really be an either/or situation. I would think most of your examples prove JBJ's point, in a way. Frodo is good, Jack Black is good in The Holiday (I'm not familiar with his other stuff), Ben Stiller, ditto.

A flawed character can be good or bad, or even both. Bad can win out and then we have a tragedy, right? Audiences like a variety.

Good and bad are completely ill-defined in that post. Plenty of those characters do morally questionable things that could be considered "bad" in some lights. Jack Black in Shallow Hal was a horribly shallow person who had to be hypnotized into being attracted to Gwynneth Paltrow (in a giant fat suit). I mean, look at Titanic, Leo's character was a poor, gambling, con-man who was seducing a woman engaged to be married--written in a different light and he's Iachimo from Cymbeline. Ben Stiller painted a stray cat in Meet the Parents and lied about it. Frodo falsely accused Sam of trying to betray him in the Return of the King. These are the flaws that make the characters more believable as real people since we all make mistakes.

 

[LizzyDark]

Yanno, Pilot isn't my favorite person-- but you sound like a real asshole saying this.

I have never read a bad story from him, either. They aren't always to my taste, but he's got the chops.

He types out the dialogue during sex like a bad script from a cut-rate porno. His prose are overwritten and pretentious especially in first person. The women he writes are inane stereotypes that would make Hemmingway laugh. If that's what you consider chops...

 

[Darkniciad]

I'm with Stella. SR's posting style can be grating because he has strong opinions, doesn't attempt to sugar-coat them, and he's unapologetic about it, but that rant just comes off about as juvenile as it gets. I've never read anything bad by him either.

Keeping me from back-clicking out of a GM story isn't easy, and SR is one of the few who can pull it off. The coupling may not do anything for me, but the characters and the little touches come together in a whole that keeps me reading. When he writes something that is more in line with my taste, it never fails to be memorable.

 

[LizzyDark]

I'm with Stella. SR's posting style can be grating because he has strong opinions, doesn't attempt to sugar-coat them, and he's unapologetic about it, but that rant just comes off about as juvenile as it gets. I've never read anything bad by him either.

Keeping me from back-clicking out of a GM story isn't easy, and SR is one of the few who can pull it off. The coupling may not do anything for me, but the characters and the little touches come together in a whole that keeps me reading. When he writes something that is more in line with my taste, it never fails to be memorable.

I"m sure such testimonials can be found for Dan Brown and Stephanie Meier.

His arrogance regarding how prolific he is in posting and submitting stories to websites doesn't buy him any respect with me. Harper Lee, by his estimation, should listen to him as a less experienced author having only written one book. With the attitude he throws around, his stuff should be impeccable, and from what I read, it's pretentious and overwritten, which a lot of people will mistake for quality, but isn't.

 

[grrlongrrrl]

To the OP:

Characters are one of the hardest things to get right. Characters don't have to be realistic, they just have to be engaging, so a trick I used to use is to create a character that's exactly what a reader would expect, except for one or two things. E.g., a 19 year old stripper with huge cans who drives a minivan with a "My Honor Student" sticker on it. Or a strutting college jock who carries a lock of hair in a yellowed envelope in his wallet. Or a lesbian activist whose twin sister is a nun. Something like that to make the reader (and you) want to find out more.

Good luck.

K

 

[Darkniciad]

His arrogance regarding how prolific he is in posting and submitting stories to websites doesn't buy him any respect with me. Harper Lee, by his estimation, should listen to him as a less experienced author having only written one book. With the attitude he throws around, his stuff should be impeccable, and from what I read, it's pretentious and overwritten, which a lot of people will mistake for quality, but isn't.

I think I'll just leave it to the bolds and move on.

 

[lovecraft68]

Hi, all.
As my sig proudly proclaims, I've recently (yesterday, relative to the time of this post) had my first story published on lit. It happens to be my first piece of fiction ever.
One of the comments that I've received mentions that my characters are flat. I'm not saying they're not- if anything, I was trying to keep them vague, in the hopes that more people would identify with them.

I have a few questions:
How does one make characters "real"? What sort of touches do you use?

I've heard it said that lit is sort of like mainstream porn- people come here for the fantasy, hence all the characters need to be stereotypically ideal. Do you agree with this? Can one have a blonde, DDD porn starlet wannabe princess slut*...and make her be realistic?

I appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks.


*used for illustrative purposes only. YMMV.

My answer is a bit of both. The characters don't have to be porn star perfect but of course have to be attractive, It's no fun picturing ugly or even average people fucking we can do that at home ourselves. So to me where I add realism is in the personalities, they can be imperfect people with great looks and that satisfies both. The physical attributes come into play during the erotica but the rest of your story; your background and build up and the afterwards (if it doesn't end on the sex) is where their little quirks come out and make them identifiable. A good trick is to maybe give the male some of your personality, what would you say or do if this happened to you? inject a little humor cracking a decent one liner really makes them seem like real people. I suppose how much you need depends on if you're doing a stand alone or a long running series stand alone I guess you don;t have to do a lot. But I feel humor creates the effect they are real. I haven't been writing long but I will tell you where this helped me. Back in July I lost a bet with a friend and had to write a mother son story for him. He picked this because he knew that although I write brother sister incest the idea of parent child really wasn't my thing. So I decided the only way I could do it would be to make light of it. During the story which is from the sons point of view he makes several jokes at himself and how sick this really is but the jokes sort of keep him going. There's also a great one liner the mother comes up with that several people e-mailed me and said was hilarious. Now my wife was appalled I was even writing this but read it anyways and said that the humor humanized the characters and made it readable. If you ever have time it's called Weekends with Laura and of course it's on my stories page. Its 3 lit pages so it might be 30-60 minutes of your day but I think you might get something out of it.

 

[Safe_Bet]

LMFAO! Do you want to talk about how many disrespectful people are out there? You can learn something from your elders if you want to.

Seriously???

As far as I know SR is some 20 something dweeby little punk sitting in his mom's basement.

Instead, how about suggesting that people learn from their betters.

As a reader, I can tell you that there are DOZENS of new writers that write better than many of the "older" ones. I'm not discounting experience, but formal training and talent will take you much further than experience. As is proven simply by reading Lit on a given day, there are "experienced" writers here who's claim to fame is that they have written a LOT of really bad stories.

Yanno, Pilot isn't my favorite person-- but you sound like a real asshole saying this.

I have never read a bad story from him, either. They aren't always to my taste, but he's got the chops.

I got a bible quote for you on this fine Sunday, Stella:

“As you sow so shall you reap”
Proverbs

I have NO sympathy or respect for SR.


As for you jumping in with you ad hominem attack of LizzyDark by calling her an an asshole = Pot:Kettle, hon.

 

[Stella_Omega]

As for you jumping in with you ad hominem attack of LizzyDark by calling her an an asshole = Pot:Kettle, hon.

I didn't call her an asshole, I said her words made her sound like an asshole. Can you tell the difference?

 

[LizzyDark]

Seriously???

As far as I know SR is some 20 something dweeby little punk sitting in his mom's basement.

Instead, how about suggesting that people learn from their betters.

As a reader, I can tell you that there are DOZENS of new writers that write better than many of the "older" ones. I'm not discounting experience, but formal training and talent will take you much further than experience. As is proven simply by reading Lit on a given day, there are "experienced" writers here who's claim to fame is that they have written a LOT of really bad stories.

Exactly! He's just a big fish in a small pond. All I see in his 400+ stories posted here is that he's written a lot of stuff nobody is willing to pay for. I take instruction from authors better than me, not ones who have sat around on a free website submitting unsellable stories and asinine forum posts. He ends his stories with THE END...seriously? Are his stories Rob Reiner movies? Congratulations, he's posted a lot on a forum and free websites. The people I take instruction from in college have book deals, real awards, and wouldn't put any stock in the "elders" of literotica.com, so why the fuck should I?

I get paid for my writing; the story I posted here uses characters that are not my intellectual property and I was only allowed to use them with the agreement that I wouldn't sell the story. Just because it's my first EROTICA story doesn't mean it's my first story. It's my first and only post here because my mainstream writing is paid for and in print, on actual paper. SR might be older than me, but probably not by much, and he's only more experienced in how NOT to sell work.

 

[desirelit]

realistic characters

I don't claim my characters are all very realistic. However, I think it's a lot sexier when people sweat, they might be over weight, they might have pubic hair. That being said, these are erotic stories. Mine are quite graphic. So don't expect to find sexless, repulsive people, or be surprised when attractive people have wild sex in stories.

 

[sr71plt]

In your malicious, over-the-top campaign to gangbusters attack, LizzyD, you've revealed that you haven't either read any stories I've posted here or bothered to do any research. I don't end my stories with "the end" and everything I have here is in the marketplace and is doing fine. Don't take my word for that; ask either one of my publishers who are also members of Lit. Ask either Selena Kitt or Sabb. (Not that you wll; that's not your technique). You don't even know anything about the business--you have no inkling at all what book reviewer comments are.

We get folks like you floating through here all the time. Immediate experts on the basis of one Lit. published story and only a few week's membership--and then getting their panties in a knot when someone shines a light on their lack of any knowledge. You're all blow and no go.

About the same goes for you screamy zealot sidekick, Safe_bet (the second). She has nothing posted to Lit. other than crazy lady forum posts and isn't even enough of a woman to be posting under her own account name. She's just a backbiter.

Nobody with any real interest in writing erotica has any trouble figuring out the agenda of you two. So, no sweat. You make yourselves easier to figure out with each posting

 

[Loring2]

Yup

Yanno, Pilot isn't my favorite person-- but you sound like a real asshole saying this.

I have never read a bad story from him, either. They aren't always to my taste, but he's got the chops.

I'd almost say that Pilot and Lizzy are close relatives.

I think I can go back to work and not miss either one of 'em

 

[xssve]

In short, real people have flaws and limitations - Jack Nicholson, when playing his role as Jake Gittes in China town, insisted on wearing the nose plaster after the characters nose was broken early in the movie, throughout the entire movie, against the wishes of everybody else, because it spoiled his "looks", but it really sold the character, kept it real instead of turning him into some symbolic superman, and the cynicism was all the deeper for it.

i.e., part of the reason Chinatown is considered one of the greatest films ever made, instead of another Sam Spade B movie knock off, might be that piece of plaster on Jack Nicholson's nose.

 

[Safe_Bet]

I'd almost say that Pilot and Lizzy are close relatives.

I think I can go back to work and not miss either one of 'em

I disagree.


LizzyDark came here and commented about writing. (I know, not normal)

SR attacked her like he has every other woman on this forum that doesn't kiss his ass. (NOW we're back to normal)

LizzyDark defended her position which brought on MORE inane, personal attacks from SR.

SR then started stomping his foot and got all pissy because somebody called him on his bullshit.


BTW, have you read either of their writings? SR's isn't terrible - if a bit sophomoric, but I thought LizzyDark's was pretty damn good, especially considering that I don't particularly enjoy the vampire genre. Maybe THAT's what's really pissing SR off.

 

[vrosej10]

He types out the dialogue during sex like a bad script from a cut-rate porno. His prose are overwritten and pretentious especially in first person. The women he writes are inane stereotypes that would make Hemmingway laugh. If that's what you consider chops...

Oh god, I know this scenario. I had to workshop a play recently that read like the worst porno ever made. The more experienced folks would have died laughing with at this one and my gentle attempts to try and get the individual to make their characters more two dimensional and the situation more realistic (they had long term hookers claiming no experience with men. By definition that's impossible). It was horrific. People think it's easy to write porn, that they can say any old obscene shit and it'll be hot. It doesn't work like that.

 

[vrosej10]

On a hunch, I C&P your story into Word 97 and checked the readability statistics -- your story is "4% passive voice sentences" and yur first paragraph is "20% passive voice sentences."

That is important because of an explanation I found on Purdue University's Online writing Lab for Passive voice:



(I'm pretty sure the OWL has been updated several time since, so I can't say it is the current explanation)


In trying to cure my problem with passive voice, I discovered that the predicted effect can show up with a passive voice sentences percentage as low as 3%. I conjecture that the percentage is so low because of two points:

1) There are just fewer sentences where passive or active voice is a consideration. The majority of sentences are neither active nor passive.

2) The thought patterns that lead to choosing passive voice over active voice where a choice is possible also affect the word choices and sentence structure to create an overall passive narrative style.

I don't think your characters are necessarily "flat" I think the surrounding text makes them seem flat.

One other thing that will improve your characterizations -- your dialogue is a bit stilted. It's lot better than many first stories, but it could stand to be less formal and more colloquial. Let your characters talk more, too; conversational asides and tangents can reveal a lot about your characters with surprisingly few words.

For example:

"Steve, I don't mind you ogling my bod, but I didn't let my son talk me into recommending you last month so you could do it at work," Kay teased her son's best friend. She set her fresh cup of coffe aside, turned back to the data for her monthly presentation and scrolled down to the next screen.

Take this advice. This used to be problem I had and when I fixed it, my writing improved enormously.

 

[xssve]

You can't force your reader to do anything, least of all put themselves into a story if they don't identify with characters in the story. What's more, trying to predict which character a reader will identify with is a total fools errand. Don't try to manipulate your readers with cheap tricks--write vibrant, interesting characters doing fun and interesting things and let your readers be drawn in by them.

Writing blank canvas characters is NOT a good writing technique. My point was that it was a common mistake that most writers move past when they gain more experience, so he shouldn't feel bad about trying it because most everyone does.

A good point, I believe: blank characters work for certain things, where the reader viewer is expected to put themselves into the scene, it's common in both porn and action movies, certain movies do it outright, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", kinda thing.

Jimmy Stewart built his career on playing "everyman" in fact, but while this approach works well for lightweight fiction, people will remember the stories, not the characters - what you remember most about Jimmy Stewarts characters is that they were Jimmy Stewart.

And, they'll be remembered if they happen to be good stories - i.e., most of Kafka's characters are blank screens, he doesn't always even tell you their names, the protagonist in Dostoevsky's The Idiot, is similarly vague.

Kafka is not popular fiction however, except among college students, when it comes to something like General Hospital, people remember Luke and Laura, not the ridiculous plotlines - so unless you're Kafka, good characters that people love, or love to hate, are going to be more memorable.

 

[vrosej10]

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.

My most popular story is about a young man who gets it on with an eighty year old woman. it takes all types.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I work from the premise that sex is for everyone. Some of my characters have athletic bodies and movie star looks, but the majority are ordinary people who enjoy sex just as much--if not more than--the idealized beautiful people. Most of my audience appreciates this approach. A recent comment on a story sums up the response:

"...It was quite a fun read and very enjoyable. Particularly appreciated was the emphasis on men and women who, despite being described as not apparently beautiful and young, could still fuck with gusto and joy. The point being that beauty is very much less than skin deep and not necessarily all that important to sexual fun and/or attractiveness."

One of my lowest rated stories involves four high school cheerleaders and their football player boyfriends.

I think it is a mistake to assume that the only thing people want to read about is beautiful people with perfect bodies. Readers want to be able to relate to the story. Some people fantasize about porn stars with DDD breasts. Some people fantasize about their next door neighbor, the cashier at the supermarket, or the person whom they sat next to on the train that morning. Some fantasies are attainable, some are not. There is an audience for both.