My pet peeve -- measurements in erotica

[reddelicious]

Here's my pet peeve everyone. I know I'm pretty new, but I'm experienced since I've been reading terrible Harlequins since I was 9. My top pet peeve on stories (and I've read about a hundred from this site) is when people include measurements, or describe people in a clinical fashion.

Example 1 -- "Beth has brown hair, is about 20, short, and has breasts that are 36 DD."

Example 2 -- "Bob's cock was eight inches with a diametre of 3 inches."

This is not sexy!

The measurements interrupt the eye. What, did the author measure them her/himself? Sure, mentally you might get a "wow" moment, but it doesn't really allow you to picture it and feel a part of the scene.

Here's my idea on how to improve these two:

1 -- "Beth was a young and beautiful brunette with a lush figure and enormous breasts that almost seemed too big for her small frame."

2 -- "Bob's cock stood out and its size excited Beth beyond belief. Her husband had always seemed rather small to her, and Bob was nearly twice his size. She wondered if she would even be able to get this gorgeous thing inside her and longed to try."

What does everyone else think? Am I the only one this annoys? Do you like more precise descriptions?

Anyway, just had to get this out. Thanks for listening to my rant!!

reddelicious

 

[SexyChele]

*lauging*

I do agree with you! I hate the "laundry list" descriptions that some stories give. Typically, I'll state hair and eye color somewhere in the story. I usually dismiss any other type of description, other than "He was tall, around 6 feet" or "Her full breasts strained at the lacey material of her bra". I try to work up a mental image, rather than describe a mugshot.

One that does "get" to me are the unrealistic description. Things like "She was 5'2", very small and petite, with 38dd breasts". Holy cow!!! I'm surprisded she doesn't fall over! She's not attractive, she's a freak. I prefer characters that are more normal - unless, of course, one is writing fantasy or sci fi.

 

[Ray Dario]

No argument here! Laundry list descriptions are a sure sign of a lazy writer. Sorry if that offends someone, but it's true. It is much easier to write a laundry list than to write a good description that paints the picture in the readers mind.

So all you wannabe world renown writers here at Lit. Stop with the statistics. Write good descriptions. People will enjoy your stories more if you do.

Ray

 

[Quint]

I'd actually go a step further (no surprise to anyone here!) and say that even tasteful physical summary is unnecessary and a distraction. Admitted, measurements are clinical and unappealing, but devoting a paragraph to "She was tall and beautiful, with full, proud breasts and legs that could wrap the willing world in their snug embrace" is really not very beneficial to the story either. It's a traffic jam; it doesn't move the story along. (insert plug for story here)

I, like Chele, prefer to scatter whatever physical description I really feel is relevant throughout the story. I mean, yeah, I have a great mental picture of my character, but the truth is, the character every reader conjures will be just as appealing to them as mine is to me. Write description when it's relevant or REALLY good, otherwise I recommend just skipping it.

 

[NCmVoyeur]

Here's my pet peeve everyone. I know I'm pretty new, but I'm experienced since I've been reading terrible Harlequins since I was 9. My top pet peeve on stories (and I've read about a hundred from this site) is when people include measurements, or describe people in a clinical fashion.

Example 1 -- "Beth has brown hair, is about 20, short, and has breasts that are 36 DD."

Example 2 -- "Bob's cock was eight inches with a diametre of 3 inches."

This is not sexy!

Probably the first erotica that many of those age 30-60 read was the "Penthouse Forum," which was written in that style. As that generation has discovered the Internet and started writing themselves, it carried over.

The bright side is that those writing that way seem to stick that paragraph near the beginning; once I see it, it saves me the time from reading further.

 

[Miltone]

What does everyone else think? Am I the only one this annoys? Do you like more precise descriptions?

Anyway, just had to get this out. Thanks for listening to my rant!!

reddelicious

Couldn't agree with you more! Nothing interrupts the flow of the story than a laundry list of exact measurements. I think NCmVoyeur may be right about the Penthouse angle.

 

[Justin_Thyme]

Well doggon. And I thought I was some kind of a weirdo and doing something wrong because I hate that sort of thing. One, it is distracting, at least to me as the writer. Two, because I read a lot and seldom see published writers using the technique. (Granted, THEY have an entire book in which to work in that sort of thing). And three, I guess I'm not all that sophisticated and have no idea how to describe (women's) clothing, hair styles, breast sizes and that sort of thing. I do understand 'shaved' and may try to work THAT in *grins*. Shoot, aside from blonde, brown or brunette, I even have difficulty describing hair colors.
As a consequence, I generally try to use some other technique to paint a picture and probably end up being the only one who actually 'sees' my characters.
I suppose, like everything else, a lot of practice at the craft will effect some measure of improvement. It is heartening though, that, to date, no one has mentioned flawed character descriptions in the feedback I receive.
Justin

 

[Quasimodem]

The Only Measurement Description I've Enjoyed.

I looked at her breasts and asked, "What size are they?"

She said, "6 and 7/8ths"

I replied, "My God! What'd you measure them with?"

She said, "Stetson!"


Quasi

 

[NCmVoyeur]

Shoot, aside from blonde, brown or brunette, I even have difficulty describing hair colors.
As a consequence, I generally try to use some other technique to paint a picture and probably end up being the only one who actually 'sees' my characters.

I find it hard to do descriptions. Perhaps with erotica less is more, as the reader is then freer to visualize the characters as he/she wishes.

A forthcoming story of mine (submitted today) has the height and facial descriptions of the characters in two discrete blocks of text. I'll be curious to see how people react to that in light of this discussion. Given the point of view of that story and the effect I was trying to create, it seemed to make sense (hate to give too much away before people read it). But, we shall see . . .

 

[Guest]

 

[Ray Dario]

Depending on what kind of writer you want to be, finding it hard to describe people or having a hard time describing people is not a good reason to abandon the attempt.

A good place to start would be to read short stories by authors you enjoy. Dean Koontz has a compendium of short stories. Ray bradbury wrote many many short stories, etc. Find an author you like and search for some short stories by them. Then read them. Really study how they do description. Analyze their word usage and how they do it.

I think you'll be amazed at how easy it can look when they do it. It's not that easy but if you study how they do it, it will get easier. And you'll improve your writing in the bargain. And the more you do it, the better you'll get at it and the easier it will be for you.

Or you can just cop out and say "Description is bad writing cause I hate laundry lists." It's up to you.

Ray

 

[TheWriter]

I agree with the evident popular opinion. Being too clinical and mathematical in description can be annoying. It can be used as part of a character - something I'm attempting to do in a novel I'm trying to write. But in my case I'm trying to overly obsessive with physical characteristics, without using numbers all the time.

Strangely, the first story I wrote for Lit. was filled with numerical descriptions, and even physical innacuracies. But is been my most consistently popular story. Go figure.

 

[Quint]

Strangely, the first story I wrote for Lit. was filled with numerical descriptions, and even physical innacuracies. But is been my most consistently popular story. Go figure.

Yes, but out of 96 reads, only 11 people have stepped up to agree that measurements are cheesy. The majority of Lit readers are "wooo! yeah! porn! gimme porn!" type readers, who actually like knowing the cup size of the heroine and just how many inches are penetrating her. I COULD make a comparison to the unbelievably high ratings "Incest" gets, but that's a whole nother thread. To each his own. I write for my own, thankyouverymuch. o)

 

[Sabledrake]

Ugh, few things will get me to quit reading a story faster than seeing something like cup size or inches. I don't even know _my_ measurements, let alone can tell those of someone else at a glance.

Sabledrake

 

[p_p_man]

Yep thumbs down on lists...

I don't particularly want to know what the character wore from the inside out in one long list, or a complete physiological description.

But to be fair, thinking back into the mists of time, I seem to recall that I once wrote that way.

Agggghhh! No! I've just released my supressed memory....

Oh the shame...

 

[KillerMuffin]

*grins arrogantly at p_p_man*

I never wrote that way.


Of course, I wrote about 8 stories in your usual bad-porno-story second person. Thankfully that was pre-Lit for me.




I have a few pet peeves that drive me insane.

1) Second person
2) Ellipses used incorrectly
3) NEOMs*
4) More than three adverbs per paragraph.
5) Numbers
6) Melodrama or badly contrived circumstances

I'm going to stop now. . .


*(Never-Ending Orgasmic Moment or OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH MMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYY GGGGGGGGGGGGGAWDDDDDDDDD I'MMMMMMMMMM CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCUMMMMMMMMINGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!)

 

[Quint]

::frantically reads through her Chapter 2, red pen in hand::

 

[amyfirst]

I usually just stop reading when the story includes unrealistic measurements, like 38dddd breasts or an 11" penis. Yikes!!!!
I like though to know what the characters generally look like, tall, short, blonde, brunette, redhead, slim, average, large, etc. It helps me imagine the characters and get more from the story; in the same way I want to know what the people are wearing. Especially when she is a 38dddd and goes braless without hurting herself.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Just a "for what it's worth" note. The clinical, numerical physical description syndrom is a "writing" problem and not limited to erotic work. I re-read "The Sun Also Rises" recently and was amazed at how Hemingway barely described Lady Brit Ashley in her first scene, except to note what she was wearing.

To swim against this totally negative tide, I have found that using numerical descriptions sparingly can sometimes work when the character is an athlete. "At 6'5" and 250 well-muscled pounds, Bruno looked like the proto-type of a brutal linebacker."

Rumple Foreskin

 

[whiteboy]

Thanks!

I really need that feedback! Boy it was out of mainly amature writing and that of a beginner with my past story description... I should have done more proof reading and found more creative ways to put things into detail.

 

[jacksgirl]

I agree about disliking measurements in stories.

The other thing I dislike in BDSM; well, I love the stories, but people (writers) could come up with something better than Sub and Dom in a story. Tell me the story, and I'll know she's the Sub and He's the Dom or whatever, but at least give them a name. Or a better form of reference.

 

[jon.hayworth]

Almost everyone has panned lists, I don't think the problem is lists per se, the problem is how they are written.

Imagine if James Joyce was writing an erotic story.

He would have written Web pages of lists that rhymed or scanned. That were puns on word sounds.

I think it is possible to write lists but there is a need to be creative with them. - And by creative I do not mean 36 inch cocks.

jon

 

[whiteboy]

hmm...

Well I agree with the description thing. I try to be more imaginative because most people in real life don't think in 35 inches. How ever it would be better to maybe make a comparison like 'it looked like it belonged to a bull not a man' granted this could also be an exageration. People also do this a lot. lol

 

[Route66Girl]

When I open up a story, I skim the first few paragraphs. If measurements and numbers leap out of the text, the back button usually gets clicked.

Grumble.

Although, I admit that in "Miss Nova" I did devote a paragraph to describing Evan. But at least I didn't use measurements.

There are several other things that really annoy me as well, but most of them have already been mentioned in this thread (unrealistic plot, the OOOOOHMYYYYYYGODFUCKMMEEEEE! orgasms, etc.)

But there are other plot and character devices commonly used that are beginning to bug me as well.

#1: It seems like most sex scenes have quite a bit of detail about foreplay and oral, but the actual intercourse it all leads to is briefly described, like an obligatory afterthought.

#2: Why are women in the stories here always screaming in orgasm just a few strokes after penetration?

#3: Why is it that most of the continued stories rely on bringing in new sex partners to keep themselves going? If it's a group sex story or such, that's to be expected. But it happens in all the categories.

In Chapter 1, so-and-so makes that special connection with who's-it's, declares undying love, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then, the next night in Chapter 2, they're evidently so bored with their newfound sex life that they bring in who's-it's best friend or sister to "share" it with.

More often than not, I get the feeling that it's used out of lack of imagination. They want to continue the story, but have little idea as to how to keep the sexual content erotic without falling back on bringing in new sex partners.

#4: John wants to do something really forbidden with/to Mary. Maybe she's his wife and he fantasizes about her being with another man or woman or wants a threesome. Maybe she's his daughter. Point is, John wants it pretty badly, but he's too reticent to bring it up, too decent to make the first move. But Mary ends up fulfilling his fantasy without any imput from him, because it turns out she wanted the EXACT same thing!

Sigh.

There are a few others, I'm sure. Just can't think of 'em right now.

 

[SweetSexyLady]

What about giving measurments before the story starts? I did that in Christa's Adventure's Part 1....just to give a little background.
I agree that doing that IN that story is annoying, but I don't think it hurts before it, as long as it is realistic.

SweetSexyLady