Realism VS Fantasy

[Djmac1031]

So many great points here, hard to touch on them all, but:

Verisimilitude: a new word for me, I like it.

And as I mentioned above in another comment, I suppose the word I should have used was "believability" as opposed to "realistic."

Because yeah, very little porn / erotica is truly realistic. Although I do understand, as someone commented, that things like swingers couples sex is actually far crazier than we the uninitiated can imagine LOL.


As for being "pulled out" of a story, I suppose what destroys one for me on LE is the "office secretary suddenly becomes a slut" scenario mentioned, especially if there's no reason or setup to it.

And clichés kill me every time. Along with over the top descriptions of perfect physical specimens.

I'm really enjoying the commentary so far, thanks for all the replies.

 

[Djmac1031]

Here's a For Instance:

In my Jenna series, I've slowly been setting up the idea that my main couple are going to wind up inviting her best friend to join them in a threesome.

What I wrestle with is: how fast is stretching "believability" in getting to this scenario, and how SLOW is just dragging things out and wearing on a reader's patience?

And that's the balance I TRY to find in anything I write here. Getting to the good stuff in a believable way while trying not to get so caught up in "realism" as to make it too long, tedious, or worse yet: BORING.

 

[NotWise]

Is that cougar as in mountain lion or cougar as in older woman who seduces younger men??

Mountain Lion. The warrior God.

 

[Djmac1031]

To give an example, my latest story is about a teddy bear that mysteriously shows up on a woman's door step one day. It says certain things to the woman unexpectedly, and she has sexual encounters with it. No explanation of the toy bear's abilities is ever given. It's an absurdist erotic story, like Kafka's Metamorphosis (I'm not comparing myself to Kafka). I thought some would like it and some would hate it, so I had no expectations for the score, but it turned out to be my all-time highest-rated story. I kept it short and didn't pile on additional magic beyond the teddy bear itself. Readers seemed OK with that.

My Elves Gone Wild story is like that as well; pure absurdist fantasy.

My narrator even breaks the fourth wall to explain to the readers that things happen because magic and tells them to stop asking stupid questions.

 

[SimonDoom]

Here's a For Instance:

In my Jenna series, I've slowly been setting up the idea that my main couple are going to wind up inviting her best friend to join them in a threesome.

What I wrestle with is: how fast is stretching "believability" in getting to this scenario, and how SLOW is just dragging things out and wearing on a reader's patience?

You have to ask two questions:

1. Why do they want to invite the friend into a threesome? Which one of them is pushing the threesome? Is there a conflict between the partners in the couple? How is it going to be overcome, if there is one?

2. Why would the friend want to join them in a threesome?

It doesn't really matter that much what the answers are. But you need answers. All of your three characters must have motives and needs, and whatever they are, the story must maintain consistency with the personalities, needs, and motives of your characters.

The explanation of those needs doesn't have to be long and drawn out. A little goes a long way. But there's got to be something, and preferably you either reveal or hint at the motives very early in the story to get the readers on board with you.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I don't see characters and plot as an either/or thing. Lacking characterization, all you get is a newspaper report and without plot, all you have is a phone directory. It's the balance, how the characters are crafted to make the plot work, how the plot allows us to play the characters.

I do like MB's 'verisimilitude' - more than just another pretty face, that lady! But I think almost all erotica involves a strong slice of fantasy. Incest may be popular here, but in reality is almost always an violent assault by a powerful person on one with less power. The average bra size in the USA, if my memory serves, is 38DDD, but that's only because of general obesity. Women have periods and cramps and bitchy weeks and that isn't sexy. Men have ED and hair-trigger problems and those aren't either.

So we write fantasy with a sexual theme. Writing reality? As somebody here once said, if we wanted to see old, fat, wrinkled people have sex, we'd put mirrors on our ceilings.

In SF and Fantasy, almost anything goes provided that it's either kept at a low level or else is at least kept consistent. Pratchett's Discworld series is by any standard ludicrously implausible - a flat world on top of four elephants on top of a massive turtle - but Pratchett had the genius to make parking our disbelief easy. Scotty never tried to give us the math he needed to keep the dilithium crystals working, thank heaven. Frank Herbert never had to lay out the physics behind a Holtzman shield - he merely presented it (convincingly) as a fact.

 

[MajorRewrite]

My plots are all fairly implausible. I put my characters in odd situations that they have to deal with.

But I do my best to make my characters’ REACTIONS to their situation believable. They act like real humans. My pet peeve is when characters do dumb things simply to advance a plot in a particular direction.

 

[windar]

I do like MB's 'verisimilitude' - more than just another pretty face, that lady! But I think almost all erotica involves a strong slice of fantasy. Incest may be popular here, but in reality is almost always an violent assault by a powerful person on one with less power. The average bra size in the USA, if my memory serves, is 38DDD, but that's only because of general obesity. Women have periods and cramps and bitchy weeks and that isn't sexy. Men have ED and hair-trigger problems and those aren't either.

And then there's birth control and STDs...How often are those mentioned in stories here? I have had the characters discuss contraception in a few stories (or not in a few where they were trying to conceive), but by no means all.

Regarding SF vs fantasy isn't the dictinction that in SF you can't violate the fundamental laws of physics (like creating matter out of nothing) but in fantasy, you can? Back in the day, when people like Isaac Asimov, an actual scientist, wrote Sci-Fi, they generally kept within the bounds of possible even if implausible, but I think the boundary is much more blurred in recent times.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Regarding SF vs fantasy isn't the dictinction that in SF you can't violate the fundamental laws of physics (like creating matter out of nothing) but in fantasy, you can? Back in the day, when people like Isaac Asimov, an actual scientist, wrote Sci-Fi, they generally kept within the bounds of possible even if implausible, but I think the boundary is much more blurred in recent times.

Good point. Yet even Azimov had to introduce things which were at least implausible scientifically, like the space travel jump.

 

[windar]

Good point. Yet even Azimov had to introduce things which were at least implausible scientifically, like the space travel jump.

Implausable is permitted in SF, but impossible becomes fantasy. Though particle physics has some awfully weird stuff, none of which applies to human-sized objects.

 

[Djmac1031]

You have to ask two questions:

1. Why do they want to invite the friend into a threesome? Which one of them is pushing the threesome? Is there a conflict between the partners in the couple? How is it going to be overcome, if there is one?

2. Why would the friend want to join them in a threesome?

It doesn't really matter that much what the answers are. But you need answers. All of your three characters must have motives and needs, and whatever they are, the story must maintain consistency with the personalities, needs, and motives of your characters.

The explanation of those needs doesn't have to be long and drawn out. A little goes a long way. But there's got to be something, and preferably you either reveal or hint at the motives very early in the story to get the readers on board with you.

Excellent points. I've established some motive on all parts already. I almost always plant seeds for things early on before they actually happen.

I think my last stumbling block is the friends motivation, and I may have already solved that in the chapter I'm writing.

"Realistic?" Probably not. "Believable?" Maybe. That's what I'm aiming for anyway.

 

[Djmac1031]

My plots are all fairly implausible. I put my characters in odd situations that they have to deal with.

But I do my best to make my characters’ REACTIONS to their situation believable. They act like real humans. My pet peeve is when characters do dumb things simply to advance a plot in a particular direction.

Agreed.

It's why I've struggled to continue my Doctor series.

As I said in a response to a comment on it, I found myself in a place where I either had to write several pages explaining why this woman doctor with a husband and a career would decide to risk everything to keep up her kinky shenanigans with her patient, or just say FUCK IT and have her just jump into the rabbit hole of progressively ramping up the sex for no real reason other than to get them fucking.

 

[TadOverdon]

If a story starts with a wife casually walking past her husband to go out on a date with another guy, that's too unreal at the start.

Whereas it would get my attention. LOL

 

[Scareltt]

If a story starts with a wife casually walking past her husband to go out on a date with another guy,

Yep, you just got my attention to..

Ignore the mean people!

 

[NotWise]

Good point. Yet even Azimov had to introduce things which were at least implausible scientifically, like the space travel jump.

On the other hand, it was Arthur C Clark who said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

 

[RetroFan]

In fiction you can write far out fantasies and premises but you must have realism in the action and reaction of characters to make it believable and engage your readers.

For example, say a 19-year-old college student in the present day travels back in time to the year 1960 and has a hot love affair with his grandmother's pretty sister (his great aunt) then aged 18. One time they are having sex in her bedroom when her parents (obviously his great grandparents) come home early and walk in on them.

However, the parents are swell with it and tell their daughter and unknown male lover to have fun, but make sure to use a condom, before closing the door and leaving them to it. While time travel is impossible, it is the reaction of the parents where you lose the reader in this scenario. Could you imagine parents in 1960 being happy about their 18-year-old daughter having sex with an unknown young man in her bedroom? I think not.

 

[SimonDoom]

On the other hand, it was Arthur C Clark who said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

I think there's a converse rule that applies, as well: magic, with a little artfulness, can always be made to look like technology, sufficiently advanced. Warp drive and time travel are two examples.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Hmmmmm, let me think...

The Alexaverse is a feel-good story, so not realistic.

- Time Rider is about using time travel to get laid, with hilarious consequences. So not realistic.

- Love You, Daddy! is a story about a girl seducing her stressed-out single dad. Not realistic.

- Sapphic Serenity is mom-daughter lesbian incest, few or no consequences. Not realistic.

- The Tale of Amberley Bloodstar is about a divinely inspired bard. So by definition, not realistic.

- Miracle On RR34 is about a morally-challenged office girl helping Santa save Christmas. Probably more realistic than the above-mentioned, but still not terribly likely.

- I Don't Get You is step-sibling incest and romance, one again, no consequences. Fun, but not realistic.

- Like A Daughter To Me, Twin Cities Tryst, and My Naughty Neighbour are based on personal experiences. So there's realism there.

The only one I'd call realistic and relatable would be my historical story The Great Khan. It's wonderfully graphic and violent.

I tend to prefer stories without realistic consequences, I guess. Enough of that in real life.

 

[TadOverdon]

Yep, you just got my attention to..

Ignore the mean people!

To be less flip than I was, starting a story in media res is a valid technique for overcoming a lot of reader objections if you engage them sufficiently in that first scene.

Beyond that, the difference between being turned on or off by launching into an unusual or unlikely scenario without being led step by step into it first has a lot do with what kinds of fantasies appeal to a particular reader. There's no one-size-fits-all formula for what someone will buy into or wants to imagine.

I remember a comedian - and I want to say it was George Carlin but that's probably because everyone always wants to remember the punchlines being delivered by George Carlin or Robin Williams (or, if your memory stretches back far enough, Groucho Marx) - anyway, I remember this guy saying that when he was in school he'd preferred to masturbate while fantasizing about Suzy who sat in the third row in math class rather than the Playboy Playmate of the month, because while getting off he could tell himself, "Man, this could really happen!" LOL

Still, Playboy sold a lot of copies every month.

On another tangent, the real true actual definition of "scientifically possible" that's applied by most science fiction writers is very very very flexible. Nonetheless, some of them are willing to go on at length about how careful they are.

 

[lovecraft68]

To give an example, my latest story is about a teddy bear that mysteriously shows up on a woman's door step one day. It says certain things to the woman unexpectedly, and she has sexual encounters with it. No explanation of the toy bear's abilities is ever given. It's an absurdist erotic story, like Kafka's Metamorphosis (I'm not comparing myself to Kafka). I thought some would like it and some would hate it, so I had no expectations for the score, but it turned out to be my all-time highest-rated story. I kept it short and didn't pile on additional magic beyond the teddy bear itself. Readers seemed OK with that.

In other words, you wrote the movie Ted into an erotica story.
Very original.

 

[TadOverdon]

Be fair, who hasn't had sex with a teddy bear?

 

[Lifestyle66]

Here's a For Instance:

In my Jenna series, I've slowly been setting up the idea that my main couple are going to wind up inviting her best friend to join them in a threesome.

What I wrestle with is: how fast is stretching "believability" in getting to this scenario, and how SLOW is just dragging things out and wearing on a reader's patience?

And that's the balance I TRY to find in anything I write here. Getting to the good stuff in a believable way while trying not to get so caught up in "realism" as to make it too long, tedious, or worse yet: BORING.

In my "Lifestyle" series, I posted a threesomes chapter last month ("Lifestyle Ch. 07: Threesomes"). I did both MFM and FMF, and the setup was the wife getting back at her husband for fucking another woman when the wife wasn't present in the room. (They're swingers and had a rule they must both be present for any playing around.)

 

[8letters]

Here's a For Instance:

In my Jenna series, I've slowly been setting up the idea that my main couple are going to wind up inviting her best friend to join them in a threesome.

What I wrestle with is: how fast is stretching "believability" in getting to this scenario, and how SLOW is just dragging things out and wearing on a reader's patience?

And that's the balance I TRY to find in anything I write here. Getting to the good stuff in a believable way while trying not to get so caught up in "realism" as to make it too long, tedious, or worse yet: BORING.

What are the relationships going to be like after the threesome? So many stories I read, it's like "the three have sex, and everything's great afterward." No! There are now three sexual relationships instead of just one. That strikes me as being far more difficult to manage and navigate.

Is one woman going watch while the other fucks the guy, and then they switch? Or are the two women going to go full FF sex? If they're going full FF sex, has one or both of them had sex with a woman before? If the women have been heterosexual all their lives, I find it implausible that they suddenly want to go full FF sex, particularly in front of a guy.

Threesomes are my favorite fantasy. A lot of the stories I'm thinking about writing have threesomes in them. But they are so implausible in so many stories.

 

[MrPixel]

... If a story starts with a wife casually walking past her husband to go out on a date with another guy, that's too unreal at the start. It must start with building their characters as to why either of them would get into that scene. Then I would accept it and read on. ...

OK, qualifying the scene with building the characters first, that might placate some haters.

I would find the "cold open" with such a scene totally plausible and would accept it, seeing that in my swinger-aware world of open marriages this is completely normal. So is answering the door to a "special" friend, "Come on in, John, how's it goin'? You know where to find her." I would expect some development in the next couple of 'graphs, though.

 

[8letters]

To be less flip than I was, starting a story in media res is a valid technique for overcoming a lot of reader objections if you engage them sufficiently in that first scene.

I know you write very different incest stories than I do, but I've never liked in media res in an I/T story. What's interesting to me is why two family members would cross the line. I want to see what leads up to Bill fucking his mom. Seeing Bill's Mom set up his sister to join them in a threesome is much less interesting to me.