Realism

[TheEarl]

How far do you want to take realism in stories? There is a thread on here regarding someone getting vote bombed for the unbelievable crime of putting condoms into his sex scenes. Many people hate the way that men in stories can tell women's bra sizes from outside their clothes, many hate the fact that anal sex in stories seems popular and doesn't require 20 minutes preparation. What is the thing that makes you more likely to hit the back button than anything else?

I personally hate stories where the writer's been lazy regarding the characters getting together. I'll forgive petite blondes with 32 G breasts, men with 14 inch dicks and even the never-ending orgasm dialogue, but if I don't believe in the reasons that those two people are having sex, then I'm hitting the back button. My stories may not be great, but I rate them a lot higher than some on this site, simply because my characters always have a reason for fucking (even if in some cases this does require alcohol, aphrodisiacs, the paranormal, etc).

The Earl

 

[Cooksie]

The question for me is not 'Is it realistic,' but rather 'Is it genuine?'

One of the things that will often have me hitting the back button are openings that go: This is the true story of X. Now, it may very well relate an event that actually happened and that's great - and I think many if not most readers enjoy the idea of living out a fantasy. But often, I get the impression that the 'true story' aspect is simply a contrivance to get the reader suspend disbelief for a story that is otherwise weak on character motivation and the other things that go into creating a genuine feel to a story.

As far as realism in a story, I'm not sure that it is what makes a story believable anymore than the story being true; so I would say take the realistic details as far as the story demands, but no further. If the 20 min of prep is important to the character's experience, please do tell me about it. If it's not, let's get on with the show. I think it's the same in any genre, and it's certainly a commonly enough heard advice to writers: significant detail is what matters, anything else is just gets in the way.

Cooksie
My Stories

 

[ronde]

For me, plausibility is the key to reading or moving on to something else, and plausibility varies with the genre. In stories about real people, there needs to be a reason for the meeting and subsequent sex. I suppose some cashiers do lock the door and slip into the storeroom just because the only customer in the shop is a girl that obviously wants to try every sex act known to man. Some people probably do find each other on the net, arrange to meet, and spend the first day practicing the contortions of the Kama Sutra. I know these are fantasies, but, come on. At least one of the parties involved would be sufficiently rational to understand the risks and take things a little slower. Unless money changes hands sometime before the down and dirty happens, sex just isn't that spontaneous.

Similar scenarios played out in Sci-Fi or group sex is plausible. The furred, mink-women of Sandorine are known to have periods of "heat" during which they will do anything, if one is so fortunate as to trap one. It is plausible that the meek little brunette would become so aroused at the swap club that she would take on all comers (pun intended) even though she just met the other men when she arrived.

I have no problem with stories in which birth control is or is not used. Both scenarios are plausible, and do happen every day.

Realism is also important.

An author needs to keep track of where body parts are likely to be. Don't tell me the guy is licking away with her knees on his shoulders while she strokes his cock. The picture I see here is pretty much an impossibility, but I've read it before.

The three second anal entry? Not unless she's really into pain.

People are not mindless screwing machines. They think and feel. I already know what they're doing. Tell me what they're thinking and feeling instead of giving me the documentary on the mechanics.

 

[BabydollBadGirl]

What is the thing that makes you more likely to hit the back button than anything else?

Actually, a lack of realism is what turns me off. Let's face it, many people do write to turn themselves on, they put their fantasies to "paper" as it were, and if someone else gets turned on as well *bonus*. lol But, really far fetched stories turn me off fast. Some of the things you've already mentioned, Earl, are good examples. (The fact that men "know" a woman's bra size by staring at her with clothes on... Etc.) I'm not as "forgiving" as you, though. I can't stand the "5' 11", 100lb, 46GG chested woman who makes Barbie look "normal" or the hung men that would make a horse cry" kinda people.

 

[Sabledrake]

Realism? Bah, bah, who wants realism in a sex scene? That extra arm that doesn't have anyplace comfortable to go, sticky skin glued together, his elbow's on her hair, the kids barge in ...

I agree with what is looking like a thread consensus. Plausibility is what I look for. When it comes to the back button, yeah, those down-to-the-centimeter measurements are always a quick turnoff, as are generally bad writing, leaping right into the action with the barest of preambles or characterization, etc.

Sabledrake

 

[MechaBlade]

I, like the man in the silly hat, enjoy a sex scene that seems as if it could happen. You see all sorts of impossible relationships in erotica. I just want a good set up.

I also put in condoms in all of my stories, unless they are non-consensual or some other special thing is going on. That is realism for me.

 

[TheEarl]

I spent a good few seconds looking for the "man in the silly hat" before I realised you were talking to me.

D'oh.

The Earl

 

[Guest]

What is real?

 

[its Leslie]

Oops wasn't logged in.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I don't tend to think of realism as descriptive narrative. I don't care how realistic you're describing something, descriptive narrative is not the way to go. It's hard to do well and it's extremely boring. People skim.

I think of realism as character and plot. How real are the characters themselves? We, as people, define reality more in the emotional context than the physical context. Barbie can be real to us if she is accessible on an emotional level. Dolly Parton exists, doesn't she? Do we believe she's a real person? Of course we do.

When I think of a realistic character, I usually start with things like flaws. Real people have flaws and plenty of them. Flaws are what make characters human and accessible to readers. From there I move onto the motivation and feelings a character has. Particularly about his or her self and how they come across. I submit that I could write a realistic character with the same measurements Barbie/Long Dong Silver has.

It also has to deal with plot. Fantasies are not realistic because they're fantasies. Most of what you see here isn't writing to share writing, it's writing to share fantasies. The author could care less if you believed it could really happen because the author doesn't care if s/he believes it could really happen. They're sharing their sexuality, not their writing. You can usually tell when a story is one type or the other because of the realism in characterization and situation.

 

[JUDO]

(* chanting "Here, Here!" from a lawn chair in front of KM's double-wide. *)

 

[Sillyman]

I willing to suspend disbelief quite a bit, but some things will get right up my ass. Using specific numbers such as exact height, weight, cup size, penis length, whatever is something I find extrememly annoying. When I ogle a woman's breasts, I'm not thinking that she's a D-cup, I'm thinking "Dang that lady's got a big set of hooters!" or something equally eloquent.

I don't normally include condoms, since I find them a pain in the ass in real life and this is fantasy, but whether or not they get included doesn't really factor into how much I like the story.

Why they are fucking is important. It doesn't need to be a great reason, but the seduction contributes a great deal to the heat.

 

[Bob Waters]

I recently got neg feedback on one of my stories because I had the male protagonist fumble around a bit during sex. It was supposed to be a first time for this couple, a pick up at a party and i added a few bumbles and stumbles for realism.

She was not happy. The comment was that she knew of too many lousy lovers in reality, this was fantasy and she wanted Don Juan.

A valid point of view, I guess, but I prefer a bit of realism, makes it all hotter for me. I suspect this is like the debate over 'pro' vs 'am' porn movies and photos.

 

[its Leslie]

Hmmm that gal won't be finding Don Juan or anyone else soon if she is only looking for him in stories eh.

I say write stories as real as you like. Because she is just an idiot, and maybe some of the nervous types would get a chuckle out of reading about someone that has gone through what they have experienced.

 

[Quasimodem]

Thanks to persistence of vision and suspension of disbelief, people are willing to swallow almost anything.

One of the stumbling blocks for amateurs - and all too many professionals - is internal integrity.
Saying something in chapter fourteen that flatly contradicts another piece of information stated or demonstrated in chapter two.

The problem is not just that readers don't always remember what the writer planted, sometimes they don't forget what the writer overlooked.



The solution is usually in carefully planning the plot.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

What makes me hit the back button?

Poor grammar, sentence structure and such are the details that will keep me from enjoying a story.

Beyond that, lack of plot...if there's no reason for them to be fucking, then why am I reading it? answer, I'm not

 

[Whispersecret]

When you receive criticism from people, you have to make your own judgement about whether they have a valid point or not. If you have a good reason for what you've written, stick with it. You can't please everyone, especially the people with ideals about what stories should be that are so acutely personal, like that woman.

 

[UCE]

The only thing I think that really makes me unlikely to read a sex story, besides content (Example: I don't read much male-male fiction except the leather stuff, because I can't relate to it), is length of the story. In a nutshell: I don't like the real short ones. If it's very short I can't get into the story very much. The one exception to this is the humor category, and I wish the powers that be would allow shorter pieces into that category, because humor is largely pacing and sometimes, for a paticular humorous ploy to work, it needs to pack its punch swiftly.

I guess that there aren't that many short stories on this site because there is a minimum word limit, but you see a great many one-paragraph wonders on Yahoo erotica groups.

 

[jfinn]

Okay, I've been lurking here for months and suddenly today I've already written posts for three different threads and I may not be done yet. Can you tell I really don't want to start my latest chapter?

Anyway, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. I can read just about anything, in any topic, and I can enjoy it, but only if the suspension of disbelief that's needed to enjoy the story is one I can buy into. That means I don't care if the guy has a an endowment that would make John Holmes spin in his grave or the couple go at it like bunnies who've just been set free after a month in separate cages, but it does mean that whatever the writer is going for makes sense to me.

If I'm reading and I get to a point where I start thinking about what the authors writing and not just reading it, then I'm in trouble. The minute it enters my mind that something doesn't make sense, I'm pulled out of the story. And once that happens it's damn hard for me to get reinterested.

And the real shame of it is you can write anything you want if you set it up properly. I've read stories where Barbie and an anotomically correct Ken (or GI Joe, I've always been a sucker for a man in uniform) have sex two seconds after meeting over the yogurt case at Safeway and it worked perfectly. But that's because the writer figured out a way to make it possible. Maybe not plausible, certainly not realistic, but these are after all only fantasies and possible is all that's necessary to keep me focused on the story and not the goofiness of the plot line.

So I say go for the fantasy, but take a little time to set it up. It makes for a lot more entertaining and satisfying read. At least for me.

Jayne

 

[Weird Harold]

I guess that there aren't that many short stories on this site because there is a minimum word limit, but you see a great many one-paragraph wonders on Yahoo erotica groups.

The minimum 750 word limit here is what in the real world would be a "short-short story" -- a subclass of "short stories" for VERY short stories. Anything below 750 words takes more overhead to index than there is story, so Laurel has decreed that all stories will take as much server space as they do overhead to make posting them worthwhile.

FWIW, Any story that fits one one Lit page (approx 3,500 words) falls into the real world classification of a short-short story. Actually, Most of the "novels and novelas" posted here are still under the real world count to be considered "short stories."

 

[Cuckolded_BlK_Male]

I don't care for Lit stories that stray too far afield of the realm of erotica and into the sphere of romance novellas. The last thing that I want to see is three pages about a woman reclining in a secluded plaisance amidst flowering buds of lilac and daisies, her head in her lovers lap whilst she eats chocolates and he reads to her of Byron and Baudelaire. I can appreciate well written prose. However, after such a tedious build-up, I need a decidedly lurid release of tension to satisfy my literary pruriency. Thus, when all is said and done, I want "Jane Eyre" to be walking funny.

 

[NaughtyMike]

How far do you want to take realism in stories? There is a thread on here regarding someone getting vote bombed for the unbelievable crime of putting condoms into his sex scenes. Many people hate the way that men in stories can tell women's bra sizes from outside their clothes, many hate the fact that anal sex in stories seems popular and doesn't require 20 minutes preparation. What is the thing that makes you more likely to hit the back button than anything else?

I personally hate stories where the writer's been lazy regarding the characters getting together. I'll forgive petite blondes with 32 G breasts, men with 14 inch dicks and even the never-ending orgasm dialogue, but if I don't believe in the reasons that those two people are having sex, then I'm hitting the back button. My stories may not be great, but I rate them a lot higher than some on this site, simply because my characters always have a reason for fucking (even if in some cases this does require alcohol, aphrodisiacs, the paranormal, etc).

The Earl

Well said. Although I am a pretty good guesser at cup sizes, we do need to approximate tit size. If I say she had "big fucking tits" what does that mean? If I said 38DDD hangers which rested on her chest, you get a better idea. My main character is 5.3 inches, just below average. The decimal point demonstrates the male obcession with size. My pet peeve is a second person story. What the fuck are they about? "And then you take his dick in your mouth..." Petite blondes with 32G breasts... Tami Monroe?? my favorite porno "actress". I give her a mention or two in my stories, but we never had sex, although I did get to touch her titties and got a lap dance from her at the Jet Strip club in LA. I offered her $500 to come home with me. She turned me down.... ah what a story that could have been....

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I think I'm the biggest fan of realism on Lit - atleast I've been nagging on and on about its importance on almost every thread I've been to.

To me, realism is about making the reader able to see the story happend, as if they see a little movie in their head. Plus, if the story just MIGHT be able to actually happend, then it's a little extra exciting.

 

[sachiaiko]

Realism. Well this is a big one for me when reading or writing erotic fiction. I’m not gonna hit the back button because some one decides its important to use a condom in one scene or another, I personally like that touch of realism added to erotic stories. The things that get me going back and finding a new piece to read are things like ... I can not stand the use of the word ‘hole’ most of the time, to me it just doesn’t work. Fine, yes, it’s a hole, but it doesn’t take me to that ‘wet n wild’ place when I read something like -

“I slipped my fingers into her wet hole and pumped in and out as fast as I could while she moaned her pleasure.”

There are many, many ways of verbally describing a vagina, hole is just one of the ones that doesn’t sit right in my mind. Granted, that last sentence was horrible to begin with, but its also a perfect example of what doesn’t really excite me.

I like well described scenes Where you are, what the person looks like, yada yada. But there is a trick to doing all that in a way that doesn’t become boring and dull. I’m currently playing with First Person stories and enjoying how I can describe my scenes.

I like intelligent plots. Yes, plots… I like stories, not just fucking. Maybe I’m in a minority but for me if the story is set up well and engaging enough I’ll read plenty far into just getting to the sex, and that’s exciting for me!

I like believable characters. Alright, so if they are going to have huge tits tiny waist and perfect ass along with brains I can deal with that. But the gal hasta have some flaws, everyone has flaws, add those in so I can relate with her! If your audience can’t relate then you have a problem.

I dislike stories that are terribly short, bad grammar/spelling, terrible wording, lack of creativity in descriptions, non-realistic plot, unbelievable conversations and wording that just doesn’t flow.

Anyhoot, thats just my two cents! :shrugs: Personal opinion and all.

Nik

 

[lustforlife74]

Real and genuine are two things in my opinion that make well writen stories. The best shit is from the heart, mind, intestines, and balls (or vagina for the lovelier sex). Anyone can come up with some fantasy, but to make it real is the challange.