Review: "The Complete Rules of Erotica" by burgwad (Reviews & Essays)

[Auden James]

Stroker's Delight

Well, your rules, burgwad, frankly speaking, may be the rules of some subgenre of erotica, but they are most definitely not the rules of erotica per se. Indeed, I think the subgenre you are trying to rule on here could quite conceivably be called “epic strokers,” being characterized above all by a multitude of fuckable characters for the POV character to bed in the course of a notably protracted and sex-centered action. This interpretation of mine is corroborated further by your statement that “the driving force behind reading erotica isn't the urge to cum, but the urge to masturbate to a good-ass story and eventually cum,” which makes it abundantly clear that erotica means nothing more than wanking material to you. I do not subscribe to this view—and many other readers and writers probably do not either.

Hence, your supposedly complete rules of erotica are neither complete nor even rules of erotica at all. They are thus of no real use to erotica writers (apart from providing a negative against which to examine, develop, a/o refine one’s own approach).

Still, I’d like to know what makes you think that writing erotica would basically amount to nothing more than the more or less skillful stringing together of sex scenes? I mean, has it never occurred to you that the erotic could be a legitimate subject of literature?

As far as guidelines for more or less stroke-oriented stories go, I'd rather recommend reading 8letter's "big list of tips," though not necessarily because his advice is more complete or useful for erotica writers, but because it comes across as far less self-referential (or even parodic) and much more grounded in proven fact (due to the evident performance of the author's output on LIT) and oriented towards the nitty-gritty of successful stroke story writing.

Now, folks, let's all just keep on stroking!

(In due time, after being reviewed by the moderators, this review will also appear in slightly edited form as a comment under the reviewed essay on the site proper.)

++++++

Link to "The Complete Rules of Erotica" by burgwad.

 

[8letters]

I hope that Auden James doesn't mind me adding to his review. This comes at a good time for me as I was thinking of creating an "Advice on writing erotica" post on the AH. So this review is a preview of that post.

First off, let me compliment burgwad for writing his essay. It takes courage to put yourself out there like that. I found it enjoyable and thought-provoking.

I agree with Auden James that The Complete Rules of Erotica "may be the rules of some subgenre of erotica, but they are most definitely not the rules of erotica per se." To put it differently, most stories follow one of many well-established formulas. For example "Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back". burgwad seemed to be writing the rules for a particularly formula, and those rules don't apply to other formulas. I think he was also writing for stories that are 10+ chapters. As I write stand-alone stories using other formulas, I felt most of burgwad's rules didn't apply to me. But what burgwad did is very understandable! When I've given advice to others about writing, it's always been grounded in the formulas I've used successfully, because I know following that advice with those formulas leads to success.

Continuing along the lines of the above, as I felt most of burgwad's rules didn't apply to me, his attitude of "this is the right way to write porn" was off-putting. Something along the lines of "this is how I like my porn" I think would have kept my mind more open to his rules.

Looking back at my list of tips, it's dry and dense as can be. burgwad's rules are a lot more fun to read. He has a light, funny style. However, I think he went overboard on the joke-cracking. After a while, the joke-cracking got old, and I started skimming to find the nuggets of real information. I think burgwad should have limited himself to three or four sentences to support each bullet point

Now, I'm going to discuss the rules:
#1 and #2 I agree strongly with
#3 isn't an issue for me
#4 I think I agree with, but I don't like the wording of the rule.
#5 I kind of agree with. In my stories, I like every step towards sex to be a peak which is then followed by a valley, but other kinds of stories have to follow their own rhythms. An example of a peak followed by a valley is the MMC meets a girl at a party, they hit it off, they are kissing and he feels her tits, and then her ride says it's time to leave and the girl goes without the MMC getting her phone number
#6 A lot of rambling
#7 ???? I think burgwad is trying to say something about pacing
#8 I agree with but would have written differently
#9, #10 and #11 Don't apply to my stories
#12 A suggestion that I've not done
#13 ????
#14 I agree with
#15 A lot of rambling, but I think the point is "Don't have dialog to have dialog. Have dialog interspersed with action that moves the plot forward."
#16 A lot of rambling. Each author writes in their own way

 

[burgwad]

Hello, JA! I feel like all the lights have suddenly gone out, a broad-rimmed-fedora-shaped hole has been blasted into the wall through which dusty light now pours, and you have swooped in with epic slow-mo flourish to, I think, thwart me?

In middle school, I was assigned the task of defending, in oral debate, the position that government tax dollars should not go toward funding freely accessible smoking cessation programs. To my initial chagrin, I found myself on the same side of the argument as Big Tobacco. But I didn't have a choice in the matter: I had to research, internalize, and render persuasive to my peers this otherwise unpalatable argument we all unanimously disliked.

And yet the ensuing debate was fun. My opponents' was the more popular argument, but I think this only made my job easier, not theirs. While getting ready, I had barely had to research their position, and could instead invest all my energy into my own plan of attack. On debate day, I came humble, and they came cocky.

So I'm a little excited to meet you here in the arena. Hello! Again! You seem to believe I write strokers, and have read my Rules as being a pro-stroke manifesto. Whether this feels true to me is not interesting to me. I like the odd choice you've made casting me as The Stroker to your Hatman, and I'm going to roll with it.

Can we define some terms before we get rolling?

• stroker -- a sub-class of erotica that is particularly light on plot (and, many would argue, artistic merit) and instead focuses chiefly on sex; derives its name from the idea that these works are designed to be read while "stroking" or masturbating
• erotica -- literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire
• literature -- written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit

If you read my stuff, you'll see pretty quickly that I have no interest in creating art. Every scene in my stories is a sex scene. Characters have no interiority, just literal interiors and orifices by which to penetrate them. Art is elsewhere from my landscape, and that to me is okay.

But do I think erotica can be art? Sure (see the above definition, from Oxford Languages). Even here in our own humble corner of the internet, I think the talents of, e.g., MrHereWriting, Xarth, and OneHitWanda rise at times to the level of art. Art is anything that says something familiar in a way that feels new. It's easy to recognize, but hard to make, and even harder to confine (e.g., by saying medium/genre X can never be art).

But now do I think erotica can be literature? This question really gets my cheek scars a-curling. On one hand, I can't see why not. But on the other, I also can't name a single piece of capital-L Literature that qualifies as erotica.

To call, say, Lolita a work of literature is uncontroversial, right? And serious discussions I've participated in on the matter have typically converged on that its dogged beginnings are almost mythically regrettable in hindsight. Its initial dismissal by publishers and the literary elite and ensuing confinement to the realm of "erotica" is almost universally regarded as pompously reductive today. Nowadays, Nabakov's is revered as some of the finest prose ever committed to print, and if you dare call Lolita erotica then you align yourself with those cartoon villains of yester-century.

I don't dare. I may be The Stroker, but I don't dare call Lolita erotica. Because that would make me a pedophile, for one; and but also ecause I can see the sex scenes for what they are: horrific, surreal, and overflowing with artistic (not erotic) intent.

And okay, but that's Lolita. It's an odd case. But ... it's also an odd case. If Lolita, a book overflowing with eroticism, is not erotica, then besides Lolita can you name a single piece of universally beloved, capital-L Literature that comes even half as close to qualifying?

I genuinely can't. There is literature with sex in it, but I cannot think of a piece of literature whose explicit, creative intent is to sexually arouse. This is what makes me think erotica is little more than sex scenes strung together just so, if only by virtue of empirical fact.

But now why so serious? Can't erotica just be fun? After all, I've already said it can still be art! Isn't that enough?

 

[burgwad]

Hey 8letters, good to see you again! I admit I'm a little intimidated to be talking about my vastly inferior essay with you. But as you can see above, I'm making this fun for myself by taking a stand on the pro-stroke side of the argument.

When you call my Rule No. 6 "A lot of rambling" I get the sense that you're not sure what it's trying to say. Is that accurate? If not, skip this next bit. AwkwardMD once called me out for over-fetishizing the sexual anatomy of my female characters, and advised against hammering on how hot someone's tits are. My own Rule No. 6 agrees with her. It also endeavors to unpack why exactly, at a mechanical level, this kind of writing is ineffective, and it makes suggestions on how to scratch a similar itch but more successfully.

When you say of my Rule No. 7 "????" I get the sense you aren't sure what I'm trying to say. I am comfortable saying that it's not about pacing, but economy. Funny coming from me, I know. Or maybe more like unfunny.

When you say of my Rule No. 8 that you would have "written it differently," I'm left on tenterhooks as to how. I mean, obviously we're different writers, so I know that stylistically you'd have written it differently. Having written this whole set of rules before writing a single word of my own erotica, I also like to think I would have written this essay differently today. But curiously, I admit that you and I both single out Rule 8 as particularly prime for revision. I've got my reasons. What are yours?

When you say of Rule No. 13, "????" I get the sense you aren't sure what I'm trying to say. I like the analogy I use: if mystery and erotica can be said to share an overlapping focus on tension, then similar and sometimes enlightening rules can be borrowed from the former to heighten understanding of the latter. I respect your position, of course, but I humbly urge you to explain it, please!

When you say of Rule No. 15, "don't have dialog to have dialog," I agree and consider your brief summary of the rule phenomenal.

When you conclude your thoughts on Rule No. 16 with "Each author writes in their own way," I just want to make sure I'm reading this rightly as a summary of the rule in question? Or is it a dismissal?

Calling my writing rambling is both fair and unfair. I'm cursed to be both exhausting and endlessly motivated to become less exhausting. The result is, fully un-paradoxically, exhausting. Rambling has been me getting/writing "in my own way" all my life. Sometimes folks love my style, and see it as a special surprise indulgence. More often, however, folks bounce right off and call what I do rambling, bloated, pacey, etc.

These divergent opinions at least converge on one reassuring thing for me: that what I am doing is different. It might not be good. It might not be unprecedented. But it's different. It's not the first track I'd have picked for myself, but it's one I'm okay to be on.

TL;DR -- Ramble ramble ramble. Thank you guys for soliciting this discussion. I'm tickled and embarrassed and thankful. Stuff precisely like this is how I get better.

 

[burgwad]

Here’s another reflection:

If it weren’t obnoxiously apparent, I come from a literary background. I love to read wordy, rambling prose and while I don’t consider myself as talented as my heroes I am still happiest when I’m imitating them.

I confess that Nabokov was the first author I ever read who cared to activate my sexual neurons, however insidiously and harrowingly. Ironically, his famously misclassified work is what gave me my first taste for erotica, and sent me looking for something I could actually get off to. Cue Literotica. Cue also, doujinshi (manga erotica; i.e., to which my Rules also apply, and why harem-based logic suffuses the essay).

I’ve written elsewhere on these forums about how I read for years here before finally becoming so enamored with one author in particular that I created an account.

It was only a couple years later that I began to feel the inevitable pull of erotic creativity in myself, and to want to write my own work. Before I could begin, however, I wanted to write a set of Rules for myself. This effort helped me to explore my own creative goals as well as to puzzle out the genre’s game logic before I dared play a round.

JA, you’re right to call it a stroker’s manifesto. I’ve always approached erotica as an alternative or supplement to image- or film-based porn. 8letters, you’re right to wish I’d stated outright, “this is how I like my porn.” I wrote Rules as a love letter, and love letters must always bastardize their subject matter. In so many ways, Rules reads like an email I wish I hadn’t sent.

But it was, is, my starting point. My origin story. When this is all said and done, and I’m on here someday saying, “Just uploaded my last-ever work, thanks for all the memories!”, my Rules will hopefully have come by then to seem more like a nostalgic portrait of a bygone novice than as the gratuitous, pretentious performance piece it is now (i.e., while that novice is still very laboriously by-going).

 

[Auden James]

Well, first of all, my initials are AJ, not JA, but that only as a side info for you.

Anyway, I'm not here to "thwart" anyone, yourself included, of course, it just so happens that I myself am rather interested in truly nailing down the bolts and nuts of writing erotica, which is why your essay was of particular interest to me, naturally, covering said subject matter. As I've freely admitted already in your thread on setting, I haven't read any of your stories yet, hence I hold honestly no belief about the kind of stories you're writing and publishing here—be they strokers or something else—but I also don't see the importance of that since your essay, at least that's the way I've understood it, isn't merely an essay about your own approach to writing erotica, but about the way erotica in general ought to be written, right? I mean, otherwise its title would be rather misleading, wouldn't you agree?

A quarrel about definitions is seldom of much use, and for this reason I'd rather we skip this useless hair-splitting and discuss the subject matter proper right from the start. The main split between our conceptions of erotica seems to be that you see its sole intended effect in sexually arousing the narratee, but by limiting one's understanding of erotica to this one dimension one completely fails, I think, to even start to acknowledge the—at least possibly—deep and rich meaning and significance of sexual matters. You see, we rather soon enter philosophical territory here, but that's pretty much inevitable because one's understanding of the erotic (and sexual matters are unquestionably part of it) is necessarily linked to one's idea of man. Man may be a political being first (in the Aristotelian sense), but I see man as a sexual being second, and since the latter is intertwined with the first, for one affects the other (see, for example, the so-called sexual revolution), I think it's a fundamental mistake to take the erotic to be a mere aggregate of (animal) instincts and impulses that can be savely compartmentalized and insulated from human affairs without gaining pertinence on them.

Now, your one-dimensional conception of erotica strikes me as an expression of precisely said compartmentalization and insulation whereby erotica is supposed to function as a mere tool for Triebabfuhr (temporary cessation of libidinal instincts and impulses) as if our experience of the erotic would amount to nothing more than an obstinate itch that, from time to time, needs some scratching. If you believe that's all there is to it, well, then there isn't really anything I could possibly do about it anyway, right?

Thus, I hope, you see that the differences that underlie our discussion of your essay are not merely of a verbal nature (as pertaining to diverging definitions), but touch upon pretty fundamental beliefs and ways of viewing the world and man's position therein. Hence my seriousness (that you seem to hold against me), for this is no trifling matter!

As to your question why no "single piece of universally beloved, capital-L Literature" that would also qualify as erotica comes readily to your mind, I'd say that that's another long-lasting effect of the—societal and political—shunning and relegating of works of an erotic nature that has been going on, in the Occident anyway, since at least the year 380, which makes it roundabout 1642 years by now. Speaking of Nabokov, I'd rather pick his late novel Ada or Ardor as a highly-plausible contender for capital-L Literature that also qualifies as erotica, though it may not satisfy your proviso of being universally beloved (which it is most probably not); and there's also, once more, the moral complication of minors doing the dirty, so I'm not sure if you'd be willing to accept this pick of mine anyway.

And erotica can sure just be fun, but reading material that is merely comprised of strung together sex scenes isn't all that fun, really, at last not for me. But, who knows, this may be an acquired taste entirely, right?

 

[8letters]

When you call my Rule No. 6 "A lot of rambling" I get the sense that you're not sure what it's trying to say. Is that accurate? If not, skip this next bit. AwkwardMD once called me out for over-fetishizing the sexual anatomy of my female characters, and advised against hammering on how hot someone's tits are. My own Rule No. 6 agrees with her. It also endeavors to unpack why exactly, at a mechanical level, this kind of writing is ineffective, and it makes suggestions on how to scratch a similar itch but more successfully.

You wrote a lot of words, but I didn't get the point you were trying to get across.

One possibility is that you're saying, "After you say she's got big tits, come up with different ways of saying, 'She has big tits'". Was that what you were trying to say?

To me, you should make your female characters attractive primarily through their personality. Having big tits also makes them attractive, but that should be complimentary and not the primary source of attraction. To me, a good writer should be able to make a female character sexually attractive without her having big tits. I don't think that's what you were saying. Your rule sounded more like "She should have BIG TITS! And keep mentioning her BIG TITS but in different ways."

When you say of my Rule No. 7 "????" I get the sense you aren't sure what I'm trying to say. I am comfortable saying that it's not about pacing, but economy. Funny coming from me, I know. Or maybe more like unfunny.

When I wrote that post, I didn't want to put words in your mouth. I wanted to prompt you to go back at look at your Rule No. 7 with the idea that it wasn't clear.

I'd say to your #7 that there is a time to wax poetically. If you read my "My Lingerie-Loving Sister Moves In", I think I have the MMC wax poetically whenever he sees his sister in a new lingerie outfit. I wanted to get across how awed he was by her beauty. During the final sex scene in my stories, sometimes I have my MMC's wax poetically about how awesome the sex is. On the other hand, I tend to click Back on stories where the author opens the story with the narrator waxing on and on about how awesome looking his mom/sister/daughter/cousin/niece is.

When you say of my Rule No. 8 that you would have "written it differently," I'm left on tenterhooks as to how. I mean, obviously we're different writers, so I know that stylistically you'd have written it differently. Having written this whole set of rules before writing a single word of my own erotica, I also like to think I would have written this essay differently today. But curiously, I admit that you and I both single out Rule 8 as particularly prime for revision. I've got my reasons. What are yours?

Again, I tried to write my post so it was focused on your thoughts and not a lecture from me.

But as you asked, I think the characters should have a life outside of the relationship that continues on during the story, so you wind up with two story arcs. It's not necessary, doesn't fit with all stories, but I think in general it's a good idea. I find it disappointing when the characters in a story appear to come into existence just before the story started (i.e. no on-going life or backstory). So the breaks from the erotic stuff should be events in the MMC's ongoing life. Doing that makes the MMC much more well-rounded and easier to root for. Otherwise, the only thing really to judge the MMC on is how many style points he earns as he gets the FMC in bed.

When you say of Rule No. 13, "????" I get the sense you aren't sure what I'm trying to say. I like the analogy I use: if mystery and erotica can be said to share an overlapping focus on tension, then similar and sometimes enlightening rules can be borrowed from the former to heighten understanding of the latter. I respect your position, of course, but I humbly urge you to explain it, please!

I'm not understanding what you are saying. I need an example out of erotica. I'm drawing a blank as to what the erotica parallel would be of having a detective stumble across a clue.

When you conclude your thoughts on Rule No. 16 with "Each author writes in their own way," I just want to make sure I'm reading this rightly as a summary of the rule in question? Or is it a dismissal?

It was a dismissal. As they say, "The perfect is the enemy of the good." To me, you quickly hit diminishing returns from revising a story. And that's from someone who (based on AH posts) spends an extraordinary amount of time on his stories after the first draft is completed. I don't think an author can see the flaws in their story clearly enough to justify spending a lot of time navel gazing about how to improve it (which is why I use a boatload of beta-readers). At some point, you need to publish the story, get feedback from the readers, learn lessons from that, and then do better the next time.

Calling my writing rambling is both fair and unfair. I'm cursed to be both exhausting and endlessly motivated to become less exhausting. The result is, fully un-paradoxically, exhausting. Rambling has been me getting/writing "in my own way" all my life. Sometimes folks love my style, and see it as a special surprise indulgence. More often, however, folks bounce right off and call what I do rambling, bloated, pacey, etc.

There's rambling as a voice, and there's incoherent-argument rambling.

 

[lovecraft68]

Wow...an unsolicited review where the OP just comes in like the pretentious jack ass they are and starts telling someone all their thoughts on writing erotica are wrong...but of course, THEY know the right way, hence they can criticize someone else's ideas to the point it comes across close to a personal attack.

Then he's quickly joined by the AH's other reigning know it all who tells everyone how to write, even though they're a one trick pony who has never written anything other than I/T.

I have to say Burgwad is a pretty laid back guy to roll with this and not tell both of you to stick it for being disrespectful and arrogant.

This site has a readership for everything, hence everything in every style has its place and no one has the right to tell anyone here their wrong?

As far as a review/essay/how to not being accurate in your eyes, are you going to run up and down that entire section and tell everyone they're ideas are all wrong?

Most people who read those have to do it in the sense of taking what they like out of it and ignoring the rest. That's what actual adults do.

The sheer hubris of two people on a free writing site is staggering.

 

[burgwad]

Hey AJ, apologies for the mis-initialing.

And I'm sorry also for not more clearly citing my sources, but what I shared above isn't my definition of erotica! That said, it's okay if you're not buying what Oxford is selling. Let's throw some more meat on these bones:

erotica (n.):

• Dictionary.com: "written works, usually fiction, dealing with sexual love"
• Merriam-Webster: "literary or artistic works having an erotic theme or quality" (erotic here defined as: "of, devoted to, or tending to arouse sexual love or desire")
• Cambridge: "books, pictures, etc. that produce sexual desire and pleasure"
• Collins: "works of art that show or describe sexual activity, and that are intended to arouse sexual feelings"
• Wikipedia: "any literary or artistic work that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing but (in a strict sense) is not generally considered to be pornographic"
  • Here's Gloria Steinem in that same Wiki article, explaining the difference between erotica and pornography: "Erotica is as different from pornography as love is from rape, as dignity is from humiliation, as partnership is from slavery, as pleasure is from pain." This other quote, also hers, pertains as well: "Blatant or subtle, pornography involves no equal power or mutuality. In fact, much of the tension and drama comes from the clear idea that one person is dominating the other."

Steinem draws attention to one thing all of these definitions have in common: erotica is one thing (i.e., art), porn is another (i.e., not art). I feel like her notion of "pornography" closely matches what we here on Lit deem the "stroker." Meaning, contrary to what I said earlier, the stroker is not a sub-class of erotica, but its evil, artless twin.

Before I go any further with this, let me point out that I've already said I believe erotica can be art. This, you'll note, makes me a bad ambassador for the pro-stroke cause. And while we're at it, let me confess I was being glib earlier: my own erotica is hideously ambitious in its striving to be different and psychologically insightful. I don't give a fuck about political vs sexual explorations of what it means to be human, but I do give a fuck about what it means to be human. I don't find unbelievable sex between people without compelling chemistry the least bit erotic.

Still, this last point from Steinem about pornography being encapsulated by "one person dominating the other" is such a needle sharp insight. What if Steinem doesn't limit her notion of "one person dominating the other" to one fictional character literally dominating another fictional character inside the story? What if she speaks also of those authors who create believable human characters just so they can be seduced and stripped and fucked on the page?

What if I am just a rapist masquerading as an erotica author?

No. NO. Sorry, but I reject this. I am simply way too interested in the consequences of my characters' sexual explorations, devote way too much ink to the felt terror of post-incest regret, to reduce my effort to porn. It's also worth noting that while I love porn, I also detest what most people would bill as "porn." I'm super particular. Let's ... not get into it here. But I hate that greasy, groany, morally vacuous stage-acting shit.

No. Steinem's definition is achily constrictive, and I have a feeling she would be appalled by much of the very best stuff on Literotica today. Would she like "A Mother's Worry," for instance, or would it be porn to her? Shit. It is god-tier erotica to me. Yes, it is most definitely chockful of sex for sex's sake. The story clearly exists to be masturbated to. But it is erotica of the highest order. It's also one of the most-read, best-rated stories on a website called "Literotica.com," which further bolsters my confidence.

... And yet, idk. Shoot. This is why I keep devoting so much energy to helping you guys pick on me. This is why I call Steinem's insight "needle sharp." Because my defenses are difficult to penetrate, even (especially) to myself, and yet deep down I know my shit needs work.

Here's a for-instance:

AwkwardMD has rightly pointed out that my female characters are suspiciously down-to-fuck. They and the stories they occupy, and that are in fact named after them, exist only to have boobs and butts and vaginas for me to play with. It's gross. It's masturbatory. It's pornography.

AwkwardMD isn't wrong. ... But she also technically didn't read the piece she was reviewing (Ingrid, in this case). If she had, she might have a more nuanced complaint about my female characters. Again, she's not wrong. She's just extrapolating, and it sort of shows. (To be clear, I cherish the feedback she gave me. Doc Awk is a treasure, you guys.)

In point of fact, I have axed massive swaths of my own stories (usually about 20-30% of the finished length of the piece) whenever I sensed that I'd made a character act differently than he/she should have. And most of the time, it's the female characters whose mischaracterizations trigger these rewrites. I confine myself to a male first- or close-third person most of the time, but I remain steadfastly committed to the reality of all my characters. They're my driving principle. The story goes only where they will it, and ends only when they say it ends.

But alas, this obsessive focus on agency and reality clearly doesn't prevent me from fetishizing my characters. I worry I do write porn. I worry I am just trying to write long, artful, prosodic strokers.

Anyway!

Ada or Ardor is another rapturous piece of Nabokov's. While it contains eroticism, I've not heard it called erotica until this afternoon. But hey. Let's bury this hatchet and just appreciate how rare it is to meet someone else who likes that book.

EDIT: Wow this is a messy response. Truly, truly I am rambling here. Kudos (and thank you) to anyone who can follow my train of thought.

 

[burgwad]

I think the characters should have a life outside of the relationship that continues on during the story, so you wind up with two story arcs. It's not necessary, doesn't fit with all stories, but I think in general it's a good idea.

Ooo, yes, I like this. What a well-stated point.

When I say I wish AwkwardMD had brought a more nuanced complaint to me about my female characters, what I mean is I wish she'd also been willing to acknowledge that I had at least succeeded in constructing lives for them external to the story at hand. Yes, my fiction likes to drops right in, in media res, and it's not long before the clothes come off, but to whit:

• Ingrid has a complex common to lots of beautiful people, where she feels insecure in her value as a person unless she is actually achieving something impressive; e.g., she commits full-hog to mastering dance as a way of proving she isn't just "effortlessly" lovely.
• Ingrid's Mom hides crippling loneliness and fear behind a mask of maternal/professional confidence.
• Jennifer is a gifted therapist and sexually abusive psychopath who loves her kids more than anything. She hurts her children to make them stronger, but never damages them more than she believes she can repair.
• Lily has selective mutism (a disorder often associated with complex trauma) and refuses to address why; which maybe feels like cheating in terms of characterization, but this was an arduous and fruitfully challenging choice to commit to, and one I regret not at all. Do I miss the forest for the trees by casting a female lead in the role of a voiceless horn-ball? Almost definitely. Almost.
• Nazanin is withholding wild secrets from her younger brother, whom she adores and wants to be honest with, but whom she doesn't want to scare/hurt. Meanwhile, that he is keeping secrets from her, too, is complexly stressful for her.
• Micah is pathologically selfless, and her eagerness to fill the void left by her brother's partner's death might finally prove just how harmful her generosity can be to herself and others.

Next, to answer your request for a specific instance of the mystery-erotica overlap: Both genres promise readers a sort of denoument. Both genres thrive, in the meantime, on tension and suspense. If it's alright, I'll clarify the example of the "break in the case" (i.e., a major clue that simply falls into the detective's lap) being analogous in erotica to an unexpected release of sexual tension, such as a shockingly forward remark, or a surprisingly unsisterly snuggle, or at its most extreme, an enthusiastic sexual favor out of nowhere.

These moments of whoopsie-daisy success can be cathartic for readers of either mystery or erotica, giddy respites from the usual rhythm of major tension and minor release. But, as my Rule states, these freebies are to be used sparingly, or else risk draining the story of its genre-defined essence. If our detective bumbles their way into solving the case through sheer luck, then we have not written a good mystery. Likewise, if our protagonist trips and falls dick-first into his crush's welcoming, pre-lubed orifice, then we have not written good erotica. Granted, I wouldn't not read that story, but you get my drift.

 

[TheRedChamber]

The rules make an interesting read and are worth cogitating on as to how they apply to my own writing. Mostly I write one-on-one relationships with some side colour, but nothing that could be mistaken for the obligatory bang. Having said that, I do have some group-sex works that have long been sitting on my 'not ready to write' pile and part of the issue might be that the MC is hanging with 5 or 8 functionally identical women and thus I'm struggling to give the narratives purpose or an ending.

 

[HectorBidon]

The sheer hubris of people on a free writing site is staggering.

Yup. Although, I've got to say that even though I still haven't read the essay in question, I've found this thread to be an interesting read. In particular I found the posts by Auden James and 8letters to be courteous, cogent, and thought provoking. They may have been hard hitting, but isn't that what you want in a spirited debate? They aren't arguing so much that the rules are wrong, but that they may not apply to all stories. In the words of a renowned Literotica Guru

This site has a readership for everything, hence everything in every style has its place and no one has the right to tell anyone here their wrong.

(That applies to threads too, I guess, as well as stories.)

 

[8letters]

Next, to answer your request for a specific instance of the mystery-erotica overlap: Both genres promise readers a sort of denoument. Both genres thrive, in the meantime, on tension and suspense. If it's alright, I'll clarify the example of the "break in the case" (i.e., a major clue that simply falls into the detective's lap) being analogous in erotica to an unexpected release of sexual tension, such as a shockingly forward remark, or a surprisingly unsisterly snuggle, or at its most extreme, an enthusiastic sexual favor out of nowhere.

These moments of whoopsie-daisy success can be cathartic for readers of either mystery or erotica, giddy respites from the usual rhythm of major tension and minor release. But, as my Rule states, these freebies are to be used sparingly, or else risk draining the story of its genre-defined essence. If our detective bumbles their way into solving the case through sheer luck, then we have not written a good mystery. Likewise, if our protagonist trips and falls dick-first into his crush's welcoming, pre-lubed orifice, then we have not written good erotica. Granted, I wouldn't not read that story, but you get my drift.

Even then, I think you have to set up the surprise, so it doesn't seem out-of-the-blue. Have you ever read any Dick Francis' mysteries? There all set in the horse racing community, typically steeplechasing. To use a steeplechasing analogy, before you jump a fence (have a sex scene), you need to make sure the horse's feet are properly planted (the scene is set up as plausible). So a hot blonde grabs the hero's hand at a party, pulls him into a room and gives him a blowjob. If you haven't gotten the horse's feet planted, that scene will crash into mindless, boring sex. But if you set up the scene by having the blonde's boyfriend spending the party following around the female friend the hero brought, so the blonde wants to get revenge on her boyfriend with the hero before dumping his stupid ass, then you can get the scene to clear the fence.

When I say I wish AwkwardMD had brought a more nuanced complaint to me about my female characters, what I mean is I wish she'd also been willing to acknowledge that I had at least succeeded in constructing lives for them external to the story at hand. Yes, my fiction likes to drops right in, in media res, and it's not long before the clothes come off, but to whit:

• Ingrid has a complex common to lots of beautiful people, where she feels insecure in her value as a person unless she is actually achieving something impressive; e.g., she commits full-hog to mastering dance as a way of proving she isn't just "effortlessly" lovely.
• Ingrid's Mom hides crippling loneliness and fear behind a mask of maternal/professional confidence.
• Jennifer is a gifted therapist and sexually abusive psychopath who loves her kids more than anything. She hurts her children to make them stronger, but never damages them more than she believes she can repair.
• Lily has selective mutism (a disorder often associated with complex trauma) and refuses to address why; which maybe feels like cheating in terms of characterization, but this was an arduous and fruitfully challenging choice to commit to, and one I regret not at all. Do I miss the forest for the trees by casting a female lead in the role of a voiceless horn-ball? Almost definitely. Almost.
• Nazanin is withholding wild secrets from her younger brother, whom she adores and wants to be honest with, but whom she doesn't want to scare/hurt. Meanwhile, that he is keeping secrets from her, too, is complexly stressful for her.
• Micah is pathologically selfless, and her eagerness to fill the void left by her brother's partner's death might finally prove just how harmful her generosity can be to herself and others.

In ways, I want to say this is all really good stuff, but I'm not sure you can get some of this out in the story without too much telling or, the opposite extreme, the reader not grasping enough of the backstory to understand what's going on. There was a story posted to the Story Feedback forum that I read, and my main feedback was that I didn't understand why the non-narrator women in the story made the decisions they did. The author replied with "Here's the backstory on this woman, which is why she did what she did. And here's the backstory on this woman, which is why she did what she did." It was great that the author had all this backstory in her head, but, as none of that came across in the story, their decisions still seemed irrational.

To use a programming analogy, let's say a character in a story does something that's a little odd. "Why did they do that?" then gets pushed onto my mental stack. Something else odd happens, and that gets pushed onto my mental stack. A third odd thing happens, and that's pushed on to my mental stack. Then the first odd thing gets explained, popping it off my mental stack. Now, my mental stack has a limit of only three or four things, so an author can't keep shoving things onto my mental stack or it'll overflow. In the story I discussed in the paragraph above, my mental stack massively overflowed, and I stopped caring. But at the same time, you want there to be a few items in my mental stack as I'm reading as that will motivate me to keep reading. And at the end of the story, my mental stack should be empty or close to.

Premise
One of the things I regularly say is that the premise of your story determines the vast majority of your rating. A story with a great premise but poorly written will outperform a story that's beautifully written but has a so-so premise. As someone recently whined:

I'm sitting here creating an actual story-and getting some catharsis from it-and getting 50 votes while "Look sis has boobs" are grabbing 1000. Disheartening

Yeah, but "Look sis had boobs" has a premise that appeals to the readers of its category, and the whiner's "actual story" doesn't.

So what is a premise? I'd break it down into three things - the story formula, the attraction between the two MC's, and the "freshness" of the story idea.

Story formula
By story formula, I mean a very-high level summary of the action of the story. "Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back." A story can have multiple story formulas. Star Wars famously follows The Hero's Journey, but it also has something of a classic love triangle with a "nice guy" and a "bad boy" competing for the girl's affection. You want your story to have a story formula that appeals to the readers of your category.

The attraction between the two MC's
One of the things I regularly say is that, when I read a story, I want to want the characters to have sex before they have sex. I want there to be a strong attraction between the two characters, so I'm rooting for them to go all the way. If the only attraction between the two characters is that she has big tits and he has a big cock, I'm not going to be emotionally involved in them having sex.

The "freshness" of the story
I've read a bazillion I/T stories. When I read a new one, I want there to be something about it that stands out. I don't want to say "Unique", as I think the only things not written before are so weird that no one else bothered. Something familiar but different enough that it has an emotional hook that the average story doesn't have.

So looping back to your women with interesting backstories, they aren't really going to shine as characters unless they are in a story with a good story formula, a good attraction between them and the MMC, and some freshness to the story.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yup. Although, I've got to say that even though I still haven't read the essay in question, I've found this thread to be an interesting read. In particular I found the posts by Auden James and 8letters to be courteous, cogent, and thought provoking. They may have been hard hitting, but isn't that what you want in a spirited debate? They aren't arguing so much that the rules are wrong, but that they may not apply to all stories. In the words of a renowned Literotica Guru



(That applies to threads too, I guess, as well as stories.)

The problem with hard hitting is....who says the one hitting hard is right? Or any better? Or has any credibility to be down talking someone else's work? That's my point.

Also, Burgwad did not start a thread saying, what do you think, looking for feedback which changes things. This was unsolicited. The OP was so offended by this piece he had to start a thread, then the neediest narcissist in the AH not named Keith D had to come running in.

Everyone has their likes/dislikes in all aspects of life. I'm easier going than people think, in the sense of you do you and have fun with it, but when it comes to arrogance I have no tolerance for it. Neither of these two self inflated twits would ever get a click from me. They could be good writers, that's also subjective, but it wouldn't matter. I'd rather read the phone book....remember those?

 

[burgwad]

I'm glad this thread exists. I'm glad my Rules got some juices flowing. Thanks to everybody who chimed in.