Shoot Me Now

[AppleBiter]

(Your window scene is nothing at all like the dreaded mirror scene.)

Agreed.

 

[carsonshepherd]

In this context, he's a rent boy/on the game/male prostitute. I think it will work out in the full text, as he's just come from a scene where that is made quite unavoidably clear.

Shanglan

okay, but you know how i feel about very unfamiliar/very obscure words. (I have a pretty good vocabulary so if I've never heard it, it's too obscure )

 

[Colleen Thomas]

My shame before the world:



I suppose I can plead a few mitigating factors - he really would look at his reflection if only for purely professional reasons, there's no reference to how delicious he looks, and the phrases "worked out" and "twenty years younger" do not appear - thankfully, on the last, or he'd look two.

Still. It's there. Worse yet, it's probably staying.

Shanglan

Show don't tell.
Never give measurements.
No mirror scenes.
No cliches.
No stereotypes.
Ad infinitum.

Pardon me, but horse shit.

When you write, you can take a cliche and make it your own. You can use trite hackneyed ideas, but breathe life into them. Nothing is new. It's all been done before. It's in the way you do it that the measure of worth is determined.

If most of us could attain the level of excellence you achieve in your failures we would be quite pleased with ourselves.

Write what you feel, what the story tells you is needed and if it needs the scene, for whatever reason, leave it. You will not go wrong following you rmuse, you can easily go far astray trying to follow the "rules"

 

[Guest]

Yep! Just give in and start writing bosom-heaving historical romances. why fight it?

My hubby loves my heaving bosom.

Or at least, he loves to cause my heaving bosom.

(Silly men.)



Write what you like, Shang.

We'll like it, too.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Yep! Just give in and start writing bosom-heaving historical romances. why fight it?

That's going to be something of a trick with two male leads.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

That's going to be something of a trick with two male leads.

It is?

 

[OhMissScarlett]

What about trouser heaving then?

 

[Guest]

What about trouser heaving then?

I like trouser tenting.

 

[BlackShanglan]

okay, but you know how i feel about very unfamiliar/very obscure words. (I have a pretty good vocabulary so if I've never heard it, it's too obscure )

Then you'll just have to read it through carefully and tell me what you think in great detail. On display here:

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?p=14085314#post14085314

Thank you all for the kind encouragement. I'm still stinging, however. While agreeing with Colly that it is indeed possible and even admirable to reverse a cliche and reclaim it passionately, it's a little different when it's a cliche against which you've held a one-horse public crusade. I'm eating my words, and they have a certain lingering bitter aftertaste.

Ah well. It's a good exercise in humility and not shooting one's mouth off, eh?

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

Originally Posted by BlackShanglan
That's going to be something of a trick with two male leads.

It is?

I do adore you.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I do adore you.

And I you.

 

[minsue]

It is?

. .

 

[shereads]

I've written a bloody mirror scene.

The worst part is that I didn't even notice I was doing it.

It's all over, isn't it?

Shanglan

"Shoot me! I'm an elk! It's elk season!
Shoot me! I'm a hermit crab! It's hermit crab season!"

~ Daffy Duck

 

[shereads]

That's going to be something of a trick with two male leads.

Not a Seinfeld fan, were you?

 

[Liar]

Oh, poo. Get over it, horsey. As long as nobody is cummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmming.

 

[English Lady]

Looks fine to me, I used a mirror bit in one of my best works (well i think it's one of my best) and as long as the mirror thing isn't over done it can work quite well. and yours is a window too *L*


Oh and I'd get the word "tout" nowt unusual abou it to my eyes

 

[impressive]

Hypocrisy has the most unpleasant flavor imaginable.

Nice quote.

Y'know, the mirror scruntiny is not AS objectionable if it relates to costuming. It's the study of the actual character -- physical flaws (or lack thereof) -- that gets tiresome.

 

[impressive]

If most of us could attain the level of excellence you achieve in your failures we would be quite pleased with ourselves.

*nods*

 

[oggbashan]

Mirror, mirror on the wall

I start one of my stories, 'Candice', with a mirror.

I think it is valid because the whole story is about Candice's self-image and her desire to be attractive on her wedding day.

I don't think that Black Shanglan's use of a mirror compares at all with the mirror scenes that were deplored. The use of a mirror when the character has significant concerns about image, or whose earnings depend on presentation, or who is narcissistic - all those are acceptable.

What is a cliche is the use of a mirror as a shorthand trick to avoid gradually describing the character's appearance. 'I saw my 36DDs straining at my bra...'

There are cliches in writing erotica. It is enough to be aware of them and to avoid the obvious use of them. Cliches do have their uses. A hint of a cliche can produce a whole set of images in the reader that would otherwise take dozens of words.

Mirrors can deceive depending on the viewer's perception of the reflection. Unfortunately some people with eating disorders can have a very skewed vision of their image in a mirror. What you think you see may not be the truth. And what is truth in the eye of the beholder? A woman looking in a mirror may see only her imperfections. A man who loves her, looking over her shoulder, may see the beauty of her whole body and ignore the flaws that seem so obvious to her. Is either seeing 'the truth'?

Og

 

[shereads]

"What we have heah is a failyuh to communicate."

~ The Warden in Cool Hand Luke

Ah, now I get it. When I read the thread title I thought Shanglan had written a scene involving a mirror with blood on it, and that the other authors were agreeing that yes, those mirror-with-blood scenes are all too common.

I tried to remember where I had read one. When I couldn't, I thought my amnesia was back. Don't do that!

 

[shereads]

What is a cliche is the use of a mirror as a shorthand trick to avoid gradually describing the character's appearance. 'I saw my 36DDs straining at my bra...'
Og

Too few authors attempt the trickier no-mirror scene: 'There was no mirror in the room, so I could only imagine how my 36DDs would appear to strain at my bra..."

 

[oggbashan]

Too few authors attempt the trickier no-mirror scene: 'There was no mirror in the room, so I could only imagine how my 36DDs would appear to strain at my bra..."

Or the even tricker pre-op transexual version:

I could only imagine how my soon-to-be implanted 36DDs would strain against the bra I hadn't yet dared to buy...

Og

 

[shereads]

"...The bathroom mirror was splashed with blood! What had happened here last night? Why couldn't I remember? I grabbed a towel and wiped the bloody mirror, and couldn't help noticing the way my 36DDs strained against my bra..."

 

[lil_elvis]

*Making notes...need to check the WIP*

Damn you Shang! Just when everything seemd to be moving along so nicely and I was going to make my first submission in ages.

 

[rgraham666]

Stop!

I'll talk!

No more!