The irrelevant cheating spouse

[colddiesel]

Just a couple more thoughts.

In some sections of society 'cheating' is so much the norm that it is probably unhelpful to attach that label. Maybe we should call it affirmative promiscuity?

The saccharine purity of some Romance characters is just as irrelevant perhaps?
Square jawed heroes doin' what's right, and their oh so perfect partners are sooo boring.

Characters with flaws are much more interesting. The label announces that.

 

[lovecraft68]

If he's romancing a bee, it makes all the difference in the world, whether he is stung or not.

The point you are missing is follow through. If you tell me so and so is married I expect some details later on. Even if I had an infidelity kink just saying "Joe had a wife back at home" would not do it for me I would want to know more. I think I will have to agree with JBJ incomplete is a better choice of wording.

 

[PennLady]

Just a couple more thoughts.

In some sections of society 'cheating' is so much the norm that it is probably unhelpful to attach that label. Maybe we should call it affirmative promiscuity?

The saccharine purity of some Romance characters is just as irrelevant perhaps?
Square jawed heroes doin' what's right, and their oh so perfect partners are sooo boring.

Characters with flaws are much more interesting. The label announces that.

I'd agree that in many places, cheating on one's spouse doesn't raise the eyebrows it might in the US, or in some parts of the US (or other places). Even so, it's not quite my point.

I agree that the pure damsels and white knights get old after a while, although I'm all for some good fluffy escapism that way. I'm not sure, though, that announcing X has a spouse is announcing a flaw. Or rather, it may announce it but then -- what?

The point you are missing is follow through. If you tell me so and so is married I expect some details later on. Even if I had an infidelity kink just saying "Joe had a wife back at home" would not do it for me I would want to know more. I think I will have to agree with JBJ incomplete is a better choice of wording.

Yes. As I've said, if he has a wife, or she has a husband, then tell me more. If it then just reads as the person is unattached, to me the spouse comment means nothing and just leaves me wondering, or hanging.

 

[bronzeage]

Sorry -- edit -- should just be the "irrelevant spouse."

This is a secondary character I've seen pop up in a number of stories and have come to label as above. My question is -- why are they there?

I've read, and edited, a number of stories where Person A gets involved with Person B, whether it's full-on romantic love or some kind of erotic coupling/one-night stand. Person A is married, yet that fact is merely mentioned and then dropped. It adds no tension, no suspense, and in my case, serves to lessen any empathy I might have had for Person A (for doing the cheating) or Person B (for helping A cheat on their spouse). So I'm curious as to why people put it in there when it adds little or nothing.

I'm specifically thinking of stories such as where a guy is on a business trip, meets a woman, then it's mentioned he has a wife buts he's not around, and then the rest of the story progresses without another mention of his wife or marriage. Why bring it up in the first place?

I have to state up front that I don't like stories about cheating spouses, whether it's agreed on by the couple or not. Purely a personal thing. I do have a couple of exceptions -- if there was an abusive relationship and the spouse is getting out of it and falls in love with someone else in the process; or, if the marriage is all over but for the signing of papers. And probably a couple more.

So why do people drop in the irrelevant spouse?

When a person first starts writing erotica, no matter how much fantasy is involved, the details are autobiographical. It never occurs to them to not mention the spouse.

 

[PennLady]

When a person first starts writing erotica, no matter how much fantasy is involved, the details are autobiographical. It never occurs to them to not mention the spouse.

That's an interesting take and I bet you're right in many cases.

 

[3113]

When a person first starts writing erotica, no matter how much fantasy is involved, the details are autobiographical. It never occurs to them to not mention the spouse.

That's an interesting take and I bet you're right in many cases.

I think Bronzeage has got it! Writers have to know the difference between storytelling and blogging. In a story, you keep what serves the story. But in a blog, you can say anything, and it's all considered equal. It's that stream of consciousness shit.

I think that may be why you're seeing this so often, perhaps more often. Because those writing equate storytelling with blogging where, as Bronzeage says, they're being autobiographical (i.e., detailing their fantasy, if not actual affair with the man who happened to be married). They don't think about what to leave out, they just put it all in.

 

[estragon]

Sometimes a blog entry can be a story. I tried that with my latest "Celebrities" story, "Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!". And I didn't put in any irrelevant characters. Sorry if people get weirded out by "Celebrities" stories, but I've written a few, and it's a category that attracts many fewer trolls.

 

[3113]

Sometimes a blog entry can be a story.

I didn't say it couldn't be I said that when people don't know how to turn a blog into a story, when they write a story as if writing a blog, that we end up with what Bronzeage said. Details that would be fine for a blog but make no sense in a story.

 

[estragon]

No quarrel from me. Writing is like whittling. I heard a story once, about an expert whittler who responded, when asked how he could sculpt a horse, perfectly, out of a block of wood with his old jackknife: "I just cuts away anything that don't look like a horse".

 

[PennLady]

I don't agree that all, or even most, people think blogging = storytelling, although no doubt some do, and there is definitely overlap.

I do think, and this is my opinion, that many people write in first person because they think it will be easier. I do not think it is easier, I'm just guessing that many do. I have no desire to write that way myself.

Mostly I think it's lazy writing when people drop in potentially useful details and then ignore them.

 

[estragon]

I don't agree that all, or even most, people think blogging = storytelling, although no doubt some do, and there is definitely overlap.

I do think, and this is my opinion, that many people write in first person because they think it will be easier. I do not think it is easier, I'm just guessing that many do. I have no desire to write that way myself.

Mostly I think it's lazy writing when people drop in potentially useful details and then ignore them.

SA Penn Lady, I'd love to read a first-person story you write, if you ever decide to make the break from your usual third-person approach.

The "irrelevant" or "incomplete" detail should be picked up and queried by the plot or continuity editor. Someone remarked on this thread (I'm too lazy to go back and look it up who said it, so I apologize for not giving you credit) that editors should do more than make sure the commas are in the right place. Well, the plot or continuity editors should. Us quibbler/copy editors are all about spelling, commas, semi-colons, tenses, adverbs and the small change (but essential small change) of writing.