The suspension of disbelief paradox in erotic fiction

[EarlyMorningLight]

So, I’ve got my first story pending (although I’ve written a lot of smut in the past, just not here). Thankfully, two of my beta readers called me out on a section where I glossed over the moment where my characters went from potential lovers to actually starting to go through with it.

This has always been the hardest moment for me in writing smut. The writer and the reader both know that sex is a forgone conclusion. But I want to get there in a way that’s believable, that doesn’t pull the reader out of the moment and make them question the characters coming together.

How do you make a certain outcome feel natural? How do you judge veracity at key moments where people could make a whole range of decisions other than the one that leads them to the outcome that both the writer and the reader desire? What’s the margin of error for suspension of disbelief?

These questions fascinate and frustrate me. More than the buildup, more than the sex itself, I think that moment between the two is the defining factor for a good erotic story.

 

[RetroFan]

It's an interesting conundrum, especially in categories like Incest/Taboo. Even in fantasy categories, such as erotic horror and science fiction or if writing absurdist comedy you have to have a realistic reaction of characters to situations otherwise you lose your audience.

For example, a story about a love affair between a hot 24-year-old female science teacher and an 18-year-old male high school senior is a good premise. If they sneak around, keeping their forbidden relationship a secret, this is believable. But if they screw on a table in the cafeteria in front of many other teachers, students and school support staff and nothing happens and nobody reacts to it as unusual or different, it is there where you lose your audience.

 

[Blind_Justice]

There is no shortcut. If you want a certain outcome, lay the seeds well in advance, make sure your characters have compatible traits and don't rush it. If you feel the pivotal moment comes across as rushed, go back and read the lead up, flesh it out, edit the living bejesus out of that sucker. I've rewritten huge swathes of "Mud & Magic" when my beta readers told me a certain section felt rushed/undercooked. In nine out of ten cases, the rework indeed was better than the first draft.

Also, don't feel shackled to your initial approach. Sometimes an alternate angle - a POV change for example - can drastically shake up the end result for the better.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

For example, a story about a love affair between a hot 24-year-old female science teacher and an 18-year-old male high school senior is a good premise.

This is a great example. The teacher has a million reasons to avoid fucking the student. How do you make her decision to give in believable enough to keep her character real, and not just a flimsy fantasy projection? So many of the stories in this vein just come off as completely ridiculous, because the writers don’t want to put the time and effort into creating realistic motivations and compelling moments of decision making.

 

[oggbashan]

Many of my stories are set in 'realistic' scenarios.

But some commentators, particularly anon, call me out if they think a fact (in a fictional) story is wrong.

For example in my story Stand Down Home Guard, I had the Home Guard firing old victorian guns at a German Cruiser. That is fiction. No German Cruiser in WW2 ever fired on a British coastal town and no coastal artillery (except the Dover guns during that Channel Dash), ever fires on a German ship.

But someone queried the range of the guns. I said seven miles. He thought fifteen miles. We were both right. The Mark IX fired fifteen miles, but the Mark VII had a range of seven miles...

 

[SimonDoom]

The key isn't realism, but verisimilitude -- the appearance of reality. Literotica readers are extremely forgiving on this point, but you have to give them something.

My stories deal with this issue all the time, because many of my stories are either mom-son incest stories or exhibitionist stories where people are exposing themselves under outrageous circumstances. You can't win over everybody. Some of my readers say, "This is bullshit" but most seem OK with the way I handle things. Here are some tips I try to follow:

1. Plant the seed at the beginning. Foreshadow. Mom is divorced and horny. Or her husband is ignoring her. Or the protagonist just bought a sexy bikini and wants to show it off. Be subtle, but clue in the reader very early in the story.

2. Play up the conflict. A mom-son story doesn't work if son says, one day, "Hey Mom, let's fuck!" and she says "Great idea!" There has to be conflict, and hesitation. Play up the sense of taboo.

3. Come up with a precipitating event. Something sudden or unusual that tips your character over the erotic edge.

4. Take time to write the transition, from normal to kinky. Don't skimp on this. Add paragraphs.

5. Get inside your character's head and describe the thought process that leads them toward their kinky activity. Think it through: what's going on inside their head? Ask yourself, why would they do this? Come up with a motivation.

6. Have your character say "no" to something kinky the first time, before they say "yes" later. Resistance is futile, but it is essential. It gives the erotic story sizzle.

 

[PennameWombat]

So, I’ve got my first story pending (although I’ve written a lot of smut in the past, just not here). Thankfully, two of my beta readers called me out on a section where I glossed over the moment where my characters went from potential lovers to actually starting to go through with it.

Good luck with it!

It's an interesting conundrum, especially in categories like Incest/Taboo. Even in fantasy categories, such as erotic horror and science fiction or if writing absurdist comedy you have to have a realistic reaction of characters to situations otherwise you lose your audience.

For example, a story about a love affair between a hot 24-year-old female science teacher and an 18-year-old male high school senior is a good premise. If they sneak around, keeping their forbidden relationship a secret, this is believable. But if they screw on a table in the cafeteria in front of many other teachers, students and school support staff and nothing happens and nobody reacts to it as unusual or different, it is there where you lose your audience.

In one story (actually the whole sequence crossed two stories), an ex-teacher (F) met a former student (M) of hers. He’d told friends that “I’d always wanted to fuck her, kinda felt it was mutual.” It had been. I put lots of effort into avoiding under-18 guardrails. They met unexpectedly a few years after his graduation and were caught up in a life-threatening situation (a raging fire) and the adrenaline rush of surviving (and saving another woman’s life) and the fact neither was in a relationship meant the consummation should of been no surprise to anyone. She also told him that she’d left the school somewhat suddenly in part to get away from him.

How do you make a certain outcome feel natural? How do you judge veracity at key moments where people could make a whole range of decisions other than the one that leads them to the outcome that both the writer and the reader desire? What’s the margin of error for suspension of disbelief?

These questions fascinate and frustrate me. More than the buildup, more than the sex itself, I think that moment between the two is the defining factor for a good erotic story.

So the above is one example. In some, I request a higher level of suspension. One of my nude day stories has a couple having sex on a tennis court. It’s their first date, but as he was waiting for her to arrive, my narrator had reflected on the occasion when he’d first met the woman, both out with friends. They’d flirted, but both had to go their separate ways that previous meeting. It’s noted some onlookers were aghast, and in my head the police had arrived but too late to see anything, but I ended the story just before that. One of my highest-rated tales here.

But there’s no one way. I have some first time stories and other stories that include virgins where my characters are Looking for sex. And, this being Literotica, I err on the side of my characters being horny, interested and generally willing. I rarely touch on non-con, and where I do it’s a low bar, except in City of Angels, where my alien hypnotises people to fuck in public (and the police react as you’d expect police to react.) Or my two petty criminals (M and F) who met when the F accidentally left a bathroom door unlocked at a party when she was snorting a line of coke and he walked in. He traded a bag of marijuana for a line and promised her he could get her hooked up with more nose candy. Being part of a drug-dealing gang, he wasn’t lying.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I find, if my characters aren't ready for their sex scene(s), that I circle around the set-up slowly, easing in on it with more mood, motivation and intimacy between the protagonists. They'll get down to it when they're good and ready, not before. Hence, cafes. And buttons, lots of buttons - to the point where a couple of betas, a few years back, gave me a quota. Or was that a quota on anal?

That's a major part of my slow burn style, I think - I've received many comments as to way I manage the steady flow of the narrative, like a river, a slow burn, then the inevitable heat and fast flow. There's no rush, until there's the rush.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Alcohol and hot tubs. Alcohol lowers inhibitions. Hot tubs lead to little if any clothing and who knows what's going on beneath the bubbles. One or the other (or both) will get you through any situation.

I'm being facetious but the point is, put your characters in sexy situations and the rest will take care of itself.

 

[Bramblethorn]

This has always been the hardest moment for me in writing smut. The writer and the reader both know that sex is a forgone conclusion. But I want to get there in a way that’s believable, that doesn’t pull the reader out of the moment and make them question the characters coming together.

How do you make a certain outcome feel natural? How do you judge veracity at key moments where people could make a whole range of decisions other than the one that leads them to the outcome that both the writer and the reader desire? What’s the margin of error for suspension of disbelief?

Sex happens in a story when two people (or more) want one another, and they don't have a compelling reason to say no. Sometimes the tension is in "why do they want one another?" and sometimes it's in "how do they get past the reasons to say no?" Either of those can work for a story, but either way, understanding your characters and their drives is the key to finding a satisfactory answer to that question.

A couple of examples from my archives:

The Floggings Will Continue...: Tim is attracted to Sigrid, Kelly is attracted to Sigrid, Tim and Kelly are jealous of one another, Sigrid likes them both but doesn't have time for their bullshit rivalry. She's not going to make a move on either of them until that's sorted out. So the desire is already there, and the tension is in figuring out how Tim and Kelly are going to go from petty rivalry to grown-ups in a way that leaves Sigrid comfortable sleeping with both of them like she wants to do. (I've left out a lot of the story, but that's the relevant bit here.)

Loss Function: Nadja and Patricia are both grown adults and effectively single, so there's not much stopping them from sleeping together if they want to. But on their first interaction, Nadja bullied Patricia, and Patricia has been carrying a grudge. So the tension there is in writing how that hostility turns into attraction.

If I was writing the 18-year-old student/24-year-old teacher story, it's probably not hard to sell the attraction between them. But a teacher has some big reasons not to sleep with a student: it's unethical and it could ruin her career and reputation for life. So in that situation, I'd be focusing on how she gets to the point where those reasons aren't enough for her to say no. Perhaps she's decided to leave teaching, so those consequences no longer matter so much. Perhaps she finds out the principal who she admired isn't the moral authority she thought he was, and she loses respect for professional ethics. There are a lot of other ways it can play out, but for me, that's the question I'd need to answer in order to make her choices plausible.

 

[gunhilltrain]

It's an interesting conundrum, especially in categories like Incest/Taboo. Even in fantasy categories, such as erotic horror and science fiction or if writing absurdist comedy you have to have a realistic reaction of characters to situations otherwise you lose your audience.

For example, a story about a love affair between a hot 24-year-old female science teacher and an 18-year-old male high school senior is a good premise. If they sneak around, keeping their forbidden relationship a secret, this is believable. But if they screw on a table in the cafeteria in front of many other teachers, students and school support staff and nothing happens and nobody reacts to it as unusual or different, it is there where you lose your audience.

I have one exactly like that, except that the teacher is thirty-nine. I have another one with a twenty-one-year-old guy who is involved with three ladies - they are friends of each other - of which two are thirty-eight and the third is forty-one. Those are not teachers but rather customers of the limo/car service he drives part-time for.

So is the younger man/older woman scenario plausible? I think a twenty-four-year woman is more likely to go for a man a bit - or more than a bit - older than she is. The idea that she'd want a high school student is possible but not probable. However, an older woman may be trying to renew her lost girlhood. Even if she is hoping to remarry - all four of the women mentioned here are divorced and also have kids who are now teenagers or almost adults - she knows that the odds of that happening are fading. A connection with a younger man is not going to go on forever, but it's pretty good while it lasts.

So why would the younger guy go for it? It depends partially on what else is going on in his life. I suspect that for men eighteen to twenty-five - unless they are truly top drawer - the competition for women their own age can be intense.

In these cases, the guys in question find the older ladies to be more relaxed and accepting of them. They've already been through the cycle of dating, marriage, and divorce, so they are more realistic about what is possible. They are in pretty good shape and all dress quite well. They are also just more interesting to be around because they're had more experiences to talk about. I also made them well-educated. Two of them went to Bryn Mawr (they were roommates, in fact), and I think the other two went to Barnard.

 

[R. Richard]

So, I’ve got my first story pending (although I’ve written a lot of smut in the past, just not here). Thankfully, two of my beta readers called me out on a section where I glossed over the moment where my characters went from potential lovers to actually starting to go through with it.

This has always been the hardest moment for me in writing smut. The writer and the reader both know that sex is a forgone conclusion. But I want to get there in a way that’s believable, that doesn’t pull the reader out of the moment and make them question the characters coming together.

How do you make a certain outcome feel natural? How do you judge veracity at key moments where people could make a whole range of decisions other than the one that leads them to the outcome that both the writer and the reader desire? What’s the margin of error for suspension of disbelief?

These questions fascinate and frustrate me. More than the buildup, more than the sex itself, I think that moment between the two is the defining factor for a good erotic story.

The making of a certain outcome feel natural us called plot. No plot, no real story.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

What's above is all very good counsel, from writers who care about what they do. The OP would be well-advised to follow it, and put in the necessary work. I, too, think of myself as a writer who cares about what I do. Yet I also believe that, among this site's vast readership, there are many people who will suspend disbelief for almost anything that gets rocks off. A teacher and a student banging in the cafeteria, witnessed by many? That could get a hell-yeah from thousands of readers, regardless of verisimilitude. I personally hope to engage the interest of more discriminating readers, but...just sayin'.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The making of a certain outcome feel natural us called plot. No plot, no real story.

There are certain tropes - just because it's a "trope" doesn't mean it's trite. The "having sex" decision is going to be partially based on how the couple met - assuming you are indeed writing about a couple - and there aren't an unlimited number of ways that could happen. A school or workplace setting is quite common because that's the way it often happens. I had a story about a cab driver and his passenger, but that is mostly a fantasy - cab drivers don't have enough social status to score much with their passengers. Prostitution is also something I've written about, although the motive behind that is purely a financial transaction.

It's a bit hard to precisely answer your question. You could certainly learn something from reading other stories on this site and seeing how other authors have handled it. The answer may be limited by the extent of the writer's own experiences and imagination

 

[gunhilltrain]

So, I’ve got my first story pending (although I’ve written a lot of smut in the past, just not here). Thankfully, two of my beta readers called me out on a section where I glossed over the moment where my characters went from potential lovers to actually starting to go through with it.

This has always been the hardest moment for me in writing smut. The writer and the reader both know that sex is a forgone conclusion. But I want to get there in a way that’s believable, that doesn’t pull the reader out of the moment and make them question the characters coming together.

How do you make a certain outcome feel natural? How do you judge veracity at key moments where people could make a whole range of decisions other than the one that leads them to the outcome that both the writer and the reader desire? What’s the margin of error for suspension of disbelief?

These questions fascinate and frustrate me. More than the buildup, more than the sex itself, I think that moment between the two is the defining factor for a good erotic story.

If you have the nerve, also consider how you made the decision in your own life. You don't have to reproduce that exactly, but it should give you clues about how to proceed.

 

[Lifestyle66]

How do you make a certain outcome feel natural? How do you judge veracity at key moments where people could make a whole range of decisions other than the one that leads them to the outcome that both the writer and the reader desire? What’s the margin of error for suspension of disbelief?

These questions fascinate and frustrate me. More than the buildup, more than the sex itself, I think that moment between the two is the defining factor for a good erotic story.

My first stories posted over a year ago jumped right into a couple who quickly became swingers.

As I reviewed the comments on those first few chapters, I realized I needed to check with some editors to improve my writing. One of those editors recommended a change in a scene, which I said wasn't in the wife's character. He replied, "I don't know that, because you haven't built the character."

So, I spent the next months re-writing those stories (deleting and replacing them) and preceding them with three new chapters to better develop the main characters.

The problem with this approach in throwing out chapters is the readers don't necessarily read those earlier character building chapters. So, in my story last month "Trusted Employees" I tried a different approach to shortcut it. I had the first person narrator's thought bubble summarize it:
"I thought 'After almost thirty years together, she'll let me fuck another wife like Glenda while she enjoys sucking and fucking another husband. At the end of the day, I wouldn't trade my wife for anyone else. But loan her out? What a life we lead.'"

Try whatever works.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Many of my stories are set in 'realistic' scenarios.

But some commentators, particularly anon, call me out if they think a fact (in a fictional) story is wrong.

For example in my story Stand Down Home Guard, I had the Home Guard firing old victorian guns at a German Cruiser. That is fiction. No German Cruiser in WW2 ever fired on a British coastal town and no coastal artillery (except the Dover guns during that Channel Dash), ever fires on a German ship.

But someone queried the range of the guns. I said seven miles. He thought fifteen miles. We were both right. The Mark IX fired fifteen miles, but the Mark VII had a range of seven miles...

Yeah, you will get readers who have some seemingly arcane knowledge and are not shy about showing it off. It happens quite often in the '"goofs" section of, say, a site like IMDb.com. They rely on users to send in much of the information. Of course, that is about film, not writing, but it's the same impulse. I've done it a few times myself.

Maybe there's more of an excuse in movies because it can get pretty expensive to reproduce something like a battle scene. Some corners have to be cut. With writers, they can describe the most elaborate event with just words, and they have more time, so maybe they should take more care with those details.

 

[NotWise]

I agree with R. Richard. What you need first and most is a plot that makes sense. I'd add that your character's dialogue needs to explain unusual thoughts and actions.

 

[Auden James]

I'm not sure why no one else has pointed it out yet, but I don't see the "paradox" the OP chose for the title. Where's the self-contradiction with regards to suspension of disbelief in erotic fiction?

Apart from that the theory of suspension of disbelief has some—logical-philosophical—problems of its own that may well render it itself paradoxical . . .

 

[SamScribble]

... How do you make a certain outcome feel natural? How do you judge veracity at key moments where people could make a whole range of decisions other than the one that leads them to the outcome that both the writer and the reader desire? What’s the margin of error for suspension of disbelief? ...

Characters define themselves by what they say and do. If what the characters say and do leads the reader to say 'Yes, that could have happened' then no suspension of belief is required. It's pretty simple really.

 

[Winter_Fare]

I'm not sure why no one else has pointed it out yet, but I don't see the "paradox" the OP chose for the title. Where's the self-contradiction with regards to suspension of disbelief in erotic fiction?

Apart from that the theory of suspension of disbelief has some—logical-philosophical—problems of its own that may well render it itself paradoxical . . .

If you have a fantasy story for example, and it happens to feature dragons, no-one bats an eyelid. If a wizard shows up, no-one drops a comment on how Magog is impossible. Yet, on LitEROTICA at times, readers seem baffled as to why two characters should fuck! Who knew! The characters know where they are and what's expected of them, paradoxically, despite the naked lady on the front page, some readers do not.

(Disclaimer, obvs, well rounded characters are lots of fun to read and write but sometimes, it's just smut XXX)

 

[Auden James]

That may be so, but there's also the example of Superman whose disguise as Clark Kent some readers think is laughably thin, but the same readers seem to have no problems with his only weakness being a completely made-up substance called "kryptonite."

What that's pointing out is not some fault or "stupidity" with the readers, but—as I indicated above—the problematic nature of the theory of suspension of disbelief that, for some reason, the OP was referring to. If you draw on that problematic theory, you'll get paradoxical results sooner or later, inevitably.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

The Floggings Will Continue...: Tim is attracted to Sigrid, Kelly is attracted to Sigrid, Tim and Kelly are jealous of one another, Sigrid likes them both but doesn't have time for their bullshit rivalry. She's not going to make a move on either of them until that's sorted out. So the desire is already there, and the tension is in figuring out how Tim and Kelly are going to go from petty rivalry to grown-ups in a way that leaves Sigrid comfortable sleeping with both of them like she wants to do. (I've left out a lot of the story, but that's the relevant bit here.)

This is actually a fantastic example. The whole scenario of this story is absurd (in the best way possible) but the dynamic between the three of them feels genuine enough that the reader can take the leap with them, knowing that it’s a leap, without getting pulled out of the story.

It’s funny that you bring this up, because the story that prompted these musings also centers around an “accidental” threesome, although the backdrop is much more pedestrian.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

I'm not sure why no one else has pointed it out yet, but I don't see the "paradox" the OP chose for the title. Where's the self-contradiction with regards to suspension of disbelief in erotic fiction?

Apart from that the theory of suspension of disbelief has some—logical-philosophical—problems of its own that may well render it itself paradoxical . . .

I think of it as a paradox because the outcome is preordained, but as a writer, you should strive to get there in a way that feels genuine.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

If you have the nerve, also consider how you made the decision in your own life. You don't have to reproduce that exactly, but it should give you clues about how to proceed.

That’s exactly what I ended up doing.