Things that are enjoyable but challenging to write about

[RetroFan]

Do you have any themes that you enjoy writing about in your stories, but find challenging?

My stories are all comedic, and many feature characters who are lacking in intelligence. I love writing about stupid, dumb characters, but it is really challenging to write dialogue and storylines for them.

For example, I recently wrote a story called 'Debbie the Dumb Gold Digger' and while I love the story, it was really hard to write it. Finding dumb things for the titular character say and do - among many other things she cannot understand how daylight saving works, struggles to read a children's book aloud to a small child and thinks that the Titanic is fictional - was a massive challenge.

It was a similar thing with my 'Cute Celebrity Chloe Comes To Stay' story, where two dim-witted male twins are star-struck at the thought of meeting a pretty soap opera actress and ask her long-suffering cousin the most stupid and inane questions about her.


Do you have any themes in your stories you frequently write about and enjoy but still find a challenge?

 

[NotWise]

I enjoy writing about intimacy, and I find that it takes a lot of work to express. I'm not talking about sex so much, but about those moments that might come before or after sex, or at other important times in people's lives.

 

[holliday1960]

I am currently working on my first male pov piece. It is hard to write from anyone's perspective other than your own, but writing from masculine pov leaves me questioning whether it is acceptably realistic or not. Interesting, NW...I think you do a wonderful job at writing intimacy.

 

[NotWise]

I am currently working on my first male pov piece. It is hard to write from anyone's perspective other than your own, but writing from masculine pov leaves me questioning whether it is acceptably realistic or not. Interesting, NW...I think you do a wonderful job at writing intimacy.

I think you can relax with the assurance that there is no one male perspective--any more than there is one female perspective. A wide range of views are realistic.

But should you have questions, you have willing readers like me.

Thanks on the intimacy thing.

 

[CyranoJ]

Do you have any themes that you enjoy writing about in your stories, but find challenging?

The big ticket item is that non-con and "interracial" kink, both of which I write about frequently, are radically incompatible with my normal morality* (that's precisely why they're kinks, in fact), and writing about them always involves a level of cognitive dissonance that can become psychically exhausting.

For something a bit less fraught: I'm a big fiend for world-building and working out every last detail of a setting (even a contemporary setting). Knowing when to rein this instinct in and how much I let it influence a story can be a challenge.

Another one: I thoroughly enjoy writing long, filthy, smutty sex scenes. To a point. But there does come a point where it starts to feel like work, and sometimes that point will come when as a reader I would just be getting into the scene. Striking a balance between what's fun for me to write and what will be fun to read can also be a challenge, and often the challenge can be very workaday (like, fuck, how many synonyms for "dick" can I cram on to one page?).

* In the case of "interracial" kink it's the potential for reifying underlying racist attitudes that regard interracial relationships as taboo -- and exploiting those hang-ups for erotic effect -- that's the potentially "incompatible" bit. I could write about normal, healthy interracial relationships all day long with nary a twinge, but that would not be "interracial" kink.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm a big fiend for world-building and working out every last detail of a setting (even a contemporary setting). Knowing when to rein this instinct in and how much I let it influence a story can be a challenge.

I'm into a challenging place with my latest, a long one. Not so much world building as back-in-time building, where I'm weaving reality with mythology. The biggest thing is to capture a narrative style that is not informed by the present world, and to avoid anachronisms. Describing time in a place where a sun-dial was the time keeper and clocks hadn't been invented yet (and therefore the notion of a minute or a second doesn't exist) isn't easy.

 

[CyranoJ]

Sounds intriguing, though. Good luck with it.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Like, fuck, how many synonyms for "dick" can I cram on to one page?

The struggle is real, my friend.

Personally, editing out excessive detail is my greatest challenge. Sometimes, I get really attached to dialogue or scenes that, in the end, don't belong and it's physically painful to hit "delete." Sometimes, I can set aside tid-bits like that for insertion in a later chapter, but more often than not, it just has to go. It sucks that at the end of the day, your scene can only go in one direction, and that means throwing all the other possibilities away.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I find abduction and hostage situations fun to write about, but it's difficult since I've never been abducted.
I usually do a lot of research on something if I haven't experienced it myself so last night I was searching gags, and being gagged. Need to delete that from my search so my kids don't see it and get scared!
I almost tied a gag on myself so I could experience it so I could write about it better. I actually still might!

 

[CyranoJ]

The struggle is real, my friend.

Jesus must have had days like this.

Personally, editing out excessive detail is my greatest challenge. Sometimes, I get really attached to dialogue or scenes that, in the end, don't belong and it's physically painful to hit "delete."

I heard this. "Murder your darlings," they say, and even after I worked out that this is a figurative expression and made peace with my dearly-departed stuffed animals -- it was all a tragic misunderstanding, Big-Ears Teddy*! -- it can still cut deep.

[* I did not actually have a "Big-Ears Teddy," this is a super-duper-fucking-tasteless Canadian joke for which I feel immediately apologetic... but not quite apologetic enough to actually edit it out. Hey, I never said I was a role model...]

http://img.pandawhale.com/post-14377-U8dv.gif

 

[TxRad]

Science fiction. I read so much of it in my younger days and so much of it is still locked up in my brain that I find it hard to write anything for fear that i am plagiarizing something i read long, long ago and far, far away.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sounds intriguing, though. Good luck with it.

Yes, for the first time on Lit I have an obligation to myself and future readers to have the whole cycle written before I post chapter one. I would be crucified, hung drawn and quartered if I didn't. My problem (it's not a problem, not really) is that I have a pre-ordained plot (mostly) which I must get to the end of, but any number of paths along the way to get there. As a consequence, I have zero idea how many chapters, how many words will be needed. It makes writing quite interesting!