What do you think about not using contractions in narration?

[JohnSm123]

This is not just about writing sex stories. It's about writing in general.

I'm considering using only full forms (e.g. she is, did not etc.) in narration to make the authorial voice easier to distinguish from the characters' thoughts. Do you think that's a good idea? Would it put you off as a reader?

 

[SimonDoom]

I would question the premise: distinguishing the authorial voice from the character voice. Ask yourself why you want to do that. There are some stories where this is a good idea, but it's often unnecessary in erotic stories, where it's helpful to merge the authorial and character voice to immerse the reader.

If the story is in first person, then they are one and the same, and one would only avoid contractions if the character/narrator is a particularly formal person.

If the story is in third person, there are more options, but I personally use contractions, and I see them commonly used in commercial fiction. It's not an issue, as far as I'm concerned. I would avoid contractions only if I wanted to achieve a certain degree of formality with my prose, something I almost never do in the erotic fiction I write.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Hard to be sure without seeing it in action, but if I have to guess, I suspect it might feel rather stilted.

 

[Milo_Grigsby]

This is not just about writing sex stories. It's about writing in general.

I'm considering using only full forms (e.g. she is, did not etc.) in narration to make the authorial voice easier to distinguish from the characters' thoughts. Do you think that's a good idea? Would it put you off as a reader?

I do my best not to use contractions if writing for an omniscient narrator, and almost always do so for when a character is speaking or thinking since that is most common in conversational American English. So it certainly wouldn't put me off and I do think it is clearer. I will stray from either general practice if it is in service of the story or character. For example, I will sometimes not use contractions if a character is speaking formally, is a not a fluent American English speaker, or if it strikes me as either funny or more dramatic in the moment for them to do so.

 

[alohadave]

This is not just about writing sex stories. It's about writing in general.

I'm considering using only full forms (e.g. she is, did not etc.) in narration to make the authorial voice easier to distinguish from the characters' thoughts. Do you think that's a good idea? Would it put you off as a reader?

It's going to sound like a foreign person speaking. That is a characteristic of non-native speakers.

Native speakers use contractions.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's going to sound like a foreign person speaking. That is a characteristic of non-native speakers.

Native speakers use contractions.

Agree - it can make the prose very stiff and formal.

 

[NotWise]

Do it any way you want. It's your story.

If you're writing in third person, then it makes some sense that the narrator's voice will be different from the characters voices. If you're writing in first person, then your narrator is a character. Do you want him/her to have one voice when narrating, and a different voice in dialogue?

I agree with others that writing without contractions makes narration seem formal. Writing in third person, I usually do want the narration to seem more formal than the dialogue, but for me, writing without contractions is going a little too far in the formal direction.

 

[EmilyMiller]

This is not just about writing sex stories. It's about writing in general.

I'm considering using only full forms (e.g. she is, did not etc.) in narration to make the authorial voice easier to distinguish from the characters' thoughts. Do you think that's a good idea? Would it put you off as a reader?

I try to write dialog how people speak. So I’ll include contractions. Repeated words. Things like gonna and kinda.

It’s odd - IMO - to have dialog sound like a poetry declamation.

Em

 

[MrPixel]

Hard to be sure without seeing it in action, but if I have to guess, I suspect it might feel rather stilted.

Very stilted! People IRL talk in contractions. It's what they're there for. See?

 

[SimonDoom]

Here's what Benjamin Dreyer, the chief copy editor of Random House, says on this subject in his book Dreyer's English, which I find to be an extremely helpful and level-headed guide on how to write. He refers to the rule against contractions as one of the ten "non-rules" of publishing:

This may be a fine rule to observe if you want to sound as if you learned English on your native Mars, but there's not a goshdarn thing wrong with "don't," "can't," "wouldn't," and all the rest of them that people naturally use, and without them many a piece of writing would turn out stilted and wooden. The likes of "I'd've" and "should've" are perhaps a bit too loosey-goosey outside casual prose, but generally speaking: Contractions are why God invented the apostrophe, so make good use of both.

 

[mirafrida]

If there is a choice to be made when writing 'authorial voice' narration, I try to choose whatever will make it as readable as possible (in all senses - comprehensible, flows well when you scan it, sounds good in your head). This normally leads to a variable mix of contractions and full forms, driven in no small part by what other words surround the contraction in question.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Would not, could not, shall not, usually comes off as passive. Any double verb becomes a passive sentence. It isn't always a bad thing, and the contraction only lessens the passivity of the statement. Contractions sound better than words strung together without contracting them. It sounds more natural.

 

[SimonDoom]

Would not, could not, shall not, usually comes off as passive. Any double verb becomes a passive sentence. It isn't always a bad thing, and the contraction only lessens the passivity of the statement. Contractions sound better than words strung together without contracting them. It sounds more natural.

I agree and I think a "more natural" style works better for erotica. You want to draw the reader in as much as possible. Formality is fine in some settings but can be off-putting and distancing. When we're in the moment, so to speak, we're at our least formal, least inclined to pay attention to the niceties of formal English.

 

[SimonDoom]

You are some kind of literary anarchist, are not you?

Blow it up, Tilan. I'm here for the super-duper explosions.

 

[MetaBob]

This is not just about writing sex stories. It's about writing in general.

I'm considering using only full forms (e.g. she is, did not etc.) in narration to make the authorial voice easier to distinguish from the characters' thoughts. Do you think that's a good idea? Would it put you off as a reader?

Lou Diamond Phillips did not use contractions for his acting role in Longmire. I thought it was an inspired choice, and gave his character a unique voice. I used a hint of that in one of my mainstream works: my character used contractions, but never until he had already not used a contraction in a given section of dialog.

Choose the rules you want to follow, then follow them, I say. And do not let anyone else tell you that you cannot.

 

[XerXesXu]

I use contractions to narrate 750-word stories for obvious reasons, otherwise not. I write 3rd P Om by preference, I like clearly to distinguish narration from dialogue. If you want to sound clunky there're so many easier ways to do it.

 

[JohnSm123]

I use contractions to narrate 750-word stories for obvious reasons, otherwise not. I write 3rd P Om by preference, I like clearly to distinguish narration from dialogue. If you want to sound clunky there're so many easier ways to do it.

So you advise me not to use contractions in normal (not limited) third-person narration?

 

[12oclocktales]

Lou Diamond Phillips did not use contractions for his acting role in Longmire.

I was a big fan of the Longmire series, watched all of it twice. But I thought Phillips’s conversational style too pretentious, a cheap way of making him the smartest guy in the room. It seemed a bit phony after a while.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

Skilled writers instinctively use meter, especially during pivotal moments in a story. They may not meticulously count syllables, but they often lean towards a more poetic expression that necessitates a distinctive rhythm and meter. Thus, the decision between "don't" or "do not" becomes a matter of requiring one or two syllables within the phrase.

This is very true. I don’t know if I’d consider myself a skilled author but even I tend to have a Natural rhythm in my writing, and my favourite authors bounce me along merrily building the story beats like a conductor with an orchestra.

But yes, most of us, like Shakespeare, have our own Islamic Pantomime.

 

[Bazzle]

I read the title and was confused as to why pregnancy was not mentioned

 

[HeyAll]

I like contractions (i had to look up what this meant) because it's easier to see. The problem with using words like 'no' or 'not' is that the eye can skip it if someone reads fast or skims. That's why DON'T is superior to DO NOT.


On a side note, what really bothers me in writing narrations is when the author uses words like 'stupid' or if something 'sucks.' I sometimes see those words when skimming books at Target and i immeidately put them down.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So you advise me not to use contractions in normal (not limited) third-person narration?

There's a time and a place for formality, and a time and a place to relax.

Learn to do both, as appropriate. If you set a "hard rule" on yourself, you just set an unnecessary constraint as a fiction writer - you need to know what the rules are for, before you know when to break them.

 

[Euphony]

If it's to establish the speaker as posh, educated, etc., etc., I treat it like I do dialects.

You use it noticeably for the briefest period needed to plant the flag in your readers mind then trust their ability to carry that character information forward.

 

[XerXesXu]

So you advise me not to use contractions in normal (not limited) third-person narration?

I don't use them to depersonalise the narrator. If you want the narrator to have a personality then do so, but it's a step on the path to the narrator being a character. As always, do what meets your needs or intentions.

 

[Voboy]

I want all my characters to be actual people. Narrator included.

In my experience, actual people use contractions MUCH more often than not. I don’t like writing stilted prose because I don’t like reading it as a general rule.

There are times when it’s fine.