What irks you in a story? - a list for writers on Lit.

[Cruel2BKind]

Maybe this is a quip that is somewhat specific to my favorite category, but it applies to the rest of the categories as well.

I'm not sure if many people realize this, but anal is HORRIBLY PAINFUL and SLOW and EMBARRASSING. At least the first time you do it. You need to be completely relaxed, use a lot of lube, and a lot of time. In gay male, you get a bit of a free pass if you establish that you're character has had sex beforehand, but a lot of the time, a virgin is already well-fucked before he can shake his pants off of his ankles.

A huge pet peeve, when anal is done wrong. When some guy just plunges in without a drop of lube, or even when he just uses spit. I've even heard the description of 'ass juice' used when a man was giving a woman anal. Unless she was about to take a disgusting sloppy bowel movement, then the writer has obviously never had anal sex, because there is no natural lubricant in the rectum.

Maybe some people get the idea from watching porn, but I've seen behind-the-scenes documentaries of making pornos. Those girls and guys have been stretching out for HOURS before the shoot with butt plugs or dildos. Before each scene, they fill themselves with lube.

So, that's a major pet peeve of mine, when an anal virgin can take an eight-inch cock within minutes with only a wad of spit as lubricant.

 

[lovecraft68]

Maybe this is a quip that is somewhat specific to my favorite category, but it applies to the rest of the categories as well.

I'm not sure if many people realize this, but anal is HORRIBLY PAINFUL and SLOW and EMBARRASSING. At least the first time you do it. You need to be completely relaxed, use a lot of lube, and a lot of time. In gay male, you get a bit of a free pass if you establish that you're character has had sex beforehand, but a lot of the time, a virgin is already well-fucked before he can shake his pants off of his ankles.

A huge pet peeve, when anal is done wrong. When some guy just plunges in without a drop of lube, or even when he just uses spit. I've even heard the description of 'ass juice' used when a man was giving a woman anal. Unless she was about to take a disgusting sloppy bowel movement, then the writer has obviously never had anal sex, because there is no natural lubricant in the rectum.

Maybe some people get the idea from watching porn, but I've seen behind-the-scenes documentaries of making pornos. Those girls and guys have been stretching out for HOURS before the shoot with butt plugs or dildos. Before each scene, they fill themselves with lube.

So, that's a major pet peeve of mine, when an anal virgin can take an eight-inch cock within minutes with only a wad of spit as lubricant.

Some of the other wonderful things they leave out is blood and the possibility of shit.

I'm sure you also saw in that documentary that the women usually take enemas before anal scenes.

The first time I had anal with my wife (which was her first time) I took it slow, but there was still a bit of a nasty surprise. (hey shit happens right?)

And lets not sink to high school, level and talk about the farting.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Some of the other wonderful things they leave out is blood and the possibility of shit.

I'm sure you also saw in that documentary that the women usually take enemas before anal scenes.

The first time I had anal with my wife (which was her first time) I took it slow, but there was still a bit of a nasty surprise. (hey shit happens right?)

And lets not sink to high school, level and talk about the farting.

Yeah, I like realism, but I'm okay with nasty details like farting and shit being left out. Suspension of belief, right?

I just hate it when they get to the fucking right away, without even a nod towards the fact that anal is painful, and clumsy.

 

[Etaski]

Hmm, neat thread.

What is important, I think, when writing in second person, is that the point of view should be internal. Memories, thoughts, feelings - the narrator should have access to it for it to be an enjoyable read.

"As you stroll down the dark alleyways you remember how much you promised yourself never to walk home alone like this. That last beer had been one too much, though, and that familiar feeling of being immortal, the one you had as a teenager, pushed away all worry. But you're worried now, allright."

Ah-ha, someone has put the finger on something I've been pondering for the last week! That's an example of 2nd-person that I actually find draws me in. I could read and enjoy a story like that.

Now it makes more sense, the "confused 1st-person trying to be 2nd-person" story I run into now and then. I have *never* been able to get into one, never finished reading one.

I've been wondering lately, though, because I wrote a 2nd-person story that I genuinely like, but people's reactions to it seem...polarized. And I've received a few explanations that read something like, "That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your story, it's just me, I don't like the 2nd person."

Why not? What's wrong with it when you write it like Allyourbase did above?

There's no "I" or "me" in my story at all. It truly is 2nd person. So I guess I can't tell if it's a knee-jerk reaction the instant they saw a "you" (so they didn't really give it a chance).... or it's really not engaging (although a few replies also seemed like they'd been drawn into the story and could comment on the action and flow itself).

To make it more complicated...the content will turn off a lot of readers, too (non-con/male victim/horror).

I was just surprised how difficult it was to determine what it was about the story they didn't like. They didn't seem to know themselves, at times, particularly when they mentioned the 2nd person.

 

[sr71plt]

Why not? What's wrong with it when you write it like Allyourbase did above?

Because along about the tenth paragraph, most readers will run screaming from the room. It gets real, real tedious real, real fast.

 

[LaRascasse]

Not exactly something I hate... but still

I am not a fan of overly simple characters. 99% of the stories have these. Within 2 lines of their introduction, it is clear if they fall into the good guy or bad guy categories and we also know everything else about them (ie- "My twenty year old cousin Nancy came for a visit that summer"). Most often, pointless (and bizarre) sex ensues shortly afterwards. We get to know nothing more about Nancy (other than her insatiable lust for cock and ability to perform sexual gymnastics with every male and female family member).

I know this is erotica, but spare a thought for character development. Multi dimensional characters make a story so much more appealing. Add to that internal conflicts and personal demons and you have a winner in my books.

Strangely enough, I can overlook the occasional typo if a story is engaging enough. I don't mind grammatical mishaps as long as I can understand what is going on. My other major pet peeve is plausibility. I don't mean realism, I mean don't give me 20 orgasms in 2 pages and a guy sporting a foot long erection.

@LC- As far as realism goes. You and I may be fans of it, but I doubt many are. So we can either limit our readership to a handful of writers or just shut out that part of our mind.

 

[Verdad]

Maybe this is a quip that is somewhat specific to my favorite category, but it applies to the rest of the categories as well.

I'm not sure if many people realize this, but anal is HORRIBLY PAINFUL and SLOW and EMBARRASSING. At least the first time you do it. You need to be completely relaxed, use a lot of lube, and a lot of time. In gay male, you get a bit of a free pass if you establish that you're character has had sex beforehand, but a lot of the time, a virgin is already well-fucked before he can shake his pants off of his ankles.

A huge pet peeve, when anal is done wrong. When some guy just plunges in without a drop of lube, or even when he just uses spit. I've even heard the description of 'ass juice' used when a man was giving a woman anal. Unless she was about to take a disgusting sloppy bowel movement, then the writer has obviously never had anal sex, because there is no natural lubricant in the rectum.

Maybe some people get the idea from watching porn, but I've seen behind-the-scenes documentaries of making pornos. Those girls and guys have been stretching out for HOURS before the shoot with butt plugs or dildos. Before each scene, they fill themselves with lube.

So, that's a major pet peeve of mine, when an anal virgin can take an eight-inch cock within minutes with only a wad of spit as lubricant.

I find equally annoying —no, more so—all the ‘responsibly’ written anal scenes that follow the protocol to a t, step by prescribed step, every tedious time.

Lubricate, insert one finger, stretch ever so lovingly, insert two fingers, insert three fingers, zzz....

One can have perfectly painless anal sex without that entire song and dance and even without lubrication, and no, one doesn't have to be an anal queen with altogether too much practice to achieve it. As with so many things, the relaxation, the state of mind and body, is far more important than working the buttons and the levers in a set procedure.

Which, I guess, would make one of my pet bugbears in erotic writing something I almost want to call meta-porn. Porn that no longer draws on experience, nor even on fantasy, but on consensus drawn from other porn.

 

[Firebrain]

One can have perfectly painless anal sex without that entire song and dance and even without lubrication, and no, one doesn't have to be an anal queen with altogether too much practice to achieve it. As with so many things, the relaxation, the state of mind and body, is far more important than working the buttons and the levers in a set procedure.

This. The first time can be tricky for all kinds of reasons, and it's realistic to write it with some pain/general awkwardness for insertion. But after that...well, make it fit the character.

 

[PennLady]

Why not? What's wrong with it when you write it like Allyourbase did above?

I don't like "you" stories because that "you" is not "me." I don't like being told what is happening, or did, or will, to me. The author doesn't know me, and so they don't know what I'd think or like or anything else. This is a genuine case of "it's not you (haha) it's me." I personally do not enjoy stories like that, so I don't read them. That's not to say that can't be or aren't well done, just that I don't like them.

 

[PennLady]

I know this is erotica, but spare a thought for character development. Multi dimensional characters make a story so much more appealing. Add to that internal conflicts and personal demons and you have a winner in my books.

I'm with you. I roll my eyes at barbie-doll, laundry-list descriptions of women, and the equivalent for men. Nor do I like the women who live and die to give blow jobs. As for overly-endowed men, I can only laugh. I once saw a diagram of a foot-long cock (this was on an HBO sex Q&A show) in a vagina, and when half or better didn't fit, it looked ridiculous. So whenever a 12" member is mentioned, this is the image I get in my head, and then the story becomes a comedy.

I'd like a little background on the characters, at least. I don't need their biography, just a few hints as to what they might be like and then I can fill in the blanks. Which, yes, makes the story more enjoyable.

 

[Etaski]

I don't like "you" stories because that "you" is not "me." I don't like being told what is happening, or did, or will, to me. The author doesn't know me, and so they don't know what I'd think or like or anything else. This is a genuine case of "it's not you (haha) it's me." I personally do not enjoy stories like that, so I don't read them. That's not to say that can't be or aren't well done, just that I don't like them.

Not a lot to work with there, is there? But you've already said that in this thread. I got it.

I suppose that just makes me wonder how many stories any given person has ever seen that was actually done well (if you say, "it can be done").

How many times have people said, "Oh, I said I'd never try that sexual maneuver...until I ran into someone who could actually do it right. I changed my mind."

My husband and I were talking about it. He said he didn't remember one discussion or example in school of a good second person piece of writing.

I said I remembered a glossing over of it, boiled down to 2 sentences, "First and third person are most common. Second person is vary rarely used, so let's move on."

No examples as assignments to read or anything. (I was kind of miffed at the time. Please give me all the tools, teacher!)

No wonder no one knows how to do it well.

*shrug* There's another consideration. Despite the hard edge to manyeyedhydr's post in this thread (#96), about the "choose your own adventure" being the only place to use 2nd person, there was a grain of truth there, just not well explained.

This is which made me wonder if this is why I'm more interested in a good 2nd-person example and have potential to enjoy 2nd-person tales:

RPG games, such as D&D, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Pathfinder, etc. I have played a great many of them.

It's the idea of games in any case. You are often sitting there being presented with a situation you must respond to. More than that, you have an agreed-upon "Gamemaster" or "Storyteller" who is providing the scenario for you, and the best ones weave a story in their telling that draws you in and have you hanging on their every word. They include details, responses, emotions, and memory to give you the the whole picture so that you have something to work with.

They're always talking in 2nd-person.

So...I think, without realizing it until literally just now, I've actually heard some good second-person stories, was involved in them, and am not so 'knee jerk" to hate them in erotica. I think they have potential---IF someone doesn't confuse it with First person.

 

[lance gt]

Plausibility. Nothing will make me stop reading faster, if it doesn't sound real. Spelling and grammar aside as minor interferences, the reality of it actually happening is what I look for and when it isn't there, neither am I.
A writer has to show their experience or research on the topic, to get me to read past the first chapter.

Characters have to be 'real' as well. As others have stated, the 10' dicks and super-human endurance, the impossible Barbie Doll looks and more just makes me close the book or hit the back button.

Clinical renderings of a sexual act are just a piss off. If there is no emotional input from the characters, it just bores me.

 

[oggbashan]

...So...I think, without realizing it until literally just now, I've actually heard some good second-person stories, was involved in them, and am not so 'knee jerk" to hate them in erotica. I think they have potential---IF someone doesn't confuse it with First person.

I don't hate second person viewpoint stories. It is possible to use second person but it takes a good writer, and a good reason, to do it.

Most contributors to Literotica, including me, aren't good enough to write second person and make it work for the reader.

 

[LaRascasse]

I'm with you. I roll my eyes at barbie-doll, laundry-list descriptions of women, and the equivalent for men. Nor do I like the women who live and die to give blow jobs. As for overly-endowed men, I can only laugh. I once saw a diagram of a foot-long cock (this was on an HBO sex Q&A show) in a vagina, and when half or better didn't fit, it looked ridiculous. So whenever a 12" member is mentioned, this is the image I get in my head, and then the story becomes a comedy.

I'd like a little background on the characters, at least. I don't need their biography, just a few hints as to what they might be like and then I can fill in the blanks. Which, yes, makes the story more enjoyable.

It's ridiculous right? Most of the times, the characters don't even have surnames, forget a decent bio.

 

[PennLady]

It's ridiculous right? Most of the times, the characters don't even have surnames, forget a decent bio.

Lack of surnames isn't a huge deal -- I've done that once or twice myself, without even realizing it. It's the absence of any sense of the character as a person that is the problem. When they're a prop, it's no fun.

 

[sr71plt]

Why do you need a surname unless it has a point in the plot?

 

[PennLady]

Why do you need a surname unless it has a point in the plot?

I suppose to make your characters more real, although I'd say it's not necessary, depending on the story. I did one short story, "Guilt," where the characters didn't have surnames. I didn't even realize it until I read it over after finishing it. After I wrote "Ghosts of the Forum," it was a long time later that I realized I'd given everyone except the female protagonist a last name.

It's an interesting question. In most of my stories, the characters have surnames because, well, people have surnames. Is it important to the plot? I don't know. It makes it a bit easier to track the characters, and of course people get referred to IRL as Mr. This or Ms. That, depending on who's talking.

 

[sr71plt]

Looks to me that the major irk of posters here is that all of the stories here aren't written for their personal (only) tastes. Some of these "irks" are getting pretty ridiculous.

On surnames. A surname doesn't define a character in any way unless it's part of the plotting or it's needed to keep the characters separate in the reader's mind.

 

[Laina057]

Seeing where we are my answer will be based on what gets me in erotica. A complete suspension of reality.

I know its fiction. I know it is fantasy and has some suspension of reality but let's be a little real sometimes.

I hate incest stories whose plot is a s simplae as. "One day I looked at sis and thought damn! so I fucked her. Usually by chapter two of these stories the entore family is involved.

Women who are "meek" and inexperienced suddenly not only fucking the football team but has moves Jena Jameson has not seen yet.

Same girl who has never given a blowjob deep throating a 10 inch cock.

10 inch cocks. a lot of crappy stories feature over endowed men Also see above because every woman can always deep throat one that big.

The loving wives premise that every man wants to see his wife gangbanged,

The stereo typed "big black cock" every black man has the aforementioned 10" cock'

overly creative sexual descriptions. There was a thread talking about using new words for the standard porn words, But when I read things like, the "musky scent of her oozing sex cave" I'm thinking just say dripping pussy will ya?

My number one pet peeve in erotica is ridiculous dialogue. I know a lot of people read for stroke and I know in reality people will occasionally say something a little stupid and be repetitive but some of what I read here is so bad it kills the mood,

"Oh Matt I want your cock, oh how I love this cock, oh Matt give me that cock!"
"Oh fuck me, oh yes! just fuck me I need to get fucked oh you..."

The number one within my number one is this; used when people are cumming,

"Ohhhhhh arrrrrrrrghhhhhh! ughhhhh urrggggg Ummm ohhhhhhh ohhhhhh Gooooodddddddd!"

Just say moaning or screaming or "began making incoherant noises" if you must

The other way sounds like priests of Cthulhu performing a ritual.

AMEN!

 

[Laina057]

The number one within my number one is this; used when people are cumming,

"Ohhhhhh arrrrrrrrghhhhhh! ughhhhh urrggggg Ummm ohhhhhhh ohhhhhh Gooooodddddddd!"

Just say moaning or screaming or "began making incoherant noises" if you must

The other way sounds like priests of Cthulhu performing a ritual.

AMEN!

 

[lovecraft68]

Looks to me that the major irk of posters here is that all of the stories here aren't written for their personal (only) tastes. Some of these "irks" are getting pretty ridiculous.

On surnames. A surname doesn't define a character in any way unless it's part of the plotting or it's needed to keep the characters separate in the reader's mind.

In a one shot story I don't feel a surname is necessary. For a series I think its an important detail.

As for most of the irks, I feel to me they are not so much irks as stereo types and over used cliches.

Thing is they work for a lot of the readership here.

 

[PennLady]

Looks to me that the major irk of posters here is that all of the stories here aren't written for their personal (only) tastes. Some of these "irks" are getting pretty ridiculous.

On surnames. A surname doesn't define a character in any way unless it's part of the plotting or it's needed to keep the characters separate in the reader's mind.

No, a surname doesn't necessarily define a person, but I find when I'm writing a longer story, and especially if there are multiple characters, then it's just natural to put in surnames. It also depends on various things. Say a characters is a police officer; it's likely s/he'll be introduced, either by themselves or a friend, to someone as Officer/Detective/etc. "Surname."

If a story isn't to my taste, or has my pet peeves, I click off. I think that's what most of us are saying here. I don't expect things to be written to my tastes, especially, but it's nice when I find one I like.

 

[sr71plt]

So do I. But the absence of a surname isn't ipso facto irksome (or shouldn't be, if you're not anal retentive). Only if it creates some form of confusion in its absence.

 

[PennLady]

So do I. But the absence of a surname isn't ipso facto irksome (or shouldn't be, if you're not anal retentive). Only if it creates some form of confusion in its absence.

Oh, true. Guess we were crossing wires. I rarely find lack of surname to be an irk.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Oh, true. Guess we were crossing wires. I rarely find lack of surname to be an irk.

It depends on the context. If it is a situation where people are ordinarily addressed by their full names--or by last names, only--then the absence of a surname can be distracting.

I usually will give characters a surname to add depth, and sometimes as shorthand for ethnicity.