What IS Quality?

[Svenskaflicka]

We all know the difference between a great story of Publish-level, and a jerk-off story that only 14-year-old boys would find worth reading more than 2 paragraphs of.

But when it comes to a story not only including sex, but about a sexual encounter, focusing primarily on sex:

What is it that makes a sex-story really, really good?

Believable characters?
A carefully worked-out plot?
An outrageous fantasy where you're free to fuck upside down in the ceiling?
Beautiful language?
Flowing run-on sentences?
Sexy scenarios, like joining the Mile High Club?
Erotic but unspoken-only-hinted passion?

 

[Alex De Kok]

I don't honestly know...

...but to me your first two options come high on my list, with "correct" language and grammar which does not come between me and my visualization of the scenario being essential, too.

And now, since I have consumed too much of what a fellow student used to refer to as "tasty beverage", I'm off to bed.

Goodnight,

Alex

 

[Un-registered]

What is it that makes a sex-story really, really good?

Believable characters? Yes
A carefully worked-out plot? Yes
An outrageous fantasy where you're free to fuck upside down in the ceiling? Not necessarily
Beautiful language? Yes
Flowing run-on sentences? Yes
Sexy scenarios, like joining the Mile High Club? Not necessarily (I prefer the Moles Club anyway)
Erotic but unspoken-only-hinted passion? Yes

... "correct" language and grammar which does not come between me and my visualization of the scenario being essential, too.

That too.

 

[MaxSebastian]

What IS Quality?

Cadbury's chocolate.

Mmmm...

 

[SlaveMasterUK]

To make a story that I'd consider 'fantastic' it has to be more than just an 'erotic tale' to me - it has to be something that I can read and enjoy on a completely non-sexual level, for its beauty, its passion, or its unbridled nastiness...

Add your that list:
An original plot (something new..?)
Something that touches one or more of my [obscure] fetishes without going places that turn me off

and most importantly

A plot that genuinely scares me

ax

 

[SlaveMasterUK]

Cadbury's chocolate.

Mmmm...

WHERE!!??

Our trans-atlantic cousins wiith their Hersey bars, don't know what they're missing...

ax

 

[peachykeen]

Well it's just so subjective, isn't it? I mean for me, I like stories that are 'believeable' (as in, it could happen, although it doesn't neccessarily have to be 'real'), characters that I can care about, good dialogue. But some people are really turned on by the way-out-of-this-world fantasy thing, and can write it very well.

 

[Un-registered]

An original plot (something new..?)

Impossible.

 

[Lovelynice]

Nothing's impossible...you just need to be either very lucky or a true genius to create something entirely new.

As an idea to create an original idea, think about what happens in a cultural mix that's unfamilar to the vast majority of people. Quite likely then that nobody has written about that particular twist on it.

The second best option is take an old idea, and write it exceedingly well.

The measurement of quality to me in a story is when every single paragraph, every phrase, every word, brings one's feelings deeper into the story. When one loses one's sense of disbelief and feels as if one is living the story, and are saddened by it's ending...that to me is a good quality story.

You have to be able to write with very different styles too, almost as if you were a very different person with each style. Otherwise the brain seems to go numb.

 

[karmadog]

Believable, interesting characters, a reasonable plot (although I have read one or two excellent stories that had virtually no plot--experimental, nearly surreal stuff), beautiful writing. Yes to all of those.

But I would add: an author who understands that fiction is more than just reporting something that never happened.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Interesting points, everyone.

karmadog, I recently read a completely plot-less story on a HP-fan fic site, and the whole thing was made up by maybe 10 paragraphs of fantasies, each containing perhaps 50-70 words, and they all ended similar, so that the author built up the main character's dawning realization that he was in love.

...and...
...and I...
...and I think...
...and I think I...
...and I think I am...
...and I think I am falling...

Very powerful story, intense and dramatic and full of repressed feelings, truly great literature, but completely plotless.

I don't think that I could read a whole book like that - I'm no Kafka-fan - but as a short novel, it worked great.

 

[TheEarl]

Quality is to make it believable. Even if you are writing a complete work of fantasy where the characters fuck from the ceiling and have the archetypical 15 inch coke-can-thick dicks, it'll only be good for me if I can believe in it. Doesn't matter how stupid the premise, if you can get me believing in it, then I'm happy.

The Earl

 

[Dirt Man]

The truth is inside of each of us...

What is it that makes a sex-story really, really good?

Strangely enough, the reader. Oh the author does all of the work, but each reader defines their own set of rules to what is good, really good, or really really good, and so on. If the reader doesn't like the story for whatever reason, then the story is shit no matter how well it was written. If the reader loves the story, no matter how badly written then it is really, really good to them. The deciding factor then is the readership, and they come in all sizes, shapes, ages, work ethics, intelligence, literacy, ethnic ecsentricities, and areas of the planet.

Often times the mass majority will love a story that the high paid, so called in the know critics trash, and vice versa hate a story that is the so called second coming. And this is true for stories that don't have any sexual contact in them. So it's just as true for stories that involve sex. The problem here is that even if you wrote a best seller, that doesn't mean it's neccessarily a really, really good story. It just means that it has gotten the most attention of late. Which is why as authors we seek to give our readers the best we have, and then totally discount what they think in favor of what our own peers think. And once we do that we start to write more for our peers than we do for ourselves.

Each of us has certain bias on what constituets a good story, and what constituets a well written story, but few agree on what well written story is good. Writing is hard work, and at that a labor of love or there wouldn't be any writers. So in the end, it comes down to style, and that too is subjective to those who even bother to read our stories here at literotica.

I've been trashed for not working a plot, and "only writing stroke stories here," but when I submitted a romantic story with everything properly put in place, and without sex? It too was slashed at just as much by the turkey jet set that hangs out around this site and controls the voting sequence. So as you may have guessed, I've stepped on the wrong toes. Does that make what I say irrelevant ? No, in fact it proves my point. Only those who actually read my stories know whether or not the stories are good, bad, or whatever, and they make that choice, not me.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[LGL]

very subjective question, for me for a story to captivate me I don't really need the upside down fucking but i do need a thoughtful combination sexual deviency, beliveable characters, and taboo passions that is well written.