What's the MOST important part of your stories?

[Never]

Don’t give me the standard answer. I want to know what you really pour yourself into.

Character: Do you understand your characters better than you do yourself? They’re so rich and vivid on your mind that they can literally control the work. They seem to be acting and reacting on their own accord.

Plot: Is your work is so well structured it could be compared to the Cathedral of Notre Dame? It grabs the reader and refuses to let go. Holding them down and easing up on them at just the right moment. Your climaxes are so stunning and compete that stir a morass of emotions and, finally, total satisfaction.

Of course there’s also Description, Dialogue, Theme, Language and a host of other ‘parts’ but what is the most important for you?

 

[P. B. Walker]

For me... once I find a good idea for the plot, I let the characters drive where the plot is going to go. I like to know my characters well enough so that they will be believeable to the reader. Their actions have to be believeable to me as well. I like to explain why they do certain things and how they will react in a given set of circumstances. I use the plot and the characters to drive the story to the point where the sex occurs. In some ways the plot and character development are very much intertwined. Once I have all that down and it feels believable, then I pour alot of time into the sex. That's the part I enjoy the most. That's why I write. As shallow as it sounds, I would not write stories if there were no sex in them.

- PBW

 

[tigerjen]

I pour myself into DETAILS......painting a picture for the
reader.......visual aspects are key to an erotic story
(or a poem)......I can give you an example...my story
"In The White Room"; people enjoy that story because
of the vivid imagery.......turns them on.......

If you haven't read "In The White Room"....
here: http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=18747

 

[poohlive]

I don't mean to disrespect anyone who takes plot seriously, but in truth I hate it.
When I begin a story, my plot is half assed. Literally, not even half an ass. More like a quarter ass of a plot. Something like, yeah, this girl gets kidnapped and this guy saves her.
Hee hee, than I start with the details.
What I see a story like, is a road. First, you have to get in the car (that's writing in the first place).
The road close to you is vivid and detailed. You see the road jut off straight, and then go to a curve. You can't see it very well, but basically know what's going to happen in the road.
That's where the characters come in. They drive the car. So, I sit back and let them do the driving. The only thing to keep them from going off the road completely is my half assed (quarter assed, I admit) plot.
So, in the end, they may have travelled off the road a bit, and perhaps there were a few bumps and corners that I hadn't expected, but the story is there.
No, comes the painstaking effort of paving that road and making it look presentable for others to read.
Hee hee. You write with your heart.
You rewrite with your head.
If I had to choose, it would be the characters, because half of the time even I don't know what they will do exactly. Just like in real life, sometimes, especially in tense situations, you won't know what you're going to do, until you do it.
Of course, the best part of writing is writing, but you didn't have that as an option. Hee hee, creating something out of a pencil and paper, or a keyboard and a computer, now there's absolutely nothing that can replace that feeling.

 

[tigerjen]

to Poohlive

Hi Poohlive.....

I liked your car analogy in the approach to writing!
Of course...I do agree w/ you that the best part of
writing is writing........writing can go in many directions,
just like that car does

tigerjen

 

[MaxSebastian]

No point in driving on (or building) a road if you don't know where it's going, though, huh?

I think plot is just as important as characters, if not more so. Someone can read your story and get turned on for a few minutes while they're reading it, but unless there's an interesting plot, they'll probably forget about the story half way through the next story they've read.

When you write about a bunch of cheerleaders going at it with no real direction, and they all have really interesting characters, the readers going to forget about your story by the time they read the next story by someone else about a bunch of cheerleaders going at it similarly with little plot.

When I'm reading a story, I like a good blend of suspense, plot, character and a decent sex scene. When I'm writing, though, plot always comes first.

But it's the sex that will get you the votes more than anything here at literotica.

 

[Weird Harold]

Don’t give me the standard answer. I want to know what you really pour yourself into.

Readability.

I sometimes write plot driven stories, sometimes character driven stories, and every once ina while a "punchline" driven story. As long as they're readable so the reader can get into the story, I'm satisfied.

 

[JUDO]

The idea

The most important part is the idea, the flash of creativity that gets my juices flowing (no pun intended) and my enthusiasm started.

Second, would be the structure of the story. I pre-plan a LOT, re-working the plot line until it satisfies all my little rules.

Third, is the rewriting. Getting the original idea closer to what I originally intended.

Fourth, is the second hardest thing to do...the first words on paper (the first hardest? The rewrite-see "third").

 

[Wanderer D]

It's the characters for me. I may have an idea of the story I'm telling, but it's the characters that drive it. They take on a life of their own, acting and reacting as the storyline progresses. I take the basic plotline that I've invisioned, stick the characters in, and let them run with it.

In the (fantasy) novel I'm attempting to write, I inserted a bard/musician character, just as background atmosphere. The character took on a life of his own and became the love of my main character's life.

Characters are definitely the most important part of my stories.

 

[Art]

The most important part

Plot! I need a good plot. I need a credible reason why these two or more people are getting together in the first place. It's a story after all, not just a piece of it. You see too many stories that are supposed to be erotic stories and all they are is a sex scene out of a story - how the hell did these two come together in the first place? What the hell are they doing here? Yup, I need a good story line, and that's also the part I find the hardest to come up with. After that it's fairly easy.

 

[christo]

A teacher I had in college had a good line about writing fiction. The class was talking about what is the purpose of fiction, we were making the usual gasbag pronouncments, and our teacher said, "Fiction should ASTONISH." Whether it's a 600-page Russian novel, a slick Elmore Leonard thriller, or a down-and-dirty piece of erotica, the reader should come away astonished. Why do we read fiction? For entertainment, to better understand the world, to imagine life as another person in another world. You want something that surprises you, delights you, astonishes you.

Tom Clancy writes books with some of the most involoved, intricate, and convoluted plots out there. But his characters are little more than cardboard cutouts-- you don't care about them as people because it's obvious HE doesn't. I read "Generation X" by Douglas Coupland and waited for a plot to develop, and when I came to the end I was shaking the book by the spine to see if there were pages stuck in there that I missed. My point, of course, is that unless you are REALLY good, you need to have interesting characters, engaging plot, some semblence of style.

I always come up with plots, and then I figure out the characters and whatnot. I allow myself the freedom to change my mind about the course the story takes, but I never have my characters "go off on their own" and dictate the story to me. I wish they would, I hate having to do EVERYTHING. When I'm writing, I AM GOD! My characters are puppets, I hold the strings!!

 

[poohlive]

Thank you so much TigerJen. I do pride myself on my analogies. Actually, I have to cross out tons of them in my stories. They are so good, but too much will kill a story. Especially when it doesn't make sense.
He pounded her like a turkey sandwich during Mardi Gras!
Then, you sort of sit back and say, "What the hell?"

MaxSebastion. I did point out that I have plot, it's just not as developed when I begin the story. What I do, is create a character or characters, and then drop a huge problem on his (their) lap, and let the story unfold by itself.
Also, I was writing with an unerotic story in mind. I don't mean to knock anyone's views on erotica or sex stories, because I love them, but honestly, I couldn't write a successful sex scene to save my life.
I think part of it is from lack of personal experience, which I am trying desperately to get more of as we speak.

I write basic stories. Anything from children's fantasy to high thrillers. So, that was my view of what I do with my stories.
Honestly, the only sex story I did write and submit here (don't look, for the love of god, please don't) I did write with plot in mind, and not character. Not too much anyway.
I mean, to say that one thing exceeds over all others is pretty lame. They all work simultaniously to make a completed work. It's just the preferance of the author at which part she enjoys more.
For me, it's the characters, and riding in the back seat to where they take me.

 

[cellis]

For me I want the story to be believable... Sometimes I take a little incident that has happened to me, change it, embelllish it... I want the reader to believe the characters are real... I want it to be easy for the reader to read the story... just to pick it up and read it...

I'm not sure how I do that... it just kind of flows...

I write the story... put it away for a week.... check for flaws in grammar and spelling... and then send it to my editor who picks apart... adds something outrageous, that I know my characters can't do... take a little of his suggestions.. and rewrite...

I don't own the characters in my stories, they own me... They grace me with their presence... I'm not saying that it is easy for me... Most of the time I can see the story unfold in my head before I ever sit down to write... or at least little parts of it... and as it unfolds, I write it down... a page or two at a time...

So I guess I would say that if believability is the most important thing... then the characters have to be believable and the situation they find themselves in has to be as well... I don't know... is that characters and plot....


The Beginning

 

[Hudson]

When I decide on a story idea, I come up with the characters then the plot, I then mull the idea around for a few days focusing on the actual sex scene, painting a vivid picture in my mind, what this does for me is helps me see if the scene will work. I also pick up on things about characters that I may have missed and finally when I start my story the first few paragraphs (which I find the hardest to write) flow quicker and that when I write the sexual scenes I just close my eyes for a few seconds and imagine the picture I have created in mind over the past days and I seem to be able to tap it out real quick. This process also helps me with the setting for example if the story is set in a high rise building at first they may be just a window in the comming days a view may appear or a more descriptive scenery is mouled with my imagination giving me options on what I may or may not include.

 

[Whispersecret]

Maybe this is a pat answer, but I concentrate on all of it. I think that characters with depth and a compelling plot are equally important. A story heavy on plot and light on characters can be good, and vice versa; however, a story with deep characters AND an excellent plot....

The aspects of writing that prove the most challenging to me:

--Transitions: getting from one point of the story to another, moving a character in space, showing the passage of time, taking two separate parts that need to be together and merging them seamlessly.

--Describing the sex act in new and different ways

--Walking the line between emotionally gripping and corny, purple prose.

--Figurative language. God, I work hard on my similes. Usually I only end up with one per story that really resonates with me, with the remainder being just adequate.

 

[ForeverHisLady]

Oddly enough, when I sit down to write, it is as if the story controls the keyboard, not I. I begin with an idea in mind and go from there. I place myself in the role of the woman and allow my mood to take the story where it may. In essence, my stories are me, my moods, experiences and fantasies.

One thing that is important to me is the choice of words. I work hard at finding just the right word to express what the characters are feeling both physically and emotionally.

 

[crysede]

ForeverHisLady and I are in complete agreement about the importance of finding the right words. Using uninteresting, or unsuitable, words can ruin a good story. I once read a vampire story in which, during a really hot love scene, the author referred to the vampires' fangs as ‘long tusks.' Now I do admire creative use of language (loved poohlive's ‘pounding her like a turkey sandwich...'), but picturing a vampire with giant walrus tusks sticking out of his face, kinda broke the sexy mood.

 

[Guest]

I go with a character first

dear Never...

I usually think of good characters first, before anything else. When I can see in my minds eye, what the person sounds like, looks like, acts like, even dresses like, then I move to the characters' starting situation, eg., a bad relationship, their general life situation, ect. Then I have them meet the second character that usually changes the first character's life. And I also love to go into the details of a scene.

So thats my three main things -- character first, situation second, details allways.

happy writing,
Jon

 

[The Sex Master]

opinion

Contributing to the story line