when good stories go wrong

[caleb35]

Here's a discussion topic for you -- have you ever read a long erotic (smutty) piece -- long single story or multi-part story -- that you really were into at the beginning and by the end you were questioning why the hell you ever liked it to begin with? Was it because the story went off the rails towards the end or was it because you overlooked problems with the story from the beginning?

 

[NuclearFairy]

It's because the princess was too much of a princess. I just wanted to read hot orc on human action, but all she did outside the action was whine whine whine.

Grumble grumble...

I guess I'll just have to go write my own hot orc on human action, but by the time I really get into writing it, it'll probably be hot orc on insane lamia action or something.

Anyways! Yes I've read a few like that, and usually it's cause the erotic parts are really really good. But just one of the people involved turns out to be insufferable. I dunno why, but I can more easily read a story about two insufferable people than I can a single insufferable person.

 

[IWroteThis]

Sadly, yes.

I think part of the problem is that not enough writers understand that while erotica is a genre in itself, it's not really a singular entity. The more you cross sub-genres, the more likely you are to alienate readers, no matter where they come into the series.

As an example, I'll use space opera. If you start out with your characters moving across the universe at warp speed in the ST universe, the next chapter really shouldn't have them exceeding lightspeed in the SW universe. Even worse is when the next chapter has them entering hyperspace in the B5 universe, only to spend the next chapter poking along at sublight speeds in the Firefly universe.

If you want to write in a bunch of sub-genres, write multiple stories.

True, sometimes it's just that they refused to stop writing when they ran out of story, but generally it's the author trying to throw everything at the existing characters instead of creating new ones.

 

[ronde]

Sadly, yes.

I think part of the problem is that not enough writers understand that while erotica is a genre in itself, it's not really a singular entity. The more you cross sub-genres, the more likely you are to alienate readers, no matter where they come into the series.

As an example, I'll use space opera. If you start out with your characters moving across the universe at warp speed in the ST universe, the next chapter really shouldn't have them exceeding lightspeed in the SW universe. Even worse is when the next chapter has them entering hyperspace in the B5 universe, only to spend the next chapter poking along at sublight speeds in the Firefly universe.

If you want to write in a bunch of sub-genres, write multiple stories.

True, sometimes it's just that they refused to stop writing when they ran out of story, but generally it's the author trying to throw everything at the existing characters instead of creating new ones.

It can happen for a variety of reasons as you state. There is one mistake that apparently has a lot of authors struggling with writing chapter after chapter. You see it at least a few times a year on this forum. The question follows the line, "Should I wait until I have all the chapters written or should I just start sending them in as I write them?"

That's what can result in a story leaving the plot of the first chapter and veering off into something completely different. It can also result in subsequent chapters of a story that don't make any sense given the plot and characters of the earlier stories.

It's important to at least have a roadmap for where the story is going to start and where it's going to finish. The ending can change, but the story, both single stories and multi-chapter stories, should have a plot that progresses toward the ending. Otherwise it's just a bunch of words that may or may not actually entertain the reader.

I totally agree with your last statement. One of the best pieces of advice I learned on this forum years ago was, "When you get to the end, stop writing." I think some authors get to the logical end of a story and then because they've thought of something else or they think the story is too short, they forge ahead with a different plot that should really be a different story.

 

[NaughteeDragon]

I have run into this a couple of times. Usually what happens is I get to the end and say, "That's the payoff? X-thousand words and that's how it ends?"

 

[YmaOHyd]

Here's a discussion topic for you -- have you ever read a long erotic (smutty) piece -- long single story or multi-part story -- that you really were into at the beginning and by the end you were questioning why the hell you ever liked it to begin with? Was it because the story went off the rails towards the end or was it because you overlooked problems with the story from the beginning?

Yes, many times, and I'm gonna give an example of a non-erotic mainstream product that does something I hate which happens a lot in erotic stories.

A couple years ago the X-Men comics got consolidated and soft-relaunched under the leadership of Jonathan Hickman, one of the certified Big Name Creative Geniuses in comics. The X-Men, and in fact all mutants, moved to the sentient island paradise of Krakoa, where they declared independence from all nations and full allegiance only to other mutants, including the right to intervene on behalf of any mutant, anywhere, anytime. To back up this declaration of total autonomy they offered cooperating nations a set of miracle drugs that cured any illness, fixed any problem. And, of course, their paradise wasn't quite what it seemed and their leaders weren't quite what they seemed either.

Hickman was pretty quickly forced out, having established the new universe, and ultimately it went the way of all comic books and collapsed under its own bullshit. Hickman was pushed out because he wanted to move on from the Krakoa era after only a few years and one storyline; and the other writers on the title wanted to keep going, to explore the space more thoroughly, and the writers of other, non-mutant Marvel titles, like Avengers, wanted a chance to play with Krakoa themselves. No one had ever really addressed what it would mean, for example, if the mutants just withheld their miracle drugs. What happens when the mutants, who never use their power intelligently, start trying to blackmail the world?

That's a thing that happens in a lot of multipart stories here that annoys the hell out of me: the author creates a great situation or premise then moves away from it before that situation's premise is really addressed.

I'm not saying, like, authors need to wring every single last moment out of their stories, but equally it'd be nice, if you're going to say, oh yeah, my MMC has had sex with this girl, and her twin and her younger sister and her mom... maybe like interrogate that? just a little? tell me a bit about what that means at that family's dinner table? Don't just move on to the next girl! There was a story I read last year that set up a situation where a pretty heiress fell in love with some guy, her dad disapproved of the guy and the disapproval was resolved by turning the guy into an action hero who rescued her from an unrelated kidnapping by using his knowledge of chemistry to, like, make bombs and storm a cartel factory and Arnold Schwarzenegger his way out. That is a dumb way to raise the stakes! Just do the relationship drama!

 

[dirk2024]

Here's a discussion topic for you -- have you ever read a long erotic (smutty) piece -- long single story or multi-part story -- that you really were into at the beginning and by the end you were questioning why the hell you ever liked it to begin with? Was it because the story went off the rails towards the end or was it because you overlooked problems with the story from the beginning?

For me, this sometimes happens when reading SciFi/Fant series. I'll read along as long as its erotic and, I hesitate to say "plausible" since I'm talking about SciFi/Fant, but there is a limit. Sometimes authors make each chapter more fantasitcal than the last and they simply run out of things they can do. I was reading one that involved unique communities of people here on Earth, portals, mysticism, etc. The sex was entertaining, though the frequency began to drop off as the story proceeded. It jumped the shark for me when the MC was surfing a jeep traveling at 70 mph through a bumpy, dry creekbed. I made it through 24 chapters at that point but I was done. A counterpoint, I'm still reading another SciFi series where I've read over 80 chapters so far.

I have my one SciFi WIP series in the works. It wlll only be 12 short (5-7k) chapters and that's it.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Yes, from time to time I come across an interesting character or two or a setting, get hooked in with immersion, and then it devolves into unicorn porn. Blehh.

 

[RocketGrunt]

I write a lot of material in the harem genre. A major issue that this genre has is in expansion. It's an inherently greedy genre, the main character gets more lovers than a normal person gets. But it's really easy for the protagonist to get too much, too quickly. The harem can easily grow to the point that the members don't have room to have characterization. The sex can easily become silly. What started as transgressive and hot becomes ridiculous and shallow. A harem story that loses track of its characters can become a muddle of porn images.

But also the main character can become unlikable if they become too much of a gigachad or whine too much about all the awesome sex they are having. As their situation becomes more and more unlike anything any of us are liable to experience, they need character growth in a way that keeps them relatable. Once the protagonist becomes unlikable, the story stops being engaging.

Those are both difficult balance beams to stay on. And as a harem story continues, it's pretty common for it to fall off in quality due to one of those things coming out of balance.

 

[lovecraft68]

Jonathan Hickman, one of the certified Big Name Creative Geniuses in comics.

Jonathan Hickman wouldn't have a job in the industry in the 80's. Marvel and DC have been as creatively bankrupt as Hollywood. People here writing 1500 word one handed reads are better writers.

But regardless of what your issue was with that story line. I don't think anything can even come close to appalled outrage of the "One More Day" storyline in Spider-Man. I heard they eventually made an effort to fix it, but I don't know for sure because I haven't read an issue of that title since. Actually, all I read and collect these days is horror from pre-code to now. All the modern stuff is good for is helping to appreciate the old stuff.

 

[Ianus4]

I encounter this frequently, usually in multi-part stories. Typical (for me) irritating problems:
1. Two people's relationship/affair is turned into a threesome/polyamory/group sex without any prior history. I find the latter unappealing; it can completely ruin the experience. This is often done when the authors are too lazy to develop the original two characters, instead bringing in new ones as a cheap solution to add variety. Meh.
2. Without any prior warning or hint, the story becomes humiliating for one of the parties. Everything has its place, but if the story starts with mutual respect, it shouldn't switch to the other side for its own sake.
3. They build in scenes that don't follow from the characters' personalities because of reader pressure.
4. The writer does not let the characters shape the story, instead insisting on something that would not follow from the characters they previously outlined.
5. Unexpectedly, the main character changes, and the previous MC disappears from the focus.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I have two in my story hospital and suspect they will be transferred to a hospice presently. Both are actually pretty good so far, but have hit a rock I should have foreseen. That's one of the perils of being a pantser, I guess.

One fails because, if I'm to maintain the basic concept, the level of eroticism must fall with each successive scene, and that's no way to write an erotic story.

The other won't work because I cannot find a logical excuse for a 'openable' window on a modern skyscraper. (I'm open to suggestions on that, folks. )

 

[impresso]

Yes, this has happened quite a few times with multi-part stories. I've even stopped reading multi-part stories if they're longer than three pages, because they either get boring or completely lose the vibe of the first and second parts, which were the reason I continued reading in the first place. And sometimes it even becomes apparent that the author himself has grown tired of the story =)

 

[lovecraft68]

I don't care to pick at people's writing here, so I'll stick to mainstream, they make enough money to catch some flack.

F. Paul Wilson wrote an amazing novel, The Keep with one of the best 'big bads' in the genre. He wrote a few other books with great characters then brought them all together and called the books the Adversary cycle. All incredible, the last one just as good all the way to the end where he went full blown cliche and evil looses just cause....because by the end, and his own rules and mythos the villain was far too powerful to be destroyed but....yeah, whatever.

Damn shame.

 

[caleb35]

Yes, many times, and I'm gonna give an example of a non-erotic mainstream product that does something I hate which happens a lot in erotic stories.

A couple years ago the X-Men comics got consolidated and soft-relaunched under the leadership of Jonathan Hickman, one of the certified Big Name Creative Geniuses in comics. The X-Men, and in fact all mutants, moved to the sentient island paradise of Krakoa, where they declared independence from all nations and full allegiance only to other mutants, including the right to intervene on behalf of any mutant, anywhere, anytime. To back up this declaration of total autonomy they offered cooperating nations a set of miracle drugs that cured any illness, fixed any problem. And, of course, their paradise wasn't quite what it seemed and their leaders weren't quite what they seemed either.

Hickman was pretty quickly forced out, having established the new universe, and ultimately it went the way of all comic books and collapsed under its own bullshit. Hickman was pushed out because he wanted to move on from the Krakoa era after only a few years and one storyline; and the other writers on the title wanted to keep going, to explore the space more thoroughly, and the writers of other, non-mutant Marvel titles, like Avengers, wanted a chance to play with Krakoa themselves. No one had ever really addressed what it would mean, for example, if the mutants just withheld their miracle drugs. What happens when the mutants, who never use their power intelligently, start trying to blackmail the world?

That's a thing that happens in a lot of multipart stories here that annoys the hell out of me: the author creates a great situation or premise then moves away from it before that situation's premise is really addressed.

I'm not saying, like, authors need to wring every single last moment out of their stories, but equally it'd be nice, if you're going to say, oh yeah, my MMC has had sex with this girl, and her twin and her younger sister and her mom... maybe like interrogate that? just a little? tell me a bit about what that means at that family's dinner table? Don't just move on to the next girl! There was a story I read last year that set up a situation where a pretty heiress fell in love with some guy, her dad disapproved of the guy and the disapproval was resolved by turning the guy into an action hero who rescued her from an unrelated kidnapping by using his knowledge of chemistry to, like, make bombs and storm a cartel factory and Arnold Schwarzenegger his way out. That is a dumb way to raise the stakes! Just do the relationship drama!

The initial mini-series of House of X and Power of X were SO good...

 

[caleb35]

I write a lot of material in the harem genre. A major issue that this genre has is in expansion. It's an inherently greedy genre, the main character gets more lovers than a normal person gets. But it's really easy for the protagonist to get too much, too quickly. The harem can easily grow to the point that the members don't have room to have characterization. The sex can easily become silly. What started as transgressive and hot becomes ridiculous and shallow. A harem story that loses track of its characters can become a muddle of porn images.

But also the main character can become unlikable if they become too much of a gigachad or whine too much about all the awesome sex they are having. As their situation becomes more and more unlike anything any of us are liable to experience, they need character growth in a way that keeps them relatable. Once the protagonist becomes unlikable, the story stops being engaging.

Those are both difficult balance beams to stay on. And as a harem story continues, it's pretty common for it to fall off in quality due to one of those things coming out of balance.

Interesting; thanks for sharing this. Have you ever encountered a story that DIDN'T start as a harem story but BECAME one? Because that would also fall into the scenario I outlined in my initial post.

 

[JGittes]

I have two in my story hospital and suspect they will be transferred to a hospice presently. Both are actually pretty good so far, but have hit a rock I should have foreseen. That's one of the perils of being a pantser, I guess.

One fails because, if I'm to maintain the basic concept, the level of eroticism must fall with each successive scene, and that's no way to write an erotic story.

The other won't work because I cannot find a logical excuse for a 'openable' window on a modern skyscraper. (I'm open to suggestions on that, folks. )

Work a Tom Cruise location shoot into the story.

One of the Mission Impossible films, a few back, had him running around the outside of the Dubai skyscraper. The windows didn't exactly 'open' in a reusable way, but maybe you only need it once.

 

[YmaOHyd]

The initial mini-series of House of X and Power of X were SO good...

The initial X-Force run was good, which is about the first time I've ever said that. New Mutants was pretty good too. The first book of Marauders (but none of the others), Hellions, Fallen Angels, Way of X -- that stuff was all as good as X-Men ever got. Unfortunately, the main X-Men title was mostly terrible the whole way through and most of the big crossovers (X of Swords!) stunk out loud. Edit: correction -- Fallen Angels was actually kind of bad.

But the real sin was that they created this genuinely interesting new status quo and wanted to get out of it as soon as they could to go back to Professor X at the X Mansion in upstate New York, and that sucks. It's the written-big equivalent of the I/T cliche where the brother and the sister are doin' their thing and they get caught by the sister's best friend, who joins them for a threesome and never appears again, no big deal.

 

[AG31]

I don't care to pick at people's writing here, so I'll stick to mainstream, they make enough money to catch some flack.

F. Paul Wilson wrote an amazing novel, The Keep with one of the best 'big bads' in the genre. He wrote a few other books with great characters then brought them all together and called the books the Adversary cycle. All incredible, the last one just as good all the way to the end where he went full blown cliche and evil looses just cause....because by the end, and his own rules and mythos the villain was far too powerful to be destroyed but....yeah, whatever.

Damn shame.

Do you think he might have had to hand it over to a ghost writer? I've bumped into more than a few situations where a long favored author turns into a parody of themselves. So bad it couldn't be the same person.

 

[RocketGrunt]

Interesting; thanks for sharing this. Have you ever encountered a story that DIDN'T start as a harem story but BECAME one? Because that would also fall into the scenario I outlined in my initial post.

Erotic stories that go on for an extended period of time have competing problems with regards to the sex acts.

1. If the sex is repetitive, then it's repetitive. That can be a problem in and of itself. Once the protagonist gets laid, you can't just keep saying that.

2. If the sex between the protagonist and the love interest escalates, it has to push boundaries in order to avoid being repetitive. Each person only has three holes. Some have even less. This boundary pushing will inevitably alienate some portion of the audience. If you signed up for a vanilla romance, you aren't necessarily onboard for exhibitionism or BDSM kinks or whatever brought in to prevent repetition.

3. If the protagonist has a series of partners, that can alienate members of the audience. For all the new love interest is different (thereby preventing repetition), they are also different from the romantic interest that the audience liked. Further, audience members may find the main character unlikeable if they ditch their romantic partner and won't necessarily be on board with a story about a main character who is left by their romantic interest. Other ways of removing love interests to make room for new ones are often depressing and incompatible with stroke fiction goals.

4. Adding new love interests without removing the old love interests does prevent repetition, but has all the potential pitfalls of harem stories because that's what it is. With the additional audience failure point that a protagonist who starts cheating on their love interest or becoming poly from monogamous may be seen as unsympathetic. And of course, audience who didn't come on with harem buy-in to begin with may find the transition jarring or offensive.


In short: yes. While I wouldn't say that The Wheel of Time going harem was a deal breaker, it did come out of left field and wasn't a popular direction for the story.

 

[alohadave]

I write a lot of material in the harem genre. A major issue that this genre has is in expansion. It's an inherently greedy genre, the main character gets more lovers than a normal person gets. But it's really easy for the protagonist to get too much, too quickly. The harem can easily grow to the point that the members don't have room to have characterization. The sex can easily become silly. What started as transgressive and hot becomes ridiculous and shallow. A harem story that loses track of its characters can become a muddle of porn images.

But also the main character can become unlikable if they become too much of a gigachad or whine too much about all the awesome sex they are having. As their situation becomes more and more unlike anything any of us are liable to experience, they need character growth in a way that keeps them relatable. Once the protagonist becomes unlikable, the story stops being engaging.

Those are both difficult balance beams to stay on. And as a harem story continues, it's pretty common for it to fall off in quality due to one of those things coming out of balance.

Quaranteam has this problem. At the end of the first book, he had like 50 wives. It's impossible to keep track of that many characters and they end up being single trait cutouts.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Speed, in the Firefly Universe, was never actually addressed. Time is addressed, how long it takes to get from point A to B, but sublight faster than light isn't discussed or defined. In the openings, some episodes are in a new solar system, in others a new galaxy; it didn't have time to figure out what was what in their universe. And it still found a loyal following of two-plus decades. Imagine if they'd set up what was what from the beginning, what they might've been able to do.

Sadly, yes.

I think part of the problem is that not enough writers understand that while erotica is a genre in itself, it's not really a singular entity. The more you cross sub-genres, the more likely you are to alienate readers, no matter where they come into the series.

As an example, I'll use space opera. If you start out with your characters moving across the universe at warp speed in the ST universe, the next chapter really shouldn't have them exceeding lightspeed in the SW universe. Even worse is when the next chapter has them entering hyperspace in the B5 universe, only to spend the next chapter poking along at sublight speeds in the Firefly universe.

If you want to write in a bunch of sub-genres, write multiple stories.

True, sometimes it's just that they refused to stop writing when they ran out of story, but generally it's the author trying to throw everything at the existing characters instead of creating new ones.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Quaranteam has this problem. At the end of the first book, he had like 50 wives. It's impossible to keep track of that many characters and they end up being single trait cutouts.

That's because Quaranteam is a good premise for an MC story with horrible execution.

 

[Britva415]

I cannot find a logical excuse for a 'openable' window on a modern skyscraper. (I'm open to suggestions on that, folks. )

 

[ronde]

I encounter this frequently, usually in multi-part stories. Typical (for me) irritating problems:
1. Two people's relationship/affair is turned into a threesome/polyamory/group sex without any prior history. I find the latter unappealing; it can completely ruin the experience. This is often done when the authors are too lazy to develop the original two characters, instead bringing in new ones as a cheap solution to add variety. Meh.
2. Without any prior warning or hint, the story becomes humiliating for one of the parties. Everything has its place, but if the story starts with mutual respect, it shouldn't switch to the other side for its own sake.
3. They build in scenes that don't follow from the characters' personalities because of reader pressure.
4. The writer does not let the characters shape the story, instead insisting on something that would not follow from the characters they previously outlined.
5. Unexpectedly, the main character changes, and the previous MC disappears from the focus.

This happens when an author writes about cardboard cutouts instead of living breathing people. Real people always have a reason or reasons for what they do. In any story, the author has to give the reader a reason why the characters act like they do. Otherwise the story is just words with little to know meaning for the reader.