Writing a story with protagonists of equal importance...

[000zing]

As they say, it takes two to tango and sex tends hugely to be about boy meets girl. In my own efforts, I've often striven to give equal value to the two leading characters in terms of "back story' and general description of them and their motivations, concerns, desires and so on.

This seems to work up until the final moments leading to the first physical encounter and I then find very often that one of them becomes "dominant"... in the sense that his/her feelings/thoughts somehow become more important to describe to me as the writer.

Does anyone else find this happening?

 

[NotWise]

Sure, I suppose.

If I'm writing in 3rd person, then I tend to describe sex from the point of view of the partner who is playing the most active role.

 

[Voboy]

I mostly write in first-person. Even when I don't, I always have a main character. So the idea of equality in the presentation of my protagonists doesn't come up. Unapologetically not.

I do often turn the tables, making my MC turn out to be less dominant sexually. I think that sort of tension adds more to the plot than equal backstories would.

 

[SamScribble]

I think it was the late Elmore Leonard who counselled 'write every scene from the perspective of a single character'. I find that that usually works pretty well.

 

[TheRedChamber]

As they say, it takes two to tango and sex tends hugely to be about boy meets girl. In my own efforts, I've often striven to give equal value to the two leading characters in terms of "back story' and general description of them and their motivations, concerns, desires and so on.

This seems to work up until the final moments leading to the first physical encounter and I then find very often that one of them becomes "dominant"... in the sense that his/her feelings/thoughts somehow become more important to describe to me as the writer.

Does anyone else find this happening?

From what I understand from what you've written, there could be two slightly different ways of interpreting your question.

Firstly, it may be that you are writing omnicient third-person and including the thoughts and emotions of both of your main characters, right up until the sex begins when you instinctively switch to close third person. This is probably a good thing, because I've given feedback to a couple of stories over the last few months that have tried to write sex scenes from two perspectives at the same time and my opinion was that they were pretty messy. Most erotica writers (and many writers in general) steer clear of omnicient third (though I've experimented with it for certain scenes) because it's hard to get a good connection with any of the characters if you're constantly switching between them.

Secondly, you might be talking about whether or not it's important to spend equal amounts of time developing both the male and female MCs in a story. The answer to this, AFAIAC, is probably but not definitely. It's pretty obvious to say that it's better to have well-developed characters than poorly developed ones. That said, it can also be the case in some stories or styles of writing that leaving the main perspective character a little bit less well defined can help the reader insert themselves into the story. As a male writer, I've definitely written stories where I've spent a lot of effort making sure that the female lead (non-perspective) is interesting and unique and left the male perspective characters as vaguely defined young nerd. But equally, I've also reviewed drafts and found myself doing serious rewrites because the male MC was simply too bland.

 

[Magineer]

This is an interesting situation which has arisen more than once before in my own scribblings. I would tend to agree with Notwise in post #2 above were it not for the fact that I do tend to want to give equal weight to BOTH participants' thoughts and feelings... so I sympathise with the OP because, similarly, I usually find myself drawn to "take sides".

I think, as much as any other factor, there's an awkwardness about switching viewpoint at the height of sexual frenzy, especially if this is done repeatedly. I tend to shrug and go with the flow!

 

[Voboy]

Interestingly (timing-wise), I've got a hankering to do a longish-form third person romantic story, which I just started. Male MC. Third-person is not usually my comfort zone, and it surprised me when I started this one this way. I find I do have an urge to dig into the female protag's head a little more than I'm comfortable with.

I'm only 3k words in. I might flip it to FP.

 

[SimonDoom]

In most of my stories, whether told from the 1st-person or 3d-person point of view, I have a sole or primary point of view character/main protagonist. But in my first Literotica story (second published), In The Hallway, I gave equal billing to the two main characters and alternated the point of view (3d person limited) from one scene to the next. I enjoyed doing it that way and I think it worked for that particular story.

I generally agree with Elmore Leonard's advice, passed on by SamScribble, above: switch POV at the scene break, if you're going to do it. It keeps it clearer. For that matter, I agree with almost everything Elmore Leonard advises. He's a great author for a new author to read and learn from because his prose is very solid and fairly easy to follow. And he's outspoken about what he thinks is good writing. And it works! He's been very successful.

Re the OP's last question: In a way, whichever POV is the last one is dominant, I suppose. My stories typically lead up to a sex scene, and most of the time during the climactic scene the POV holds on just one character, so I guess one could say that's the dominant character. But in my story, In The Hallway, although the final sex scene is described from the man's point of view, the woman gets the last word and her final reaction to him makes the point of the whole story.

 

[Voboy]

Interestingly (timing-wise), I've got a hankering to do a longish-form third person romantic story, which I just started. Male MC. Third-person is not usually my comfort zone, and it surprised me when I started this one this way. I find I do have an urge to dig into the female protag's head a little more than I'm comfortable with.

I'm only 3k words in. I might flip it to FP.

Yup. Flipped it.

 

[LiverpoolMaster]

As they say, it takes two to tango and sex tends hugely to be about boy meets girl. In my own efforts, I've often striven to give equal value to the two leading characters in terms of "back story' and general description of them and their motivations, concerns, desires and so on.

This seems to work up until the final moments leading to the first physical encounter and I then find very often that one of them becomes "dominant"... in the sense that his/her feelings/thoughts somehow become more important to describe to me as the writer.

Does anyone else find this happening?

Third party narration is probably the only way to go to achieve your aim - but even so, writers being only human, the very act of creating a plot will often lead to preferential "treatment" for one of the two protagonists, giving evidence of the author's (often subconscious) predilections and leanings.

 

[Carnevil9]

I almost always go with a single POV character, even in third person. I think it is easier for the reader to put themselves into the story that way. They know who they are supposed to identify with.

However, once, as an experiment, I wrote a story of two couples experimenting with spouse-swapping, and decided to try to make all four characters equally dominant in the story, in terms of POV. I think it worked, but it definitely had a different feel to it.