Writing Group Sex Scenes -- how much detail?

[Weird Harold]

This is a duplicate of my last post on Chicklet's Group Sex thread. I thought the subject of how much detail to include in a group sex scene was worth a thread of it's own.

It gets hard for me when I have to start writing names instead of "he" and "she" - not that I use "he" and "she" instead of names, but when you hAVE to use names so that the reader knows what's going on...sheesh. complicated.

A thought:

If the reader knows more about what's going on than the participants do, is that necessarily a good thing?

Sometimes the reader needs to feel at last some of the confusion the characters do for a scene to be effective. I've used deliberate confusion in dialogue with several people talking at once and can imagine using it in a group sex scene to good effect. Depending on the size of the group and the POV you choose, some confusion about who is doing what to whom is more believable than a detailed motion analysis approach would be.
---

How much detail is needed?

Is my theory of using deliberate confusion Trash or Treasure -- or just one more technique to consider?

 

[TheWriter]

I think no matter what the POV, the confusion in conversation works well. The scene would be confusion, particularly for someone involved in the action, but even from an observer POV there would still be a tangle of bodies and no easy way to tell who's saying what.

But that is for conversation. For plain old description, there would have to be use of names. Unles it was from one person's perspective, in which case maybe they don't know who's doing what to them and all they can hear is confused conversation.

Did any of that make any sense at all?

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Did any of that make any sense at all?

...but even from an observer POV there would still be a tangle of bodies and no easy way to tell who's saying what.

But that is for conversation. For plain old description, there would have to be use of names. Unless it was from one person's perspective, in which case maybe they don't know who's doing what to them and all they can hear is confused conversation.

It sort of makes sense.

For a sex scene, I was thinking in particular about one written from the POV of just one participant.

However, from whatever viewpoint and however many are involved, I sometimes find that the use of a name in associationwith each action feels more like reading a script for stunt people in a fight scene than an erotic scene.

I've been chastized in the past for "overcontrolling" dialogue and action scenes with too many "tom swifty" tags and lots of "next," "Then," and the like. I've since reformed and been accused of not using enough dialogue tags.

There has to be some "optimum" balance between naming every actor along with every action and total confusion with independent body parts doing all of the acting. I was hoping to stir a discussion that would help authors find that balance.

 

[The_old_man]

In a vidio or stage play the dialoge confusion works quite well. In the writen word I find it more than confusing, even disorienting if some orientation is not provided. I tend to avoid dialogue in group scienes for this reason. It would take a much better writer than myself to eliminate all tags and get away with it.

 

[Weird Harold]

...even disorienting if some orientation is not provided. ... It would take a much better writer than myself to eliminate all tags and get away with it.

Oh, I'm definitely NOT advocating complete anarchy in either dialogue or group gropes. However, in every multi-part conversation there are some things that it doesn't really matter who says them -- those comments don't really need tags -- they just need to be separated from the other comments so it's obvious that it wasn't the previous speaker or the following.

If dialogue is punctuated properly fewer tags are needed.

In Group Grope action scenes, the same principle should apply -- sometimes it doesn't matter whose hand is where. The fact that there are hands touching three different body parts should be sufficient. Where they need to be identified, they can be identified by size, shape, or texture -- the small hands belong to the girl; the slim hands belong to the pianist; the rough hands belong to the trucker; and the calloused hands belong to the lumberjack. Names aren't really needed for every interaction, just those where there might be some undesired ambiguity.

 

[Ulyssa]

A modest solution.

Keep one gender's character down to a single person.

Peter, Dick, and John Thomas began to lick Candy in strategic areas. She soon melted under their compelling tongues.

A bit less tongue in cheek--you might want to make the group story more first person in order to plug the "I" narrator into one of the open spots--so to speak.

I'm afraid the only group pieces I've ever written used first person narration. One from a male point of view and one from the female.

 

[Guest]

Names aren't really needed for every interaction, just those where there might be some undesired ambiguity.

I think you answered your own question. The key word is, of course, "undesired". If it's important to the story that people know who is doing what, tell the reader.

I've read enough of your stuff to know that you have good instincts, Harold. I think you should just go with them and not overthink it.

karmadog

 

[deliciously_naughty]

I would keep it in a first person p.o.v. or conversely go for a more vague type of language.

Ex:

Katie felt rough hands move over her breasts as softer ones massaged her legs. Someone's penis probed her drenched pussy. Etc.

Of course for group sex, I prefer the blindfold method. She's blindfolded...it's all just random cocks and hands It worked for me.

Ex: (from my sexy career)
I see my ex, and two of his roommates. My eyes widen, and before I can say anything...he smiles and tells me that I don't have to worry, he knows what I want. Two more sets of hands reach out for me...one hand playing with the outside of my pussy, torturing me and making my hips thrust in an effort to get that hand on my clit. One hand reaches behind and a finger probes my backdoor. The other two flow over me caressing and pinching, teasing and tracing. Without words I'm moved to a bed. One of them sits by my head, holding my arms captive. Another pulls my clothes down and off me, leaving me naked and them fully clothed. A blindfold is produced, cutting off my ability to tell who is doing what to me. I hear the whisper of clothes and my skin tingles, waiting for touch. I don't wait long...hands run the length of my body....my legs spread all on their own, my shaved pussy arching up begging for penetration. I hear a laugh and someone says that I'll get what I deserve when I've earned it. A cock brushes my lips and I open my mouth to take it in.

Thick and long, I take it all and begin sucking urgently to show how much I need to be fucked. Another cock starts to probe my pussy...teasingly at first and then when I think I'm about to go insane, it rams deep inside me. Two cocks fuck me and I wonder about the third....until I'm told to move. I am then positioned on top of one tool, given another to suck and feel the last covered in my juices slip into my ass. Three cocks all moving in me...my pussy overflows and I come harder than I ever have before.... The cock in my mouth pulls out and jism splashes my tits. The man backdooring me rubs it all over me. He comes in my ass and I feel it trickle down my crack. He withdraws, but my ass is feeling so stretched that I can still feel it. The man under me suddenly flips up and over so I'm under him....he finishes the job by fucking me hard and fast...so fast his balls are practically spanking my ass. He gasps and pulls out just in time to cum on my tits

 

[Ray Dario]

How much detail?

I think that depends on the story. Several of my stories have a lot of detail in the group sex descriptions, but the story was about the group sex and I was writing to an audiance that seemed to prefer more detail to less.

Writing a romance that just happens to devolve into a group sex scene you might not want much detail. Instead you might even want to break away and let the characters revel in privacy, leaving the reader with a leading line that lets them know what happened.

On the other hand if you are writing a Tab A - Slot B story then by definition you will want to put in all the detail you can. In this case I find it easier to explicitly state the name of the person whose POV I'm going to use in that paragraph in the first sentence and then follow it up from their point of view. Using paragraphs to change POV so that the complexity of the scene can be handled without undue confusion seems to work well for me.

So write the story the way it should be written, for the audience you are writing for, and that should guide you on how much or how little detail to include.

Just my humble opinion.

Ray

 

[Weird Harold]

I think you answered your own question. The key word is, of course, "undesired". If it's important to the story that people know who is doing what, tell the reader.

I've read enough of your stuff to know that you have good instincts, Harold. I think you should just go with them and not overthink it.

I'm not really "overthinking" this for my own work, although other viewpoints are always useful.

I proposed this thought for other authors to consider the usefulness of purposely leaving some confusion in their stories for dramatic effect.

You're right that the key is "undesired" confusion. The question really is "confusion" ever desireable or useful.

For me, the answer is yes, confusion is sometimes desireable and a useful technique to give the reader a better feel for what the characters are experiencing.

It's NOT something that should be overdone, obviously, but it is something that others authors might never have considered as being desireable. So, I just threw the thought out there for discussion.

deliciously_naughty,
That's a very stirring example of why naming every participant and action isn't necessary. However, if you introduce a blindfold into every group grope you write, aren't you limiting yourself?

 

[deliciously_naughty]

deliciously_naughty,
That's a very stirring example of why naming every participant and action isn't necessary. However, if you introduce a blindfold into every group grope you write, aren't you limiting yourself?

Thank you for the compliment. However...it's also the only group sex scene I've ever written...I haven't had the circumstances be right to throw another one in. However, in the third chapter of my current story I think I'll have the opportunity. But a blindfold won't work in the scenario I'm planning. So I'll be facing the same problem. However...I was just throwing that in as an option. Perhaps an easy way out, but an option if a writer was having a lot of problems with the scene. Besides....I like blindfolds

 

[Weird Harold]

However, in the third chapter of my current story I think I'll have the opportunity. But a blindfold won't work in the scenario I'm planning. So I'll be facing the same problem. However...I was just throwing that in as an option. Perhaps an easy way out, but an option if a writer was having a lot of problems with the scene. Besides....I like blindfolds

Blindfolds are good.

A power failure is a good gimmick to remove the sense of sight where you can't use a blindfold.

Writers having problems with group grope scenes and how the resolve them is the whole point of this thread. Options, cheap and easy or not, is what I hoped to bring to the light.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

KillerMuffin Critiques a Group Sex Story

Harold,

Over at the "Story Feedback" forum, KM has just finished a critique of my group sex story, "Sure Cure for Depression," in her "Okay, I feel like sinking..." ongoing critique thread.

I thought some of the posters interesteed in the subject of writing group sex scenes might want to read her comments.

RF

--

Rumple, your turn (finally!)

I liked this one the best of all your offerings. I particularly liked the way you handled the group scene. It was written in Cindy's POV and you only wrote what she'd be interested in or paying attention to. For instance, while she was giving Tony a bj, she was only "narrating" Tony's bj. We weren't getting a blow by blow account of what the other three were doing. It was highly believable.

As usual, though, you had an overabundance of first names. This distances you from the character to the point where you feel more like a narrator is telling you what's going on rather than the character. In group scenes like this it's only necessary to change from the pronoun to the name if there is no other means of identification. The less you use names, in general, the better. People don't think in names very often, because pronouns are comfortable.

Take this, for instance:

quote:
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Sliding her lips up the length of the dick, Cindy began to suck and swirl her tongue around the bulky head. Tony's legs went stiff; his body began to shake, and she felt the cock head swell. With her hair tossing about, Cindy pumped furiously on the long dick, forcing its head back into her throat each time she reached the bottom of her stroke. When Tony's body jerked into a ridged arch, she pushed down frantically, forcing it to new depths.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm distanced here. This is a narrator, not Cindy. First of all, the previous paragraph uses Tony twice, and the one before that uses Cindy. No one else is involved in this narrative so there's no confusion about he's and she's. Cindy doesn't think "Cindy is giving Tony a blowjob." Cindy thinks "I am giving him a blowjob." When it's done in third person, it's "She's giving him a blowjob." This is more immediate. Couple that with the description about her hair tossing about, and it's a narrator talking to me, not the character. When I'm doing anything like that, I don't notice my hair unless it irritates me. Cindy isn't going to be thinking about what she looks like from someone else' perspective, she's going to be thinking about what's going on and what she wants to do.

 

[Ulyssa]

Another way.

I have a story--not posted here--where the single woman involved in a consensual fivesome is directed to keep her attention strictly on the man she is facing--ie. standing bj--she must think through the actions which are happening to her as she is on her knees and there are three other men behind her.

The entire point of the scene is can she guess from tone of voice or size of hands (in one case she can guess, as the fellow has huge hands) who is doing what even though she's not allowed to look behind her.

This was an interesting premise to work from, and I believe I'll revise it and submit it here after all.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Another way.

I have a story--not posted here--where the single woman involved in a consensual fivesome is directed to keep her attention strictly on the man she is facing...

This was an interesting premise to work from, and I believe I'll revise it and submit it here after all.

That is an interesting premise, and another useful gimmick for writing a group grope.

Most of the premises and gimmicks seem to be ways for the author to limit or restrict potential confusion rather than using confusion. In your case, the premise is used to explain the confusion the main character experiences. Do you plan to "show" her confusion -- if so, how.

KMs comments about being distanced from the action by a narrative viewpoint are very good thoughts (as is to be expected from KM) on keeping things "real" in a group grope scene.

Confusion is often "real" in a group grope but often it's just stated or "explained away" instead of "shown " in the writing style. I seldom "feel" the confusion of the charaters.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I like full description and the mentioning of names in a group sex scene. When I read one, I like to know exactly who is doing what and where they stand when they do that. It makes it easier for me to see the whole thing in my head.

Also, the mentioning of names emphasizes the fact that there's group sex going on. To clearly see that it's not just a pair of hands but it's Tom's, James' and Patrick's hands that are touching Annie's body, makes it much sexier and wilder.

To only have hands running up and down her body in a swirl, makes me dizzy, not horny.