First person narration, but what about the other person?

[ShelbyDawn57]

We're story tellers. First, third, or, heaven forbid, second person voice. It doesn't matter. It's our ability to draw the reader in, to engage them, get them to care about our characters, vest themselves, even surrender a little bit of who they are to our story. That's when they make it theirs and we now we have them.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But many readers here aren't looking for stories, they're looking for their own fantasies to be told to them. The dominatrix would do x, y, z. The victim would feel a, b, c. The reader doesn't care why.

I agree very much. We could split the question into two. First, Identifying with first person opposite gender in literature in general, and second, identifying with first person opposite gender specifically on lit. For literature in general it's more like Bramblethorn's astronaut analogy. We don't need to be astronauts to buy into the three men in Apollo 13. The story is told well enough. We get it. However in erotica, there is that added dimension that the stories revolve around bodies and flesh (or at least hormones in lighter fare works) so gender does in fact become quite intrinsic.

Then there's specifically lit. We all know that a huge chunk of the audience here (the majority in most categories) aren't really interested in our plots. They only want their fantasy recited back to them. The only rising action that they care about is in cocks and nipples. So they don't care about being in the head of your character, they only want your character to do what their fantasy dictates. If your character does not do this, their reaction is boredom or in some cases spite.

So for a writer, it's nearly impossible to connect with readers from both camps. That's just the nature of the beast.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I agree very much. We could split the question into two. First, Identifying with first person opposite gender in literature in general, and second, identifying with first person opposite gender specifically on lit. For literature in general it's more like Bramblethorn's astronaut analogy. We don't need to be astronauts to buy into the three men in Apollo 13. The story is told well enough. We get it. However in erotica, there is that added dimension that the stories revolve around bodies and flesh (or at least hormones in lighter fare works) so gender does in fact become quite intrinsic.

Then there's specifically lit. We all know that a huge chunk of the audience here (the majority in most categories) aren't really interested in our plots. They only want their fantasy recited back to them. The only rising action that they care about is in cocks and nipples. So they don't care about being in the head of your character, they only want your character to do what their fantasy dictates. If your character does not do this, their reaction is boredom or in some cases spite.

So for a writer, it's nearly impossible to connect with readers from both camps. That's just the nature of the beast.

True. But will you agree the more vivid we make those fantasies when we recite them back, the more we engage their greatest erogenous zone, their mind, the more they will enjoy the fantasy.

"He went to a dominatrix. She tied him up and spanked him until he came."

Ok, I recited the fantasy back. I'm betting the reader isn't satisfied.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

True. But will you agree the more vivid we make those fantasies when we recite them back, the more we engage their greatest erogenous zone, their mind, the more they will enjoy the fantasy.

"He went to a dominatrix. She tied him up and spanked him until he came."

Ok, I recited the fantasy back. I'm betting the reader isn't satisfied.

Yes, but we have to know what that fantasy is first. And if we can somehow figure out what that fantasy is, we're just pandering and not writing from our own inspiration.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Yes, but we have to know what that fantasy is first. And if we can somehow figure out what that fantasy is, we're just pandering and not writing from our own inspiration.

Not really. We write for us, for our stories and hope that someone identifies with the story/fantasy we're reciting. If we do a good enough job, they'll find the satisfaction they want. I've ready some of your stuff. I know you get this. In fact, I think we're saying the same thing.

 

[FifthEstate]

I’ve written a fair number of first person POV stories from the cuck husbands perspective, but I often get asked by female readers to include more from the woman’s POV. Do you think switching POV’s in the same story can be done effectively? Or is just sticking to the husbands POV and describing the wife’s apparent pleasure and ecstasy the more effective approach. Would that still satisfy female readers?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I’ve written a fair number of first person POV stories from the cuck husbands perspective, but I often get asked by female readers to include more from the woman’s POV. Do you think switching POV’s in the same story can be done effectively? Or is just sticking to the husbands POV and describing the wife’s apparent pleasure and ecstasy the more effective approach. Would that still satisfy female readers?

Read Game of Thrones. I think GRRM changes POV every three sentences. LOL

Seriously, he has like sixteen POV characters.

Key thing is not to retell the same part of the story from different characters perspectives and make sure the reader knows whose POV it is as soon as you switch..

 

[Lifestyle66]

I’ve written a fair number of first person POV stories from the cuck husbands perspective, but I often get asked by female readers to include more from the woman’s POV. Do you think switching POV’s in the same story can be done effectively? Or is just sticking to the husbands POV and describing the wife’s apparent pleasure and ecstasy the more effective approach. Would that still satisfy female readers?

Look at my post above ref my yoga stories.

I like the husband's POV story so much, I thought it would be a challenge to write the same story again, but from the wife's POV.

 

[StillStunned]

I’ve written a fair number of first person POV stories from the cuck husbands perspective, but I often get asked by female readers to include more from the woman’s POV. Do you think switching POV’s in the same story can be done effectively? Or is just sticking to the husbands POV and describing the wife’s apparent pleasure and ecstasy the more effective approach. Would that still satisfy female readers?

My series The Rivals and The Dome use multiple protagonists' POV (not in the first person, though). For a sci-fi or fantasy story, it allows me to add much more detail to the world.

I think it works well, and I haven't had any comments complaining that it doesn't.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Obviously we all can identify with a well-written character, but what's the psychological effects going on when the narrative is first person, and you're not the "I"? I'm reading Koestler's The Act of Creation at the moment, so maybe that explains the psychological curiosity.

Let's get into this them.

OK, I'll draw an analogy. The Godfather is a movie about terrible people who do terrible, evil, immoral, criminal things. Almost all the main characters in the movie are, by any decent standard, horrible people.

But the movie doesn't present them that way, and we don't uniformly see them that way. We get inside Michael Corleone's world (or, in the case of the Sopranos, Tony Soprano's world, or in Breaking Bad, Walter White's world) and in the context of that world we root for him. We sympathize with him. We can swim inside his value system and want things as readers to come out the way he wants them to be.

Admit it: during the Silence of the Lambs, isn't there part of you that thrills to the ingenuity with which Lecter escapes from his prison, despite the gory and murderous way he does it? I think this is an element of these kinds of movies: our capacity to sympathize with things we find abhorrent in our day to day lives. It's fun to imagine being a gangster--somebody who doesn't have to follow any of society's rules--even if just in one's mind.

So, if I can do that, which I can, it's not at all hard for me to put myself in the shoes of a sex-driven lesbian for the short interlude it takes to read a story. It can be an erotic experience, even if it's not quite the same erotic experience.

These are excellent analogies, but they do not involve gender. However, if us non-gangsters non-psychopathic killers can somehow relate to these characters, why should gender be such a stretch? Which I believe is your point.

Let's look further.

I think women reading the husband's story can appreciate the growing tension and angst as he realizes what was going on. And male readers can see the anticipation and decision-making going on in the wife's POV, and realize how she might lose track of it all in her excitement.

Here's an example that does directly involve gender. I have not read lifestyle's story, but I have read RedChamber's 'Double Fault' which was told first person from the male in a couple introduced to swinging. My connection to this character started slowly but once the plot took off I had little problem getting into his head, and as the dynamic between the characters masterfully shifted, it was quite satisfying to be in his head at the end.

I'll give another example from movies, The Full Monty. This is a story of a group of men being emasculated and trying to keep their manly dignity, and as a woman I could follow it completely and indeed could feel the same emotions of the characters. This is a very male movie. These men were unmistakably men but also very human. The main character Gaz in particular was extremely relatable. Due to the economy shutting down the steel mill, he has lost his job, therefore his ability to provide, and hence, lost his manhood. He was a steel worker, a very manly job, and now he struggles on the dole. What really hits home is that his ex-wife belittles him for his inability to pay child support and is trying to cut him out of his own son's life. You don't have to be a man to hurt with Gaz over this. You don't even need children (as I do not) just a parental instinct to connect with this. Gaz' ex even has moved in with another man who also belittles him over his unemployment and taunts Gaz with the fact that he has started the process to adopt Gaz' son and cut him out of the picture. How can we NOT relate to Gaz, regardless of gender? Then of course in the end, we find that Gaz' son, through watching his father fight for his rights and fight to make the show happen, learns a little about being a man and when Gaz chickens out of the show at the last minute, his own ten-year old son gives him the 'man speech' to get out there and do the show, proving that he has learned.

Now for me, as a woman, I would not know what it would be like to be emasculated or even just to be a man in the world in general, but as I watch the movie I learn what it is like, and by the end I still may not know really, but I have a damn good idea, my perspective has been broadened and I feel better for it.

This movie wasn't necessarily first person as it did its fair share of headhops, but if a woman can relate to these men, then why couldn't a woman relate to a first person male erotic story?

 

[SimonDoom]

These are excellent analogies, but they do not involve gender. However, if us non-gangsters non-psychopathic killers can somehow relate to these characters, why should gender be such a stretch? Which I believe is your point.

Let's look further.

I used the analogy because I thought people might be able to relate to it more than gender. My point was that if you can relate to killers, you should be able to relate to people from a different gender.

I didn't mean, though, to convey that people of different genders are evil like killers. I think--hope--that came across right.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I used the analogy because I thought people might be able to relate to it more than gender. My point was that if you can relate to killers, you should be able to relate to people from a different gender.

I didn't mean, though, to convey that people of different genders are evil like killers. I think--hope--that came across right.

Haha, no worries, you came across perfectly clearly.

Yes, your point demonstrates very well that since most of us (hopefully) are much farther removed from psycho killers than we are from simply someone of opposite gender, then if we actually can be made to relate to Hannibal Lecter, then it should be rather easy to relate to Mrs Welch the sexy landlady, or Ben Renton, the tennis playing wife sharer.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Let's look further.



Here's an example that does directly involve gender. I have not read lifestyle's story, but I have read RedChamber's 'Double Fault' which was told first person from the male in a couple introduced to swinging. My connection to this character started slowly but once the plot took off I had little problem getting into his head, and as the dynamic between the characters masterfully shifted, it was quite satisfying to be in his head at the end.

You should read "Unique Rewards of Yoga".

My wife read it. That was one of the few of mine she's read, because she doesn't like my stories. And she stopped halfway through it to "do me" on the living room floor. (That's why I decided to do the other POVs.)

 

[Otto26]

But what about the readers who have never been and will never be that narrator, such as a woman who has never been a man, for example, or a man who has never been a woman. How do they relate to the story, since on face value the story protagonist can never be them?

We've often talked about this as writers, but where does the reader fit?

The reader fits wherever they feel most comfortable.

And that's really it. If the story and the subject matter are engaging and the author doesn't torture me with terrible writing or cringey tropes that require me to not just suspend, but actively murder disbelief, then I can engage with the story. So far as relating to the story goes I think you're being too specific. I can't relate to being an astronaut. But I can relate to being a person and, at heart, that's what all our stories are about: people doing people stuff.

So I don't think you need to worry about this.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

The reader fits wherever they feel most comfortable.

And that's really it. If the story and the subject matter are engaging and the author doesn't torture me with terrible writing or cringey tropes that require me to not just suspend, but actively murder disbelief, then I can engage with the story. So far as relating to the story goes I think you're being too specific. I can't relate to being an astronaut. But I can relate to being a person and, at heart, that's what all our stories are about: people doing people stuff.

So I don't think you need to worry about this.

I can agree but I don't think that the question is so easily dismissed, especially since this is erotica. It's a valid question and often, the opposite genders are not connecting between writer and reader. like I said, it depends on the skills of the writer and the intentions of the reader. A weaker male writer writer will have an easier time connecting to male readers than female and a weaker female writer same is true. Likewise a male reader who only wants to fap to a unicorn is far less interested in getting into the head of a female character and will connect less, same as a female reader who just wants a man to tie her up and spank her cares far less what is going on in a male character's head and will connect less. It is a thing and should not be dismissed outright. The original question of opposite genders reading first person narratives is a very valid question.

Sometimes it is as simple as you say and a non-issue, and other times it is a large issue, even with the exact same story. One reader will have no trouble connecting and another will not connect at all. It depends on the writer's skill and the reader's intent.

 

[Otto26]

I can agree but I don't think that the question is so easily dismissed, especially since this is erotica. It's a valid question and often, the opposite genders are not connecting between writer and reader. like I said, it depends on the skills of the writer and the intentions of the reader. A weaker male writer writer will have an easier time connecting to male readers than female and a weaker female writer same is true. Likewise a male reader who only wants to fap to a unicorn is far less interested in getting into the head of a female character and will connect less, same as a female reader who just wants a man to tie her up and spank her cares far less what is going on in a male character's head and will connect less. It is a thing and should not be dismissed outright. The original question of opposite genders reading first person narratives is a very valid question.

Sometimes it is as simple as you say and a non-issue, and other times it is a large issue, even with the exact same story. One reader will have no trouble connecting and another will not connect at all. It depends on the writer's skill and the reader's intent.

I don't disagree with you, but I feel that you have interpreted the question differently. If you ask 'Is POV as important as the kinks the story contains?' Then I'll say, yes, some people can't enjoy stories told from certain POVs. But I don't think that's what the original question was. I think the original question was how a reader could relate to something they have never been or are incapable of being. And I still think that people can relate to people.

If anyone is really concerned about the issue then they might go Rashomon on the story and tell and re-tell it from the point of view of every observer. One story becomes two or three and, properly executed, the whole of the story is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

[Areala-chan]

If you ask 'Is POV as important as the kinks the story contains?' Then I'll say, yes, some people can't enjoy stories told from certain POVs.

Given the number of comments I've gotten berating me for adopting the first-person, present-tense perspective, you are not wrong.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Would you list some of your other female POV stories?
I thought about this a lot last night, and I'm taking my time composing a response, complete with research time.

a Desiderare (close third person, her point of view)

We Deliver All Things (close third person, mostly Jenny's point of view)

Isabella - Strangers in the Night (close third, her point of view)

The Gift -Turning Pages (close third, her point of view)

 

[AG31]

a Desiderare (close third person, her point of view)

We Deliver All Things (close third person, mostly Jenny's point of view)

Isabella - Strangers in the Night (close third, her point of view)

The Gift -Turning Pages (close third, her point of view)

But none in the 1st person, as your question is focussed?

 

[RetroFan]

I think that readers nothing like the character who is the first person narrator can enjoy the story and get into the mind of the narrator if the story content appeals to them.

For example, the narrator of my story 'Cindy's Close Encounter' is obviously Cindy, a pretty blonde 18-year-old All-American girl from a town in Connecticut. She attends high school as a senior in 1959 with her friends and handsome football playing boyfriend Steve, and is a cheerleader and among the popular crowd. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she and her two best friends along with their respective boyfriends encounter a UFO after the Halloween dance and the unfriendly alien inhabitants within the said flying saucer.

There are many reasons why readers may not connect with Cindy or the story in general. One is that they may not like science fiction and fantasy stories. Their own high school experience might have been very different from Cindy and her friends; they might have been unpopular and their lingering dislike of the popular cheerleaders and jocks may affect their ability to enjoy this tale when such characters are the protagonists of this story. The fact that the story is set more than 60 years ago in a very different world than today may not appeal to readers who aren't interested in reading stories set in the past. Some readers might want to read stories about older protagonists rather than those who are 18 or 19. As a twist on this, some younger readers actively wanting to read stories about pretty 18-year-old cheerleaders or handsome jocks the same age might think all their wishes came true when they found this, only when they find out that Cindy and Steve are born in 1941 might say, 'Ew, it's like reading about your grandparents having sex for the first time when they were young' and immediately hit the back button. The setting of a town in New England, the good looking popular All-American teenagers (blonde, brunette and redhead), the sci-fi/supernatural mystery themes and the 1950s setting might make them think of Riverdale, say 'Man, I hate that show,' and the connection is lost.

These are just some of the reasons why readers may not connect with this story or its characters, no doubt there would be many more. However, a reader who enjoys science fiction stories, likes the 1950s and stories set in the past, finds cheerleaders and jocks getting together erotically appealing and has no lingering issues and resentment from high school then they could easily get into the mind of Cindy and enjoy her narration through the story, even if the reader had nothing in common with Cindy in real life.

 

[ElectricBlue]

But none in the 1st person, as your question is focussed?

Only Seventy/Thirty, which was a writer's challenge for myself - could I write a nineteen year old girl in first person.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

With the caveat that a certain percentage of the readers here are just looking for something to masturbate to, if you can't enjoy a well written 1st person story written from the opposite gender then the problem is with you.

It's fiction, open your mind.

 

[ElectricBlue]

With the caveat that a certain percentage of the readers here are just looking for something to masturbate to, if you can't enjoy a well written 1st person story written from the opposite gender then the problem is with you.

It's fiction, open your mind.

My question came from a literary intrigue. When did I ever say I didn't enjoy first person stories written from the opposite gender pov? There is no problem. Why the hostility?

 

[intim8]

Many authors feel that first person narration gives a more intimate, personalised feel to a story, and with erotic fantasy, first person does makes a lot of sense, since it's most likely your own fantasy in the first place. I think we've all written first person pov stories, for that reason.

But what about the readers who have never been and will never be that narrator, such as a woman who has never been a man, for example, or a man who has never been a woman. How do they relate to the story, since on face value the story protagonist can never be them?

We've often talked about this as writers, but where does the reader fit? How does a woman relate to the male me in a first person male narrative? And to stretch the discussion, what happens in the reader's mind when a male writer writes as a first person female character (which I've done a few times).

My query isn't in the context of, "Which is better, first or third?" - because neither is "better", just different, but puzzling about this as a reader who isn't "I".

Everybody has had experience with somone of the opposite sex, or in a very different occupation, whatever, relating a story to them, even if it is just how their day was going. It's not difficult to understand. 1P does not require the reader to imagine themselves as the character.

The choice of 1p is in part to limit the view of other characters to that which the MC observes or hears directly. 3p does not have to be omniscient, but it tends towards it. Either that, or having 2 or 3 POV characters. 1P is also distinguished from 3P in that you're not really getting into the character's head. Your only getting what he chooses to tell you, and most people don't relate their thought processes constantly. In 3p, it is like you are reading their mind.

1p: you're being told a story. 3p, you're observing a story happening.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

My question came from a literary intrigue. When did I ever say I didn't enjoy first person stories written from the opposite gender pov? There is no problem. Why the hostility?

That wasn't directed at you. It was a general statement.