Showing, Telling, and Orgasms

[dr_mabeuse]

To me the real surrender comes so much earlier- when one partner opens their heart to the other. To me, that's the moment of danger. I don't think there's anything particularly dangerous about climaxing, except maybe for the sheets- but that's what mattress liners are for!

That brings up an old porn theory of mine (Am I the only porn theorist on Lit? ) that came up once in a discussion of "male porn" versus "female porn."

I said that the dramatic climax in porn written for men usually coincides with the sexual climax, while the dramatic climax in porn written for women often occurs at the moment when the woman consents to sex. What happens after the consent is given is almost beside the point.

The weird fact is, I don't know what a female climax feels like and yet I write them all the time. Women writers don't know what a male climax feels like either, and yet they write them too. I'm sure my descriptions of female climaxes are heavily influenced by my male experiences, and so I often describe them as explosions or cataclysmic and violent and showy, but I know there's more to them than that and that women generally have a wider range of orgasms and manifestations than men.

But on the other hand, what's porn about if not exaggeration and fantasy?

(And thanks, Penny. I did recover from my hospital stay, but it left me with some weird fetishes...)

 

[sunandshadow]

I would consider myself a porn theorist too (although I would probably call it erotica.)

One of the concepts I have been studying recently is how frustration can be erotic, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the mental process behind this seemingly counterintuitive phenomenon.

 

[Penelope Street]

I wanted to start the story with the meeting between the main character and the love interest, so a scene with the main character's father would have bogged things down and been a misdirection. ... The main character is a nobleman who has been raised to present the public appearance of being a good little boy, and wants to escape that stifling life.

Somehow I got the impression the hero is a dragon- or can he be a dragon and a nobleman? I guess it really doesn't matter. The scene I described is just an example of what I prefer as a reader- it wasn't meant to be a suggestion and I never imagined it would work within your story.

I did recover from my hospital stay, but it left me with some weird fetishes...

It's always pleasant to discover some new inspiration

That brings up an old porn theory of mine (Am I the only porn theorist on Lit? ) that came up once in a discussion of "male porn" versus "female porn."

I said that the dramatic climax in porn written for men usually coincides with the sexual climax, while the dramatic climax in porn written for women often occurs at the moment when the woman consents to sex.

You may be onto something, but does it even have to be "male porn" or "female porn"? If you and I read the same story, might we interpret the dramatic climax to be at different points?

The weird fact is, I don't know what a female climax feels like and yet I write them all the time. Women writers don't know what a male climax feels like either, and yet they write them too.

I may not know, but at least I've done a little, uh, interviewing.

One of the concepts I have been studying recently is how frustration can be erotic, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the mental process behind this seemingly counterintuitive phenomenon.

I can't imagine I'd ever find frustration to be even remotely arousing. If it was, I'd try to reason with the idiotic purveyors of AH political threads.

 

[sunandshadow]

Frustration is closely related to both anticipation, and wrongness/forbiddenness, both of which are commonly described as erotic. When you are frustrated you are generally imagining doing one thing while actually doing another, and that doubleness can make for an intense experience. It's kind of like when the kid stares at the cookie jar up high on the shelf, that they know they're not allowed to get into, and fantasizes about crazy schemes for how they could climb that high and how they could hide the evidence so their mother didn't know they'd been into the cookies, and how good the cookies would taste - the fantasy is satisfying even if they don't actually get the cookies. It's also like when you're keeping a secret - that's always exciting, the feeling that everyone's seeing this innocent act you're putting on, but if they could just look a little bit below the surface they'd be totally scandalized.

 

[Penelope Street]

I may be able to tell you a bit more in a week about the appeal of frustration. A friend of mine and I got into a discussion about whether I am addicted to chocolate. So we bantered about it and, in the end, he agreed to give up one of his vices for a week and I agreed to give up chocolate- starting at 3PM ET today. What was I thinking?!

 

[husslefree]

<deleted>

 

[Penelope Street]

Special thanks to sunandshadow, mlady, Otto26, and Verdad, who were all brave enough to share a piece of their literary collection, giving us an interesting variety of scenes to discuss.

 

[SimonBrooke]

Underdescribe!

Me, I'd rather have everything overdescribed than underdescribed.

Nonononononononono. Nonono. Leave space for the reader. Leave space for the reader's imagination. Tell just enough to take the reader into the space, and then let them do the work, fill in the details.

At least, that's the way I prefer it, both as reader and writer.

Having said that I thought your piece which you quoted was lovely, very nicely expressed.

 

[SimonBrooke]

OK, here's mine

This is from http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=188946

Warning, it's a long story and this is pretty much the only explicit sex in it. Basic premise, writers' workshop in an isolated house, none of the participants knows one another. Pat, the female protagonist, is relatively sexually inexperienced and is trying - and failing - to write a story which is a romance between a rapist and his victim. John, another participant who I hint may have a special forces background, sets out to help her.

"Lift your head, beautiful - look at me."

Her head came up. His hands moved to her shoulders, holding her a little away from him, looking intently into her eyes.

"A dangerous stranger has abducted you, and bound you, and stripped you naked in front of everyone. How are you feeling?"

Her voice came low, but quite steady; her back was to the light so I couldn't see her face, but her head stayed up. "I _am_ very frightened," she said. "I know that, beautiful. How else do you feel?" His right knuckles ran gently over one erect nipple. Her head went down. "Aroused." The hand came back up, lifting her chin. "How aroused?"

Her head moved slightly from side to side. "I don't know..." The hands were back on her shoulders. "Aroused enough to enjoy having sex with someone you were in a relationship with, in private?" She nodded slightly, her head still up.

"Aroused enough to enjoy having sex with me, in private?" Her head went resolutely down. She shivered.

"Aroused enough to enjoy having sex with me, here on the table?" Her head came up again sharply. "Please no. Not that. Please..." The hands on her shoulders were steady, calm. "Does the idea make you feel more aroused, or less?" Her head went down again, and the answer was barely more than a mumble. "More."

"Good girl," he said. "Kiss me". And she did, very simply. He held her for a moment. All around the table we were relaxing, breathing again; but John wasn't finished yet.

"Now I need you to be even braver for me, Pat."

"Please..."

"Gently, now. Remember you're in the hands of a dangerous stranger. You really are - you only met me three days ago, you don't know anything about me. You are naked and your hands are tied and you are in my power. This isn't pretend; it isn't a story."

"Please, not..."

The knife was in his hand again, under the corner of her jaw. Their eyes were locked. "Turn round," he said, and she did, shivering slightly. He took a strip of black cloth out of his pocket, and blindfolded her. The shivering intensified.

"Now we're just as we were when I cut your knickers off." His voice was gentle, caressing. She nodded, slightly. "I want you to think back to how you were feeling, then."

His hands were moving again, on shoulders, neck, breasts. "Are you feeling as aroused now as you were then?" Her head shook, slightly. "Are my hands helping?". She nodded uncertainly. "I am _very_ frightened..." "I know, my beautiful brave girl... I know." He pulled her head back into a kiss.

Around the table we were all beginning to believe that he was really going to do it, here, in front of us. Mary was looking slightly worried, slightly concerned, but she was still sketching. Yasmin was watching intently, sitting slightly back in her chair. The muscles of her face were slack, those of her right arm, moving and twitching.

"Now I want you to kneel on the table."

I was surprised how docilely she did so. His hands steadied her. "Good girl..." The dress hung down behind her, hidden from us. The dark blindfold cut across her face. They only emphasised her nakedness. His hands were less gentle now, kneading breasts, pulling nipples. her body moved now, partly meeting, partly evading them.

"Open your legs..."

She moaned an inarticulate noise.

"Pat, spread your legs."

Her knees moved apart a little. "Wider". She lifted her buttocks and crossed her ankles, her knees spreading into a wide V. I envied Mary and Yasmin, who now had a perfect view; my own was from the side, partly obscured by her thigh. The knife hand slipped down. Using the haft of it, he gently parted her labia. He stroked the corded haft back and forth in the groove of her sex. She moaned. Her body was moving. His left hand used her breasts roughly; his right held the knife.

Gradually he rotated the blade down until I could no longer see it. His hand rested in her groin as though he were masturbating her, but I could see that it was no longer moving. The only movement in the room was the rocking of her pelvis, the filling and hollowing of the curve of her belly. The only sound in the room, her little grunting moans.

Yasmin was frowning slightly, eyes wide, lower lip gripped between teeth. Mary was sitting back in her chair, cooly appreciative, her fountain pen lying still on the pad. Elise looked rapt.

"Good girl... brave girl.. Do it for me, Pat. Ride it. Come for me, my beautiful..."

Her movements were faster now, more pronounced, her torso rising and falling, the muscles of her arms and throat tight.

"You can do it, Pat, You can do it for me. Come for me, my Pat..."

Flush mottled up across her belly, flickering across her breasts like a flame, surging up her throat, Her pelvis spasmed downwards into his hand once, twice, three times; then she slumped against him, shuddering, gasping. He gathered her into him with his free arm, stroking, gentling, murmuring praise.

The silence smelled of sex. Her breathing gradually calmed. She turned her head, lifting it, nuzzling blindly into his neck. She started to say something, her voice heavy, slurred. He hushed her, holding her still for another long moment.

"Come up now, gently..." The muscles in his right wrist tensed; I could see he was lifting her off the knife. "Back now" - still supporting her sex with his hand, carefully controlling her - "carefully, my beautiful. Keep those knees apart... step down now. Good girl." As his fingers slid up through her curls and onto her belly, they left trails of her juices that glistened in the candle light. She stood quiet, naked, sated, sacred, glowing, a trusting virgin sacrificed to a pagan God. The sacrificial instrument stood vertical in front of her, dark, slender, erect, glistening, deadly, a molotov cocktail of symbols, redolent of violence, violation and death. Violation and death and sex.

This is, like most of my writing, written to strict rules. In this case I've used the device of a third person narrator to enforce those rules. The rules for this piece are, essentially, that I cannot see inside my characters' heads, I can only describe what they see and what they do. Of course, in this piece I can see inside the narrator's head, but that's why he's a third person narrator.

Because of the position of the narrator at the table, he cannot actually see that Pat is fucking herself on the haft of the knife. He cannot actually see that all John's hand is doing is preventing Pat from pushing herself down onto the blade of the knife, preventing her from injuring herself. I know this, and I want the reader to at least guess this, but the narrator doesn't know it - so he doesn't tell it. He tells only what he sees.

I'm not claiming this is good writing, or that these deliberate circumscriptions of the narrative help you to achieve good writing; I'm only saying, this is what I do.

But I do think it helps you to achieve 'show, don't tell'. The narrator cannot tell you what Pat (or John) experiences, because he doesn't know. So he can only describe what he sees.

 

[SimonBrooke]

More on underdescribing

The paucity of those subjective statements is probably more apparent when they're used to describe a character, as they often are. I read a lot of things like, "She was the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen in his life." That may be so, but it tells me absolutely nothing of what she looks like. "She had a pair of tits to die for." Not only has "to die for" been used to death, but again, I have no idea what kind of breasts she has, whether they're large or small or erect or pendulous or what.

OK, again I'm going to disagree, and this time I'm going to give an example of how I would do it - how I have done it.

This is from Catriona:

His car was a dark blue Aston Martin; not new, but... certainly the most ostentatiously luxurious car I've ever sat in. His flat was in one of the big old sandstone blocks off the Great Western Road. We clattered up the tenement stair, and in through a heavy front door to a white space sparsely furnished with a judicious mix of antique and starkly modern furniture. And in it...

Tall, gracile, good cheekbones, wonderful eyes. Lovely hair, long, vigorous. Elegant posture.

"Mark," said Tony, "this is Cat. Cat, this is Mark, who saved my bacon in Kiev."

That is absolutely all I'm ever going to tell you about what Catriona looks like. In my mind she is blonde, blue eyed, with quite an athletic build and small breasts. You may pick the last point up from the fact that later in the story

"So," she said, opening a gambit, "What did you think of Cecilia?"

"She's so pretty, oh so pretty, yeah..."

Catriona giggled. "That's a wicked thing to say."

"Also, " I said, "I get the feeling that if you did get up to wash your face..."

She blushed, and giggled some more, nodding.

"The real question, though, is whether she has as much plastic between her ears as she has cantilevered out the front."

"You didn't like her boob job?"

I laughed. "God no. She looked... completely unbalanced. And they didn't look even remotely natural."

"Oh!" Catriona looked surprised. "Tony has been trying to persuade me to get mine done."

"Oh, no, Catriona, don't!" I said, surprised at my own vehemence. "That would be vandalism. And sacrilege."

I don't want to give detail about Catriona's appearance. I don't want to because what is important to the story is not what she looks like; it's how Mark responds to her. And although his response to her is partly visual and physical - he does find her beautiful and sexy, and I think I've succeeded in showing that - it's mainly intellectual. Each feels the other is intellectually in step with them. For these two, anyway, the brain is the biggest sexual organ - and the biggest erogenous zone.

Also, by not telling you much about Catriona's appearance I'm letting you fill in the detail; and because I hope I've given you clues that Mark finds her an instant turn on, I hope you filled in the details with features which, for you, are an instant turn-on. Catriona's physicality is not important to the story except in so far as you understand that Mark finds her sexy. What's important to the story is her intellect and her psychological quirks or damage, depending on how you see them.

 

[Otto26]

Nonononononononono. Nonono. Leave space for the reader. Leave space for the reader's imagination. Tell just enough to take the reader into the space, and then let them do the work, fill in the details.

At least, that's the way I prefer it, both as reader and writer.

Having said that I thought your piece which you quoted was lovely, very nicely expressed.

Bingo! The details the reader will fill in will make the story far more personal and appealing to them. I think that's the way to go.

 

[sunandshadow]

I don't want to give detail about Catriona's appearance. I don't want to because what is important to the story is not what she looks like; it's how Mark responds to her. And although his response to her is partly visual and physical - he does find her beautiful and sexy, and I think I've succeeded in showing that - it's mainly intellectual. Each feels the other is intellectually in step with them. For these two, anyway, the brain is the biggest sexual organ - and the biggest erogenous zone.

Also, by not telling you much about Catriona's appearance I'm letting you fill in the detail; and because I hope I've given you clues that Mark finds her an instant turn on, I hope you filled in the details with features which, for you, are an instant turn-on. Catriona's physicality is not important to the story except in so far as you understand that Mark finds her sexy. What's important to the story is her intellect and her psychological quirks or damage, depending on how you see them.

It just doesn't work that way in my brain, for whatever reason. Instead I want to know in detail what Mark sees and how that gets translated into 'instant turn on' in his mind. It wouldn't work for me to fill in my own details because for one thing you have to describe Cat's personality, no way to avoid that, and it's probably not one I will find particularly attractive. I might like her through Mark's eyes, but I probably won't like her through my own.

 

[Varian P]

This is from http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=188946

This is, like most of my writing, written to strict rules. In this case I've used the device of a third person narrator to enforce those rules. The rules for this piece are, essentially, that I cannot see inside my characters' heads, I can only describe what they see and what they do. Of course, in this piece I can see inside the narrator's head, but that's why he's a third person narrator.

Because of the position of the narrator at the table, he cannot actually see that Pat is fucking herself on the haft of the knife. He cannot actually see that all John's hand is doing is preventing Pat from pushing herself down onto the blade of the knife, preventing her from injuring herself. I know this, and I want the reader to at least guess this, but the narrator doesn't know it - so he doesn't tell it. He tells only what he sees.

I'm not claiming this is good writing, or that these deliberate circumscriptions of the narrative help you to achieve good writing; I'm only saying, this is what I do.

But I do think it helps you to achieve 'show, don't tell'. The narrator cannot tell you what Pat (or John) experiences, because he doesn't know. So he can only describe what he sees.

Of late I've been experimenting with holding myself to similar rules, in part because I've gotten weary of describing (and as a rule, reading) what an orgasm feels like. After a while, all the explosions and waves and pulsing throbbing spasms seem much the same to me. More significantly, like others who've posted to this thread, I'm more interested in the emotions and the dynamics going on between characters than in the physiological events taking place in their bodies.

 

[Varian P]

For comparison, I'll offer two examples from pieces I'm currently working on (so not at all polished)--the first narrated from the POV of the character experiencing the orgasm, and the second related from a third-person objective POV.

I can't seem to refrain from posting contextual elements from the larger scene, so I'll bold the actual orgasms.

1) From an as-yet unposted chapter of "Changed Girl." Context: the character is bound and blindfolded, having consented to being fucked by a stranger, as arranged by her lover.

Involuntarily she tugged against the restraints at her wrists when she felt the man's fingers curling under the elastic of her panties. Lying there, helplessly stretched out on the bed, she felt her panties being slid down her thighs, the silky fabric brushing against her calves, her heels arches toes.

“Spread your legs,” the voice ordered with unsettling serenity.

She did it. Automatically. Conrad's training, probably. After, her cheeks flushed hot as she lay there, knowing the man was standing right there, looking at her.

“Wider.”

After she'd done as he'd said embarrassment escalated to anxiety as seconds, maybe a minute or more went by without a move or a word from him. Then her whole body went tense as the mattress shifted under her feet and between where he must have leaned on a hand, or set a knee, or sat down. Then the surface of the bed dropped a little away just inside one knee. Then one small, light touch on her delicate petals of damp flesh. A little tremor ran through her and she heard her own breath catch. Slow, slow, that faint touch moved up, and her nerves seemed to be straining for it. Even before the tip of his finger brushed over her clit she was panting, her body taut, straining for all the pleasure bearing down on her. Then, soft and silky wet, his touch moved over her like a breeze and she sucked in her breath and flexed and shuddered.

“Your cunt,” the voice swept up to her over the plains and hills of her torso, “is blushing. A delicious, deep raspberry.”

Her face went hot as he strummed her clit again and her pelvis bucked in a little spasm.

“Hold still,” he commanded, his voice low and soft but somehow irrefutable.

She tried to be still as he faintly rubbed her, his touch small and light and slick with her own wetness. Moist and hot, his breath breeze over her inner thigh, cooling before it reached her hot wet folds. Whining, she fought the urge to writhe and buck as his touch strummed up her wet slit and over her clit, then danced right there, slow and light.

Then nothing but cool air and her pulsing want. It was hard to be still, not to squirm, she was so wound up with need. It embarrassed her, knowing he was watching, knowing she was flushed and open and wet and writhing however hard she tried to be still.

She whined and twitched, then. Soft, wet, warm, his tongue slid slowly along her folds. A long delay. She was shocked by the way being restrained, held utterly immobile made the delicious caress of his mouth unbearably intense. He kept the contact very light, forcing her to yearn for more than he was giving her. Imagining him down there, eating her, while her arms were stretched overhead by the restraints, thrilled her. For several agonizing minutes she seethed beneath his hot mouth, all that time only taunting her with the lightest possible caresses, punctuated by long gaps when he didn't touch her at all . She waited, hoping, knowing if he was going to do that she was going to cum soon, and hard. He licked her again, just a faint, taunting touch of tongue, and she whimpered, not wanting to, but not able to help it. When he flicked the tip of his tongue against her clit, back and forth so fast, from behind her blindfold she saw a blur, she arched and strained.

“I said be still,” he reminded her calmly, then settled his mouth over her, lathing her with his tongue, his hungry growl vibrating against her cunt, through her whole body and then she breathed, in, out, in, out, hoping to hold on but her climax swelled up and a second later she caught herself gasping and whining, her cunt spasming under the stranger's mouth.

He was still and quiet as she rode her climax, sinking under the slowing, diminishing ripples. Then, as she softened and settled into the calm after, with the pads of two fingers he pressed the flesh of her mound gently, steadily up against her pubis, and everything contracted again and the spasms resumed, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing.

“Enticing. Watching your cunt quiver and spasm like that. I look forward to feeling you around my cock.”

The hot resentment she expected to surge at his presumptuousness didn't come on. Was it weird that he hadn't really touched her, except her cunt? Was it weird she was glad?

But now the mattress shifted under her and her heart thumped hard and he pressed her legs together and she felt his legs straddling her. When her thighs pressed together her sex felt pleasantly hot and swollen after her climax. Fingers curved possessively around her tits and a warm, pulsing wetness engulfed one nipple. After her climax her body was too wired. She grunted her discomfort, straddling the line between intense pleasure and an unbearable unpleasantness. He rewarded her by sucking harder and chafing her nipple with his tongue. He kept at it until she'd about lost her grip on the squeal of protest she'd been biting back, then her nipple popped free of his mouth, cold air hitting his warm spit as his lips and tongue captured her other nipple and she whimpered, helpless, her sounds beyond her control.

“Spread me. Fuck me,” some nasty part of her almost pleaded out loud. Her orgasm had been incredible, one of those long, slow, rolling climaxes that were like being swept along on an easy current. But her body felt greedy. Unsatisfied. It wanted to be filled. Fucked. By this unseen, unknown stranger.

Then he was off her. Off the bed. She heard him. First on the left. Then on the right. Then the warm grip of his hand behind one knee as a hand raised her leg. Then the warmth was gone and there was just the soft, indifferent pressure of some rope or fabric holding her knee up and out. He hoisted her other leg up the same way.

Her knees were bound, she figured, almost at shoulder height, and splayed wide when she stopped flexing to hold them as close to together as they could go.

The mattress shifted again and creaked a little. He was between her legs. About to fuck her. Fuck, she wanted. Fuck, she was scared. What was she, wanting something like this?

She flinched when something brushed against her lips.

“Open your mouth.”

She didn't want to. Whatever it was, it was cold. Not him. But she opened. Something smooth and cool and cock-shaped slid between her lips, against her tongue. Back. Back. Deeper and deeper until she flexed rigid, about to gag, shaken by a thrill of visceral terror of being choked. The fake cock withdrew and she panted, appreciating every breath.

The tip of the fake cock, moist with her own spit, nudged at her cunt and she kept panting, with want now. Wanting to be penetrated. Filled. Fucked.

Cruelly slow it opened her, little by little, and gradually slid up inside. Frustratingly still, she felt it there inside of her for long, long seconds before it moved again, to her relief, gliding down, leaving her empty and waiting for the next penetration. She gasped as he drove the cock into her cunt in one firm thrust, then fucked her with it, the thick length driving deep into her, pulling out against a thousand eager nerves, then filled her up again. Then it left her. Then something else nudged its way inside of her. Something smaller. Harder. In. Out. In. Then it was out of her. She was empty again. Needful and empty. She waited, wondering was he watching her exasperated expression? Her tits? Her cunt between her splayed, elevated legs?

Warm and slick it touched her lips again. She could smell her sex.

“Lick.”

She parted her lips and ran her tongue over the faux cock tip, licking her wetness from it.

“Suck.”

She drew the tip in, between her lips, and sucked a few more inches into her mouth, tasting her tang, liking the feeling of having her mouth filled. Sucking in earnest, as if she had, nestled in the curl of her tongue, the cock of a man she wanted to give great pleasure, she quivered, startled, as she felt another hardness nudge her clit, then press along her slick slit, sinking into her. Her mouth still wrapped around the silicone phallus, she started to breathe too fast, too heavy. Something weird. He felt weird. A strange shape. Another toy, maybe? She tried to calm herself. Reasoned she was just off kilter because she couldn't see, because she'd never seen this man, because she couldn't use her hands.

The strange-feeling hardness slipped out of her, nudging its way over sensitive flesh until she felt a dull, insistent pressure just below, and she started hyperventilating around the dildo again. The cock slipped free of her lips.

“I didn't think this was virgin territory,” the stranger purred in his smoky whisper. “Hmmm?”

She shook her head no. The pressure was still there, but everything had gone still. Was he waiting? To see if she'd say her word?

The tip of the toy teased her lips again, and after hesitating a second, she took it into her mouth and began to suck it. It was oddly comforting as the pressure against her asshole deepened. More. More, her ass slowly yielding, dilating to accept whatever object the stranger's hand was pushing into her. Stretching. Taut. It had only been those two times. It still scared her. She tried to breathe, tried to relax as the thing entering her strained and stretched her until finally it slipped into her. She let out a long, heavy breath.

“That's one,” he sighed.

The pressure came on again and her body went taut again, her asshole stretching around the girth of whatever he was driving into her. She grunted a little, more from anxiety than physical strain.

“That's two.”

Again it started and she panted through it.

“Three.”

The cock slipped from of her mouth, and a second later it was sinking into her needful, swollen cunt and she whimpered in relief. Deep inside the firm tip nudged her, bumping, waking, provoking sensitive nerves. She felt herself, heard herself convulsing and gasping, thought of the stranger watching, listening, and hot, embarrassed arousal suffused her quivering body. A straining pressure tormented her ass—one swollen joint of the toy worked free? Then pushed back in, filling her back up to full? Moaning against her bitten lips, writhing around the toys in the stranger's hands, a pressure came against her clit—his thumb?—and she stifled a whimper.

The phantom voice, “Let me hear you. Let him hear you,” as he fretted her clit, the false cock prodding her to some alarming pleasure, and the thing in her ass startling her with another strange, provoking sensation just now and then. So much, so strange, she felt her body being taken from her—her gasping breath, her straining arms, her convulsing belly—all out of her control, all her muscles contracting for him, against her will.

After a long, fretful moan she gulped for air.

“Yes,” he sighed, his thumb tripping the hot wire in her clit each time he pulsed the dildo in her cunt.

Too much, too much. Biting her lips, trying futilely to wiggle a little way out of reach, silently Devan pleaded for him to relent, but only let go a loud, desperate whine. Then sucked in hard and tried to sit up but couldn't and said “please” on her next breath because maybe she was going to wet the bed but the cock nudged and nudged and she strained for that touch at her clit and deep up in her, all around the cock he was pumping inside her, her body clenched then let go, let the agony of pleasure go twisting through her, cried it out loud as his “let him hear you” came to her again.

Wrung out and shuddering a weak, a worn out little sob bubbled from her as the cock abandoned her cunt, startling a thousand over-wrought nerves on the way out, a stretching, relenting, stretching, relenting as he worked the other toy free of her ass. Then a faint groan of the mattress as it shifted, gently rocking her body, then his body—warm, firm flesh—pressing behind and inside her thighs.

“My turn,” he growled, hoarse, almost voiceless, and her heart stopped, then sped.


2) From this year's NaNo "novel." Context: Jake has been sexually abused on an ongoing basis--a situation he's just recently gotten out of, and Eva has gone to visit him, as a friend. They've fallen asleep while she was comforting him. They've never been lovers.

In the middle of the night Eva wakes. The room, the building, the compound are still and quiet. In sleep their bodies have shifted; Jake is curled against her, his chest pressed to her back, his knees tucked in behind hers. His warm breath gathering in her hair isn't steady and rough with sleep. It's jagged and catches every few breaths, then speeds to catch up with itself again. His hand is under her tank, pressed flat and soft against the hot skin of her belly.

Eva stays still as Jake's soft palm inches over the soft curve below her navel, wandering up and back down again between her hip bones, circling that little swelling again and again, each lap requiring a minute or more. When his palm glides upward, his fingertips trace between her ribs, skirt the vulnerable hollow they outline. She keeps her breathing even and quiet as his touch comes up, as he fits the curve of his thumb and index finger under the curve of her breast. His hand is still for a long time, his body taut behind her, his abdomen shuddering irregularly against her back, maybe with the effort of smoothing and quieting his breathing. Then his thumb moves just half an inch or so, following the smooth curve of her breast up from her ribs, before it descends back down. She stays still. Except for his quiet struggle with his breath, he doesn't move again.

When she shifts and turns to face him in the thick velvet dark Jake sucks in his breath and pulls his hand away. Now he is panting hard and she says nothing. Just draws a gentle hand down his arm, finds his hand, presses it to her belly, holding it to her, and when, except for his trembling and panting he stays still, she draws his hand up, over her swelling dipping swelling belly, and up against the full swell of her breast, up, until his palm is curved over the stiffening peak. Abandoning his hand, she pulls him gently to her. He stays still. With one finger she furrows into his fine, wavy hair, tracing faint abstract shapes upon his scalp with her nail. Gently, then, almost to the point of defying perception, Jake touches her; the curve of his palm and fingers follow her breast's curve, warming the surface so delicately there is no more impact on her flesh than if she'd draped a piece of silk over it. Then, like the brush of a feather his fingertips move over her taut, velveteen skin, circumnavigating the base, gliding up the sleek warm slope. Tracing the outline of the responsive flesh at the summit. Eva kisses his smooth, hot forehead. Jake's fingertips gather to stroke and stiffen her nipple. Eva finds his other hand hidden shy and quiet on the mattress between them, and puts it to her other breast. Jake cups and caresses as she kisses and cradles him.

When she pulls the hem of her tank up, baring her breasts, he makes a soft warm sound, but doesn't put his mouth to her until she flexes and lifts her breast to his lips. He kisses her, at first, like an icon. Reverently. Tremulously. Like a supplicant, desperate for mercy and solace but afraid of tarnishing what his lips touch. But after a while, as she kisses and cradles his head, holding him to her, kissing and sighing against his hair, his mouth goes seeking, needful, like an infant after comfort and nourishment. His touch soft like the caress of draped silk goes firm; the curve of his hands tighten, swelling her soft flesh against his lips; his pious kiss goes hungry, he suckles greedily, needfully, as if his life depends on her sustenance.

Until now she has been soft and quiet, gently offering her tender warmth. But now that he is sucking, her breath is speeding and sounding; her warm, pliant body starts to flex and shudder as his tongue works over her hard, swelling nipples, her beatific expression contorts, her brow goes fretful, her serene smile fades as her lips part with frantic breath.

When she sinks down, onto her back, he follows her, never breaking contact. When she pushes him gently from her he lets out a broken little sob. But then he pushes himself up, off of her, goes still and silent for a moment before shifting himself away. Her hands arrest him, her knees rise to pen him in. Now, while he holds himself over her, she flexes and wiggles out of her underwear. Then, except for stroking his hair and kissing his brow, she is still. At first he does nothing. Then, shaking, breathing hard, with one hand he undoes his belt and fly and gets his pants down low on his hips. He sinks against her body and for a moment he just lies there, cradled in her arms and softness and warmth. When he does go into her he goes deep, then goes still. She combs fingers through his hair, runs her hand in slow trails down and up the length of his quivering back. Panting, he clings to her and starts to move, thrusting fitfully, sinking deep, then lingering, leaving the depth of her warmth only long enough to allow for the return thrust. When she cums she only groans softly, but keeps her caress gentle and steady, keeps her body soft for him. And when he cums she wraps her arms around him, holding him close but not tight. He stays inside her, wrapped tight around her, clinging to her nurturing heat, his face burrowed in her thick ebony hair, in the curve of her neck, for more than a quarter of an hour. Then he slips down beside her and she holds him close until a long while later they slip back under the surface of their broken sleep.

 

[Varian P]

The paucity of those subjective statements is probably more apparent when they're used to describe a character, as they often are. I read a lot of things like, "She was the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen in his life." That may be so, but it tells me absolutely nothing of what she looks like. "She had a pair of tits to die for." Not only has "to die for" been used to death, but again, I have no idea what kind of breasts she has, whether they're large or small or erect or pendulous or what.

OK, again I'm going to disagree, and this time I'm going to give an example of how I would do it - how I have done it.


That is absolutely all I'm ever going to tell you about what Catriona looks like. In my mind she is blonde, blue eyed, with quite an athletic build and small breasts...

...I don't want to give detail about Catriona's appearance. I don't want to because what is important to the story is not what she looks like; it's how Mark responds to her. And although his response to her is partly visual and physical - he does find her beautiful and sexy, and I think I've succeeded in showing that - it's mainly intellectual. Each feels the other is intellectually in step with them. For these two, anyway, the brain is the biggest sexual organ - and the biggest erogenous zone.

Right, let me see if I can manage to agree with you both without seeming schizo.

Dr. M. gave some nice examples of the kinds of empty statements employed by way of describing characters, but which provide no information a reader can actually use to visualize the person being 'described,' or to understand what is supposed to be appealing/repellent, etc., about that character.

I am capable of becoming emotionally and intellectually engaged by characters I can't visualize, and can even find a scene in which characters are physical blanks sexually arousing, given the situation is arousing.

Usually, though, if the sex is going to be described in detail, I'd like some kind of idea of how to imagine the people involved, lest I'm left with the image of two (or three or five) persons with faces and bodies indistinguishable from lumps of silly putty writhing around on the bed, bathroom counter, etc.

However, I think it's possible, and even desirable, to give a description which is suggestive, rather than detailed and explicit, leaving out altogether minutiae about physical dimensions, hair and eye color, complexion, etc.

I think SimonBrooke did a nice job of this with

Tall, gracile, good cheekbones, wonderful eyes. Lovely hair, long, vigorous. Elegant posture.

Except for “wonderful eyes” (which tells me nothing about color, shape, or the way she seems to look out at the world around her or what they seem to show about what's going on inside her), all the adjectives and bits being described tell me something about what she looks like, and words like gracile, elegant, and vigorous go further, and suggest aspects of her manner and personality.

This is my favorite sort of description—not a mere inventory of physical attributes, but rather a glimpse of how the character's deeper attributes manifest in their outward appearance and bearing. In stories where the point isn't what the characters look like, but how they click intellectually, or how they torment each other, etc., which are the stories I prefer to read and try to write, it makes sense to paint the characters' physical attributes in broad strokes that convey something of what's going on under the skin.

Whether a body is lean and cut or plump can get at whether a character is disciplined or sensual and indulgent (SimonBrooke does a lovely job of this in introducing characters in “Workshop”). Whether a character has a dye job that could only be achieved for $200 at a salon, or hair that hangs in natural waves down to her waist conveys something, too. I'd rather a character's eyes were described in terms of a vacant or penetrating gaze than in terms of their shape and specific color.

 

[Varian P]

Frustration is closely related to both anticipation, and wrongness/forbiddenness, both of which are commonly described as erotic. When you are frustrated you are generally imagining doing one thing while actually doing another, and that doubleness can make for an intense experience.

And of course that anticipation is key to the ever-erotic sexual frustration, which can play into anything from wanting what cannot be had, to deliciously delayed gratification.

You know, like that first taste of chocolate Penny's going to enjoy when the betting week is over.

One of the concepts I have been studying recently is how frustration can be erotic, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the mental process behind this seemingly counterintuitive phenomenon.

Is it counterintuitive? It's so often a prolonging of what is desired, whether that is commencing a hoped-for relationship/encounter--allowing for a continued indulgence in the fantasy of that anticipated union (which, perhaps more often than not, can be more gratifying than the real thing)--or succumbing to sexual climax. Sure, it can be fabulous, getting off hard and fast by one's own ministrations, or another's, but don't we often put off ultimate gratification, because the physical and mental and emotional build-up are so delicious we don't want them over with too quickly?

 

[Penelope Street]

Nonononononononono. Nonono. Leave space for the reader. Leave space for the reader's imagination. Tell just enough to take the reader into the space, and then let them do the work, fill in the details.

At least, that's the way I prefer it, both as reader and writer.

Bingo! The details the reader will fill in will make the story far more personal and appealing to them. I think that's the way to go.

It just doesn't work that way in my brain, for whatever reason. Instead I want to know in detail what Mark sees and how that gets translated into 'instant turn on' in his mind.

I thought this was what everyone prefered as a reader, but thanks to sun at least now I know better- although I still believe the vast majority of readers want less instead of more.

It wouldn't work for me to fill in my own details because for one thing you have to describe Cat's personality, no way to avoid that...

I'm not sure about this though- why would an author need to resort to description to reveal a character's personality?

 

[Penelope Street]

About the scene From 'Workshop'

Hi Simon,

Thanks so much for sharing a scene from one of your stories. That is a complex situation- I would have been lost without your intro paragraph. The moment has some spice to it and I can imagine how it could be appealing in the context of a story. Unrelated to showing, telling and orgasms: An early participle issue jarred me a bit and the paragraphing made it difficult for me to determine the speaker in a few places. All that aside, you are so right- it makes a most interesting show/tell example.

These are the images I found most vivid:

... the filling and hollowing of the curve of her belly...

Her pelvis spasmed downwards into his hand once, twice, three times; then she slumped against him, shuddering, gasping.

The silence smelled of sex.

Ok, maybe that last one's not an image, yet it's still vivid- but only if the reader knows the smell.


But there are a few sentences that are pure telling, right?

Mary was looking slightly worried, slightly concerned

The following paragraph is an interesting mix. What I liked best is highlighted while the parts I thought telly are underlined.

Yasmin was frowning slightly, eyes wide, lower lip gripped between teeth. Mary was sitting back in her chair, cooly appreciative, her fountain pen lying still on the pad. Elise looked rapt.

One thing didn't work so well for me was the abundance of adverbs. Every one was like a little hiccup for me because I had to pause and decide what each meant. I was also a little disappointed when she slumped over, sated after a single climax. Even though I picked that sentence as an example of where I thought the showing was strong, I think she would have wanted more. Perhaps it's a subtle compliment that I felt so.

Thanks bunches,
Penny

 

[Penelope Street]

OK, again I'm going to disagree, and this time I'm going to give an example of how I would do it - how I have done it.

...
Tall, gracile, good cheekbones, wonderful eyes. Lovely hair, long, vigorous. Elegant posture.
...

That is absolutely all I'm ever going to tell you about what Catriona looks like. In my mind she is blonde, blue eyed, with quite an athletic build and small breasts. You may pick the last point up from the fact that later in the story

...

I don't want to give detail about Catriona's appearance. I don't want to because what is important to the story is not what she looks like; it's how Mark responds to her. And although his response to her is partly visual and physical - he does find her beautiful and sexy, and I think I've succeeded in showing that - it's mainly intellectual. Each feels the other is intellectually in step with them. For these two, anyway, the brain is the biggest sexual organ - and the biggest erogenous zone.

I guess I'm going to disagree with the disagreeing. If you want to leave her appearance up to me, why tell me anything about her appearance? If all I need to know is that Mark finds her attractive, then all I need to see is Mark's reaction, right?

A tangent: some sharp dialogue in that exchange about breasts!

 

[sunandshadow]

I'm not sure about this though- why would an author need to resort to description to reveal a character's personality?

I didn't mean the personality has to be described instead of shown, I just meant that although the author can avoid giving a character a specific appearance they can't avoid giving a character a specific personality. That personality may be attractive to another character, but won't necessarily be attractive to the reader. So the character is more likely to seem appealing if described through another character's perceptions and mindset than if presented directly to the reader.

For a really obvious example, consider characters of a gender you are not attracted to. No presentation of a male character to a straight male or lesbian female reader is going to make the reader attracted to that character. Ditto for a female character and a straight female or gay male reader. But, in a romance novel where parts are told from the woman's point of view and parts are told from the man's point of view, any reader can sympathize with why he like her and why she likes him.

 

[Verdad]

Lots of interesting new thoughts. And like Varian, I too would like to agree with seemingly contradictory ones.

I think these apparent contradictions appear because showing vs. telling is an awfully broad subject, and we're choosing to talk about different aspects. The topic, if I understand correctly, is really showing and telling in portraying orgasms, but of course it's tempting to go beyond that, and I did so too. Beyond that, though, it's increasingly difficult to say anything in absolute terms.

Sun's second example? (Another fan-fic, by the way, or a world of your own creation?) I thought it lovely. A lovely piece of narration, and of course, a whole different ball of wax than describing an orgasm. It's rather relating a setting for a story, and a fantasy setting with its own rules at that, and so it naturally demands different tools.

In that too, though, so much depends on the author's style and the piece as a whole. It's entirely possible to simply drop the reader in a fantasy world and let him decipher its rules along the way, and a lot of pleasure comes exactly from that deciphering. But I wouldn't say there's anything inherently bad or inferior about narrating the story fairy-tale-style either, like Sun seems to be doing with a lot of success.

So I think I'm staying with what I said about consistency. Some authors enchant by making the reader watch attentively and collect and process the clues, and some by murmuring reassuringly in his ear, letting him know that every little mystery along the way will be revealed and explained. As long as it's delivered well and serves its function, there's no better or worse about it.

I do agree with what Simon said about not over-doing it, though. Be it showing or telling, image or comment, the sense of measure is what's important. In contemporary lit at least, we don't want to see the image described pedantically in excruciating detail, nor do we want to hear the comment turn into six pages of author's self-indulgent musing. There's place for leaner and less lean variations, but we generally prefer them to be inside the margins of "just enough".

But with physical description of characters, I think yet another sub-topic opened. I don't want to talk in Doc's place, but I'm more than sure he didn't mean detailed physical descriptions of characters when he mentioned concrete sensory details as opposed to the meaningless subjectivity of the "most wonderful thing he felt in his life".

Rather, these concrete details regard the action itself. They're what we're all talking about—showing. They're things like screeching of the bed and bouncing of woman's breasts, as opposed to just saying, "He fucked her savagely."

Things like a guy's breath shuddering through his nostrils and knuckles turning white on the armrests, instead of just saying, "The maddening suction of her mouth was almost more than he could stand."

I'll even admit I'd use the sentences in the quotation marks, and they're nowhere as bad as "soaring on the wings of orgasmic pleasure", but without the support of concrete details, they're not likely to bring a scene to life. That's the point of "being concrete" (or objective) as I understand it.

How much concreteness is needed in introducing a character is a completely different matter, though. Characters come to life through what they do and the impact they make on others, so they can function just perfectly without a single word of physical description.

Or, if they are being described, the description may well be saying more about the character who's perceiving them than about the character being described. Descriptions ideally serve other ends besides just informing us how a character looks, so whether they're sparser or less sparse, pretty much anything is fair game, as long as it's suited for the tone of the piece and the narrator.

There's nothing wrong with limiting the description to "cheekbones to die for" or the "longest, most sinuous pair of legs to walk in his bar", and in this sense, there's nothing wrong with being subjective either. Rather than a page from a coroner's report, which is I guess the ultimate in being objective, we mostly want a 'meaningful' description; coming through a subjective lens of the viewpoint character in a limited POV story, or cleverly focusing on the insides-revealing signs if coming from an omniscient narrator.

Hollow cliché is still to be avoided, though, and inside a description that may be subjective as a whole, there should be details that are concrete enough by themselves, if that makes sense.

Say, if the woman actually is "the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen" and that's the whole reason for the protag's interest in her, I'd like to hear it presented in some other words. I'd like to understand what that "most beautiful" means for that particular character. Not only does a woman with a "body like a racing horse" look differently than a woman with a "smile of a holy icon", but the guys who're describing them are likely different too, and likely inhabiting different stories.

My thoughts for now—will find time to comment the new excerpts soon, I hope.

Best,

Verdad

 

[sunandshadow]

Sun's second example? (Another fan-fic, by the way, or a world of your own creation?) I thought it lovely. A lovely piece of narration, and of course, a whole different ball of wax than describing an orgasm. It's rather relating a setting for a story, and a fantasy setting with its own rules at that, and so it naturally demands different tools.

The second one is original, and thank you, I'm glad you liked it.

 

[Penelope Street]

The topic, if I understand correctly, is really showing and telling in portraying orgasms, but of course it's tempting to go beyond that, and I did so too.

The primary topic was meant to be showing versus telling and the orgasm scenes were supposed to, uh, stimulate the discussion- but I don't imagine anyone has a problem discussing how the scenes stimulate in other ways or how exposition might work outside of a sex scene.

 

[sunandshadow]

And of course that anticipation is key to the ever-erotic sexual frustration, which can play into anything from wanting what cannot be had, to deliciously delayed gratification.

You know, like that first taste of chocolate Penny's going to enjoy when the betting week is over.

Is it counterintuitive? It's so often a prolonging of what is desired, whether that is commencing a hoped-for relationship/encounter--allowing for a continued indulgence in the fantasy of that anticipated union (which, perhaps more often than not, can be more gratifying than the real thing)--or succumbing to sexual climax. Sure, it can be fabulous, getting off hard and fast by one's own ministrations, or another's, but don't we often put off ultimate gratification, because the physical and mental and emotional build-up are so delicious we don't want them over with too quickly?

But, does there have to be ultimate gratification? Two of the fetish-areas which have always puzzled me are cuckolding and chastity belt stories. My current theory is that these are areas where the frustration is considered desirable in itself and more pure because there is no payoff, or might be an anti-payoff like watching someone else get what you want.

 

[SimonBrooke]

The eye of the beholder

How much concreteness is needed in introducing a character is a completely different matter, though. Characters come to life through what they do and the impact they make on others, so they can function just perfectly without a single word of physical description.

Or, if they are being described, the description may well be saying more about the character who's perceiving them than about the character being described. Descriptions ideally serve other ends besides just informing us how a character looks, so whether they're sparser or less sparse, pretty much anything is fair game, as long as it's suited for the tone of the piece and the narrator.

I think that second point - that how characters are described tells us at least as much about the character of the narrator as about the character described - is a really important one and worthy of holding onto and thinking about.

Indeed, it takes us further and this comes back to the issue of how you describe orgasm. If you're writing a first-person narrative then the description of orgasm, like everything else, must be in the character of the narrator - so if I, for example, were to write a story with a fussy and pedantic narrator, I ought to (and probably would) overdescribe everything, including the orgasm. If I was writing a story about a very inhibited narrator my description of orgasm should be much more allusive and perhaps allegorical.

And there's more to it than that, because even in a third person narrative the narrator is actually a character, whether that's explicit or not. For example I have a pair of fairy stories (The Magus and the Daemon and Fagus and Camelia) in which the narrator is extremely arch and camp.

I've actually been thinking about narrative character lately. I've been editing for someone who is blind, has been blind since early childhood. She writes good, visual stuff - there's quite a lot of colour in her descriptions, for example, and if you didn't know you wouldn't guess from what she writes. And it's made me think about writing a story - an erotic story - from the point of view of a protagonist who is blind; not to actually say in the narrative that the narrator is blind but describe things only by hearing, touch, smell, feel, so that the reader gradually comes to the realisation that the narrator is blind through the piece.