Showing, Telling, and Orgasms

[Verdad]

Eye of the beholder, yes. It's in one sense what allows differing experiences to resonate with us, and in another what ultimately gives shape to everything. Countless writing decisions that seem terribly complicated when we analyze them occur almost unconsciously when one slips in the character's skin or hits that elusive narrative voice that's just so for the story. Finding it and holding on to it is at the same time the easiest and the hardest thing in the world.

As a reader I'm entirely willing to get interested in or turned on by an erotic story that goes against my gender preferences or otherwise fails to push my buttons, as long as I can connect with it through the eyes of a character.

I wish there were more stories that'd do that successfully, too. That'd let readers experience, say, obscure fetishes they don't necessarily share. It's not that difficult for a heterosexual to get in the mind of a homosexual and vice versa, and I don't think it's that difficult for a say, non-practitioner of bondage to understand it as an extension of the power exchange present in tamer sex acts. The further something's removed from the 'typical' human experience, though, the trickier it gets. I have yet to read something that'd truly make me experience the mind of a foot-fetishist, for example.

Your idea about a blind narrator appeals to me on that level.

About the narrator being a character even when invisible, I think you're talking of narrative voice in third person narration, which indeed may have as much presence as to actually become a character of its own. (Though it, arguably, doesn't have to.)

I was a little confused when you called a guy in your excerpt a third person narrator, though. He's a first person narrator, really. He wasn't physically involved in the sex scene, but he was there in flesh, a guy sitting at the table, relating the story in first person; a character indeed, and not an incorporeal narrative voice.

And I was just about to ask you about that after reading your example. The scene alone works like a clock, sparse yet deliciously vivid. However, I couldn't help but wonder about the piece as a whole. How much of a character is he (the observer guy) in the context of the piece? How much of the story is about him?

If the piece is set so that I'd get hooked on him, then I'm not sure if the scene worked. Staying out of the others' heads is fine, but if I were to follow that guy all the time and expect to see how the developments affect him, staying out of his head would have bothered me. I'd have been more interested in what it meant and how it felt to him to watch what he watched than in the action taking place between the other two.

Alternately, if he's not much of a character, the scene worked, but I'm curious about how you solved his presence in the story without it appearing gimmicky. It's a very interesting approach, but it's also kind of a two-edged sword, so I'd really love to hear.


Verdad

 

[dr_mabeuse]

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.

If by "fristration" you mean erotic or romantic frustration and delay of gratitification - about the the inability of the chararcters to actually get in bed together - then I agree, and it's one of the central pillars in the Temple of Porn, or at least romace. It's just that I think of it as erotic tension rather than frustration ("Frustration" has connotations for me of a willingness without a way - trying to have sex in a mini Cooper, say, or the guy going limp at the critical moment; stuck zippers and kids wandering into the bedroom at the wrong time.) But I think all the romance and all the drama, all the interest and most of the heat in an erotic story come from the characters' frustration and erotic tension.

The same is true for any fiction, I suppose. You can't just say, "They met and fell in love and lived heppily ever after." We want to see the problems they overcome and the frustrations they go through. But in porn, where the temptation to get to the juicy parts is so great (especially for a male author, or at least for this male author), the erotic tension is very often underplayed, even though that's what makes a story out of what's basically a fuck scene.

This is something I'm still struggling with because I'm basically a very impatient guy, but I was talking to another member of Lit who puts the problem in terms of "restraint". There has to be something in the story that restrains the lovers from getting together so that the emotions and desires can come to nice rolling boil before you hit the climax. It makes the final release that much more satisfying.

Again, I think there might be a sexual bias here. Generalities are odious, but in my experience, men like to read about the sex, women like to read about the seduction.

--Zoot

 

[SimonBrooke]

Workshop, and the narrator

Eye of the beholder, yes. It's in one sense what allows differing experiences to resonate with us, and in another what ultimately gives shape to everything. Countless writing decisions that seem terribly complicated when we analyze them occur almost unconsciously when one slips in the character's skin or hits that elusive narrative voice that's just so for the story. Finding it and holding on to it is at the same time the easiest and the hardest thing in the world.

As a reader I'm entirely willing to get interested in or turned on by an erotic story that goes against my gender preferences or otherwise fails to push my buttons, as long as I can connect with it through the eyes of a character.

I wish there were more stories that'd do that successfully, too. That'd let readers experience, say, obscure fetishes they don't necessarily share. It's not that difficult for a heterosexual to get in the mind of a homosexual and vice versa, and I don't think it's that difficult for a say, non-practitioner of bondage to understand it as an extension of the power exchange present in tamer sex acts. The further something's removed from the 'typical' human experience, though, the trickier it gets. I have yet to read something that'd truly make me experience the mind of a foot-fetishist, for example.

OK, confession. I am entirely persuaded at an intellectual level that fundamentally we're all bi, and that there's no particular reason why the people we respond to erotically should all be the same gender. And I even know a lot of men where I can clearly see what the erotic charge about them is. But I am sufficiently blocked or conditioned that the idea of male homosexual sex for me is very squirmy indeed, and I don't find it easy to respond to male homosexual stories.

Yup, I know, that's shocking and embarrassing. But it's true. I'm a fairly touchy feely person and I don't have a problem with hugging men, but sex? No. We're all weird, I know, but that's one of my personal weirdnesses.

Maybe that's a reason I should try to write one.

About the narrator being a character even when invisible, I think you're talking of narrative voice in third person narration, which indeed may have as much presence as to actually become a character of its own. (Though it, arguably, doesn't have to.)

I was a little confused when you called a guy in your excerpt a third person narrator, though. He's a first person narrator, really. He wasn't physically involved in the sex scene, but he was there in flesh, a guy sitting at the table, relating the story in first person; a character indeed, and not an incorporeal narrative voice.

You are of course completely right and I humbly accept your correction. He's a first person narrator; he just isn't a protagonist.

And I was just about to ask you about that after reading your example. The scene alone works like a clock, sparse yet deliciously vivid. However, I couldn't help but wonder about the piece as a whole. How much of a character is he (the observer guy) in the context of the piece? How much of the story is about him?

Not nearly as much as he would like! One of the things I was trying to do with Workshop was to write an unsympathetic narrator: a narrator through whom you would experience the story, but whom you would personally dislike and despise. I wanted to see if I could make the narrator unsympathetic without losing the reader's interest in the story.

If the piece is set so that I'd get hooked on him, then I'm not sure if the scene worked. Staying out of the others' heads is fine, but if I were to follow that guy all the time and expect to see how the developments affect him, staying out of his head would have bothered me. I'd have been more interested in what it meant and how it felt to him to watch what he watched than in the action taking place between the other two.

Alternately, if he's not much of a character, the scene worked, but I'm curious about how you solved his presence in the story without it appearing gimmicky. It's a very interesting approach, but it's also kind of a two-edged sword, so I'd really love to hear.

Read it. It's eleven thousand words, so it's a long short story, but it isn't (I hope) that much of a chore to read.

 

[SimonBrooke]

Off-topic: Mini jokes

trying to have sex in a mini Cooper, say

Do Mini jokes translate? When I was a kid I used to be able to relate Mini jokes by the yard, and there was always a good crossover between Mini jokes and elephant jokes, of which I also knew scores.

But one of the best of these hybrid Mini/elephant jokes was this one:

Q: What's the only thing in the world more difficult than getting a pregnant elephant out of a Mini?

A: Getting an elephant pregnant in a Mini.

I've no experience of the new BMW built Minis, but speaking as someone well over six foot tall there wasn't anything wrong with the old Issigonis Minis that a little bit of imagination and flexibility wouldn't solve...

 

[Verdad]

Read it.

Ah! You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Brooke. Will do though, and I'll let you know.

I was talking to another member of Lit who puts the problem in terms of "restraint". There has to be something in the story that restrains the lovers from getting together so that the emotions and desires can come to nice rolling boil before you hit the climax. It makes the final release that much more satisfying.

I called that "obstacle". Developed a whole theory about them, too, with ramifications of using internal vs. external obstacles. Sometimes I really know how to spend my time productively…

On a somewhat related matter, I'll bet no one tried it in a Fiat 500.

Verdad

 

[SimonBrooke]

On a somewhat related matter, I'll bet no one tried it in a Fiat 500.
Verdad

I'm prepared to bet there are several thousand Italian bambini to prove you wrong!

 

[sunandshadow]

I called that "obstacle". Developed a whole theory about them, too, with ramifications of using internal vs. external obstacles. Sometimes I really know how to spend my time productively…

I'd really like to know what the different ramifications of using internal and external obstacles is. And have you ever considered publishing an essay of literary theory? Then it wouldn't be a waste of time. I have about half of a book of literary theory written myself.

 

[Verdad]

Simon—I loved your story more than I can say! Thoroughly enjoyed it on every level.

I suspect since we're all writers and critics of some kind here, many would find this particular writer's workshop with its cleverly sketched out characters and their oh-so-familiar preoccupations as deliciously amusing as I did.

Speaking of character introductions and descriptions, Varian said:

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.

Agreed, and I couldn't help but remember it because Simon's story provides a textbook example.

The story didn't suffer from any of the problems I feared it might, either, and in fact, it didn't suffer from any problems at all. A perfectly rounded and delivered piece from first to last word; hot, too.

Simon, your worry about the narrator being unsympathetic? Not at all, and that makes me think of an interesting distinction. As a character, sure, he's a bit of a prick, but not as a narrator. The difference, I believe, lies in how a character interacts with us as opposed to how he interacts with other characters. A narrator may well be a horrendous person, but we'll gladly listen to him as long as his voice holds our attention. Your guy's does, unwaveringly.

Sun—I'll see if I can find what I'd scribbled and whether it still appears to make sense. I think maybe I was soaring on the wings of mental masturbation at the time.

Now really to some work.

Verdad

 

[Penelope Street]

Hi Varian,

Great idea bolding the orgasms! Even though it's not my kind of story, I still liked Devan's scene. These lines really stood out for me:


A little tremor ran through her and she heard her own breath catch.

“Your cunt is blushing. A delicious, deep raspberry.”

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


Only a few places did I find it a little off, like here:
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.

The one about Eva and Jake didn't grab me. The lack of dialogue may have something to do with it- or maybe it was those jumbo paragraphs. Or maybe it's just been a long day already. *sigh*

Thanks bunches for joining us- it's great to see you again!

Penny

 

[CharleyH]

If by "fristration" you mean erotic or romantic frustration and delay of gratitification - about the the inability of the chararcters to actually get in bed together - then I agree, and it's one of the central pillars in the Temple of Porn, or at least romace. It's just that I think of it as erotic tension rather than frustration ("Frustration" has connotations for me of a willingness without a way - trying to have sex in a mini Cooper, say, or the guy going limp at the critical moment; stuck zippers and kids wandering into the bedroom at the wrong time.) But I think all the romance and all the drama, all the interest and most of the heat in an erotic story come from the characters' frustration and erotic tension.

The same is true for any fiction, I suppose. You can't just say, "They met and fell in love and lived heppily ever after." We want to see the problems they overcome and the frustrations they go through. But in porn, where the temptation to get to the juicy parts is so great (especially for a male author, or at least for this male author), the erotic tension is very often underplayed, even though that's what makes a story out of what's basically a fuck scene.

This is something I'm still struggling with because I'm basically a very impatient guy, but I was talking to another member of Lit who puts the problem in terms of "restraint". There has to be something in the story that restrains the lovers from getting together so that the emotions and desires can come to nice rolling boil before you hit the climax. It makes the final release that much more satisfying.

Again, I think there might be a sexual bias here. Generalities are odious, but in my experience, men like to read about the sex, women like to read about the seduction.

--Zoot

Interesting conversation on the whole, and an especially intriguing response, Zoot. As a girl, I am excepionally impatient in RL sex, and also in reading or writing stories. I know why I am impatient in the former, yet I am impatient when reading erotic or porn stories for a different reason. Why? Why am I impatient reading? I disagree that women like the seduction. I believe women love and get off on the 'experience' and therefore the show - don't tell me about it - is utmost. I could care less about the background crap, but I do want to know about the five senses in a sex scene.

 

[sunandshadow]

I like both the seduction and the sex myself. In particular I love the stories where the two characters start sleeping together when they barely know each other (like, one is taken captive by the other or given to the other as a present) and then they gradually fall in love over the course of several sex scenes interspersed with other stuff. (And I'm female if I didn't say so before.)

 

[Penelope Street]

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.

Good. I thought you must mean something other than what I kept reading. While an author may not be able to avoid giving a character any personality, I wonder if gratuitous stories work best with just enough characterization to give the reader someone with whom to identify.

I am entirely persuaded at an intellectual level that fundamentally we're all bi, and that there's no particular reason why the people we respond to erotically should all be the same gender. And I even know a lot of men where I can clearly see what the erotic charge about them is. But I am sufficiently blocked or conditioned that the idea of male homosexual sex for me is very squirmy indeed, and I don't find it easy to respond to male homosexual stories.

I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually learned that the ability to feel romantic love is much like the ability to speak- you know how when we're babies we make all the sounds necessary to speak any language, but then we lose the ability to make the sounds we don't use?

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.

I don't know how it relates to frustration, but my chocolate cravings were far worse the first day than any since- so maybe I was addicted. Or maybe it's not bothering me because I think I'm allowed to have some anyway since he already caved and I won won won!!! I do admire his honesty though, he could so easily have fibbed. Regardless, I'm not looking forward to having my little treats nearly so much as I expected I would.

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.

So is the frustration fancy itself something of a fetish? I can see frustration being a plot element like any other, but I'm still having a hard time understanding how a character could enjoy being frustrated.

You can't just say, "They met and fell in love and lived happily ever after." We want to see the problems they overcome and the frustrations they go through. But in porn, where the temptation to get to the juicy parts is so great (especially for a male author, or at least for this male author), the erotic tension is very often underplayed, even though that's what makes a story out of what's basically a fuck scene.

This is something I'm still struggling with because I'm basically a very impatient guy, but I was talking to another member of Lit who puts the problem in terms of "restraint". There has to be something in the story that restrains the lovers from getting together so that the emotions and desires can come to nice rolling boil before you hit the climax. It makes the final release that much more satisfying.

Again, I think there might be a sexual bias here. Generalities are odious, but in my experience, men like to read about the sex, women like to read about the seduction.

In a generally odious way, I agree- that's why stories end with 'and they lived happily ever after', right? I'm not sure if seduction is the exact word I would have used, but I do enjoy watching the couple overcome the restraints. fwiw, I can't recall a story of yours that felt rushed.

Interesting conversation on the whole, and an especially intriguing response, Zoot. As a girl, I am excepionally impatient in RL sex, and also in reading or writing stories. I know why I am impatient in the former, yet I am impatient when reading erotic or porn stories for a different reason. Why? Why am I impatient reading? I disagree that women like the seduction. I believe women love and get off on the 'experience' and therefore the show - don't tell me about it - is utmost. I could care less about the background crap, but I do want to know about the five senses in a sex scene.

Thanks for taking the time to join us during your trip! I agree about the five senses- that's what the concrete sensory business is all about, right? Whether or not I like seduction depends on the seduction in question. I've been charmed by some and repulsed by others. That goes for fiction and RL. I am curious what an example might be of background crap you could care less about.

Speaking of trips and patience? Who's impatient during a road trip? Who wants to take the freeway and who prefers to meander and get there whenever they get there? We so love to take the backroads and stop whenever and wherever we want and if it takes us twice as long to get there, so what- we had fun.

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.

This is the style I usually prefer to read and try to write- start with a scene and let the reader catch up. Maybe it's because of my innate curiousity, but I love a story that teases me. I agree that it's not inherently superior, just what I like.

I like both the seduction and the sex myself. In particular I love the stories where the two characters start sleeping together when they barely know each other (like, one is taken captive by the other or given to the other as a present) and then they gradually fall in love over the course of several sex scenes interspersed with other stuff.

Cool! Maybe the story I should be working on has a chance.

Your idea about a blind narrator appeals to me on that level.

I do have a posted story that features a deaf narrator and I remember reading and rereading the story, trying to make sure she could see everyone who spoke to her.

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.

Like everyone else (right?), I agree with what has been said about descriptions revealing the describer. This is something I have a difficult time with, finding a distinct voice for each narrator. I prefer brief character descriptions too, or none at all, instead of what some have called the 'wanted poster/coroner's report' approach.


So should we all share our favorite character descriptions next?

 

[SimonBrooke]

Five senses and sex

Edited: Ach, damn, sorry, should read what I've posted to a dicussion, before posting again - I realise I've posted this before. Never mind, ignore me, I'll go to sleep in the corner again.

I could care less about the background crap, but I do want to know about the five senses in a sex scene.

Well, as discussed before in this thread, my sex scenes tend to be fairly minimalist and my stories relatively character-driven rather than action-driven. But I've been doing some editing recently for someone who is blind (she hasn't announced publicly that she's blind, and you really would not know from her stories; so I'm not going to say who it is).

I've also been reading a lot of Varian P's Changed Girl series, and she writes sex scenes like an angel - I am so jealous of her skill; they are so rich and sensuous and unformulaic. With her work I really do touch, taste, smell, hear, feel.

But it's made me think: could I write a sensuous sex scene - a richly described one - from the point of view of first person protagonist narrator who is blind, and tell it without explicitly saying the protagonist was blind. Instead, describe the scene entirely without descriptions of what things look like, describe it entirely in terms of touch, taste, smell, hearing, so that the intelligent reader picks up the blindness. I don't know whether I could - but it would be an interesting challenge.

 

[CharleyH]

But it's made me think: could I write a sensuous sex scene - a richly described one - from the point of view of first person protagonist narrator who is blind, and tell it without explicitly saying the protagonist was blind. Instead, describe the scene entirely without descriptions of what things look like, describe it entirely in terms of touch, taste, smell, hearing, so that the intelligent reader picks up the blindness. I don't know whether I could - but it would be an interesting challenge.

I bet you could.

Writing a rich, sensual sex scene is much like writing poetry in my opinion and poets (more than authors, though not as a rule) have a better understanding of the nuances of symbology, the accents of words and the rhythm of phrases. The emphasis of poetry (not always mind you) is to show the story with a brevity of words and yet to allow them to pour off the tongue as if they might be part of the readers (and symbiotically in a way, the writers) own soul, and when you feel something from the soul, then you are touching, tasting, sensing et al. One need not be blind to write in this way, one need only close their eyes to open them. As I have said for years and I'm sure I stole it from Euripedes, people look, but they do not see and perhaps in reading I mean that they do not experience, which is what showing is all about, really.

I suppose a difference is that authors are more absorbed by the story they are telling and the poet is more immersed in the way in which that story is told. I think there is a huge difference between the two. Anyone care to discuss it?

I was talking to Lauren the other night and we were discussing various authors and Lit came up and we both agreed one of the biggest mistakes that Lit authors commonly make is that they attempt to write a novel when they're writing a short story. What I mean by this is that writing a novel is exceedingly different than writing a short story, and it's certainly the reason I made the comment about not wanting background. Perhaps his is also another discussion.

Anyhow... If you want to write it, SB, then by all means you should as a personal experiement, yet making your character blind might be a cop-out in this case, no? The trick will be attempting the same write from the POV of one who can see.

As an aside to Penny: Hi babe! I am here for 6 months, so trip? There's loads of lingering to be done... lol. And if I did not say it before? Congrats on your new found Lit-powwa.

 

[Penelope Street]

I was talking to Lauren the other night and we were discussing various authors and Lit came up and we both agreed one of the biggest mistakes that Lit authors commonly make is that they attempt to write a novel when they're writing a short story. What I mean by this is that writing a novel is exceedingly different than writing a short story, and it's certainly the reason I made the comment about not wanting background. Perhaps this is also another discussion.

If it's a common problem then I think we should discuss it- in January.