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DaddyAnal1966
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Oh in that case, I was dismissive of your art I can only apologise unreservedly.
Oh in that case, I was dismissive of your art I can only apologise unreservedly.
KeithD
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I work at avoiding thesaurus exchanges for sex act descriptions more than I do word repetitions. The circumstances and positions are where I usually try to employ variety. And I have some turn-on words (for me) that I use without worrying about repetition at all (like "mounted" and "thrust"). When I get to a sex scene, I put myself in the position of one of the characters and just let it rip--no worrying much about repetition of anything.
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DaddyAnal1966
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I guess that’s my general approach. But then when reviewing I find some repetition jarring. I also do intentionally use repetition sometimes, e.g. to suggest the sex lasted a long time.
SteelPoint
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The elephant in the room here is the broad assumption that the sex has, "of course", to be the be all and end all of erotic writing... which tendency sums up the majority of Literotica membership fairly neatly.
I suspect nevertheless there may be others here who, like me, find that almost all the fun of writing lies in the build-up, the scene setting and pretty well the whole effort of imagining something just a bit different.
I suspect nevertheless there may be others here who, like me, find that almost all the fun of writing lies in the build-up, the scene setting and pretty well the whole effort of imagining something just a bit different.
Kumquatqueen
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I try to think about what makes that sex scene different from the ones characters have had before. Then write those bits. If there's already a sex scene in a chapter or story, other sex doesn't have to be written as a big deal.
So I've got a character who makes lunch, "it's my default, good, easy and filling." then has a quickie but all that is said is, "Dan's cock is good, easy and filling, too. Afterwards, I..."
I've read various novels on Lit where the characters have 200 words of sex every night, and it's got tedious. Give them a page for their first fuck, then a couple more shorter times, then just mention in passing how the sex is while plot happens, then describe a particular session when something has changed.
Or focus on a different sense for each sex scene - how the partner sounds, what their touches are like, etc.
So I've got a character who makes lunch, "it's my default, good, easy and filling." then has a quickie but all that is said is, "Dan's cock is good, easy and filling, too. Afterwards, I..."
I've read various novels on Lit where the characters have 200 words of sex every night, and it's got tedious. Give them a page for their first fuck, then a couple more shorter times, then just mention in passing how the sex is while plot happens, then describe a particular session when something has changed.
Or focus on a different sense for each sex scene - how the partner sounds, what their touches are like, etc.
TheRedChamber
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It reminds me more of Julian Clary.
(For younger/non-British Litters, Clary was one of the first openly gay stand up comedians in the 1980s. He'd come onto the stage dressed in a combination of bondage gear and feathers boas to raptuous applause and then start the show with the line "I love a warm hand at my entrance.")
JuanaSalsa
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TBH I have no idea about who Benny Hill or Julian Clary are.
I also never watched Beavis and Butthead.
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It doesn't really matter if you just call an asshole an asshole though, just put other words describing other things in between and it's not "repetitive."
And, really, if you are very fond of assholes, sometimes it's a neat tool to repeat that word a lot just to really emphasize that you like assholes so much.
"I held myself above her, ready to fuck, cock as hard as it was going to get. Her cunt was wet and welcoming, but I couldn't stop thinking of her asshole. It was right there, and I just knew it was tight and warm and would feel so damn good. I wanted that. I looked up at her, considering. Yes, I thought, she'd like it. I knew it. With that certainty in mind, I thrust forward, lining up to her asshole and pushing inside. Slowly, I overcame the initial resistance, determined to make it all the way in. Below me, she gasped and I caught a quick flash of anger in her face before she relaxed. Her breaths came quicker as her asshole clenched around my cock. Yes, this was what I needed. And, it was what she needed too."
Basically the same actions as my previous post, but this time with assholes instead of any euphemisms. I wouldn't call this repetitive. And if you want, you can put a lot more words in between the asshole actions. Like, where are they fucking? On a bed, on the floor, in a bathroom stall? This probably affects the ease of asshole access. Does she try to push him away with her hands, or are they held firm in his? Does she rock her hips against him? Does she slam her thighs closed and knee him? Has he spread her thighs with his to prevent that?
And, add to all that, all the context of why they are here, fucking, without apparently having discussed anal and yet ready to push the boundary. Is he a giant asshole for breaching that without explicit consent, or has she given it before, in some way? Why the anger, why the pleasure? What, exactly is going on behind this scene. I want to know, and so I'd give all that context around, after, or before this sex.
Even if assholes are the focus, and you don't want to use any other word for it, there's just so much else to say to avoid it sounding repetitive.
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DaddyAnal1966
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DaddyAnal1966
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Thanks - that makes more sense to me
TheRedChamber
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Perhaps when writing sex, it's worth going back to the basics of composition - Any paragraph should have a topic and a central idea.
When a child writes, they tend only to have a topic (e.g. my cat) and so what you get is something like:
You get a stream of facts about the cat - none of them very surprising and none of them particulary different from any other cat in the world. The paragraphs only start to get better once they have the idea that the paragraph needs to have a point as well as a topic. Then you get things like.
The same principle should apply with sex. You should have a topic and a central idea. If you end up writing something like.
We switched to the cow-girl position ... and now she was in control.
We switched to the cow-girl position ... and her magnificant breasts were right above me. (Not going to work if you've already spent a thousand words earlier in the story describing her upper anatomy)
We switched to the cow-girl position ... and suddenly I was struggling not to come.
This is all basic Writing 101 stuff, but it's easy to forget when you're getting carried away writing the nookie. If you're having difficulty coming up with more than one or two central ideas (or if your topics/ideas are 1. She undressed=I got hard 2. We did foreplay=she got wet 3. I put it in=it felt good. 4. We started to move faster=I (or hopefully we) were nearing orgasm etc) then its probably a sign that this sex scene doesn't need to be that long or else you're missing some unique elements that are going to make this scene hot and different.
How does this avoid repetition? Well maybe it doesn't technically, but if the topic of the sentence is clearly focused on her breasts then the reader is not going to mind if the word 'breasts' comes up a few times (and as the main noun in the paragraph you can probably refer to them as 'they' a few times). But also we know where the cock goes during cow-girl, so you can give that word a rest for a paragraph or two and how hard she's being fucked can be imparted to the reader by the motion of her breasts instead to keep, as an English professor would say, the 'unity' of the paragraph in tact.
I tried this in a recent loss of virginity story with each paragraph being a case of 'yes the obvious stuff, but this the stuff you don't realize before you've done it for the first time.' theme and also (as they were doing it in a cave) the idea of sex as a primitive (but not savage) activity.
When a child writes, they tend only to have a topic (e.g. my cat) and so what you get is something like:
You get a stream of facts about the cat - none of them very surprising and none of them particulary different from any other cat in the world. The paragraphs only start to get better once they have the idea that the paragraph needs to have a point as well as a topic. Then you get things like.
Not necessarily the best prose in the world, but you get the idea and this cat is ready to be a character in a story.
The same principle should apply with sex. You should have a topic and a central idea. If you end up writing something like.
Then, that might be fun for the reader for a while as you're mentioning all the naughty bits and activities which we like, but it's going to get repetative and old pretty fast. Your writing will get better if there's an idea behind each action.
We switched to the cow-girl position ... and now she was in control.
We switched to the cow-girl position ... and her magnificant breasts were right above me. (Not going to work if you've already spent a thousand words earlier in the story describing her upper anatomy)
We switched to the cow-girl position ... and suddenly I was struggling not to come.
This is all basic Writing 101 stuff, but it's easy to forget when you're getting carried away writing the nookie. If you're having difficulty coming up with more than one or two central ideas (or if your topics/ideas are 1. She undressed=I got hard 2. We did foreplay=she got wet 3. I put it in=it felt good. 4. We started to move faster=I (or hopefully we) were nearing orgasm etc) then its probably a sign that this sex scene doesn't need to be that long or else you're missing some unique elements that are going to make this scene hot and different.
How does this avoid repetition? Well maybe it doesn't technically, but if the topic of the sentence is clearly focused on her breasts then the reader is not going to mind if the word 'breasts' comes up a few times (and as the main noun in the paragraph you can probably refer to them as 'they' a few times). But also we know where the cock goes during cow-girl, so you can give that word a rest for a paragraph or two and how hard she's being fucked can be imparted to the reader by the motion of her breasts instead to keep, as an English professor would say, the 'unity' of the paragraph in tact.
I tried this in a recent loss of virginity story with each paragraph being a case of 'yes the obvious stuff, but this the stuff you don't realize before you've done it for the first time.' theme and also (as they were doing it in a cave) the idea of sex as a primitive (but not savage) activity.
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I have... unusual thesauri. They're kept in the sub-basement, where escaping words won't alarm the neighbours.
SimonDoom
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Whenever you decide to publish your thesaurus, I want a first edition!
Bubo_bubo
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And now that sounds like a euphemism for some sexual act in my mind.
SimonDoom
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One of the best pieces of advice, IMO, one can give to anyone asking questions like, "When I write, how should I do X?" is: Read other writers. See how others do it. Pay attention. You can talk in the abstract about how to write all you want, but you learn more if you read a lot and you are an attentive reader. Find authors you like, and then do everything you can to figure out why you like them and why what they do works for you. You don't have to emulate them. But learn from them. I've been an avid reader since I was a young child, and I read everything. I read countless online stories for 15 years before I wrote and published a single one. By the time I wrote my first erotic story I had many ideas about how I wanted to write it. I feel like those ideas have for the most part stood me in good stead.
Writing about sex can be repetitive, but somehow, some authors manage. Pick the authors you think manage it well and figure out what they are doing that you like. That's your answer.
Writing about sex can be repetitive, but somehow, some authors manage. Pick the authors you think manage it well and figure out what they are doing that you like. That's your answer.
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DaddyAnal1966
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SimonDoom
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No. I think you have to figure out which authors YOU like. As I said, I spent 15 years reading Literotica stories before I published my first one, so I had a very good idea what I did and did not like. You don't have to spend 15 years, but do some of your own research to get a feel for what you like and don't like.
I will give you one recent example of how an author handled this issue, with great success. BuckyDuckman's brother-sister incest story, Cum For Austin, is a 6-page (20,000 word) story with lots of sex between a brother and sister. It was published less than a year and a half ago and it already has over 1 million views AND is one of the highest-rated incest stories in the history of Literotica. Those are mind-boggling numbers, especially combined in one story. He doesn't do anything fancy in terms of describing the sex acts (of which there are many, throughout the story). The striking thing about the story is all the dialogue. The dialogue between the brother and sister is the distinctive thing about the story. It takes your attention to some degree off the mechanics of the sex. The author understands that the relationship between the brother and sister is the really sexy thing, and the sex itself is, while important, secondary. That story has over 400 comments. So, I would say, based on the success of this story as an example, an answer to the question (not the only one) is less to worry about word choice than to refocus attention from the mechanics of the sex to the relationship between the participants.
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DaddyAnal1966
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I’ll check it out - thanks
KeithD
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Right (sort of). What is required in erotica is sexual arousal (otherwise it isn't being erotic). That doesn't have to end in penetrative sex act(s). HOWEVER, sexual arousal IS, in and of itself, sexual activity. So . . .
KeithD
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"Off" words in the context can be just as jarring. The specific context determines what is natural to use there. Word salad taken straight from a thesaurus can be just as jarring as using "cunt" or "cock" two or three times while describing the act. I usually go for the straightforward and familiar. But then at the time I'm writing sex scene, I'm writing for myself not for the universal Literotica reader some folks think exists.
KeithD
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Well, no, not in fiction, and certainly not in electronic format for fiction where white space has to be built in to keep it readable. This guidance is for nonfiction and high school essays.
Bubo_bubo
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I tend to use the kind of language that I think that the viewpoint character would use, at least in their thoughts.
storyteller19
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I feel this issue sometimes. What helps me is thinking about the tone of the sex scene, the main focus, and how the characters feel in the moment. Also, using a different setting helps. If it is a character's first time they are going to be excited and nervous, little mistakes can happen which for a moment will heighten those feelings, but then when it doesn't ruin the sex, they laugh about it together, or their lover is sweet and teaches or corrects them now the sex scene evolves from one tone to another. There can be a huge difference between a quick blowjob scene in a car when a boyfriend drops his girlfriend off back home, or when they have the whole house to themselves and can really take the time to explore each other. If I know I'm not in the mood to write a sex scene that day I will at least do a couple of sentences of what I want to happen, along with any notes related to what I mentioned above. That way, when I'm on my second draft I know what I want them to do and why. Sometimes the characters listen, and sometimes the sex scene goes in a different and usually better direction. I also like to have characters discover things about themselves and each other, and then use that later. Maybe they learn they want to be submissive when their partner tells them what they want them to do, or notice how cute their partner's feet are and wonder how they would feel stroking their shaft. This is a way to drop a hint at what future sex scenes will have, while also letting the characters evolve.
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DaddyAnal1966
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So I read that piece. There were some good elements, but I didn’t find it that satisfying. Everyone is different, right? I also found story elements to be repetitive. I realise it was building to a crescendo, but I found myself thinking “for fuck’s sake fuck”. The build up was too long - like badly executed edging that just leaves you sore and unfulfilled.
My personal preference is small crescendo, mid-sized crescendo and then full on crescendo. You fit in more action and the linear increase of sexuality of the Cum for Austin text felt a bit much.
It felt like a four and no more. My own view of course and who am I to doubt the millions who think otherwise.
Crowdsourcing is weird. On another site (not porn *cough* erotica-related) I have one piece that has over 1.5 million views - my next three best are all just over 500,000 views. But none of the pieces that went locally viral had - IMO - much to recommend them above other of my work. Indeed I have pieces I am much more satisfied with that have 10,000 views. I have come to the conclusion that people are weird and large groups of people even more weird.
GrushaVashnadze
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Many excellent pieces of advice above. However, I would just add that there are times when repetition, particularly in dirty talk, is just what is needed. Either when one wants to be really filthy, e.g.:
Cat shrieked with laughter, taking Alison's cue and joining in the fuck-talk so Alison could go back to sucking Bruce off. "Yeah, Doctor boss Taylor, stick your fucking finger in that 'grey area'. Go on, probe her pretty little student shitter with your finger, Doc. I bet you could even fit two in there, or three!" The doctor didn't need much encouragement, sliding first his middle finger, then his index finger, then both into Alison's squelchy asshole, then a third finger, and then frigging all three them in and out of her gape, whilst still fucking her cunt with his rock-hard dick. A symphony of obscene noises filled the air: the squelch of cock fucking cunt, the dirty little wet poopy farts of fingers in asshole, the slurp of Alison's mouth up and down Bruce's cock, the wild slobbering of Bruce's tongue in the nurse's cunt, and of course Cat's fuck-talk, which had reached new heights of depravity and expertise: "You like eating my hot juicy fuck-hole, Bruce? You like feeling your cock deep in that college girl's mouth? And which is better, Doc -- fucking that hot juicy cunt with your cock, or ramming your fingers into her dirty stinking shithole?" Cat clearly knew which aural buttons to press with her boss. "'Coz you like asshole, don't you, Doc? You'd love to ream out that filthy shit-cunt with that rod of yours, wouldn't you? Go on, Doc, take that cock out of her cunt and shove it deep in her poop-chute. Let me hear the filthy squelch of your cock back-shitting her rectum. Go on, Doc, I won't tell anyone! (Alison Goes to London Ch. 03)
or ironic, e.g.:
The Queen shifts her bottom backwards, till her soft cheeks are pressed up against the warm surface of the Mirror, and she feels her anus winking cheekily against the glass. "O fuck, O yea, O behold, O fuck ye fuck ye," groans the Mirror in pleasurable ecstasy. The Queen feels something soft, wet and flexible caressing her brown hole, hears the Mirror slurping and slobbering as it casts all decorum to one side and moans in anilingual ecstasy: "O shit, O fuck, O scrummy cunting arsehole, O yea, O let me eat thy fucking arse, O Queen, let me plunge my Tricksome Tongue deep in that filthy fucking shithole."
"My Motherfucking Minion, my Butteating Bondsman," replies the Queen, "stick thy finger in there, do! Pinky-penetrate my Paramount Pungent Posterior!"
"FUCK YEAAAA!" yells the Mirror in lustful desperation. "Feel me finger-fuck that Filthy Fundament, Majesty! Not just one, not two, but three invisible Fucking Fingers in that Regal Rectum, that thy August Anus may gape O-glorious for my pleasure!" (The Princess and the Cuntsman, or, Snow White and the Seven Dildos)
or both, e.g.:
Well, cumwhore, if you want to learn to be a proper writer like me, you'd better gain a bit more versatility with your vocabulary, hadn't you?
I mean, what kind of writer-slut are you if you can't be an analogy-whore? So, on your knees, bitch. Wipe some of that fuck-word-goo on the entrance to your puckered outbox, and you might just be able to squeeze a word in edgewise. If not, I might just have to come over and ram my whole stiff fucking message in there and make you scream words you didn't even know you knew. (Fuck Talk)
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DaddyAnal1966
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I agree that intentional repetition can be very effective. It’s the unintentional and monotonous that bothers me (in my own writing and in others’).
