Breaking from your usual style

[blozo]

It almost worked.

I think you shot for; satire (the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.)...but hit; farce (a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.)

Fair enough. I started with the basic premise, as one of the commenters said, a listless stoner unemployed gamer.
Only once I got halfway into it, I realized that being as I was born in the '50s, I don't really know enough about such people to write 3 pages. So I wrote till I ran out of material, thought it was funny enough, and published.
Tragically, I failed to account for the possibility that an unknown and possibly large percentage of people interested in mother/son incest are listless stoner unemployed gamers living in mom's basement.
But no regrets, I wasn't getting paid anyway and the few comments left for it have all been written by people who got the joke.
And the feedback from all of you will help me become a better writer.
Thanks all!

 

[gunhilltrain]

Fair enough. I started with the basic premise, as one of the commenters said, a listless stoner unemployed gamer.
Only once I got halfway into it, I realized that being as I was born in the '50s, I don't really know enough about such people to write 3 pages. So I wrote till I ran out of material, thought it was funny enough, and published.
Tragically, I failed to account for the possibility that an unknown and possibly large percentage of people interested in mother/son incest are listless stoner unemployed gamers living in mom's basement.
But no regrets, I wasn't getting paid anyway and the few comments left for it have all been written by people who got the joke.
And the feedback from all of you will help me become a better writer.
Thanks all!

Now that I've read the story: perhaps it would have been worth putting a bit more detail into it. It would have been longer than of course, but it would have been interesting to write and then your enthusiasm would have caught on with the readers - or so one hopes.

1. I was born back then too, 1955. So you have the issue of writing about a different generation.

The guy who lives in his parent's basement is sort of a "type" or trope. It does reflect a reality out there but it becomes one of those handy ideas about youth that gets into magazine articles and blogs. Previously we've had the greaser, hippie, jock, yuppie, etc.

2. So what's important? Like a lot of stories here it's set in some generic United States. Where is this house? In a small city, the suburb of a big city, a smaller town? Is it in Maine, Indiana or California? What do these people see when they go out the door? Is the house old or new, a 1920s "colonial" or a 1970s raised ranch?

3. What kind of jobs did this guy do and why was he fired? What do his stepfather, father and maybe his mother work as, either at present or in the past?

You don't have to do all of that, but you have a choice of the details that seem important. How would Philip Roth (or maybe John O'Hara if he had been younger) written a story about a guy getting blown by his mother? What would a R. Crumb cartoon of that look like? (Hint: it would have been in Philadelphia.)

 

[Hypoxia]

Now that I've read the story: perhaps it would have been worth putting a bit more detail into it.

Detail is irrelevant here. Gilding the lily, something like that. The abstracted setting is enough.

How would Philip Roth (or maybe John O'Hara if he had been younger) written a story about a guy getting blown by his mother?

Sarcastically.

What would a R. Crumb cartoon of that look like? (Hint: it would have been in Philadelphia.)

I don't recall a Crumb bit about mother-sucking (but I pretty much quit reading new Crumb around 1979). I do recall old Mr Fred Natural being blown by an infant, which wouldn't fly on LIT.

 

[yukonnights]

Fair enough. I started with the basic premise, as one of the commenters said, a listless stoner unemployed gamer.
Only once I got halfway into it, I realized that being as I was born in the '50s, I don't really know enough about such people to write 3 pages. So I wrote till I ran out of material, thought it was funny enough, and published.
Tragically, I failed to account for the possibility that an unknown and possibly large percentage of people interested in mother/son incest are listless stoner unemployed gamers living in mom's basement.
But no regrets, I wasn't getting paid anyway and the few comments left for it have all been written by people who got the joke.
And the feedback from all of you will help me become a better writer.
Thanks all!

Just to be clear; please don't take my comments as being derogatory. I actually thought you did well with the portrayal of the "couch surfer". I'm certainly no literary authority either. It's just that, after I read it and sat trying to figure out what went wrong it seemed to me that a little firmer tie to reality + a few more details about Mom would have turned it into a jewel. (and to say it hit 'farce' instead of 'satire' was just to put a name on it. Farce wasn't meant in a derogatory way, that's why I copied/pasted the dictionary descriptions, etc)

If you were up for it, I'd suggest a rather interesting project would be to re-write it. Personally I like the idea of making Mom a much more interesting and involved player. Wonder what her unmet needs are that would drive her to her knees in front of Junior? Poor Junior has no idea it's Mom who has been planting all sorts of seeds in is mind about no-no's, etc. Who knows, maybe Step-Dad kicks them both out of the house and the two live happily ever after? (note: These are basic human needs issues, so more understanding of generational attributes wouldn't be needed...I think you nailed that 'personality type' just fine.)

All that said; I find myself not really liking to get out of "my usual style". While I know I should do so in the quest for acquiring new skills...I find myself quiet apathetic to turning writing into more than a casual hobby. To 'force myself' too much takes the fun out it for me.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Detail is irrelevant here. Gilding the lily, something like that. The abstracted setting is enough.

I feel a challenge coming on. I'm considering a version of this premise so I can see what I can do it with it.

A big difference: it will be a step-mother. I can't do biological relatives in bed.

The protagonist will be younger I think, college age. The setting may be suburban New Jersey in the early 1970s - perhaps West Orange. It might be submitted this summer (estimate of course).

Blozo, may I send you a note if and when I complete it? You have given me an inspiration; I'm not trying to copy or rework your original.

 

[NotWise]

The protagonist will be younger I think, college age. The setting may be suburban New Jersey in the early 1970s - perhaps West Orange. It might be submitted this summer (estimate of course).

Wasn't your challenge to abstract the setting? West Orange is not an abstract site. I think my second room mate in college (1972) was from West Orange.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I don't recall a Crumb bit about mother-sucking (but I pretty much quit reading new Crumb around 1979). I do recall old Mr Fred Natural being blown by an infant, which wouldn't fly on LIT.

I can't find it online, but I remember a cartoon of him imagining himself as - eleven? - and having intercourse with his mom. I can't verify that now.

He's dabbled with incest at times, like one of the Joe Blow cartoons of 1969. I can't find a workable link for that.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Wasn't your challenge to abstract the setting? West Orange is not an abstract site. I think my second room mate in college (1972) was from West Orange.

No, my challenge was to follow my own suggestion/advice to the original poster and not abstract the setting.

I lived in West Orange from 1994 to 1999.

 

[Hypoxia]

My usual style is snarky. Breaking from that leave me smarmy. Ay yi yi.

 

[blozo]

Blozo, may I send you a note if and when I complete it? You have given me an inspiration; I'm not trying to copy or rework your original.

Absolutely!

 

[gunhilltrain]

Detail is irrelevant here. Gilding the lily, something like that. The abstracted setting is enough.

A day later, I think you have a point here. The stripped-down, abstract method is another way to do things. I said so on a new comment on the story itself.

For a change of pace, maybe I should try some of my own experiments in that direction.

 

[RetroFan]

A lot of my works contain jokes and satire about society, either today or in the past. Sometimes readers like it, sometimes they are indifferent to it and other times they don't like it.

For example, my Christmas story last year 'The Unsuitable Girlfriends' took aim at and mocked quite a lot of aspects of modern society. The story involves an ultra-conservative, Roman Catholic farming couple from South Australia whose daughters are perfect but their three sons have three girlfriends completely at odds with their parents' views of suitable wife material.

One of the girlfriends is an over-sharing vegan who has a vegan male dog named Rainbow that wears a rainbow color with gay pride symbols on it, the dog making a complete nuisance of itself. The second girlfriend is a spoiled brat, a narcissist from a rich family who is always taking selfies and on her phone updating her social media, even while she is sitting on the toilet. The third girlfriend is completely devoid of class and manners and she and her boyfriend sit next to each other texting each other rather than having an actual conversation.

The story satirizes a lot of aspects of modern society - oversharing, obsession with technology and social media, vegans, bad manners, poor personal hygiene, SJWs, homosexuality, narcissism, spoiled children who have grown into spoiled adults, obesity and people who keep unruly animals as pets - but readers didn't really seem to want to spend their Christmas break reading about gay male vegan dogs named Rainbow and gave the story a miss, very few reading it, very few voting on it and mostly poor scores from those who did. However, somebody did favorite the story a few weeks ago, months after it had slipped away to obscurity.

 

[CeasarBoobage]

Nooooooo

In the first chapter of my story “tanning and teasing”, (more than two years ago), I made a random mention of politics. I haven’t read this in ages, but in the first version got rejected because Laurel thought there was under-age stuff, so I added some stuff to verify age. Things like “I’m in college” and “I voted”, but never mentioned anything as specific as a city/county/state/nation/hemisphere.

I just looked it up now, and the exact quote is “vote for some knucklehead in the Capital Building”. My mistake was that line. Holy. Crap. The. Hate!

The story eventually did well in ratings and views, but I deleted countless emails and comments of people yelling at me about the then-President of the USA and calling me all kinds of names. My other stories instantly went down in ratings. I didn’t even name a continent. Just “that knucklehead”, and the haters went nuts.

Your stories will be online for several changes of political office if you let them, and haters will hate. My advice is to totally avoid all politics. Even wankers wanting a mental movie will lose their shit and forget about being horny to complain about their idol or agenda being “mocked”, regardless of the rest of the story.

Oddly enough, I haven’t got any hateful messages that I know of in the past two years. Funny, that.

TL;DR:
NOOOOOO, DON’T DO IT. No religion, no politics. Sexy, funny,
and awkward: yes.
Porn stories do well when sex is featured, don’t introduce controversial crap, and your audience (and reputation) will appreciate it.

 

[KeithD]

I just looked it up now, and the exact quote is “vote for some knucklehead in the Capital Building”. My mistake was that line. Holy. Crap. The. Hate!

The story eventually did well in ratings and views, but I deleted countless emails and comments of people yelling at me about the then-President of the USA and calling me all kinds of names.

It wouldn't have been a U.S. president. That building is the Capitol Building, not a Capital Building, and the U.S. president doesn't work in the Capitol Building anyway. Pretty much hardly ever puts a step in it once president.

On politics, though, I regularly pick up a running political scandal and write a story about it. I just don't provide specific links to the actual scandal.

This recent book was a takeoff on the Kavanaugh appointment. It's one of a series with the earlier ones eventually being published here. A similar one, a takeoff on the Supreme Court Justice Scalia death, won second in the first Lit. April Fools Day contest.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81UNT+IwTIL._AC_UL436_.jpg

 

[Pocketshaver]

Laurel rejects heavily partisan political works, so you risk that on one level. Then, if it goes through, you risk being rejected--not just your future stories, but you as a writer and board participant as well--by a big chunk of the readership. Just something to keep in mind.

you actually meant to say "laurel rejects heavily partisan political works that DISAGREE with her political views"

I have read stories set in Vietnam on here that the author had the main character blame TRUMP for, and the story got submitted.

Literotica is over 90% raging liberal snowflake dumb fucker twat.

Look at the sex and political boards and youll see that non liberal gets beaten out fast

 

[KeithD]

you actually meant to say "laurel rejects heavily partisan political works that DISAGREE with her political views"

I have read stories set in Vietnam on here that the author had the main character blame TRUMP for, and the story got submitted.

Literotica is over 90% raging liberal snowflake dumb fucker twat.

Look at the sex and political boards and youll see that non liberal gets beaten out fast

No, I didn't mean to say that. I'm not in the pissy mood you're in. And AH isn't the place to peddle your politics.