Conveying a non-focal character's emotional progression

[TheExperimentalist]

I guess something else tied up in my problem is how to maintain suspense for the reader. After all, you know what site you're reading this story on, and in what category, you know that they're gonna end up fucking at the end, so you know that anything that looks like it might be attraction almost certainly is. There's no mystery left. The reader doesn't have to wonder.

But maybe the idea is to turn that to my advantage, to write it in a way that says 'yeah, you as the reader know what they're feeling and what they're going to end up doing, but the characters don't know they're in a porn story' and go from there?

 

[anthrodisiac]

YES! Thank you! Both for understanding my question, and for addressing it in a way that cuts to the heart of the problem I'm having. You make several good points that may be helpful to me. There's usually a stage where a character thinks they're the only one with feelings, then a later stage where they start to wonder, then the point at which the feelings are brought out in the open and mutually confirmed. I guess the stage I'm having trouble with is the first stage, where the character thinks the other one doesn't have those feelings, but is still confronting their own, looking inward (do I REALLY feel that way? Is it wrong? Would they think it was wrong if they knew?) while at the same time the other one is going through a similar, but less visible series of self-doubt. I guess I just don't want 'less visible' to mean 'invisible'.

It's also a bit hard to talk about story structure and concepts in the abstract, which I think may be part of the confusion (and I'll freely admit that I may not have communicated it as well as I could have either).

Hey, occasional I do something right! Crazy, dude.

I really do think visualizing both characters as separate, but equal partners in this story, even if it's told from one of their POV and not the other, is your best approach. It allows you to get inside both their head, then pick and choose which reactions are best. Key is tuning how subtle it is so it's not so obvious that the POV MC seems stupid for not noticing (or having to invent some other reason), but not so subtle that the reader isn't sure.

Which T/I actually works really well in your favor in having it be less subtle, but still not, "Oh, obviously she wants me." It's even more confusing when it's a behavior that's noticed, but you aren't 100% sure and the risks are so great. Maybe a touch that lasts a bit too long, or a kiss on the cheek, catching her staring. Also make sure it's a reciprocal he's giving off signals to her as well, but he's trying to hide them because he doesn't want to risk being too obvious, and then it gets to the point where one or the other finally caves and decides to go for it, consequences be damned. Boom. Fireworks.

It's also a bit hard to talk about story structure and concepts in the abstract, which I think may be part of the confusion (and I'll freely admit that I may not have communicated it as well as I could have either).

For sure. Especially when it's something that's a matter of tuning a story and narrative a certain way, it's kinda hard to adequately convey the necessary information.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I guess something else tied up in my problem is how to maintain suspense for the reader. After all, you know what site you're reading this story on, and in what category, you know that they're gonna end up fucking at the end, so you know that anything that looks like it might be attraction almost certainly is. There's no mystery left. The reader doesn't have to wonder.

But maybe the idea is to turn that to my advantage, to write it in a way that says 'yeah, you as the reader know what they're feeling and what they're going to end up doing, but the characters don't know they're in a porn story' and go from there?

There's multiple ways to maintain suspense. Suspense isn't always, "Will they, won't they?" It can be the slowly coiling, clearly inevitable outcome, but how is it going to happen? Tension can live in the story, or it can live in the characters.

I think for this, the tension is less "Is it going to happen?" Clearly it's going to happen, it's Lit. It's more in the POV MC's agonizing over what to do, if what he's seeing is real.

There's something fun about the gravitational dance of two bodies circling in tighter and tighter orbits. It's fundamental physics: we all know they're going to crash into each other. But the beauty lies in the dance. What flares, what tugs, what pushes? It's beautiful, it's tense, even if you know pretty much what's going to happen.

If you really want to throw in some tension, then you go third party threatens to ruin everything. Does a third body threaten to send one partner careening into the void, disrupted and lost forever? Or is the pair so tightly bound that not even this instability can break them up?

I watch too many space documentaries.

 

[Britva415]

I guess something else tied up in my problem is how to maintain suspense for the reader. After all, you know what site you're reading this story on, and in what category, you know that they're gonna end up fucking at the end, so you know that anything that looks like it might be attraction almost certainly is. There's no mystery left. The reader doesn't have to wonder.

Mystery and suspense aren’t the same thing at all.

Knowing that the two characters are going to get there, but watching them not get there, that can be very suspenseful!

Knowing what the stakes are for each of them is good. Knowing that there are stakes is compelling. Watching people be in their own way can lead to really rooting for them to figure it out.

It can also lead to feeling sick of their cluelessness, so, the solution to that wouldn’t be about maintaining suspense, it would be about maintaining progress. “Stuck” isn’t suspenseful or compelling. Anticipating progress is.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

There's something fun about the gravitational dance of two bodies circling in tighter and tighter orbits. It's fundamental physics: we all know they're going to crash into each other. But the beauty lies in the dance. What flares, what tugs, what pushes? It's beautiful, it's tense, even if you know pretty much what's going to happen.

And so, here we are, victims of mathematics. (Bonus points to anyone who knows the reference without looking it up.)

 

[TheExperimentalist]

Mystery and suspense aren’t the same thing at all.

Knowing that the two characters are going to get there, but watching them not get there, that can be very suspenseful!

Knowing what the stakes are for each of them is good. Knowing that there are stakes is compelling. Watching people be in their own way can lead to really rooting for them to figure it out.

It can also lead to feeling sick of their cluelessness, so, the solution to that wouldn’t be about maintaining suspense, it would be about maintaining progress. “Stuck” isn’t suspenseful or compelling. Anticipating progress is.

I agree with this, 100%. I assure you that 'stuck' and 'no progress' is not what I'm going for with not having the POV character pick up on stuff yet. There's quite a lot of development.