On Writing: Immersion

[ElectricBlue]

I face that dilemma. I often write stream of consciousness - especially sex scenes or sometimes intense dialog. I then edit. It’s always a balance. Am I going to enhance the power of what I first wrote by taking a more considered approach or not?

I tend to err on the side of, "don't edit"', other than for the technical stuff - typos, goofs, dumb fuck stuff that's easily fixed.

Over the years I've learned to trust my stream of consciousness flow, and to keep it raw. I'll tweak words and phrases to get the beat right, occasionally move sentences or delete them, but I don't scrub the life out of my text like many others seem to do. I reckon what you read is probably 97% - 98% raw draft.

It works, as evidenced by this comment, just received:

Taylor's Got a Younger Sister
“It takes a lot to get me to take the time to comment on a story, but I have to for this one. It is easily one one of the best constructed stories I've read on this site, or any other. I really hope you continue stories with these two fully fledged characters, you have nailed the interplay between. Congratulations on a Great story.”

Can't ask for better than that!

 

[Nynah]

There's a non-standard term I use a lot: plinkage. The gist is that a reader is immersed in your story, but something stops them. Sometimes it's a hard stop, like they have to go look up the definition of a word (I recently had this with "enervated," which I knew to be a plinker but kept it in anyway); sometimes it's a little thing, like a word being used just one or two too many times. It doesn't fully stop them, but it does act like a tiny bump that nudges them out of the story and shifts their focus to the mechanics of how the story was written. Once a reader accumulates enough plinkage, they're pulled out of that rich story world and remember, "Oh yeah, I'm reading a book with words and sentences and paragraphs."

You're just describing one of the major elements of purple prose. Used to be far more prevalent in Victorian times, but still happens today, especially in litfic. A lot of writing "experts" will tell you to avoid it, and for the most part their advice is sound. I've seen a few instances of purple prose deployed effectively but never in any modern book or short story that I've read.

Plinkage is why I tend not to use words most people don't know the definition of. I'm not overly interested in showing off my own prowess or my expansive vocabulary.* Instead, I value creating as immersive an experience as possible for the reader. Does it mean I never use those larger words that tend to plink? Not at all, I absolutely use them when it makes sense to me to do so. Sometimes, it's the exact perfect word, and it fits with the narrative voice (see On Writing: Voice), so it's the obvious choice. The choice about whether to use a plinker comes with a cost-benefit analysis, not just looking at that one instance of "can I get away with a tiny plink?" but whether you've kept the amount of adjacent plinkage low enough that this won't add to the friction.

Using big words for the sake of using big words is always going to be a hard sell. Most people tend to not want to read uncommon words, especially in porn stories.

If your goal is to get more people to read your work, then you need to make it as digestible as possible (while obviously staying true to your own artistic intent or whatever). But if you just want to use as many big words and funky phrasings just to prove you're the smartest cookie in the room? Have at it, you auteur you.

 

[liliput1]

One more thing on immersion, or more what ruins it, is getting having technical details in a story that are wrong.

Whether is hacking and computer stuff, or whatever specialty you want to pick, if the reader knows more than the author, and the details in the story are poor or completely unrealistic, it can ruin an otherwise immersive story.

Obviously, it'll only impact a fraction of readers, but thought it was worth raising in this thread.

Uncanny valley. If you're going to try for immersion but you flub details that people will notice, they'll like it less than if you just really half assed it. Deleting flavor text may allow the people who really understand surgery, computer repair, physical therapy, etc, to fill in the details. The rest of us are just going to do the wah wah sound from Charlie Brown anyway.

 

[Bramblethorn]

There is a school of thought that stories should be as immersive and all-consuming as possible, to the point where the reader isn't even reading the words you wrote or how you wrote it, but is taking in the writing at a conceptual level — reading the concepts behind the words, not the words themselves. You want the reader to consume the underlying meanings rather than the words used to convey them. Less like they're reading, more like they're experiencing.

There's a non-standard term I use a lot: plinkage. The gist is that a reader is immersed in your story, but something stops them. Sometimes it's a hard stop, like they have to go look up the definition of a word (I recently had this with "enervated," which I knew to be a plinker but kept it in anyway); sometimes it's a little thing, like a word being used just one or two too many times. It doesn't fully stop them, but it does act like a tiny bump that nudges them out of the story and shifts their focus to the mechanics of how the story was written. Once a reader accumulates enough plinkage, they're pulled out of that rich story world and remember, "Oh yeah, I'm reading a book with words and sentences and paragraphs."

It's kind of like the Muppet Show: the object is to have the audience reacting to Kermit and Miss Piggy as people, not thinking about the hands operating them.

Using big words for the sake of using big words is always going to be a hard sell. Most people tend to not want to read uncommon words, especially in porn stories.

If your goal is to get more people to read your work, then you need to make it as digestible as possible (while obviously staying true to your own artistic intent or whatever). But if you just want to use as many big words and funky phrasings just to prove you're the smartest cookie in the room? Have at it, you auteur you.

Agreed, but I think sometimes we focus too much on vocabulary as a measure of readability, not enough on things like sentence structure that can make the ride smoother or rougher. It's possible to write plinky text without a single five-dollar word.

 

[anthrodisiac]

That”s it for me, right there, precisely! If I use a $10 word in a story, it’s a complement to the reader bright enough (well, okay, well-enough read) to grasp it. I don’t go there for strokers, ‘cause audience, but a story I really work on should challenge the reader as well. If, unfortunately, they don’t care for it, I can live with that, too.

I’m not waving you off, @anthrodisiac. I do get it. Such things need to be scalpels, not sledge hammers.

Inclusion of such things isn't really a problem in and of itself, as long as it makes sense for the story, and there are plenty of ways to do that, it's not that hard (catering to a specific audience, narrative voice, character, setting, etc). It's when someone just crams in obtuse references and as many $1,000 words as they can, then crow about how smart they are, even though it makes zero sense for the story, then shit all over anyone who dares question them as idiots because they're The Big Brain, then that's problematic. My philosophy is that writers should be serving the story, not their ego.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

Uncanny valley. If you're going to try for immersion but you flub details that people will notice, they'll like it less than if you just really half assed it. Deleting flavor text may allow the people who really understand surgery, computer repair, physical therapy, etc, to fill in the details. The rest of us are just going to do the wah wah sound from Charlie Brown anyway.

I think the issues has cropped up for me a couple of times when the detail was a key turning point for the story.

The hacker cracks XYZ -- but it's as believable as 'Swordfish' vs. 'Sneakers' both successful, but...

The detective finds clue that helps break open the case -- but something obvious even to a novice is the 'turning point' and evident to 30 - 50% of the population.

I agree that going into deep technical detail to show off how much the author knows about a specific area ruins immersion just as much. In this case, to me, the devil is both in the detail, and the amount of it

 

[liliput1]

I think the issues has cropped up for me a couple of times when the detail was a key turning point for the story.

The hacker cracks XYZ -- but it's as believable as 'Swordfish' vs. 'Sneakers' both successful, but...

The detective finds clue that helps break open the case -- but something obvious even to a novice is the 'turning point' and evident to 30 - 50% of the population.

I agree that going into deep technical detail to show off how much the author knows about a specific area ruins immersion just as much. In this case, to me, the devil is both in the detail, and the amount of it

Probably a good starting point for the author is: Are you explaining trains because you love trains, or because you want everyone to know how much you know about trains? One is joy, the other is bullying.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

Probably a good starting point for the author is: Are you explaining trains because you love trains, or because you want everyone to know how much you know about trains? One is joy, the other is bullying.

Totally.

For 'Murder on the Orient express' a little bit of info about the train is probably essential

 

[XerXesXu]

I’ve long been fascinated by this concept of ‘immersion’. Many seem familiar with the experience, it’s meaningful for them, not so for me. I imagine it’s another of these spectrum things where people give subjective descriptions of their own cognitions.

Can you drive and listen to an audio book? Do you feel immersed? Do you feel differently immersed when sitting alone in your bedroom reading a book? Is it different from being at a meeting and communicating with friends on Facebook, one ear cocked to follow what’s happening, ready to take your turn?

Anyone able to describe it?

 

[liliput1]

I’ve long been fascinated by this concept of ‘immersion’. Many seem familiar with the experience, it’s meaningful for them, not so for me. I imagine it’s another of these spectrum things where people give subjective descriptions of their own cognitions.

Can you drive and listen to an audio book? Do you feel immersed? Do you feel differently immersed when sitting alone in your bedroom reading a book? Is it different from being at a meeting and communicating with friends on Facebook, one ear cocked to follow what’s happening, ready to take your turn?

Anyone able to describe it?

Well the downside of immersion is when it's 2 am and you can't put the book down because three different people are in danger in two different locations.

 

[XerXesXu]

Well the downside of immersion is when it's 2 am and you can't put the book down because three different people are in danger in two different locations.

If you were watching it on TV that's the very moment the credits would roll any you'd make a point of watching next week. Do you get immersed watching TV?

 

[AStrangeDesire]

I’ve long been fascinated by this concept of ‘immersion’. Many seem familiar with the experience, it’s meaningful for them, not so for me. I imagine it’s another of these spectrum things where people give subjective descriptions of their own cognitions.

Can you drive and listen to an audio book? Do you feel immersed? Do you feel differently immersed when sitting alone in your bedroom reading a book? Is it different from being at a meeting and communicating with friends on Facebook, one ear cocked to follow what’s happening, ready to take your turn?

Anyone able to describe it?

Well, starting with the definition of immersion as "The state of being overhelmed or deeply absorbed; deep engagedness."

So, Can I drive and listen to an audio book? A: Yes, but it's different than sitting alone in a bedroom. I'll be more immersed if I'm reading in a suitable environment. Other may become dangerous drivers if too deeply immersed.
As someone who often listens to audiobooks while driving, there are many times when the road takes my focus and I miss part of the book, and either ignore it or have to go back a little.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I’ve long been fascinated by this concept of ‘immersion’. Many seem familiar with the experience, it’s meaningful for them, not so for me. I imagine it’s another of these spectrum things where people give subjective descriptions of their own cognitions.

Can you drive and listen to an audio book? Do you feel immersed? Do you feel differently immersed when sitting alone in your bedroom reading a book? Is it different from being at a meeting and communicating with friends on Facebook, one ear cocked to follow what’s happening, ready to take your turn?

Anyone able to describe it?

It means different thing to different people. To me, it's like color; people experience green a little differently, some see it a bit more blue, others more yellow, fainter, brighter, darker, runs the gamut, but we've come to understand a general conensus around the concept of green.

To some people, immersion means they live it so vividly that they can see and experience the world. Others, like @liliput1, it's to be so engrossed in the story that the rest of the world fades away, you can't put it down. Others, it's a sense of empathy or sympathy for the characters, they're immersed in the people. Parasocial relationships with the characters, with the author can also be part of it. It's a tricky thing to nail down.

For me, it's more like I can't wait to see what happens next. I need to know. I'm borderline aphantastic, so I can't really see anything in my mind's eye, but I take it in, and I'm engrossed and fascinated and I'm barely aware I'm reading, I'm consuming the story, drawn forward by any number of factors, and to put it down is a special kind of pain.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

Well the downside of immersion is when it's 2 am and you can't put the book down because three different people are in danger in two different locations.

... and you meant to go to be by 11, but then decided you need just _one_ more chapter... and voila, it's 2 am.

Which, clearly, has never happened to me

 

[EmilyMiller]

My philosophy is that writers should be serving the story, not their ego.

The story comes from the writer’s ego. Where else would it come from? I don’t know that I hold with this metaphysical view of writing. Writing is an intellectual exercise of which the writer has total control at all times (no matter what they may say about muses or characters with lives of their own). The story is not a separate entity, it’s something the writer actively chose to write.

 

[liliput1]

... and you meant to go to be by 11, but then decided you need just _one_ more chapter... and voila, it's 2 am.

Which, clearly, has never happened to me

It's 2 am and you still need to read two more chapters before you can go to sleep.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I'm borderline aphantastic, so I can't really see anything in my mind's eye, but I take it in, and I'm engrossed and fascinated and I'm barely aware I'm reading, I'm consuming the story, drawn forward by any number of factors, and to put it down is a special kind of pain.

This is a very different way of consuming literature. I would imagine it has both benefits and downsides. I’m not going to say anything as trite as it explains your entire perspective, but it must influence it.

I know people with ASD are more likely to be aphantastic, but it’s not my experience. I’m very visual. I have strong spatial visualization skills. Almost the opposite. This is also more prevalent in autistic people (though you can’t have both at the same time, obv). ASD is a very broad church.

AFTERTHOUGHT: it’s almost like we are individuals who are different from each other in important ways, right?

 

[anthrodisiac]

The story comes from the writer’s ego. Where else would it come from? I don’t know that I hold with this metaphysical view of writing. Writing is an intellectual exercise of which the writer has total control at all times (no matter what they may say about muses or characters with lives of their own). The story is not a separate entity, it’s something the writer actively chose to write.

Ego being pride in this case. My philosophy is you write the story out of respect for the story, not out of a desire to glorify your own self-worth by proving how much better and more awesome you are than other people. That latter one is something I've seen from some people, almost always the ones that randomly bandy about the most obtuse of references and biggest of words for no other reason than seemingly to allow them to sneer at those who don't get them. They don't care about the story, they care about proving their genius.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

It's 2 am and you still need to read two more chapters before you can go to sleep.

... tomorrow is going to suck!

 

[XerXesXu]

It means different thing to different people.
...
For me, it's more like I can't wait to see what happens next. I need to know. I'm borderline aphantastic, so I can't really see anything in my mind's eye, but I take it in, and I'm engrossed and fascinated and I'm barely aware I'm reading, I'm consuming the story, drawn forward by any number of factors, and to put it down is a special kind of pain.

Now that's surprising. I'm aphantasic, I'd wondered whether there might be some correlation between being phantasic and immersion, so maybe not. Maybe addictive personality - the inability to postpone gratification.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I’m

Ego being pride in this case. My philosophy is you write the story out of respect for the story, not out of a desire to glorify your own self-worth by proving how much better and more awesome you are than other people. That latter one is something I've seen from some people, almost always the ones that randomly bandy about the most obtuse of references and biggest of words for no other reason than seemingly to allow them to sneer at those who don't get them. They don't care about the story, they care about proving their genius.

This comment feels very experiential. I’m not trying to argue, but I feel you are doing the: ‘my eyes are green, my nose itches; your eyes are green, your nose must itch’ thing here.

You are projecting arrogance onto writers when you don’t know what is in their mind. You cannot know that all writers who adopt a literary style do so for these reasons, even if you have personal knowledge of some who do. Which, it very much sounds as if you do.

Anyway, I have no desire to turn this from a discussion into an argument and so will move on. If you want to rebut what I suggest, that’s cool.

 

[anthrodisiac]

This is a very different way of consuming literature. I would imagine it has both benefits and downsides. I’m not going to say anything as trite as it explains your entire perspective, but it must influence it.

I know people with ASD are more likely to be aphantastic, but it’s not my experience. I’m very visual. I have strong spatial visualization skills. Almost the opposite. This is also more prevalent in autistic people (though you can’t have both at the same time, obv). ASD is a very broad church.

AFTERTHOUGHT: it’s almost like we are individuals who are different from each other in important ways, right?

I'd actually predict that someone who's aphantastic or borderline to be more appreciative of the craft, because they can't visualize the story, so the craft and words are all there is. I'm kind of surprised at how I consume a story, honestly. I don't quite get why me not being able to see anything that's happening can still produce such a strong connection, when really it's all abstract concepts to me. I think part of it is the ingenuity and creativeness involved in more unique types of stories and fantastical ideas, because they're strange and different and I appreciate the kind of mind that can create something like that. Maybe I'm just drawn to strange things like me

 

[EmilyMiller]

Maybe I'm just drawn to strange things like me

Again, at the risk of being trite / crass / over-simplifiying, maybe.

 

[ElectricBlue]

For me, it's more like I can't wait to see what happens next. I need to know. I'm borderline aphantastic, so I can't really see anything in my mind's eye, but I take it in, and I'm engrossed and fascinated and I'm barely aware I'm reading, I'm consuming the story, drawn forward by any number of factors, and to put it down is a special kind of pain.

There's the clue. Your desire (and possibly/probably, your need) to decompose the literary construct of writing and the way stories work, is because you mostly only have the words on the page, and perhaps you have to intellectualise them, because they're what you've got (all you've got?).

You don't have the mind's eye picturing that I've got, as a contrast. I've got an intensely visual mind and a thought process that comes with it, and I happen to be handy with words that express it. This is a neurological difference though, not a philosophical one.

You're very like @AG31, who is also aphantastic - her literary curiosity, the way she deconstructs the process of writing, really examining words and how they work when "visualising" something - where she can read the visualisation but can't "see" it the way I do, when I write it.

It fascinates me, the things she likes in my work, the way certain sentences really work for her, because I've written something her mind can truly grasp - whereas in my mind, I've just written about the velvet texture of a rose petal where I can almost taste the colour, and there it is, a visual sentence from a different mind. Still using words, but I doubt they're being used the way AG31 or anthrodisiac use them, or read them.

This is about how different minds work, and for me there's a deep fascination with thinking about it. With my very visual mind, I can't ever imagine a perception process where the images in my head don't exist as anything else but images, pictures, colours and shapes and people. It's simply not possible for me to "see" with any other "eyes", regardless of the words used to construct them. And vice versa.

 

[EmilyMiller]

There's the clue. Your desire (and possibly/probably, your need) to decompose the literary construct of writing and the way stories work, is because you mostly only have the words on the page, and perhaps you have to intellectualise them, because they're what you've got.

You don't have the mind's eye picturing that I've got, as a contrast. I've got an intensely visual mind and a thought process that comes with it, and I happen to be handy with words that express it. This is a neurological difference though, not a philosophical one.

You're very like @AG31, who is also aphantastic - her literary curiosity, the way she deconstructs the process of writing, really examining words and how they work when "visualising" something - where she can read the visualisation but can't "see" it the way I do, when I write it.

It fascinates me, the things she likes in my work, the way certain sentences really work for her, because I've written something her mind can truly grasp - whereas in my mind, I've just written about the velvet texture of a rose petal where I can almost taste the colour, and there it is, a visual sentence from a different mind. Still using words, but I doubt they're being used the way AG31 or anthrodisiac use them, or read them.

This is about how different minds work, and for me there's a deep fascination with thinking about it. With my very visual mind, I can't ever imagine a perception process where the images in my head don't exist as anything else but images, pictures, colours and shapes and people. It's simply not possible for me to "see" with any other "eyes", regardless of the words used to construct them. And vice versa.

Sounds familar.

You know that thing in Star Wars (everything is about Star Wars, right?) where they have a big projection of the galaxy and can move it around and zoom in (and fit in a missing jigsaw piece)? That’s my mind. It was very helpful in structural biology.