You knw you're getting old when

[Op_Cit]

Most of us don't mind plotless sex stories at certain times, but I think Ijust reached my fill on another story concept/cliche:

Plotless stories about sex that begin with scenes of "will you/here let me... rub (suntan) lotion on my/your back(?)"

I couldn't continue reading! I just hit "back" and went to the next. Even the tiny optimist part of my brain yelling, "You don't know, what may happen next... Later the not yet mentioned twin sisters might join in and bring three cheerleader friends..."

There was nothing wrong with the writing even... I just couldn't take it any more with the lotion thing. Actually, what I found myself doing was skipping over the text, scanning forward over the scene to the next, and when I realized that was what I was doing I just stopped.

Remeber the old days? Remember how it didn't matter, it was just smut? There was a time when the mere mention of a bare breast could feed fantasies for days...

Is there just too much of it available these days, that we get picky?

Has anyone else experienced these things?

Or maybe that is to ask, What's next to go? Will I soon lose interest in all those stories that open with two dogs and a chimp gang banging a nun?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I call those things "back-click triggers": those turns of phrase or situations that tell you it's time to bail out of the story.

I think there's more to it than just the situation, though. I'm sure there are any number of erotic lotion-rubbing scenes waiting to be written, just like there are any number of good ways of pulling off a describing-herself-by-looking-in-the-mirror scene or waking-up-together scene. But when you read that "She still looked good for someone her age. Those daily trips to the gym were really paying off," or "Wake up sleepy-head", you kind of know that the author is phoning it in and taking the easy way out. You've been here before, many times. It's time to go.

I worry about people who learn how to write by reading stroies on Lit. They fall into these cliches without even realizing that there's another way to do things. A little originality, a little thought, can go a long way towards freshening up overused situations.

I mean, by now it's pretty safe to say that there's nothing really new under the sun as far as what our characters do. What's new is how we describe what they do.

--Zoot

 

[Guest]

I think it's generally harder to spot a gem of a story.

Some, not even trying.

Some, trying hard but failing.

I, myself, have seen far too many "fomula" stories.

Yes.