- - - Why is it way more of an effort to write sex than it is to write a bloody human (well, Elven, really) sacrifice scene? I mean, that's just not right, is it?
OMG you rule!! I'm bogged down in the low 30s. I'm so afraid of running out of stuff to write about that I'm...not writing stuff? That doesn't make any sense.
(If I run out of things to say, my characters are going to have sex. Purely for padding. Wordcount sex. Bad, multi-word euphemisms will abound.) XD
As humans, we learn most effectively through studying what went wrong. Consequently, we have entire vocabularies of pain and unpleasantness, but a very small vocabulary for pleasure... after all, if something was pleasurable, clearly nothing went wrong, and there's nothing to learn from it!
WORD. Plus: This small vocabulary is mostly used, re-used, recycled and zombified in these thin books with kitschy illustrations of passionately whatevering, half-cled couples on the cover... So naturally, a lot of stuff one could write about sex sounds suspiciously like one of "these novels"...or too cheesy... or gives the feeling that the author was drooling the entire time, smiling at the monitor with that particular gaze (a lot of slash-stories feature this particular feeling exclusively)...
So - I think difficulites with that sujet - especially if you're picky when it comes to stuffs you created/wrote/produced! -, are quite understandable.
Naja, vielleicht hätten wir einige Fragen mit den Formalitäten und so, aber gängige Klischees und ein Messer bedienen könnten wir theoretisch alle... Aber sollte das im Pron-Zeitalter nicht bei Sex eigentlich genauso sein? ;)
Im Prinzip ja. Aber es geht ja nicht nur ums Machen, sondern ums drüber Sprechen. Da kommt beim Sex halt wieder das Problem, dass wir fast nur Vorlagen haben, in denen entweder medizinisch steril ODER völlig übertrieben ODER dann noch in tiefdunkelrosaner Euphemismusprosa drüber gesprochen wird. Aber einfach mal normal? Ist mir noch nicht viel untergekommen.
Während sachliche Ritualbeschreibungen in der gängigen Literatur doch einigermaßen häufig sind. Besonders, wenn man Völkerkunde studiert. (Das Liebesleben der Yanomamö hingegen wird irgendwie nicht so ausführlich beleuchtet. Tststs.)
Depends a bit on the words you choose. If you stay away from 'mighty may poles' and 'love grottos' it shouldn't sound tooooooo much like 'one of these novels'. I prefer to call the parts by their usual names if I have to at all - and I try to focus on all the senses equally.
Mostly I tend to describe what happens in my character's head, though.
Oh and: where's the problem with drooling while you write something like that? You ARE trying to get emotions across, after all. I think that, if I don't feel what I want my readers to feel, the story isn't going to be very convincing.
What I wrote was "...Or gives the feeling that the author was drooling the entire time, smiling at the monitor with that particular gaze".
Erm... I don't say anything against drooling authors themselves - they may drool how much ever they like to, I don't care. I have nothing against "these novels" or "cheasy things" as well (words I mentioned before drooling authors, btw). But if these things are the frist things that come to your mind in a negative way when you read a novel (e.g. not drooling yourself but thinking of a drooling author, that is), something's wrong with a scene. Or at least it doesn't work for you as the author obviously intended, for what reason ever.
I totaly agree with you opinion that an author should feel the feelings he wants to provoce in his audience with a certain scene, btw.
"I prefer to call the parts by their usual names if I have to at all - and I try to focus on all the senses equally"
I prefer that as well. My personal nightmare was a little handout which suggested "original descriptions" for all areas that possibly could be involved. It suggested stuff like "he entered her chocolate ballroom" or "he tasted her milky juices of love". *shudder* I know that there's loads of folks out there who totally dig descriptions like this, and that's fine with me. I personally loathe them, since they switch any upcoming feelings to amused disbelief whenever I have to stumble over one of them.
But somehow it will always be a mystery to me how to propperly prepare, start and finish a sex scene somehow, and envy people who are able to propperly do so... maybe I'm just to picky. ^^
*grins* Did you ever read "Fanny Hill or The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure"? I adore this book - it's full of maypoles etc. - but it's part of literary history and at times absolutely hilarious. (Apart from being something like a revolution because Fanny is not only beautiful and morally sound but also a very successful whore)
Nope - but I stumbled over "Luck is a Lady", a classical "they want... they don't... they will... they can't... somebody wants to prevent them... the actually do it... another hindrance, for the protocol... happy end"-thingies with loads of sexual-tension-moments, and it was one of the funniest books (unintended, of course!) I ever read.
but "maypoles"... *snicker* if that's another metaphor for stuff like that I'm impressed. XD
I guess emotional investment is a big part of the problem. It's hard to remain entirely distant and neutral with a sex scene. And of course there's the difficulty of turning neither too technical nor drifting into the corny novel genre... And the protagonist of my story is totally inexperienced, and kind of worried, and thinks waaaay too much, and keeps interrupting to ask another world-moving question that kind of destroys the whole atmosphere. It's a miracle I ever got that scene finished (and it sucks. ... which is a bad choice of word considering the subject matter, so let's amend that to "it does not work well").
A ritual is simple. It's got a fixed frame that's easy to arrange. We all know the basic ritual setup, but there's enough freedom in the exact wording, and in the motions and all. And you can maintain a nice safe emotional distance which makes it so much easier to observe and describe.
Wird man bestimmt - die Frage ist bloß wann. Ich schreibe ja momentan offiziell an der Fortsetzung (weil Fortführung ist ja theoretisch nicht erlaubt) meines 2005er-NaNos, das heißt, das, was ich jetzt schreibe, macht eigentlich nur Sinn, wenn man sich vorher die 44000 Worte von damals angetan hat. Und da die netten kurzen Stichworte, die ich mir für dieses Jahr gemacht habe, sich ja alle in eeeendlosen Ausarbeitungen niederschlagen (dabei mache ich das nicht mal absichtlich), ist die Geschichte bei 50000 (also streng genommen 100.000) Worten noch gar nicht zu Ende, sondern hängt mittendrin. Kann man also lesen, ist aber noch unvollständig.
Und voller Flüchtigkeitsfehler und komischer Formulierungen, an denen ich nicht ewig rumschleifen wollte, um erst mal weiter zu schreiben. Eigentlich sollte ich das Machwerk also erst mal vervollständigen und dann gründlichst editieren. Und DAS kann dauern ;)
Das versteckt sich hier (http://livingshapes.livejournal.com/tag/nano) - ich weiß aber nicht, ob du dir das wirklich antun willst, denn es ist wie gesagt ziemlich uneditiert und damals einfach so runtergerotzt ohne Rücksicht auf Stil oder Unstimmigkeiten. >_>
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Date: 2008-11-21 01:52 am (UTC)(If I run out of things to say, my characters are going to have sex. Purely for padding. Wordcount sex. Bad, multi-word euphemisms will abound.) XD
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Date: 2008-11-21 04:27 am (UTC)As humans, we learn most effectively through studying what went wrong. Consequently, we have entire vocabularies of pain and unpleasantness, but a very small vocabulary for pleasure... after all, if something was pleasurable, clearly nothing went wrong, and there's nothing to learn from it!
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Date: 2008-11-21 06:21 am (UTC)So - I think difficulites with that sujet - especially if you're picky when it comes to stuffs you created/wrote/produced! -, are quite understandable.
As for the word-o-meter: Wow! My respect! O_O
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Date: 2008-11-21 06:45 am (UTC)Zumindest geht es mir so ^^
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Date: 2008-11-21 10:02 am (UTC)... zumindest hoffe ich das D:
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Date: 2008-11-21 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-22 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-22 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-22 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-22 03:47 pm (UTC)Aber sollte das im Pron-Zeitalter nicht bei Sex eigentlich genauso sein? ;)
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Date: 2008-11-22 07:55 pm (UTC)Während sachliche Ritualbeschreibungen in der gängigen Literatur doch einigermaßen häufig sind. Besonders, wenn man Völkerkunde studiert. (Das Liebesleben der Yanomamö hingegen wird irgendwie nicht so ausführlich beleuchtet. Tststs.)
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Date: 2008-11-21 11:13 am (UTC)If you stay away from 'mighty may poles' and 'love grottos' it shouldn't sound tooooooo much like 'one of these novels'.
I prefer to call the parts by their usual names if I have to at all - and I try to focus on all the senses equally.
Mostly I tend to describe what happens in my character's head, though.
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Date: 2008-11-21 11:16 am (UTC)You ARE trying to get emotions across, after all. I think that, if I don't feel what I want my readers to feel, the story isn't going to be very convincing.
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Date: 2008-11-21 11:47 am (UTC)Erm... I don't say anything against drooling authors themselves - they may drool how much ever they like to, I don't care. I have nothing against "these novels" or "cheasy things" as well (words I mentioned before drooling authors, btw).
But if these things are the frist things that come to your mind in a negative way when you read a novel (e.g. not drooling yourself but thinking of a drooling author, that is), something's wrong with a scene. Or at least it doesn't work for you as the author obviously intended, for what reason ever.
I totaly agree with you opinion that an author should feel the feelings he wants to provoce in his audience with a certain scene, btw.
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Date: 2008-11-21 11:56 am (UTC)I prefer that as well. My personal nightmare was a little handout which suggested "original descriptions" for all areas that possibly could be involved. It suggested stuff like "he entered her chocolate ballroom" or "he tasted her milky juices of love". *shudder*
I know that there's loads of folks out there who totally dig descriptions like this, and that's fine with me. I personally loathe them, since they switch any upcoming feelings to amused disbelief whenever I have to stumble over one of them.
But somehow it will always be a mystery to me how to propperly prepare, start and finish a sex scene somehow, and envy people who are able to propperly do so... maybe I'm just to picky. ^^
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Date: 2008-11-21 05:54 pm (UTC)I adore this book - it's full of maypoles etc. - but it's part of literary history and at times absolutely hilarious. (Apart from being something like a revolution because Fanny is not only beautiful and morally sound but also a very successful whore)
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Date: 2008-11-22 03:52 pm (UTC)but "maypoles"... *snicker* if that's another metaphor for stuff like that I'm impressed. XD
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Date: 2008-11-21 11:54 am (UTC)And the protagonist of my story is totally inexperienced, and kind of worried, and thinks waaaay too much, and keeps interrupting to ask another world-moving question that kind of destroys the whole atmosphere. It's a miracle I ever got that scene finished (and it sucks. ... which is a bad choice of word considering the subject matter, so let's amend that to "it does not work well").
A ritual is simple. It's got a fixed frame that's easy to arrange. We all know the basic ritual setup, but there's enough freedom in the exact wording, and in the motions and all. And you can maintain a nice safe emotional distance which makes it so much easier to observe and describe.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 10:25 am (UTC)Und voller Flüchtigkeitsfehler und komischer Formulierungen, an denen ich nicht ewig rumschleifen wollte, um erst mal weiter zu schreiben. Eigentlich sollte ich das Machwerk also erst mal vervollständigen und dann gründlichst editieren. Und DAS kann dauern ;)
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Date: 2008-11-21 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-21 06:01 pm (UTC)