![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dear flist:
How do you write porn without wanting to stab yourself in the eyes? Because I sure as hell do not know how. :(
THE THING IS, as a general whole, I do not think I'm a horrible writer! Not a great one either, but I'm not bad, and I can at least reread some of my old stuff and not hate it, and even now and then be pleased with some turn of phrase or this paragraph or that scene. I'm kind of rusty and out of practice right now, but once I get back into it, I mean, I'm very aware that there are people on my flist and in my general circle of personal influence who outrank me a lot in terms of sheer talent, but I don't think that also negates that I can tell a decent story when I have one!
But. But. For some reason, that does not include sex at all. It used to be a matter of embarrassment, and I guess to some degree that does still exist, but it's pretty negligible in the long run; the problem is that when I try, it feels clunky and awkward and not very much how I'd want it to be. And I think part of it is just the writing style I've settled into; I'm much better with gen--or even relationshippy stuff, just not anything physical! (To be fair, I also have this issue with fight scenes, though it's a lot easier for me to youtube awesome fight scenes to get an idea of what I want, or feel less silly when I do something blatantly unrealistic, because hey, these are canons where ridiculous fighting is often the name of the game, but at least in theory everyone I'm writing about is human and has the same basic anatomy and we can't really bend that way, or that doesn't go there, or whatever. Cry.) If I write a long story where there is a sex scene, that is the scene I am always unhappiest with--I honestly can't think of any exception to this rule. Which makes reviewing any of the essential PWPs I've written pretty weird, as I'm pretty much like :V I CAN'T TELL IF THIS IS ANYTHING BUT WEIRD. It's not like I have a problem with sex, or reading/watching material that contains it explicitly, and co-writing or RPing it isn't an issue for me! It's only when I'm by myself! :(
And I think part of the problem is that I read/used to read a handful of western media fandoms, where they are about some pretty hardcore and/or explicit stuff--there is a certain quality to those stories that I can recognize as a reader but can't really qualify--and as a writer, I can't ever seem to tap it. I'm not really big on writer-envy (there are some, both pro and non, who I would love to write more like, but not necessarily emulate their style/write EXACTLy like them), but it's something that I do wish I could manage! Or even articulate properly, since normally when I try, it ends up with a lot of handwaving and making a o____o face instead. I mean, I am more of a fan of sex as being an element for the story and the characters, not just for gratuitous "this is hot" or fanservice, but unless it's meant to be something deliberately off-putting or unpleasant (because the character is, or the situation), why not make it hot? If you can. Which is where the problem lies, for me!
WAT DO.
How do you write porn without wanting to stab yourself in the eyes? Because I sure as hell do not know how. :(
THE THING IS, as a general whole, I do not think I'm a horrible writer! Not a great one either, but I'm not bad, and I can at least reread some of my old stuff and not hate it, and even now and then be pleased with some turn of phrase or this paragraph or that scene. I'm kind of rusty and out of practice right now, but once I get back into it, I mean, I'm very aware that there are people on my flist and in my general circle of personal influence who outrank me a lot in terms of sheer talent, but I don't think that also negates that I can tell a decent story when I have one!
But. But. For some reason, that does not include sex at all. It used to be a matter of embarrassment, and I guess to some degree that does still exist, but it's pretty negligible in the long run; the problem is that when I try, it feels clunky and awkward and not very much how I'd want it to be. And I think part of it is just the writing style I've settled into; I'm much better with gen--or even relationshippy stuff, just not anything physical! (To be fair, I also have this issue with fight scenes, though it's a lot easier for me to youtube awesome fight scenes to get an idea of what I want, or feel less silly when I do something blatantly unrealistic, because hey, these are canons where ridiculous fighting is often the name of the game, but at least in theory everyone I'm writing about is human and has the same basic anatomy and we can't really bend that way, or that doesn't go there, or whatever. Cry.) If I write a long story where there is a sex scene, that is the scene I am always unhappiest with--I honestly can't think of any exception to this rule. Which makes reviewing any of the essential PWPs I've written pretty weird, as I'm pretty much like :V I CAN'T TELL IF THIS IS ANYTHING BUT WEIRD. It's not like I have a problem with sex, or reading/watching material that contains it explicitly, and co-writing or RPing it isn't an issue for me! It's only when I'm by myself! :(
And I think part of the problem is that I read/used to read a handful of western media fandoms, where they are about some pretty hardcore and/or explicit stuff--there is a certain quality to those stories that I can recognize as a reader but can't really qualify--and as a writer, I can't ever seem to tap it. I'm not really big on writer-envy (there are some, both pro and non, who I would love to write more like, but not necessarily emulate their style/write EXACTLy like them), but it's something that I do wish I could manage! Or even articulate properly, since normally when I try, it ends up with a lot of handwaving and making a o____o face instead. I mean, I am more of a fan of sex as being an element for the story and the characters, not just for gratuitous "this is hot" or fanservice, but unless it's meant to be something deliberately off-putting or unpleasant (because the character is, or the situation), why not make it hot? If you can. Which is where the problem lies, for me!
WAT DO.
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
I think it's finding the right mix between emotions/sensation and actions, and I'm not particularly good at that. Emotions are NO PROBLEM. Dialogue, dialogue is fun! Actions are no good and need to DIAF, except without them everybody is just sitting in a room emoting at each other. T_T
... Erm, I have no advice. Just commiserating. \o\ For what it's worth, I think everybody tends to think their own writing is a lot more crap than it actually is. I keep obsessing about overusing certain sentence structures. >_>
From:
no subject
Haha, yeah--I do agree with "you are your own worst critic," and I know there are certain things that have plagued me foreverrrrrrr, but. I don't think I'm terrible, so it's a step in the right direction!
Maybe.
:|a
From:
no subject
YOU CAN ALWAYS DO A PORN DRABBLE FEST. TO FORCE YOURSELF TO WRITE PORN. And everybody will be like \o/ and you can be all \o/ or /o\ depending.
Oops, time for class. XD Damn time differences.
From:
no subject
I did that once, a couple of years ago, in celebration of my mother proudly sending me something like twenty-four lemons she harvested from her own trees. XD I think even then I kind of copped out more than not, so the problem remains. :|a
Sobbb I am at work for another two hours, then I go home for the evening =3= TO TRY AND WRITE MORE, Y...YAY...
From:
no subject
...wait that solves nothing.
But I totally understand your pain ._. I find porn scenes just as difficult as action scenes, but more so, because...yeah you can't get away with as much with porn.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Also, I'm just a slow-ish writer to begin with, and with porn I drop to like a snail's pace. I have, at times, made melodramatic declarations of throwing myself out windows, because I get to the Actual Scene and no now it's time to check my Zen Garden in Plants vs Zombies and refresh my flist and ffffffff.
That and none of the fandoms I write for have living kinkmemes. Maybe if I stole a few boards from kink_bingo? :|a
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
why can't I be talented like other people ;A;
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
... Man, I don't know how to write sex, but it helps me.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Here's the one I bought. There are others, but this one was specifically recommended at a panel on erotic writing at 'con I was at. XD
From:
no subject
Did this book help at all, would you say it's worth checking out? :|a
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
...
Theoretically.
Uh, practice is definitely a big thing, obviously - it became a lot easier to write porn after I had some of it under my belt (so to speak), not least because it stopped being such a major deal in my head. But that doesn't mean I don't still often reach that place in the story where I go "okay now sex goes here" and throw down horrendously awkward sounding (to me) sentences like pulling teeth until I get them to orgasm. I am pretty sure everyone who writes porn does this sometimes. I have a lot of stories like that (especially for challenges) and some of them are not actually horrible in retrospect.
But the ones that I am much happier with are the ones where I started writing the story knowing vaguely what I wanted out of the sex scene going in? Meaning either a mental image or an emotional feeling or a line of porny dialogue is what inspired me to start the story in the first place, or there's a particular kink I want to focus on (especially if it's one that's meaningful for the characters), or etc. This sort of comes from writing a lot of stories that are centered around the sex though.
I think it's very different from RPing! (I am discovering.) RP is more like having sex, and writing sex scenes is more like choreographing porn. That's a terribly inaccurate analogy. But what I mean is that RP is more of an interaction between the characters, whereas writing something yourself is deliberately setting up for an audience. You can choose what to focus on, and it is almost always the focus that makes it hot.
:|a I am not sure if that is remotely helpful. And I hope I don't come off too preachy, it is not like I am actually an authority on this subject. /o\
From:
no subject
Super helpful, i know. But having an idea of what i want the sex to accomplish or feel like or contain (besides sex in the most general sense) before i go into it really helps. Real people have sex for all sorts of reasons, including 'we felt like it', but sex in the context of a story usually has greater motivation than 'some sets of genitals attached to people attracted to each were in a room together'. And it really is more like choreography, or playing checkers with yourself, or something like that, where you have to set up all aspects of the interaction by yourself so that the audience sees the right thing. The focus in RPing sex is usually on conveying your/your character's meaning to the other player/character and then building on a series of interactions while essentially ignoring the greater audience.
Writing porn is also kind of revealing, in that an author will generally focus on what they find compelling about the scenario and/or what they focus on in their own sexual experiences. (unless it's giftfic, in which case the focus is more on what the recipient finds compelling.) Maybe that's what you need to do, at least until you get more comfortable about it? The reason I find other porn hot or not is because the author's focus follows what i would focus on.
Or at least these are my observations. I am not the most prolific of ficwriters by any means.
From:
no subject
I do think it's good advice, though, so. MAYBE I WILL MAKE PROGRESS WITH THIS STORY TONIGHT AFTER ALL! Or maybe I'll just play Disgaea PSP for the whole evening as distraction/excuse. >_>a BUT I WILL TRY.
From:
no subject
But I think you're right; I've found that my stories in general work better when I have some idea of what I'm doing (though I'm really not a planner when it comes to writing; I usually know where I want it to end--usually--but the path there usually comes as a surprise to me more than not); it just seems like when it comes to a sex scene, I have this permanent B[a expression and want to know why the words won't bend to my whims. THERE ARE TOO MANY BODIES IN THIS SCENE. LET'S HAVE A BRAWL INSTEAD!
Maybe I'm just not focused enough, though! I may end up scrapping what I've got for my one in-progress scene right now, and see if redoing it that way will help. THANK YOU, ahhhhhh. ;A;b
From:
no subject
I also feel a lot like you do re: sex in writing! A lot of why I have so many aus is that it is a fun way to explore the more intimate sides of characters. I think that's what makes it hot for people too, and you often 'hear' how people prefer in their porn more intimate amateurs as opposed to scripted actors and actresses, etc. So I'd say start with your instinct on that one!
Other than that, I don't have... much advice... I mean. It's sex?!
From:
no subject
Yeah, I ultimately think it's both silly and stupid to ignore the intimate life a character has, whether it's your own conjecture of one (in fic/RP) or your decision (with original characters), it's just. I get to that part and there is this blank screen and I'm like "... all right! NOW WHAT." Bawwww. Why can't there just be fistfights instead. :(
SEX IS WEIRD. PEOPLE ARE WEIRD. EVERYTHING IS WEIRD.