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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: GWiz on February 25, 2008, 07:53:32 PM

Title: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: GWiz on February 25, 2008, 07:53:32 PM
I'm just curious.....I tend to be very graphic (good, bad, or otherwise).....it's fun for me as a writer, and from most feedback I've gotten so far, fun for my little group of readers as well. Not that, when I read, I can't enjoy less, and enjoy it more. For some reason, my descriptions are always pretty well.........uh, descriptive...... ;)
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Murphy's Stunt Double on February 25, 2008, 08:25:08 PM
I'll just say what my copy editor has told me....

"You lavish far too many words on your characters."


 ??? ??? ??? ???       ;D
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Noey on February 25, 2008, 08:28:09 PM
It's hard to answer your poll because different books are different things. I was horrified by the
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scene in the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey because it seemed so out of place in the dreamy My Little Pony with sparkly elves and ma-aaaa-aaaagic world of the Heralds, but take the drippy dismemberments away from Stephen King, and it's not the same. It all depends on what the author is trying to accomplish. What I do like is when the scene serves a purpose. In Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead, the sex scenes are about the character herself. Her thoughts, feelings, and actions in regards to what she's doing says a lot about her. There's a point to it that furthers the story.

To use an example of my own, I think of it this way. Say my main character is storming a house where someone has kidnapped and is currently threatening her family with harm up to and including death. I can say, 'She got very, very violent,' or, I can say, 'With blood on her eyes and on her hands, she tore the head off of one of the fresh corpses littering the lawn to send it rocketing toward the door because there's more than one way to ring the fucking doorbell.' The second one probably describes her state of mind better, and gives you better insight into her degenerated state of mind. Sex for sex's sake is porn, and blood for blood's sake is torture porn. That I don't like to read, but if there's something deeper there, I dig it.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on February 25, 2008, 09:01:44 PM
Depends on what the scene is for and what sort of book it is otherwise.

To take an example I expect we are all familiar with, I do not think the bondage scene in Death Masks would have worked offstage, because of the emotional weight attached and the specific things going on there.

Myself, I tend not to write explicit sex scenes because the moments of transition in realtionships between people that I am interested in are more about becoming friends, becoming confident in being found attractive, becoming closer, making decisions... once you know where the scene is going to go, there's no point in putting it in.

There are people, fictitious and real, for whom having sex with someone is a world-changing and relationship-defining experience.  There are other people, fictitious and real, for whom it's something nice to do of an afternoon when it's raining and there's nothing decent in the cinema.  I tend to write about friendships and relationships within which it's closer to the second once the friendship and relationship are solid, partly because it's closer to how I work myself so easier to get right, and partly because I have very little time for a lot of aspects of how romance is generally supposed to work in Western culture and have no desire to wite a book promoting them.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: LizW65 on February 28, 2008, 02:57:30 PM
I'd have to go with "none of the above", as for me it all depends on context.  For instance, in the story I'm working on now, a murder mystery, I anticipate writing a fairly bloody denoument, but decided some time ago that the book's one sex scene will take place off stage.  Why?  Although it is necessary to the plot, the mechanics of it aren't all that important - what matters is that it happens between two particular characters at a particular time.
Sex and violence for its own sake (or because the writer thinks it will sell books) doesn't do it for me.  It can be used very effectively to help define character or drive the plot forward, but unless you're writing porn, it shouldn't be the be all and end all of the story.  IMO.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: meg_evonne on February 29, 2008, 02:15:28 AM
what my mind carbonates on and what I'll keep in a work is worlds apart.  Still--I was shocked that so far all of you are in my portion of the ball park.   :D

Oh and Sexy sex and violence are two different mind sets to me.  the various body parts is why I don't read Stephen King--they haunt me at night.  And I'm thrilled to have missed anything involving a
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--I mean why not do
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on HBO for crying out loud....  Disgusting.  Okay now I sound like a prude.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on February 29, 2008, 04:07:03 PM
Quote from: meg_evonne on February 29, 2008, 02:15:28 AM
what my mind carbonates on and what I'll keep in a work is worlds apart.  Still--I was shocked that so far all of you are in my portion of the ball park.   :D

My people will be in touch with your people.

Quote
And I'm thrilled to have missed anything involving a
(click to show/hide)
--I mean why not do
(click to show/hide)
on HBO for crying out loud....  Disgusting.  Okay now I sound like a prude.

Is that "Barney goes to Jurassic Park" vid still floating around ? "I love you, you love me", then promptly gets eaten by a real tyrannosaurus ?  I have to say, I found that satisfying on an aesthetic level.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on February 29, 2008, 04:11:42 PM
Quote from: meg_evonne on February 29, 2008, 02:15:28 AM
Oh and Sexy sex and violence are two different mind sets to me.  the various body parts is why I don't read Stephen King--they haunt me at night.

More seriously, the edge case there that interests me is of reclaiming things that are edgy or have been misused, for positive purposes.

Some of the most messed-up people I've ever met have been people who were abused in ways which, intentionally or not, used things they actively enjoyed against them, such that there were levels of a horrible negative experience to which they could not help having a positive response; and recovery from there by getting those same experiences in a positive context, even if they are actions that look negative, is an incredibly strong thing.

I think of it like spicy foods, myself. Lots of people like the sensations they get from eating very spicy foods, whereas to me that's agonisingly unpleasant; the taste buds and nerves involved are doing the same things and passing on the same sensations, it's up to the mind at the other end whether they are fun or nasty.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: GWiz on February 29, 2008, 04:12:50 PM
Anything that involves Barney getting wacked is appealing.....
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: LizW65 on February 29, 2008, 10:06:34 PM
Quote from: neurovore on February 29, 2008, 04:07:03 PM

Is that "Barney goes to Jurassic Park" vid still floating around ? "I love you, you love me", then promptly gets eaten by a real tyrannosaurus ?  I have to say, I found that satisfying on an aesthetic level.

Some years ago a friend of mine cobbled together a "Godzilla  Meets Barney" video from footage of both - it's a very short film of Barney singing "I love you, you love me" and then getting torched.  Is that what you're thinking of?  I believe it made the rounds of the SF conventions.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: tagnizkur on February 29, 2008, 10:26:03 PM
My characters are all angelic innocents who do not even allow the thought of touching to enter their imagined minds!
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Murphy's Stunt Double on February 29, 2008, 11:26:56 PM
Everybody duck....


The lightning is gonna hit real close, real soon!
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: JamiSings on February 29, 2008, 11:41:00 PM
You know, it depends on the mood I'm in. Sometimes I want something that's total
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* and sometimes I want stuff that stops at a passionate kiss and starts up again afterwards. You just have to catch me in the right moment for graphic. As for violence, never really could get too much into it. Tends to make me sick.

*Could be considered a little dirty.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Cyclone Jack on March 01, 2008, 08:58:50 AM

Since I find 99.999% of graphic sex and violence scenes that I read to be gratuitous and non-necessary, I avoid them in my own writing.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 01, 2008, 06:12:00 PM
Quote from: JamiSings on February 29, 2008, 11:41:00 PM
Could be considered a little dirty.

Um, the prose there made me shudder.

[ The Marquis de Sade in 30 Seconds:
"Don't whip me ! Don't whip me !"
"I will indeed whip you. *evil cackle*. But first I will spend forty pages going on and on and on about why it is philosophically right and  just that I should whip you."
"Could we just skip ahead to you whipping me ?" ]
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Murphy's Stunt Double on March 02, 2008, 02:04:05 AM
ok, I'll bite... why did it make you shudder? Because it's graphic or because it's cheesy?
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: JamiSings on March 02, 2008, 02:13:08 AM
Quote from: neurovore on March 01, 2008, 06:12:00 PM
Um, the prose there made me shudder.


Well, I couldn't exactly say the real thing, could I? Besides, I wrote it cheesy romance novel style.

What did you want me to say? Something about being rammed?
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 02, 2008, 06:41:23 AM
Quote from: JamiSings on March 02, 2008, 02:13:08 AM
Well, I couldn't exactly say the real thing, could I? Besides, I wrote it cheesy romance novel style.

I know. You got the style down well; the style itself makes me shudder.

I don't have a solution here, because the options the language actually has in it for the descriptions here are childish words, rude words, clinical words or a fairly predictable set of metaphors.  And the sort of moods I'm most often interested in writing to, none of those really fit.

Being rammed is a thing that happens, in my books, to doors, when half a dozen hefty chaps carrying a sizable log between them get a running start. Not to people.  Though mind you, I've done a relationship or two best described as "two ships crashing in the night", and "rammed" is not an inappropriate adjective in that situation.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Murphy's Stunt Double on March 02, 2008, 06:54:29 AM
Yes, I must admit, that's the biggest challenge I face when I write smut scenes... the descriptive options leave much to be desired... no pun intended.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: LizW65 on March 02, 2008, 05:43:08 PM
For some hilariously bad sex writing (all from published sources) click here:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,331379643-99819,00.html
I take no responsibility for injuries done to oneself while in the throes of mirth.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Murphy's Stunt Double on March 02, 2008, 06:02:30 PM
Alll righty then.... I will no plonger presume I am the worst writer on the planet. I have been duly proven wrong. In black and white.  :o
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: meg_evonne on March 02, 2008, 06:11:34 PM
"It was exhilarating, to be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space." OMG the whole page was RFLMAO...

Tried to find that beautiful passage from the Prioress tale from Canterbury as a comparision but couldn't find it. my olde english isn't up to being able to find it..  :)
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: JamiSings on March 02, 2008, 06:15:02 PM
Quote from: neurovore on March 02, 2008, 06:41:23 AM
I know. You got the style down well; the style itself makes me shudder.


Sex scenes are really hard to write properly if you ask me. Not that I'm a professional writer but I've written some fetish stuff from time to time. No matter how you try it always comes out either as gross out porn or cheesy as the worse cheap romance novel. It's easier to write bloody violence.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Cyclone Jack on March 02, 2008, 07:38:29 PM
Quote from: meg_evonne on March 02, 2008, 06:11:34 PM
"It was exhilarating, to be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space." OMG the whole page was RFLMAO...

So long as you realize that phrase is a direct steal from Hamlet and is being used in an entirely inappropriate manner.  :P
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: meg_evonne on March 02, 2008, 08:13:11 PM
Got me.  "Words, words, words."   must be taken in perspective.

Still--he was referring to the mind.  Yes, I did have to go look it up in my Penguin guide.   ::)

"Hamlet: I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."

Somehow, it seems a world apart.  Then again, he wrote Falstaff for humor.  Not so the quote in Hamlet.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Yeratel on March 02, 2008, 10:25:48 PM
"Do you enjoy Kipling, young lady?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir," she blushed, "I've never kippled."
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on March 03, 2008, 05:07:07 PM
Quote from: Yeratel on March 02, 2008, 10:25:48 PM
"Do you enjoy Kipling, young lady?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir," she blushed, "I've never kippled."

"But, my man, have you done your chores ?"
"What chores ?"
"Thanks, I'll have a pint of Strongbow."
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: THETA on March 19, 2008, 09:15:57 PM
Uhh, i prefer classy graphic.  Richelle Mead is a pretty good example.  The sex is definitely there, but the description is a little vaguer.  Instead of "I felt his cock" it turns into "I felt him."  You know, small stuff like that make the difference between a harlequin and an actual literary novel.
Title: Re: How graphic do you like yours?
Post by: Blaidd on March 19, 2008, 10:02:23 PM
I'm with Theta on stuff like:

Quote
Instead of "I felt his cock" it turns into "I felt him."

However I write a lot of what could be considered fetish (not porn, not even sex) and that does involve a lot of where the rope goes and how deep it cuts and an awful lot of synonyms for 'flesh'. Some would say it is graphic because it's descriptive. I could say 'he tied her up' but there are just so many ways of doing that to a person. Can she reach the phone? Can she scratch that really irritating itch on the end of her nose?

When I want her to feel fear, I don't want to tell you she's scared, I want you to just know, simply from her reaction. Make your own mind up how she feels. I don't write in the first person so I can't asy for sure myself.

Rather, I go by the rule of: could I possibly persuade one of my workmates (ok maybe one of my more imaginative workmates) to read this without cringing, or would it simply look better sat next to Deep Throat?