A Place of Safety
I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love.
Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving!
We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
















You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > Literary Merit > Taming my work
Taming my work  [message #70505] Wed, 04 November 2015 02:01 Go to next message
larkinjet is currently offline  larkinjet

Getting started
Location: New England
Registered: November 2015
Messages: 7



I have been trying very hard to tame my work, making less pornographic and more generally acceptable.  Paradoxically, my attempt to make this short piece less explicit served only to sharpened its focus.

Wondering if you missed it?
  
http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/larkin/shorts/a-monogra ph-new-york-april-1912.html

Has anyone else had a sexually graphic piece that they tried to tidy up without destroying it?



“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ”
― George Orwell
Re: Taming my work  [message #70513 is a reply to message #70505] Wed, 04 November 2015 23:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
James Matthews is currently offline  James Matthews

Toe is in the water
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: May 2015
Messages: 93



As I have matured as a writer I have found (and this is just my own opinion) that if the story can stand on it's own merit then sex should only be a very small part of the novel (if needed at all in some good stories). Graphic sex as you mention is optional when displaying a sex scene to your readers. Again, in my later books I tend not to use lines of graphic sex very often at all. Frankly speaking, real sex in general terms is never as exciting as that described in a novel. In that sense, it is very logical to assume that all the hard work of making a story as real and gritty as possible can so easily be undone with a rather over described scene of hot sex that does not play out all that often in the real world of you and me (I'm assuming here lol). But that's not to say I don't dabble into that realm occasionally if the plot requires it.

As a reader I have found the best writers are ones that describe a sexual scene in a very minimalist way which forces you to use your imagination. For example...

John Doe pushed his hard thick cock into his lover's mouth and moaned in pleasure. As his organ was furiously pumping in and out he exploded down his throat causing ropes of saliva to begin hanging from his submissive recipient as he choked on the large stick of meat and it's fluid.

OR

John Doe spent himself inside his Lover's mouth.


I actually prefer the latter because then I have my own little fantasy going one should I wish it.

Lastly, I think it also comes down to why people read gay fiction. I myself read it for the companionship and love aspect because I am a sucker for Romantic Drama's and CoA stories. If I want porn, for me, it is much more enjoyable to knock one out over an Xtube vid rather than reading a graphic sex scene in a book.

Just my 2 cents :) 
Re: Taming my work  [message #70514 is a reply to message #70505] Wed, 04 November 2015 23:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Matthew is currently offline  Matthew

Toe is in the water

Registered: February 2015
Messages: 73



For me myself, i have only written one story and that is The Life of Matt Summers and I'm quite proud of it being an actual story, well i hope it's seen and viewed as that and I'm not seeing it through rose tinted glasses.

Although saying that, i think looking back over it (i read it for the first time from a readers PoV a couple of months ago and again i was very happy with what i created, but some of the sex parts, well i think if i could go back, i would reconsider the orgasm parts, with the giant capital letters whenever one of the boys had an orgasm, i just think i could have opted for a more toned down approach
Re: Taming my work  [message #70523 is a reply to message #70505] Sun, 08 November 2015 04:00 Go to previous message
Mark

Likes it here
Location: Earth
Registered: April 2013
Messages: 275



"An Apprentice's Adventures" was the first story I fully wrote out with the intent of not having sex be a major part of the plot, and I kind of did a mix of the two major approaches when I  did make mention of the main character having sex.  Some of the sex scenes were written out enough that it left little to the imagination as to who was doing what to whom (in the story's first sex scene, the sex itself took 5 somewhat lengthy paragraphs to describe  - not even counting the several paragraphs it took to set up the scene and the paragraphs describing the immediate after-effect; in total, it probably took up...well, I want to say that it took 1/4th of the chapter, though it probably didn't take up quite that much of the chapter, but it was still a goodly amount).  In other cases, I essentially faded to black, mentioning little more that sex had occurred (mentioning only that "interesting things" had been learned by the main character while leaving the reader to wonder just what those "interesting things" were).

For the most part, while I don't mind the occasional "fade to black" method (or a similar style of 'quick' reference, i.e. saying something along the lines of "Jimmy and Bobby crawled into bed and had passionate sex before falling asleep in each other's arms..."), I like a certain a certain amount of description for sex scenes, at least in the beginning ("beginning" meaning when they first make out, which doesn't have to be near the start of the story, and in fact I often like the suspense to build up a bit first before any boinking occurs).  I like to have a reasonable idea of just what kinds of things Jimmy and Bobby like to do to each other when they're making out.  (Somewhat ironically, two of my favorite stories here - "The Wolf and the Lamb" and "Minky's World" - delve little into the specific details of the sex occurring between the main characters.)  Maybe, in the end, I'm just a kinky old pervert.
Previous Topic: More Shameful self promotion
Next Topic: Eventide
Goto Forum: