Tales of Mediocrity

[elspethaurilie]

Well, I managed to finish my chapter. It still needs some heavy editing, but with some discipline and time management, I should have time to edit and post it this afternoon. My small cadre of regular readers will no doubt be happy for the update.

This chapter includes a bit of smut. I have a love/hate relationship with writing smut.  On the one hand, when it works, it's exhilarating and exciting.  On the other, trying to convey the all emotions tied to physical intimacy is difficult. Trying to capture a tone that doesn't deviate from the apparent style my story has taken on is even worse.  Sometimes it's easier just to write a straightforward, explicit romp.  Indeed, my first draft paragraphs often alternate between romantic erotica and straight-up, hard-core banging.  This story tends toward the former though my next one, a Dawnguard-based fiction, will definitely embrace some of the latter.  

And to this point, not all the sex in my story has been romantic. It's just that my language tends toward the erotic and suggestive, rather than the explicit. 

But in this last chapter, I decided to pair my protagonist with a popular canon character.  And the results are...awkward to say the least. And why shouldn't they be? Unremarkable, average sexual encounters are part of life, no?  And it's not as if there is a dearth of exciting smut featuring this guy.

But sweet Dibella's tit writing mediocre sex is difficult. And there isn't exactly an abundance of writing advice out there.  There is plenty on how to avoid bad sex writing, but not on how to write bad sex well. In the end, I employed most of the same advice I've always used, with occasional tips taken from the DON'T column.  At some point, when I don't have a thousand things on my To Do list, I may write a comprehensive post with some advice on this. 

Comments

[fereldanwench]

Smut is the bane of my writerly existence. I love reading it, and I love thinking about it, but as soon as it comes to writing it? Nope. This especially resonates with me: On the other, trying to convey the all emotions tied to physical intimacy is difficult. Trying to capture a tone that doesn't deviate from the apparent style my story has taken on is even worse. I find that I can write out the acts well enough, but there's always something emotionally that's missing.

I tend to be more interested in writing more "realistic" sex myself. Mediocre or bad sex, putting emphasis on details or realities of sex that get omitted in fluffier sex scenes (there's a lot that can be done, for instance, with clean up after ejaculation), sexy and raw, but not idealized.

I'd definitely be interested in seeing your tips and advice, should you ever get a chance to write that.

[spicysujamma]

Smut is... I'm definitely with you on the whole love/hate thing. I love challenging myself, because let's be real, smut is incredibly difficult to write - there's this mix of descriptive and vague, this line between detail and too much detail, and a lot of skill necessary to make euphemisms work in a way that's sexy and not cringe-worthy or silly. It can also be really difficult finding a place for it within a story, which is why most of my sex scenes are just standalone one-shots. It can be pretty jarring to be reading a chapter and then all of a sudden, someone is suckin' someone's dick. Smut's weird and hard to write, which is why I don't do it all that often.

I'm so incredibly happy that you wrote a 'realistic' sex scene. Not saying that the hot, steamy passionate stuff isn't realistic, but I think people don't really realize that sex that is bad, or boring, or awkward, or whatever can be just as interesting and just as important. It's something I haven't seen any of.

I'd be interested in your advice list! Although, I always take things like that with a grain of salt, because what works for one person may not work for another, and often, the lists that pop up on Tumblr have this obnoxious smugness about what's 'right' and that just annoys me, especially when another list contradicts them.

Anyway, yay/boo for smut!

[renegadefolkhero]

Interested in your list as well. I prefer writing about mediocre/awkward/imperfect sex and I've found those are the scenes that stick with me as a reader. I read a story a while back that had a number of standard-sexy intimate scenes, and I don't remember any of those, but I do remember the one scene where the hero accidentally pulled a button off the heroine's blouse and they both started laughing. Not because it was sexy, but because it was different.

I have had luck with focusing on things that are often glossed over or ignored. I get a lot of mileage out of bodily fluids. (Which sounds kinda gross when I type it, but it's true!)