It feels like a poll day

[mickeym]

The other day I posted that I hate writing sex, which isn't exactly, completely accurate. What IS accurate is that I get frustrated trying to make each scene a little bit different than the last (and y'all, I have written a LOT of stories with a lot of sex in them. If you don't believe me, go check out Infinite Passions. Or hell, this story *g*). As nopseud so astutely pointed out, she and I probably used up our lifetime supply just writing Absinthe Makes. Joke. Mostly.

So, because I am infinitely curious, a poll about Writing Sex. Please to be filling it out, expanding in comments if/as needed, thank you :) (And feel free to point your friends this way, because I really am curious!)



[Poll #1108537]

Comments

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

Mmmm Absinthe. My second most favorite TrickC fic ever. Like ever ever. :D Promise Never, Promise Forever (http://www.infinitepassions.com/boyband/promisenever.html) is my very favorite. ;-)

Hm. I think I see a pattern here. ;-)

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

I see a pattern, too *g* And dude! YOU PICKED ONE OF THE PERV ANSWERS. Hmph. Also? I wrote spanking the other day. You should go read that, when you're done with Xmas stuff ;)

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

YOU PICKED ONE OF THE PERV ANSWERS

Um. DUH!!! Hi. Pot. Kettle. Yadda yadda. :D

Spanking yay!

[agt-spooky.livejournal.com]

Hey, great poll, Kim!

Here's a couple of expanded answers:

Do you think there's a correlation between length of time writing/amount writing, and the difficulty in writing those scenes?

Just like you said, you want to make each one a bit different and that gets really difficult after writing slash fic for over 10 years!

Do you have a preferred style to write (or read)?

I like to write in one character's POV throughout the entire story, instead of switching back and forth like so many authors do. I feel it's more of a challenge to stay inside the head of a single character. I also like to read the same type of single-POV stories.

[lazy-daze.livejournal.com]

Sex is actually often my favourite/easiest bit to write! It's always the parts of my fic with least beta comments, hee. I love writing sex. I DO recognise what you mean about trying to make things new - SPN is the first fandom I've written regularly in (though I wrote some in HP) and I am starting to see definite patterns *g* and sometimes I'm like 'crap, I've already written this'. However, I have read so so SO much porn in my ~five years in fandom, and people can still make it seem fresh and new and hot, so I think if it can be written by others in constantly new ways, there's no reason to think that you can't still make it new and hot even if you've written loads - also, remember that you're the only one that knows your own fic as well as you do, so other people are not going to notice the odd recycled phrase/situation! :D

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

When I write a sex scene, because I feel like it's pretty much all been done before, there needs to be a reason for the scene, whether we're getting characterization, thought process, or whatever. My sex scenes don't contain a whole lot of actual, described sex. For example, if a blowjob is going on, it might read something like:

Justin still remembers the first time he did this and the look on Lance's face when he came--almost surprised, and the smoothness of Lance's skin under his fingers. He remembers the bruises he left there, on Lance's hips, and how later that day, during sound check or sitting in the quiet room, Lance would shift the hem of his shirt just so, and rub at the dark smudges there.

Erm. I got a bit carried away. BUT YOU SEE? There is no actual sex in that! I can't seem to write actual sex.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

But that's a lot hotter and more interesting to read than "Justin shoved his dick in Lance's mouth". Y'know? *g* And yeah, one of the hardest things about writing a scene is getting past the 'is it necessary, or is it gratuitous' -- and degrees. The scene might call for something sexy, but...what? frottage or handjob? blowjob? fucking? And so much more.

It's also possible that I overthink a lot of this stuff...

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

Well you know, I think that the necessity makes the scene better. If something *feels* right, like it absolutely goes in that place, then it's way easier for me to write. When I set about to write sex, or I know there needs to be sex somewhere, it's so much harder. That's the point where I write 3000 words of exposition and 300 words of sex :P For merry_smutmas one year, I wrote a 15-page fic that had exactly one paragraph of sex, and it was an interrupted blowjob. And the whole point of that challenge is porn! But uh, you know, that was one of my best HP fics so I am giving myself slack on that :P

[nopseud]

there needs to be a reason for the scene, whether we're getting characterization, thought process, or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. And that's true for any scene in the story, not just the sex scenes.

I'm fighting my SeSa story right now because it really does need a sex scene in the place I'm trying to write one, in a structural sense, but I'm stuggling for exactly the right tone and content to fill the gap. It's like decorating a room. I need something on the empty bit of wall space, BUT WHAT?

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

A nice big poster of JC's dick! That is my suggestion :P I always make myself write the sex scene as I write the fic. I know if I have to go back later and add? Oh man, I will find every excuse to not have to write it.

[nopseud]

A nice big poster of JC's dick!

Now I want to put that in a story. I'm imagining JC's face when he walked into Justin's bedroom and sees the poster on the wall over the bed.

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

Justin would be all, "It's art! I thought you liked art!"

[nopseud]

JC: But...but...everyone who comes in here is going to know you have a giant picture of my dick on your bedroom wall!

Justin: Dude, who even comes in here but you and me?

JC: Well, there's Lynn, to start with!

Justin: First, my momma is very broad-minded and, like, totally appreciates art. And second, exactly, and I mean exactly, how does my momma know what your dick looks like?

JC: Oh, hey, wow! Look at that excellent use of light and shadow!

[phaballa.livejournal.com]

I LOVE YOU. This is the best thing that has ever been in my inbox.

[nopseud]

{adds it to the long, long list of stories I am never going to write}

[stellamira]

Ran out of characters to the "What makes it difficult for you?"-question, so I'm elaborating here.

Mostly I'm having trouble not making it into a simple description of who puts what where but to bring some feelings into it as well. Also as a story progresses, I tend to bring in more details ending up being much more detailistic in the end than in the beginning. Which isn't so noticable in "normal" stories, but blows up my PWPs, and I have to remind myself that I don't have to write every little touch.

I'm also someone who wants to write (and read!) the same sexual act a little differently every time, but I haven't been at the point where I had to drop several ideas because I'd already written them yet. I don't know if I ever will. For me a different fandom or a different pairing already makes a difference.

[withdiamonds.livejournal.com]

I think sometimes we, meaning fandom in general, force the sex. Like, well, I'm writing a slash story, I must include sex. I felt that way about Green Scales Fell Like Rain (http://www.dirtystory.net/greenscales.html), which is my favorite of my own stories. It could just as easily had no pairing, no sex, at least no sex between the actual pairing it was supposed to be about. But I felt like I should make it a romance along with Lance's coming out story, and it felt tacked on and forced to me. I came very close to just making it a gen story.

I'm not sorry I finally added a relationship in there, but my point is sometimes I think it's a habit for us to think we have to have sex in all our stories, and we really don't. I've been surprised by how much I'm enjoying SPN gen on occasion.

And I lied when I said I don't have a particular style I like and strive for. I want all my sex to be like synchronik's popslash sex. Hot with only a few words or sentences. I adore it.

[leighm.livejournal.com]

Writing sex is like choreographing a scene. A great deal of it is going with the moment and just letting the two characters feel their way through it but I agree with you as I put in comments, I try different ways of writing it so it doesn't always come out sounding the same.

But yeah, it's the hardest part to write for me and I like writing it, it's just the most time consuming part of the whole thing.

[leighm.livejournal.com]

Oh and to answer the style question-if we're talking about sex in a fic-it's just as hot to me if it's less explicit and leaves more to the imagination. For example, frottage can be just as much a turn on and sometimes more than actual sex. It depends on the characters and what's going on at that particular time.

[giogio.livejournal.com]

I think the longwinded answer your questions are leading to is something ms_manna once told me in relation to her original fic, which was something along the lines of, "I only write the sex that needs to be there to advance the plot."

So, when I am writing these days (which admittedly isn't very much at the moment, at least not much that is publicly viewable) I am bored by and generally don't write PWP (don't really read it either). But I can and do include sex scenes when necessary for the plot, and I don't have trouble writing them.

[zortified.livejournal.com]

The thing that was hard for me to learn, but is now much easier, is knowing when the story didn't need a sex scene. I find more satisfaction delving into the emotional relationships involved, and sometimes that means no sex is required - to be written. A lot of my stories fade to black and the sex happens, but it isn't explicit. I think when there is a sex scene, it can over-shadow some of what else is happening and readers will forget or not notice things that are happening that you as the writer may have wanted them to notice.

I used to think that all my slash had to have sex scenes in it and that leaving it out was 'cheating.' But now I find that if I only include the sex when the story demands it, then it doesn't prove difficult or boring to write. (I was writing so many sex scenes at one point that I initially stopped because it was boring to write another sex scene, even if I was able to make it seem different from my other sex scenes.)

I remember editing the most recent sands of time story and I think I removed about five sex scenes because as I read it I found myself thinking "omg my god, they're having sex *again*?"

One very good way to make a sex scene seem different from other sex scenes you've written is to include extraneous details - someone drops the lube and has to grab for it and his partner is overcome with giggles. Someone likes to start with hands and fingers; someone else likes to strip as foreplay. Someone else sneakily lights cinnamon and vanilla scented candles because those scents have been shown to turn guys on. There are an infinite variety of acts that can be sexual; engaging all the senses. If you throw in a few of those details, then the basic sex act can be the very same, but the sex scene will be different.

Also, naturally, is to bring in the emotional element for the pov character, if there's anything interesting to say about it. (Having a moment of truth during sex. Feeling overcome with adoration. Realising that this guy will never be the one he'll be in love with.)

It's all in the little details.

And now I want to go write sex scenes, darn you.

[topaz119.livejournal.com]

Heh. When A and I were writing Something So Right, I felt like I needed a spreadsheet, to keep track of who had done what to whom, just so we weren't repeating things. And that didn't even count the agonies of trying to make sure everything in the scene was physically possible and that there weren't any stray appendages.

As for the actual acts, there have been times when I've thought, 'ugh, I'm bored with writing xyz, so who would want to do abc?' and voila, a story is born. I do thoroughly understand the need to keep every scene a little different, and how hard that can be.

The sex needs to advance the story somehow, even if it's a PWP. In my head, I have to know *why* they're having sex. I don't know if that always gets through to the reader, but I try...

[poisontaster]

I can never really tell what's going to give me trouble, other than Sam is a total cockblock, who takes forever to ramp up to the idea of sexing, wants tons and tons of foreplay and is always reluctant to come. Sometimes I'm writing a short PWP and the characters take it sideways, like the dildo porn I wrote for Nan's Superporn Sunday. It was going along like blazes, I had about 30m before I was supposed to POST and suddenly, Dean has this FIT OF JEALOUSY that maybe Sam likes the dildos more than him. WHAT?? Writing oral is always difficult because really, from an action standpoint, oral is really boring. You're essentially in one place making repetitive motions. And then writing orgasms in a way that doesn't sound TOO florid but still gives satisfaction (ha!) is VERY DIFFICULT. I think the orgasm may be the hardest human experience to describe EVER.

I always struggle between my desire to tell a good story versus the times I just want lots of smut. And sometimes I swing real hard one way (The AU Mary story I'm telling now, which is 100,000+ words of gen) and then all I want to do is write lots of smut. Sometimes I'm writing nothing but PWPs for a while and then I'm like, "Oooh. I want to tell a juicy STORY." *shrugs* So it just depends on what I've been writing and what I want to write next.

As for style... I don't really like florid, overy schmoopy stuff that feels unmasculine (though I totally approve of masculine schmoop!) I don't like crying. I don't like a lot of epithets, like "the blond man" or "his long-donged lover". LOL. Unless they're being used ironically, obviously. I have a real difficult time with the use of the word "lover" when it's not ironical. Most men I know (and that's gay and straight) just would not and do not use that word and it almost always strikes me as false. And then I'm just picky about prose in general. There are a LOT of writers out there that I applaud for writing, but I just can't read them. And the writers that I love (coughs significantly in your direction) I'll read almost anything they write, because I know it'll be good.

[dreamlittleyo.livejournal.com]

*pokes head up for JUST a moment before sinking back into the depths of finals-cramming-land*

Do you think there's a correlation between length of time writing/amount writing, and the difficulty in writing those scenes?
I just don't have the perspective to choose on this comparison. Since Supernatural is the first fandom I've been actively involved in (and the first fandom for which I have finished stories), it means that I've really only been fic'ing for about a year. (I marked 5-10 years for that question in spite of this, because I've aspired to fanfic for a hell of a lot longer, including a stint in junior high where I thought my Mary Sue stories were the most brilliant things in the world--though had the smarts not to inflict them on anyone but my most loyal of friends). Anyway, since I've only been narrating sex 'successfully' for about a year, I can't really tell if it's gotten easier or harder with time. I guess I'd say it's a little easier now than a year ago. But that's all the more use you'll get from me on this question.

Do you feel like there's a 'cap' on how much sex you can write? (Per story, per fandom, per whatever.)
It depends on the story so completely that I can't really say as I'm consciously aware of a cap. Some stories the sex is the reason it exists. Some I write and am surprised at how little there is. I definitely can't force a story to contain sex if it's not in the cards, or to have more sex scenes than it wants to. I've tried. It doesn't work.

Do you have a preferred style to write (or read)?
I prefer to write in the present tense for some reason. I think it's because all those years I spent writing weirdly detailed outlines instead of actual narrative set it as my default, and it's finally merged right into my narrative 'style'. I'm mostly okay with that. For reading? No idea. Whether or not a style is going to work for me is kind of hit or miss. If it's so well executed as to not actually draw my attention until I'm done and out of the story? That's probably what I'd consider the most impressive. Otherwise... nope, no real preference except a general dislike for 1st and 2nd person (which can be overcome by excellent execution).

[pierson.livejournal.com]

Heh. You've listened to me whine about writing sex for ages, now. I've never liked writing sex, nor have I ever felt really comfortable with it. I don't find it sexy while writing it--for me, it's all, "now, where is his knee/elbow/head/Impala now?" ;-) If I go back later (usually a *very* long time later) and reread, I might think, "huh. not bad." But never in the process nor for months afterward. I keep thinking that I'll try for a fade-to-black, but I've written explicit sex for so long that it seems--false to me. I've read many stories which did the fade-to-black well, so I've nothing against it, but for me, it simply doesn't feel right.

On the other hand, I've written enough/explicit sex scenes that it's very difficult to make things new or different. I frequently will lift bits and pieces from things I've written previously, and try to give them a new spin.

The thing about writing sex scenes is capturing the intimacy, the caring between the two. Without emotion, it's simply porn, which I find boring in the extreme. For me, it's the emotional payoff that is the appeal of slash, the closeness of the characters, the development of the relationship. I like to see the growth of emotions and connectivity, which is why I tend to like first-time fics the best.

I read in many, many fandoms, but write in only one at a time. I wish I could be one of those authors who can write successfully and well in multiple fandoms, but. I seem to be limited in how much I can be invested in a particular fandom/pairing, and it simply doesn't extend to more than one fandom at a time. At the moment this seems moot, as I've not written any fanfic for a year now, due to school pressures. I do miss it, though.

Style? Ahahahaha. Ahem. When I first began writing fanfic, I wrote strictly third person past tense. Recent (comparatively speaking, given the lack of such for a while now) fanfiction is third person, present tense, usually with a tight single POV. I tend to write highly-descriptive fic, with a lot of detail, and try to incorporate all the senses (thanks, Sentinel fandom!). I am quite aware it's not to everyone's taste, and hey, that's okay. I admire people who have a spare, haiku-type of writing, but I'll never be one of them. Character-driven or plot-driven? Definitely character driven. I'd love to do a plot-heavy fic, but it seems I'm doomed never to do so.

And wow, this was probably *way* more than anyone wanted to know. :-) This post is brought to you courtesy of NO HOMEWORK TONIGHT. And believe me, I'm enjoying it. :-D

[kali1967.livejournal.com]

More often than not, I struggle with sex scenes, if only because I've had so little experience. It's also hard to be original, not just making it different from my previous fics, but from everyone else's too. I read so much smut *cough* that sometimes I have to sit back and think to make sure I'm not stealing someone else's work.

I think what's easiest for me to write is something that sparks one of my kinks-plain sex is tough, but if there's an angle I'm trying to work (threesome, submission, public place, etc) then I often find that it's easier, although I'm not entirely sure why.

[azephirin.livejournal.com]

Writing sex has gotten much easier for me over the years, both b/c of general improvement in my writing as a whole, and also because I've gotten much more comfortable with my own sexuality (esp. in the past 5 years or so). I'm a survivor of sexual assault, and when I read some of my writing from ~10 years ago (original fiction and fanfic), it's very clear that I was writing based on vague ideas of how I wanted sex to be (and based on my own syncresis of how other people, esp. slashfic and MSR writers, depicted it). It's difficult to portray something as pleasurable when it's something that one, at heart, views as painful and frightening. It's only been within the past 3–4 years that I've gotten away from that, and I think the way I write sex strongly reflects it.

Um, even more TMI, but I find it difficult to write certain sex acts I've never tried. I'm working on something right now—a gift fic for a friend—that I'm 85% done with except for ONE SCENE, and I'm putting off that one stupid scene because I'm having trouble imagining what this particular experience is like for the character in question. My imagination's good, no lie, but it's no substitute for actually having been in a physical body (in this case, a man's) and done that particular thing.

I actually really enjoy writing sex now (which is probably why I had such a blast with technosage's Porn-Paragraph-a-Thon last weekend!). I'm having a great time with Cracked Stars Shining (http://azephirin.livejournal.com/16314.html#cutid1). There's a lot of sex in it, but also a lot of other stuff, and while I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that the sex furthers the plot, I think it does help give a fuller picture of the relationship in question.

[merihn.livejournal.com]

Do you feel like there's a 'cap' on how much sex you can write? (Per story, per fandom, per whatever.)

Well, it really depends. Sometimes I get porned out, and have to stop writing sex for a while, but generally I try to squeeze as much sex into one fic as I can. lol. You may have noticed this...

I love writing sex, though I think there is such thing as too much. And I know EXACTLY what you mean about having to work hard to make each sex scene unique, its HARD.

♥