Personal pronouns and same-sex third person POV sex scenes [Archive]

View Full Version : Personal pronouns and same-sex third person POV sex scenes

thethinker42

07-10-2009, 04:18 PM

Does anyone else run into any problems with personal pronoun confusion when writing sex scenes in third person in same-sex situations?

I can write all kinds of scenes with multiple people of the same gender - conversations, fights, action, whatever - but for some reason, I hit a wall when writing sex scenes. In first person, I'm fine. In third, I either end up with pronoun confusion or repeating names too often.

Anyone else? Or am I as crazy as I think I am?

sunandshadow

07-11-2009, 12:07 AM

I think the solution is to use the pronouns where it's obvious from the action which is doing it, but in the other cases substitute for them with 'heroic epithets' (the taller man, the pale man, the warrior, the nobleman, the little piebald dragon...)

raburrell

07-11-2009, 12:14 AM

I'm not sure I'd agree with that - it's too easy to end up in what's called 'the burly detective' syndrome.

The last time I wrote same-sex erotica was ages ago, but I guess I'd advise varying your sentence structure and playing hide the pronouns. Or can you play with roles in the moment a bit so that it's clear one character *couldn't* be taking a certain action?

scarletpeaches

07-11-2009, 01:31 AM

Lisa Cox

07-11-2009, 01:51 AM

thethinker42

07-11-2009, 05:29 AM

What I do is - sorry. I mean, what I would do if I was perverted enough to write homosexual deviance is...When I refer to 'he' or 'she', it's always in relation to the last named character. If I want to change to the other character, I name them somehow, and from then on the he/she refers to them.

Makes sense? No? Splendid.

Carry on.

Right, that's exactly what I do...which is part of the problem. Still end up with a lot of name repetition and/or confusing pronouns.

Nature of the beast, I guess. :) Don't know why it isn't a problem in other scenes, but in sex scenes, it drives me crazy.

SFLP

07-11-2009, 06:52 AM

Don't know why it isn't a problem in other scenes, but in sex scenes, it drives me crazy.

Well, in other scenes he and he or she and she aren't quite as...involved, as they are in sex scenes.

What I've been *trying* to do (though I'm off writing due to work for a month or two - my busy season) is make the characters unique/different enough from each other, and use very-close-in-third-person, so that it's obvious whose head you're in, which makes it easier to deal with he/he.

Where I have a problem is that I'm writing a lot of menage stuff right now. I tend to do fine where it's he/he or even he/he/she, provided that's from one of the "he" points of view, but when a menage scene hits the "she" pov...things get messy. And then yeah, I either have to rely on stupid epithets, or I have to have the "she" thinking obvious enough stuff about whatever "he" I happen to be talking about, so that it's clear who is who.

It's a problem. lol.

sunandshadow

07-11-2009, 07:34 AM

Don't use epithets! Dear god, don't use them. I can't even tell you how many articles I've read stating "DEATH TO EPITHETS". I hate them with a passion. They make me cringe.

I read an absolutely brilliant blog post once on names vs pronouns in graphic gay sex scenes that you would probably find helpful. If I find it, I'll drop you the link. (It was a long time ago, though -- so no promises.)
o.O I have to wonder how a grammatical structure, or whatever epithets are, can really be hateable. But then I am equally baffled when I hear someone say they hate adverbs, or ellipses, or parentheses, or passive voice... to me every way of speaking was invented because somebody wanted to speak that way and create that effect with their words, so for every verbal device there is, there is some occasion in writing when it's a good idea to use it.

Darklite

07-12-2009, 12:35 AM

Epithets are bad. Very bad. All they do is draw attention to the fact the author is trying to work around pro noun confusion. Personally, I’d rather have the confusion.

nkkingston

07-12-2009, 10:43 PM

I have this problem quite often, though it's funny, like you say, how it only really cuases problems in sex scenes.

Sticking to one viewpoint for the whole scene is probably the most useful thing. If you're staying right inside the head of your viewpoint character it makes life easier, as the reader knows any sensations or actions not obvious to an observer must come from him.

If I'm switching the character 'he' currently refers to I often start a new paragraph, to give the reader a visual indication of the shift. I try to avoid referring to both characters as 'he' more than once in the same sentence.

Physical differences between the characters help, especially if they're already referenced in non-sexual scenes (if you have a blond character and a brunet, for example, it should be apparent who is pulling whose hair from the colour of the strands caught between his fingers). Using "his blond hair" rather than "the hair of the blond man" not only eliminates epithets but makes for a much smoother sentence, and it's still clear who you'r talking about.

SFLP

07-13-2009, 08:52 AM

thethinker42

07-13-2009, 01:49 PM

I've been reading excerpts this evening (getting ready for my next ebook buy) and I have just decided I much prefer he he he he he to anything. I just read an excerpt that has included interaction between the 2 male protagonists. 400 words and their names were mentioned 32 times. It was so clunky and awful that I immediately thought of this thread.

Yep, I'd rather be confused.

J.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about, except I hate being confused too. BAH. I think I can safely say that 90% of my gay work will be first person POV...I'm currently working on my third M/M, and they were all first person. But I have a fourth I've played with that HAS to be third to work, so...I'll slog through it eventually. Blarg.

Zoombie

07-13-2009, 02:38 PM

This problem keeps me awake at night.

But that might just be reading the hot gay erotica.

Either one!

thethinker42

07-13-2009, 03:55 PM

This problem keeps me awake at night.

But that might just be reading the hot gay erotica.

Either one!

Hmm, you might be onto something. Maybe THAT's why I've been losing sleep over it...hmm...

Nakhlasmoke

07-13-2009, 04:03 PM

i don't have this prob, mostly because I write in first, so I er...have no advice.

Loads of tea and sympathy though.

i guess just keeping it in very close third could help? Just a thought.

SFLP

07-13-2009, 09:05 PM

i guess just keeping it in very close third could help? Just a thought.

That's mostly what I do. (I can't write first person, but my third person is very, very close, usually.) In my current WIP, the two men are both dark haired, so no help there, but they *think* very differently.

One has longer hair, but unless it's getting pulled or something, it doesn't clear things up much.

J.

veinglory

07-13-2009, 10:15 PM

Scarlet, I know you are joking-- but cut it out. This is a genre discussion and if you don't have anything useful to add, please refrain. Any further off topic and unfunny cobtibutiobs will be deleted

veinglory

07-13-2009, 10:18 PM

I do not commonly have too much confusion based on using deep third. The POV holder rarely thinks of himself in the 'he' form, he thinks a about what he is experiencing and about the other guy.

scarletpeaches

07-13-2009, 10:19 PM

veinglory

07-13-2009, 10:28 PM

I am sitting on the floor in a public hotel corridor trying to charge my iPhone from a wall plug -/ typing skills suffer

scarletpeaches

07-13-2009, 10:30 PM

/derail.

Whoops, didn't realise. I thought you were taking the mickey out of my habit of making up words.

(Srsly. I laughed, and planned to use that word again).

/end derail.

Brindle Chase

07-14-2009, 12:30 AM

to the original question... yep... its hard and I have run into it before. I'm still rewriting those scenes to be "clearer" as to which she I am referring to at the moment, without using the character names and it is quite possibly the most frustrating thing I've ever had to write, aside writing a synopsis.... *lol*

SFLP

07-14-2009, 10:19 PM

I bought a book last night from Loose ID that has a long M/M/M/F sex scene in it, from the F POV...4000-5000 words. I actually plopped it into Word and counted the name usage frequency.

The example that I gave previously (400 words, 32 times) had a frequency of 1 name for every 12.5 words and was just...awful. (And it was in a highly rated review for the book; go figure.)

This one has a frequency of about 1 out of 20 words being the name of one of the three men, which still *sounds* like a lot to me, but it really worked for me. It surprised me, considering it was close 3rd person in the woman's head, but I think that actually may have made it easier...she (the author) could take a break for a second and just concentrate on what Lena was thinking and feeling. I think you could do the same thing in a M/M scene, though, give the reader a break from the physical action into the head of your current character's POV.

Lots of he/his/they/their and an occasional "someone" ;) but at no point did I have to re-reread something to figure out who was doing what. Not an epithet to be seen, almost no description of the guys by hair color/eye color/whatever. Just skillful writing.

She (the author) often seemed to anchor the "who" in one sentence, using the name, then have another sentence or two using he/his.

e.g.
Matt arched forward, sliding through the slippery mess where she and Giorgio joined. With a sound almost like a purr, he coated his shaft in her fluids. Then he pulled back, positioning himself for penetration.

There are paragraphs that are riddled with names, but even they work, partly because of the way it is a chain of events, not just "Jack did X to Fred. Fred did Y to Jack."

e.g.
Giorgio’s eyes were closed tight, and he arched his head back to rest against Kenji’s forehead. Kenji threw his arm across Giorgio and Lena, feeling around until he found some part of Matt to grab onto. When Kenji used the extra hold for leverage, Giorgio cried out and pushed harder into her dripping wet heat.

Sometimes, she sort of mixed it up (these four are witches and have a psychic connection):
The edgy, almost painful tightening around Matt’s balls served as her first hint she was falling out of her own body and into theirs. For a moment, she was Kenji -- felt him shiver, straining for control as he pressed deeper into the delicious embrace of Giorgio’s ass. Then she plummeted into Giorgio’s thoughts, felt his stomach clench up around the raging inferno inside him as he counted under his breath, trying hard not to get there ahead of the others.

Anyway, it wasn't until I'd finished the scene that I realized she'd pulled off just what we had been talking about in this thread. It was done smoothly enough that there were no distracting epithets, not too many repeating names, and no confusion.

Thought it was interesting. I guess it proves to me that it *can* be done.

Off to buy the second book in the series, to reward myself when I'm done working tonight - nice long stories, just how I like 'em.

J.

P.S. Book is Nature's Pentacle by Eden Rivers. Don't love the title, but it had a pretty entertaining story.

V. Greene

07-15-2009, 11:25 PM

...the little piebald dragon...
*appreciates*

It does indeed help if one of your twosome is scaly, clawed, fire-breathing and has a several-foot-long tongue, I have to admit. It picks up that whole "One of them just can't be doing that" thing mentioned above. Otherwise, though, the close third-person and the carefully fixed POV do help a lot. My own rule is that if I can't reread it and be sure who's doing what to whom, it's time for a name again. It's good to know I'm not the only one who's been puzzled with how to manage the menfolk's pronouns.

Is there an epithet-per-page rule?

Stella Omega

07-19-2009, 02:51 AM

I write and read a lot of same-sex erotica, *waves to Emily* and I find that using names almost every time you reference one or another character really works the best. After awhile you hardly notice "Sally" and "Clara" being repeated over and over and over....
Sally stopped rocking against Clara's hip, and stood up. Clara caught Sally's hand and pulled Sally back down into Clara's lap once more. Clara barely had time to breath in once, before Sally began the kiss all over again.

Plus, there are a lot of ways to structure your prose to minimise the problem;

"Sally worked her fingers deep into Clara's hungry cavity, stopping to admire the flush on Clara's face. She was so enraptured by the sight of those sparkling eyes, she nearly forgot what she was doing until Clara's petulant whine made her remember."It's easier to keep track of which woman is "her" when I only make one of them "her" per paragraph.

I don't mind one or two heroic epithets, personally, but I try to keep them less than heroic if you know what I mean;
The dark skinned woman wriggled in pleasure under Sally's fingers...Hmm! If Clara has dark skin, and she's tangled in white sheets, that's one more strong visual detail I can use to delineate my characters...

Voluptuary_Manque'

07-19-2009, 05:01 AM

Stella Omega

07-19-2009, 05:18 AM

I can see where that certainly could be a problem. Vanilla straight bear that I am, however, I can only view from the sidelines. However, I will follow this discussion with interest. Who knows what I may decide to do some day?I happen to know that you've written more than one woman into a scene together-- hell, more than three! :D

(Guys, V_M and I are fellow refugees from a once good porn-writers forum that now seems to be going bad)

sunandshadow

07-19-2009, 05:58 AM

*appreciates*

It does indeed help if one of your twosome is scaly, clawed, fire-breathing and has a several-foot-long tongue, I have to admit. It picks up that whole "One of them just can't be doing that" thing mentioned above. Otherwise, though, the close third-person and the carefully fixed POV do help a lot. My own rule is that if I can't reread it and be sure who's doing what to whom, it's time for a name again. It's good to know I'm not the only one who's been puzzled with how to manage the menfolk's pronouns.

Is there an epithet-per-page rule?
Thanks for the appreciation. :D The 'little piebald dragon' story is in the SYW erotica forum, if you haven't already seen it there.

Per page is not generally a useful measurement, but I hesitate to put two epithets in a sentence, and try to avoid using the same epithet more than once in a paragraph; even better if I can manage to not repeat one in 3 paragraphs or more.

SFLP

07-19-2009, 11:32 AM

Hi, Stella.

I buy about...I'd say a dozen titles a month of ebook erotic fiction. I guess what people like, writing-wise, is pretty subjective. If, in a preview, I see something like this:

Sally stopped rocking against Clara's hip, and stood up. Clara caught Sally's hand and pulled Sally back down into Clara's lap once more. Clara barely had time to breath in once, before Sally began the kiss all over again.

That will immediately turn me off the book, and I'll move on. (I actually can't tell you what I would actually think if I read a paragraph like in a published book I had bought, because I would probably be banned from the forum. I mean, sheesh, 20% of the text is NAMES.) I read a lot of MM, MMF, etc. books and I *rarely* buy a MF book. While I understand what you're saying, I absolutely notice those repetitive name after name sections, and I don't buy that author any more. If I accidentally buy a book like this, I usually just delete it, but I'm pretty careful, so it doesn't happen very often.

I don't mind an epithet or two, but when you say "using names almost every time you reference one or another character really works best", I must disagree. I spend - not a lot - about $80 - $100 on ebooks every month, and that sort of writing (Sally/Clara/Clara/Sally/Sally/Clara/Clara/Sally) will instantly turn me off any book or author. When 20% of your story is the names of the characters, it doesn't make very interesting - or very erotic - reading for me.

Anyway, for me as a reader, simply repeating the name over and over is one of the things I would least like to see happen to avoid confusion. I would definitely rather be confused. (Otherwise, I'd just read Literotica, where that stuff happens all the time - lol)

J.

Stella Omega

07-19-2009, 09:19 PM

Heh yeah, maybe I went overboard on my first example! Second one reads better to me this morning. That's what editing is all about, plus-- if Clara is dark-skinned, the flush wouldn't show on her face, even though it would be there. I would want to change that. maybe "...the heat in her face..."

SFLP

07-19-2009, 09:27 PM

Yeah, I'd agree the second one is fine. And by changing it to "...the heat in her face..." you get rid of that pesky second Clara in the first sentence.

SFLP

07-19-2009, 09:32 PM

And actually, that first one you could do something like:

Sally stopped rocking against Clara's hip, and stood up. Clara caught her hand and pulled Sally back down into her lap once more. She barely had time to breath in once, before Sally began the kiss all over again.

Editing is more useful than last night's whine. ;) I'd just gotten home from a dinner party that was a bit too much party and not quite enough dinner.

J.

Stella Omega

07-19-2009, 09:39 PM

...I'd just gotten home from a dinner party that was a bit too much party and not quite enough dinner.

J.I like that line... kinda plot bunny-ish!

Romantic Heretic

07-20-2009, 05:15 AM

I've written a few f/f scenes and what I find useful is description. I use a feature of a character's anatomy instead of a pronoun or a name.

For example: The buxom blonde grabbed her lover's short, dark hair and pulled her tight.

Names can get as overwhelming as pronouns in my opinion.

Hi VM. Good to see you here too.

Saint Fool

07-24-2009, 02:47 AM

In the M/M that I'm on and off writing, I've got two guys who have very different attitudes about sex. One is Victorian vanilla and the other is .... well, I could say say more experienced, but actually ... he's a slut. Their characters and attitudes are very different and that seems to make the sex scenes easier in terms of who's who.

Stella Omega

07-25-2009, 05:59 AM

Romantic Heretic

07-25-2009, 04:34 PM

Yeah, but does the reader. ;)

Hi Stella. :)

William the Bloody

07-27-2009, 06:48 PM

If you know their names, I'd use them, unless the fact that one of them is taller/blond/a vampire is relevant to what is going on at the time.
Also, get them to talk to each other: makes the scene hotter, and gives you a clue of who is doing what to whom.

Selah March

07-28-2009, 03:29 AM

I agree re: "death to epithets," mostly because their use is death to deep third POV. (Is your character really thinking about his partner as "the taller, darker man," for instance? Or -- God forbid -- is he really thinking of himself that way?)

I use a lot of first names in my m/m sex scenes. My editor's quote on the subject: "Better to be repetitive than to make the reader go back and figure out exactly who penetrated whom and at which orifice."

But if you're not writing in deep third, all bets are off.

thethinker42

07-28-2009, 05:02 AM

And all of this is exactly why I try to write all of my M/M romances in first person. LOL Trying to balance names, pronouns, dialogue, etc., is a nightmare...but I'll finish my third person M/M romance eventually. Maybe after self-medicating a few times...

xccorpio

07-28-2009, 06:23 AM

thethinker42

07-28-2009, 06:30 AM

Thanks for pointing that out. Now I understand why so many M/M stories are written that way.

Exactly. LOL I didn't realize it myself until I tried to write my second M/M romance in third person. It drove me absolutely batty. So I put it aside, wrote another in first person (which worked much better), and vowed never to do third M/M again if I could help it. LOL I will go back to that other story (which has to be third) eventually, but damn...if it can be avoided, I'm not doing it again. :D

veinglory

07-28-2009, 07:14 AM

Personally I think writing first person limits the marketability of a book. If you write with a clear point of view the confusion simply doesn't occur any more than it would in a combat or dialogue scene.

Unimportant

07-28-2009, 07:38 AM

In "Lavender Ink: Writing and Selling Lesbian Fiction" there's an excellent chapter by erotica editor Sacchi Green on how to write sex scenes, and she agrees that it's better to use character names rather than pronouns or burly-detective descriptions.

xccorpio

07-28-2009, 08:09 AM

I wish I could write in first person. I tried it, but I'm not good at it. What I use instead is the character's names. I alternate the third person using their names, with the characters calling each other during the scenes. Of course, I don't abuse it. Talking during sex is so exciting.

Chasing the Horizon

07-28-2009, 09:51 AM

I use a lot of first names in my m/m sex scenes. My editor's quote on the subject: "Better to be repetitive than to make the reader go back and figure out exactly who penetrated whom and at which orifice."
:ROFL: So true

It also works to tie one of the characters up. Then there's no doubt who's doing the touching and who's straining against their handcuffs. :D

I didn't have a problem with overusing names when I wrote my m/m sex scenes. *shrug* It was no more difficult than the long battle sequences involving all female characters in my earlier books. My ratio was a name every 31 words, which looks like it's lower than most. I would give advice, except I don't know what I did. Maybe it's best to learn with battle scenes, lol.

I think a problem with pronoun confusion or overuse of names might mean there's too much emphasis being placed on the blow-by-blow action and not enough on the sensations and emotions.