Question About Exposition In Erotica

BigWords

BigWords

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Having decided to make up for my woeful track record of writing squick rather than erotica - and removing the SF and horror elements altogether - the only thing I can think of as a storytelling device is exactly that: one person sharing their experience of the night before. Is there a bias against having a distant tone? It feels as if the 'action' is removed more than one step somehow, but I'm not sure if that is the fault of the POV or if it is the writing getting in the way of the story.

1st person POV, past tense doesn't seem to be a natural fit for the genre, but your thoughts would be welcomed on this.
 
sunandshadow

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Yeah I would say distance is a problem inherent in that pov.

If you're satisfied to have removed the horror and sci-fi elements, that's fine, but I just wanted to mention that it's not necessary. Both gothic erotica and sf erotica are perfectly good genres. I've read some wonderful steamy human/alien romance, as well as some dramatic and memorable porn about women being captured and implanted with a seed by some plant or alien in a moderately horrific scenario. Vampire and werewolf sex are both very popular, and demons are also fairly popular.
 
Satori1977

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Why do you have to remove anything, or be forced to use a device that you don't seem comfortable with? That just seems gimmicky. Write it the way you want to write it, not how you think it should be written. And like sunshadow said, there is no reason to take out the SF or horror. Many novels have erotic and SF/horror elements to them. You don't have to pick just one.
 
dangerousbill

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BigWords said:
Having decided to make up for my woeful track record of writing squick rather than erotica - and removing the SF and horror elements altogether - the only thing I can think of as a storytelling device is exactly that: one person sharing their experience of the night before. Is there a bias against having a distant tone?
Click to expand...

I've read many excellent erotica stories written this way. It can be made to work, and work well.

One thing that often doesn't work. When things are told in recall, you might not want to put them in the form of a dialogue, with paragraph after paragraph of quotation marks. Better to put in a section break and move into first person past while the tale is being told. Not that it can't be done, but it's harder work to maintain interest as well as consistency in the dialogue when you relate a whole scene that way.
 
VoireyLinger

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I'm assuming you are talking about first person narrative. for a short about what happened the night before, i have no problem with that. With something longer, involving more scenes, I don't think I'd like the first. Not a fan of first in general though.

While there is a market for erotic sci-fi, and a growing markrlet for erotic horror, stripping away everything and sticking to telling one intimate encounter can be a very telling experience. without all the gimmicks of genre, you are left with just the experience. That can be far more profound than any kink or other-worldly add-on.
 
Aggy B.

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BigWords said:
Having decided to make up for my woeful track record of writing squick rather than erotica - and removing the SF and horror elements altogether - the only thing I can think of as a storytelling device is exactly that: one person sharing their experience of the night before. Is there a bias against having a distant tone? It feels as if the 'action' is removed more than one step somehow, but I'm not sure if that is the fault of the POV or if it is the writing getting in the way of the story.

1st person POV, past tense doesn't seem to be a natural fit for the genre, but your thoughts would be welcomed on this.
Click to expand...

I don't see why there has to be a "device" in the first place. An erotica story is the same as an SF one as far as method is concerned. Why can't you just write a story with no SF or horror elements? (Even I have managed that.)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the question. But I don't see why 1st past should be any more distant in erotica than it would in any other genre. I tend to like 1st present myself, but also do 1st past and 3rd past erotica all the time. (Albeit with a heavy speculative slant, 80% of the time.) I've even done a 2nd/1st mash-up.

So, why worry about making it 1st past if that feels wrong to you? (Again, I don't see why it would if it doesn't for other genres.) Write it in 3rd. Or present tense and see what happens.

Just because it's smutty doesn't mean it isn't a story just like any other.
 
BigWords

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I removed the weird SF and horror tinges I was playing with in early drafts as the tone didn't match up to the competition's requirements - it's meant to be comedic erotica, but every time I sit down with the usual bag of tricks there seems to be an automatic slide towards more disturbing undercurrents. By removing the crutches of familiar storytelling elements it got a lot lighter (for some reason I can't get rid of Clive Barker's "sex and violence are two sides of the same coin" thing out of my head when I play in the erotica genre.

dangerousbill said:
One thing that often doesn't work. When things are told in recall, you might not want to put them in the form of a dialogue, with paragraph after paragraph of quotation marks.
Click to expand...

Um... Yeah. I'm going to have to do massive edits anyway, so I'll remove all the tags when I do so. It's entirely told as if to another character.

Aggy B. said:
So, why worry about making it 1st past if that feels wrong to you? (Again, I don't see why it would if it doesn't for other genres.) Write it in 3rd. Or present tense and see what happens.
Click to expand...

There's an upper word count I have to stay under. :( By limiting it to recollections, I removed about five thousand words of set-up, and got to the actual beginning of the story a lot quicker - it's still massively overwritten, but there is less weirdness I have to make note of for further edits...

This is why I should keep away from competitions I have no business entering. Or at least have something finished before I get the brainwave of entering...
 
Aggy B.

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BigWords said:
I removed the weird SF and horror tinges ...
<snipped for brevity>
... before I get the brainwave of entering...
Click to expand...

Ah. Gotcha. I just got through a similar situation. Wrote a story for an anthology and even the so-bare-bones-it-barely-made-sense version was 1k over the limit. I tried a different idea. Same thing.

Finally managed to pin down something that fit. But just barely.

I commend you on trying to do not only erotica but also comedy. That's something I just can't seem to write. Good luck with your endeavor! :)

Aggy, funny like a chihuahua on crack
 
BigWords

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One of my (semi-official) New Year's resolutions was that I would submit at least two or three short pieces a month - competitions seem to be the biggest idea-generators, so I'm using them to meet my quota. :)
 
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