Personal pronouns and same-sex third person POV sex scenes

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...)

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?

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.

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.)

thethinker42 said:

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

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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.

lisamarie84x said:

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.)

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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.

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.

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.

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.

This problem keeps me awake at night.

But that might just be reading the hot gay erotica.

Either one!

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.

Nakhlasmoke said:

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

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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.

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

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.

veinglory said:

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

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Well. At least I learned a new word today.

(Sorry boss).

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

/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.

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*

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

sunandshadow said:

...the little piebald dragon...

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*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?

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.

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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."

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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...

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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...