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Nanowrimo Question!
17 years ago
General
To porn, or not to porn? I usually try not to write porn (oh, fine, if you must call it erotica, then do so...) for NaNoWrimo, but usually what I write wants to be porn, and resisting that inclination generally leads to resisting writing, period.
But not always.
Sometimes I write stuff that is supposed to be porn - or rather, is supposed to be the prelude to porn - but the porn never happens, or doesn't happen right, but then I try to force it and it ends up stopping the writing because writing porn when your mind is on other things (like plot and characterization, and the characters psychological angst related to the porn he's supposed to be participating in but isn't anymore, etc.) is really quite tedious.
I have a 15+ thousand word story involving a certain wolf handcuffed in a mall washroom, and the porn just aint happening. Too much lead in, no finish. C'est la vie.
So what's your opinion?
I'd call it a vote, but honestly, if I could be easily swayed by the whims of the masses, I'd be a creative dynamo by now (because my fans and friends are totally awesome. No, really. Way more awesome than I merit, I'm certain).
So I'm just curious what you folks think - Porn, or no? And I know you may think that 'write what you want' and 'stop caring' and 'go with the flow' and all such sentiments might be helpful, but they aren't really. If I was capable of such, then again, I'd have no need to ask, or angst, or even try writing. It'd fall out of my head fully formed and ready for consumption.
Then again, someone once said only dead fish go with the flow, so there's that to think about.
Porn, or no porn, that is the question, etc. Just over 25 hours before the writing commences, and I'm still ambivalent.
(Oh, and I'll have at least 7 hours to write after midnight, Nov. 1st, because I'm committed to babysitting children all night at the shop. Kill me. Please.)
But not always.
Sometimes I write stuff that is supposed to be porn - or rather, is supposed to be the prelude to porn - but the porn never happens, or doesn't happen right, but then I try to force it and it ends up stopping the writing because writing porn when your mind is on other things (like plot and characterization, and the characters psychological angst related to the porn he's supposed to be participating in but isn't anymore, etc.) is really quite tedious.
I have a 15+ thousand word story involving a certain wolf handcuffed in a mall washroom, and the porn just aint happening. Too much lead in, no finish. C'est la vie.
So what's your opinion?
I'd call it a vote, but honestly, if I could be easily swayed by the whims of the masses, I'd be a creative dynamo by now (because my fans and friends are totally awesome. No, really. Way more awesome than I merit, I'm certain).
So I'm just curious what you folks think - Porn, or no? And I know you may think that 'write what you want' and 'stop caring' and 'go with the flow' and all such sentiments might be helpful, but they aren't really. If I was capable of such, then again, I'd have no need to ask, or angst, or even try writing. It'd fall out of my head fully formed and ready for consumption.
Then again, someone once said only dead fish go with the flow, so there's that to think about.
Porn, or no porn, that is the question, etc. Just over 25 hours before the writing commences, and I'm still ambivalent.
(Oh, and I'll have at least 7 hours to write after midnight, Nov. 1st, because I'm committed to babysitting children all night at the shop. Kill me. Please.)
Long answer: Start writing with no intention of writing porn. BUT. When you realize that something sexy is about to happen, grab that ball and run with it. But remember, since you're not writing porn, there's no pressure, so stop when it's obviously boring you.
In other words, write porn.
Also, I haven't actually read any of your stories yet because I'm a terrible person. u.u
And "don't write porn while writing porn", is a surprisingly Zen answer. I like it. I think.
There's writing *porn*, and there's writing *sex* (NOT "erotica", which is just porn with an advanced degree and a Prius in the driveway).
The point of porn is arousal; story, plot, characterization are all secondary. Porn isn't *literary* so much as functional, an instrument. I've never tried to write any, but it doesn't seem like it would be all that difficult, once you learn a few basic tricks
But you want to stories as well as celebrate a certain sexuality. More difficult and worthwhile a thing, it seems. Then write stories with lots of good rough canine homo sex in them (or the promise of such), if that's where your muse takes you. Write in pornographic style, play with pornographic conventions -- just don't *settle* for simple porn.
I kind of like the idea of a story in which a wolf is chained in a mall bathroom, but the imminent sex is beside the point of the piece. We all can predict pretty well the sort of thing that is coming for wolfboy (in every sense of the word come). So the real story is elsewhere -- what's going through his mind as he waits, what his relationships are to the beasts who locked him down, what he does on normal days when not chained up in that dim back area behind the Chick-Fill-A and across from Abercrombie. Some readers might be pissed off that they were denied their porn moment -- others might just get into whatever else the imagined experience of anthropomorphic canine lavatory detention just might offer
Whereas the one I'm speaking of now is just a smidgen over 25000 words, and has maybe three paragraphs of sex at the end where I just sort of stopped writing. And yeah, it involves a lot of extra not-sex-related stuff pertaining to his situation, his feelings towards it, and how he's coming to grips with the things he's learned about himself because of it. There's plenty of hints about sex and sexuality in it, but when I got right down to the unf-unf-unf I just lost interest. *shrugs*
On the other hand though, it's not exactly a stellar story, either, in the strictest sense, as not much actually happens. Just characters being characters, really. If it had a unique style and more focus on 'issues', I could say it was lit-fic, I guess. Only lit fic with innuendo. I dunno.
I do get your drift - or what I think is what your getting at, anyway - that writing stories that just happen to contain sex is perfectly okay, and that if that's what I want to do, then I should do it. And I guess I will, at that. If I ever actually get to the writing of it, eh? Heh...
Thanks man. For the comments, and the thinking it provoked for me. If I come up with anything I think will interest you, I'll send it your way. :)
That's plenty of opportunity for vignettes of erotica/porn throughout it. Doesn't mean you have to shackle yourself down to just one lavatory, in one mall, with one of a canine persuasion.
I think the point of NaNoWriMo is more to get the prescribed number of words out onto paper/digital media within the 30 days. You can always edit it later.
That's more of less why I never continued the story to the end, as even with 50K done, adding a bunch more effort to what would amount to a pile of pages nobody would ever read seemed like a waste.
Since then, I guess that's what has been reinforcing my self-doubt: The idea that I might do it again, great story where sex and sexuality are key elements, and thus make the works essentially useless for anything but my own self-gratification. It seems safer if I could just decide from the start to either write sex, or write a great story, to avoid the issue of doing both.
If that makes sense.