Thinky-Thought... Erm... Wednesday

[ladychi]

Broad Strokes of Heroism is coming later this week.

It's time for me to ponder some different type stuff.

Comments

[momdaegmorgan]

You make me sad. Why? Because I don't think I've ever managed to pull off the sort of intimacy you describe above in fic. I feel like what I write is just sex, and not even particularly hawt sex at that. But then again, I feel like all of my smut comes out sounding forced and...like I'm trying to stick to some sort of a predetermined formula of how it should go. What it probably boils down to in the end is that I'm just not comfortable yet writing this sort of story. I feel like I'm Bambi, all legs and no grace, stumbling around in the meadow, trying to manage to not fall flat on my face

[ladychi]

What it probably boils down to in the end is that I'm just not comfortable yet writing this sort of story. I feel like I'm Bambi, all legs and no grace, stumbling around in the meadow, trying to manage to not fall flat on my face.I don't think any of us ever manages to get 100% comfortable writing smut, really. It's still sort of personal. I also sort of have to close my eyes and click "post" without thinking too hard about it. I don't think that any of your concerns are all that valid, by the way... Certainly what I've read of your stuff, it has been hot

[papilio_luna]

I completely agree with you and this is why all my favourite authors (who are probably mostly all your favourite authors as well) always, even if the bulk of the story is blistering porn, by the end I always go "Awwwwwww *sniffle*."

Here's the thing with me and smut in fic: it has to be there for a reason. It can be the craziest, porniest, nastiest sexfest in the universe (and often is with you lot on my flist!) but the characters have to have an emotional journey along with the sex for the fic to really be memorable. That's one of the incredible things about fid_gin's Lovedverse: The entire premise is built on craaaazy threeway sexual shenanigans, yet more than one of those stories has made me cry as well. It's in the little gestures, really, not even the big narrative plot points. It's how she writes the Doctors interacting, the way they touch one another, the way they speak -- or don't speak -- to one another, how she writes the way all three of them orbit around one another. It's incredibly, incredibly intimate, to the point where

[taliatoennien]

Hmmm. I do enjoy these kinds of entries. And I am not attempting smut for the first time...but here are my thoughts anyway.

First, don't be quite so hard on Twilight. I don't know how much you've read -- I haven't, I've just seen the movie, and thanks to a couple of my friends, the books are on my (dauntingly long) to read list. But from what I saw in the movie - the thing is, even if it's competely unrealistic to have that kind of intimacy dumped into your lap - once it's already there, it's as legitimate as any other kind of intimacy. I saw some good moments. I didn't view the movie any differently than any other romantic comedy. It just happened to have sparkly vampires

[unfolded73]

First of all, yes, I do think there is some stuff we can use here - it fits in with the topics of characterization and motivation that we talked about before. Part of what motivates people who love each other to share something like sex is to maintain the intimacy between the two of them.

I agree that sex =/= intimacy, but they are often go hand in hand. I totally get what papilio_luna says above about sex in a long-term relationship - sometimes it is just, "Hey, wanna fuck?" *shrug" "Yeah, all right." But even then there's an intimacy that underlies it. It's difficult to articulate it, because you don't necessarily express it in romantic words or in sweet, tender, vaseline-on-the-camera-lens lovemaking. But it's there, and I think it's possible to get that across in fiction. It's in the trust implicit in engaging in certain acts without embarrassment or shame. It's in checking in with each other during a new experience to make sure everything's still okay. It's in laughter or good-natured teasing.

[papilio_luna]

It's in the trust implicit in engaging in certain acts without embarrassment or shame.

I think that's what I was, poorly, trying to express. Sex becomes less of a Thing Unto Itself That is So OMGSPECIAL and more of a part of the whole relationship. When you know someone so well that one minute you're sitting on the toilet peeing while he's shaving and the next you're cavorting around the bedroom (just fucking, or making love, or experimenting, or all of the above), and then after that you lay in each other's arms and tell stupid jokes, that's really what it's all about for me. That's intimacy.

[unfolded73]

And see, I think you expressed it better than I did. Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

[plaid_slytherin]

See, this is why I love you. You think of things I never would have thought about even when I'm actually thinking about.

I think my problem is that I don't think things through enough. When I write, it's like "Oh, I know what's going to happen! And I'm going to write what's happened!" When I write, I am depicting the movie that's playing in my head and movies don't have interiority. I've noticed this lately, and I think I'm going to make more of an effort to show some thoughts in my writing. I feel like I'm missing the intimacy thing, and I'm not even writing smut.