Sunday, December 08, 2002
Memishness, Boredom, Meta, Smut For Beginners, Blah, Blah, BLAH
I've discovered what it takes to make me blather on at length: boredom. So now I want to know what inspires the *rest* of you to go meta.
Meanwhile, trolling through lj-land, I find Resonant talking about smut. And, well, there are few topics nearer and dearer to my heart than THAT.
While I was working on my Secret Slasha story, I got stuck. Horrendously stuck. Multiple times. For one thing, it's not a pairing I write very often. (See Te struggle to remain coy!) For another, the subject matter of the story... well, like I told Benaresq, it's really not my style. But it's what the story called for, and I was damned well determined to write it as well as I could. And so there was much banging my head on the desk when it came to the smut, because... AGH.
I don't LIKE writing smut like that. But Te, you might say, you write all kinds of smut! You write smut all the time! You apologize and look at yourself funny when you write a story with less than a 'R' rating! And, well, all of this is true. But there are some kinds of scenes that make me wonder how the *hell* I managed to write so many sex scenes. Hell, that make me feel like a downright *novice*.
All in all, that Secret Slasha story was one of the most *conscious* efforts I've ever made, writing-wise. I had to stop and think about maybe 80% of the words in the story before putting them down on the page, and frankly? That's just not usual. (Though it did result in the quickest editing process I've *ever* done.) I think I'm what the Spike calls a 'natural' writer -- not in the sense that writing is somehow my nature so much as in the sense that most of my stories flow pretty organically. I get a bunny, I think of a first line, I go from there.
Does that make sense? Probably not. Let me try again: Once I've got a first line? (And that first line meme has made me work *very* hard on those...) The rest is mostly cake. Because I'm actually a lot more linear than it might appear on first glance, and everything flows from those first few words. One step after another, one sentence leading into the next, and when I sense that I'm close to the end, I scroll back to the beginning and try to make the theme circular. Once I've done *that* (usually mid-sex scene), I go right back to one sentence after another until the end makes itself apparent.
Of course, this often means that the original bunny gets lost in the shuffle, but I usually don't care. (Exceptions would include my three most recent Spike stories, where I was either fulfilling a specific request (Expert Care), or trying to get my theories out before being Jossed ((Un)defined, Strings) and wow that's a lot of parentheses) For the most part, if I have a point to make? I can always put it in the blog, or in the lj if it's especially spoiler-y. I'm all about the writing. If I'm writing, no matter what it is, then I'm happy. I'm being productive, and hey -- six months or so down the road? If the story's any good, I can reread it and get a kick out of it.
*However*... that last is most assuredly *not* the case if I have to mull over every goddamned word just to try to get the story to work. I mean, I've written some decent stories that way, but I can only appreciate them on a technical level. The 'mystery,' such as it is, is completely absent. I have a powerful capacity to forget my own work and thus enjoy it as a reader, but there are limits. Cassandra suggests that maybe it just takes longer than six months. Which is definitely possible, but... well, I'm thinking of another 'conscious' story of mine that I wrote a *while* ago: "Forget-me-not." It's not a bad story. I think it holds up rather well, considering the decidedly unconventional pairing and the general *weirdness* of the concept. However... every time I try to reread it?
I'm *incredibly* aware of every trick I used, every turn of phrase that worked for me back then, hell, I can even tell what *songs* I was probably listening to while I wrote it. I'm taken completely out of the story, and where's the fun in that? Heh. I can *hear* Caro protesting.
So, how does this relate to smut?
Well, for one thing, the easiest/most unconscious sex scenes to write are also the ones that still turn me on. Hell, they may have even turned me on *while* I was writing, and screw the six month rule.
If the sex scene comes naturally from whatever came before, or if there was only a little adjustment necessary to get, say, Clark to shut up and strip, suddenly every little thing I've learned about writing smut over the years kicks in and the sex just... flows. The process:
1) Transition. Usually some bit of truncated dialogue that causes one individual to shift from thinking about Whatever to thinking about, say, the other individual's perfect cocksucking mouth.
2) Smut, smut, smutdiddlysmut.
3) Damn, I hate writing orgasms. Insert some variant of "S/he came really, really, REALLY hard."
4) Smut, smut, smutdiddlysmut.
5) See number 3.
That's not very helpful, is it? Well, hmm. I wrote a manifesto on How I Think Good Smut is written, and I'll reproduce the gist of it here: In the end, I think it all comes down to character/ization. If you've got a good handle on the characters, if the situation they're in is both right in terms of who they are and in terms of getting to the All Important Sex Scene, the rest comes naturally. Just like real life. Or, well, those instances in real life where you find yourself abruptly having hot, wild monkey sex.
And you know, I *know* a lot of you. I've had sex with quite a few of you, so, well, I *know* the abruptly-having-sex thing happens to more people than just, say, me.
So really, just think of it that way. Once you get that transition written? You're honestly home-free (unless, of course, you find yourself writing a pairing/situation/kink that profoundly turns you off), because one thing leads to another leads to the hands, hands in new places, leads to the sucky suck, leads to le petit mort. You don't have to think about *anything* beyond what Character A would likely do to Character B, given the time, place, situation, and time/accessories available. Or, make it even easier: you don't have to think about *anything* beyond how Character B feels about what Character A is doing, given the etc.
All other potential sex acts/reactions to sex acts are suddenly irrelevant, and the possibilities get narrower with every sentence you write until you reach that magic moment where there's only a handful of things your next sentence can include.
And you know, I can tell you from experience: once you've written a few sex scenes? It's all right there in your head, waiting for the next time you need to talk about, say, a truly spectacular rim-job.
Cassandra thinks I'm giving most writers too much credit. And, well, there's something to be said for knowing the basics of sex and sexuality, for understanding why some prose choices will almost never be anything *but* laughable, and why others *become* laughable when, ostensibly, put into the mouths of certain characters. (An example: throbbing fuckrods vs. 'quim' as said by Drusilla vs. 'quim' as said by... pretty much anyone *but* Drusilla.) But again, I retain my faith in the ability of thoughtful people to apply their impressive intellects to the question of just how a given character has sex. Or talks about sex. Or *thinks* about sex.
To me, a lot of bad smut could have easily been avoided if the author had simply put as much thought into how his/her characters went about making hey as s/he did into how her characters went about doing every *other* thing they do in the story in question. Alternately, a lot of bad smut could have easily been avoided if the author didn't somehow lose sight of the fact that sex is something that happens *every day*, and is thus not subject to any 'special' treatment. I can't tell you how many stories I've read where the author inexplicably changes his/her prose style to something overblown, purple, and downright ludicrous as soon as the characters got naked.
It's all about consistency, it's even *more* about character, and most of all? It's about flow. Which, in my view, is one fuck of a lot easier than the alternative.
Music: Prince, "When Doves Cry"
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On Jossetypes and Inara, one small (?) spoiler for 'War Stories'
This was originally going to be a response to a post by ebonbird, but I ran waaaaaay long.
I think one of the reasons I enjoy Firefly so much is that it's so clear that Joss and co. are putting a *lot* of themselves into things. I mean, even beyond the whole "this is Joss' dream project" thing...
Having watched Joss' other shows, it's not at all difficult to find parallels to previous/other characters in the Serenity crew, so I get another level of enjoyment in, say, watching Wash and seeing a Xander/Oz kinda deal, only *adult*, and also way more in touch with his own issues.
Or seeing Zoe and chuckling to myself about Joss' Women's Studies major, and looking at her relationship with Wash and saying to myself 'aha, so it's not that he thinks sex destroys everything; he was really making an extended comment about maturity.'
Ramble, ramble...
Inara is perhaps the most fascinating to me, because she's so 'new' in terms of the Jossian character troupe. Yes, he's had whores-with-issues before (Darla), and yes he's had people in control (too much?) of their own sense of sex and sensuality (Tara, Oz), but... there's something very *odd* about her.
Almost off. She's a highly politicized individual, just as much (if not more so) than Mal, and her politics inform her sense of self. She's got more veils over her personal identity than I normally can stand with anyone (fictional or otherwise), but... to me at least, it makes sense.
I would be terribly surprised to see a professional Companion who wasn't very, very careful about who they allow *in*, who they show their 'real' selves to -- if they're even sure who that person behind their own eyes may be. What do we know?
There's an Academy, presumably Alliance funded and backed, to train Companions in their chosen (?) profession. Trained and certified Companions get to pick and choose their clients, and Inara's stated several times, in several different ways, that personality means more than anything else.
And, well, that's all well and good, you can even insert a few 'awws' there for good measure, but I think there's something very telling about the fact that the few clients of hers we *have* seen haven't exactly been high on the intellect/perception-meter. That they have, in fact, been noticeably and notably *less* intelligent than Inara herself, with the exception of the Councillor.
And as for *her*... well, in the brief time that we got with her, we learned that she was under a huge amount of stress and desperate for the relaxation aspects of an encounter with a Companion. Sounds like an easy enough job for someone who has probably been trained -- over and above personal inclination -- to provide What People Want/Need To See/Hear.
And then we have the other (former?) Companion, Saffron. The Dark Side of the Force, as it were, but it was a *very* nice touch that Inara only needed a few minutes to recognize the tricks of the trade, as it were. And that Saffron made a point of *avoiding* Inara until she could no longer do so. The subtext of that, for me, was that Saffron *knew* the jig would be up as soon as Inara had a few moments alone with her.
But anyway, yeah, Saffron. The best part of that episode for me, in hindsight, was the very end, with Mal struggling to figure Saffron out. *Why* did she do the things she did, considering the fact that her options, as it were, appeared to be wide open? And I don't remember the exact quote, but she basically sneered at Mal about his assumptions that she was doing it for the money, as opposed to for the sheer joy of fucking with people's heads.
And... wow. That's a *nice* little bit of info to chew on, isn't it? Especially with all the little bits of information we've been picking up about *Inara*.
I'm beginning to wonder how many people get into the Companion Academy without their psych profiles revealing a certain measure of megalomania, manipulativeness, and perhaps just a *touch* of sociopathy.
Because really, I look at Inara and see someone who is least happy with her lot when she is no longer in a position to shift and control events and people to her liking, when she is surrounded by people who she can't wrap around her pinky finger (one way or another), and when the world is more chaotic than she thinks it should be. Human beings are *messy* in all kinds of ways, and the life of a Companion seems to be all about that particular brand of psychopathic and near-psychopathic tidiness that turns some people into monsters...
... or just terribly effective whores.
And all of that said, I now realize just who Inara reminds me of, in that Jossian Archetype way. Willow, anyone?
A distinctly *AU* Willow, to be sure, but with far more similarities to our own Miss Rosenberg than, say, Kaylee.
*satisfied sigh*
Have I mentioned lately how much I love this show?
Music: Fiona Apple, "Fast As You Can"
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