Haven't done this in a while.
Jun. 16th, 2004 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lierdumoaI've written a post about porn. No, I'm not going to do annoying shit like ask people what their kinks/pet peeves are. Frankly, unless I'm writing specifically for someone, I don't care about anyone's kinks/pet peeves but my own. Reading them makes me way too self-conscious about my own writing. Rather, I've written an essay on the subject.
I'm attempting to be somewhat literary here. Pay attention.
As most of you know, I've been writing a *lot* of porn lately. And, because I am lazy and hate working, I have been complaining about writing to anyone who will listen. But this post is not about my whining. Rather, this is about how porn is written and read.
Over the past week I've had about five people tell me something to the effect of "it just gets repetitive after a while. I mean, how many different ways can you take off clothes and insert cock?" My response to that is -- does angst get repetitive? Does hurt/comfort? Why is it that when we get bored reading fic that starts out interesting we blame it on bad writing, but when we get bored reading porn that starts out interesting we blame it on the fact that it's porn?
It's my opinion that most writers don't know how to write really good porn. Even great writers usually don't know how to write great porn. How many sex scenes have you read that have actually made you gape in wonder? I'm guessing, not too many. Almost anyone can write mediocre porn. A lot of people can write decent and even good porn. Really good porn is pretty rare. That takes talent.
Not only does it take talent, but it takes a different kind of talent than regular writing. An author who consistenly comes up with original plot ideas may not necessairily know how to consistently come up with original porn ideas. Well, just because you can't come up with an original porn idea doesn't mean that the world has run out of original ideas. Porn doesn't naturally become repetitive. We make it repetitive. It's easy to be repetitive.
I've probably put far more thought into this subject than the average fanfiction writer. Then again, I don't think I write porn in the same was as the average fanfiction writer. I approach it the same way I approach regular fic. A brilliant idea comes to me and I develop that into a fairly complex sequence of events, outline those events, and then write it all out.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seperis's leather!Brian PWP has a pretty extensive outline -- around 900 words. The actual story should be three to four times that length.
Of course, I don't always write porn like this. Much of my recent stuff has involved far less forethought. This isn't necessairily a bad thing for me or for other writers. After all, sex is pretty instinctual, so it makes sense that writing it would also be pretty instinctual. However, I never write porn as if I'm just going though the motions. Sex can be great when it's planned, or when it's spontaneous, but it can be really bad when it's uninspired.
A sex scene usually doesn't need a lot to be enjoyable. It doesn't need much characterization. It usually doesn't require much plot either, beyond an initial scenario. It can just be mindless fun. However, if you're going to write a 3,000+ word PWP, or a 20+ chapter epic with sex in every installment, you're going to have to try a bit harder than that, or things will get boring. You can't just keep rewriting the same thing over and over. It doesn't work with regular fic. It certainly doesn't work with porn.
Another thing I feel is important to note, is that just because porn doesn't need much characterization or plot to be enjoyable doesn't mean it can't have both of those things. Writers can reveal a lot about their characters through sex. It seems to me that most writers don't try. They'd rather use other methods for character development.
As for plot -- I wrote a PWP once that traced the development of a relationship through a series of sex scenes (pease excuse the self pimp -- it's the best example I can think of at the moment). Virtually all the action taking place in the story was either sex or foreplay. However, a few details of the settings for the various sex scenes showed passage of time, and alterations in the sexual behavior and dialogue showed how the relationship was gradually evolving. You could say that sex was the text and plot was the subtext. (Chicago fandom; Roxie/Velma femslash if anyone's interested -- read here).
Oh! I thought of another example. Seeker does something similar to what I just described in A Perfect Plan (HP fandom; Harry/Snape slash). It's not a PWP, but a good deal of the plot development does take place though various sex scenes.
But back to my original point about sex getting repetitive. People say sex gets repetitive because it's basically the same all the time. Well, love is pretty much the same all the time. It's also pretty different every time. It depends on how you look at it. Certainly all anal sex boils down to removing clothing, applying lube, inserting a cock, and thrusting. But even if the general principle is the same, there are immeasurable distinctions when one looks at the details. There are varying depths and types of emotion.
I don't know how coherent I was in all that. My basic point? The next time good porn goes bad, blame the writing.
Of course, anyone who read this can feel free to disagree in the comments. I like to try to keep things democratic.
P.S. HP fans should check outgreen_queen's post. She has some nice pics of Sean Biggerstaff.
*giggles like a sixth grader at his porn star name*
I'm attempting to be somewhat literary here. Pay attention.
As most of you know, I've been writing a *lot* of porn lately. And, because I am lazy and hate working, I have been complaining about writing to anyone who will listen. But this post is not about my whining. Rather, this is about how porn is written and read.
Over the past week I've had about five people tell me something to the effect of "it just gets repetitive after a while. I mean, how many different ways can you take off clothes and insert cock?" My response to that is -- does angst get repetitive? Does hurt/comfort? Why is it that when we get bored reading fic that starts out interesting we blame it on bad writing, but when we get bored reading porn that starts out interesting we blame it on the fact that it's porn?
It's my opinion that most writers don't know how to write really good porn. Even great writers usually don't know how to write great porn. How many sex scenes have you read that have actually made you gape in wonder? I'm guessing, not too many. Almost anyone can write mediocre porn. A lot of people can write decent and even good porn. Really good porn is pretty rare. That takes talent.
Not only does it take talent, but it takes a different kind of talent than regular writing. An author who consistenly comes up with original plot ideas may not necessairily know how to consistently come up with original porn ideas. Well, just because you can't come up with an original porn idea doesn't mean that the world has run out of original ideas. Porn doesn't naturally become repetitive. We make it repetitive. It's easy to be repetitive.
I've probably put far more thought into this subject than the average fanfiction writer. Then again, I don't think I write porn in the same was as the average fanfiction writer. I approach it the same way I approach regular fic. A brilliant idea comes to me and I develop that into a fairly complex sequence of events, outline those events, and then write it all out.
seperis's leather!Brian PWP has a pretty extensive outline -- around 900 words. The actual story should be three to four times that length.Of course, I don't always write porn like this. Much of my recent stuff has involved far less forethought. This isn't necessairily a bad thing for me or for other writers. After all, sex is pretty instinctual, so it makes sense that writing it would also be pretty instinctual. However, I never write porn as if I'm just going though the motions. Sex can be great when it's planned, or when it's spontaneous, but it can be really bad when it's uninspired.
A sex scene usually doesn't need a lot to be enjoyable. It doesn't need much characterization. It usually doesn't require much plot either, beyond an initial scenario. It can just be mindless fun. However, if you're going to write a 3,000+ word PWP, or a 20+ chapter epic with sex in every installment, you're going to have to try a bit harder than that, or things will get boring. You can't just keep rewriting the same thing over and over. It doesn't work with regular fic. It certainly doesn't work with porn.
Another thing I feel is important to note, is that just because porn doesn't need much characterization or plot to be enjoyable doesn't mean it can't have both of those things. Writers can reveal a lot about their characters through sex. It seems to me that most writers don't try. They'd rather use other methods for character development.
As for plot -- I wrote a PWP once that traced the development of a relationship through a series of sex scenes (pease excuse the self pimp -- it's the best example I can think of at the moment). Virtually all the action taking place in the story was either sex or foreplay. However, a few details of the settings for the various sex scenes showed passage of time, and alterations in the sexual behavior and dialogue showed how the relationship was gradually evolving. You could say that sex was the text and plot was the subtext. (Chicago fandom; Roxie/Velma femslash if anyone's interested -- read here).
Oh! I thought of another example. Seeker does something similar to what I just described in A Perfect Plan (HP fandom; Harry/Snape slash). It's not a PWP, but a good deal of the plot development does take place though various sex scenes.
But back to my original point about sex getting repetitive. People say sex gets repetitive because it's basically the same all the time. Well, love is pretty much the same all the time. It's also pretty different every time. It depends on how you look at it. Certainly all anal sex boils down to removing clothing, applying lube, inserting a cock, and thrusting. But even if the general principle is the same, there are immeasurable distinctions when one looks at the details. There are varying depths and types of emotion.
I don't know how coherent I was in all that. My basic point? The next time good porn goes bad, blame the writing.
Of course, anyone who read this can feel free to disagree in the comments. I like to try to keep things democratic.
P.S. HP fans should check out
green_queen's post. She has some nice pics of Sean Biggerstaff.*giggles like a sixth grader at his porn star name*
