Well unless you really need to, you can always try to not go into the gritty details and leave things up to the reader's imagination
Again, it's a little too metaphorical. I think I mentioned earlier that I've used "cleft", but that gets kind of old. I don't like using stereotypical crap like "inside her" and stuff like that. I'll leave that for trash romances. My most recent piece was erotica. You kind of have to go into detail with erotica. I don't want to be another author who dances around the issue of sex, trying to make it into something you should either be ashamed to talk about or something "left to the imagination". That's not a very accurate portrayal of a sex life.
I think reading the news can help you think about what to write... Also, your interests do matter. For me, I love watching horse racing and I'm now writing a novel about horse racing !
I've noticed that in a lot of lesbian erotic that 'area' is often referred to simply as the woman's 'center.'
But in all seriousness, I would like to be able to have the ability to look at the creation of a short story and not feel like running and hiding under a rock. Poetry is one thing, that I have no problem vomiting, no matter how good or how terrible it ends up coming out, it just keeps coming when I am in the state of mind for it. Short stories on the other hand, which are what I would like to write more seriously, have a tendency to feel like its just too big an undertaking and my brain just fizzles and shuts off. Even if I have an idea for the story, its just much bigger then it actually is mentally. I even try and break it down into an outline and even the very thought of processing the information and dissecting it into an outline suppresses my motivation to write it. Maybe I am just one giant "vulva? vagina? pussy?" (Insert one non-derogatory, non-awkward version of the lower anatomy for a female.) The perils of living in 4D...
Complex character development. I can create characters, but I always feel I lack that edge that makes them seem dynamic and real. I keep reading other authors and they seem to really bring their characters alive, but I fall short of that. I often feel I'm more interested in what the characters do than who they are... I also worry that if I spend too much time on a character my writing will loose it's pace. My personal pet loath is too many internal monologues. Like "James tripped over a rock. How stupid! He thought. It made him feel utterly embarrassed. If Sarah saw him he'd have died. How could he not have seen the rock? It was right there!" etc etc etc. Though now that I read that it does make James seem a bit more real now than I intended... So yeah I guess that's another thing; when should a character have a whole internal discussion and in what moderation? Not sure if there is a rule of thumb for that sort of thing?
I've been working on my own fiction book for some time. I've found it hard to fully indulge myself in the realm of the "impossible". I've been trying to do some research on real theoretical science and seeing if I can expand from there. Any suggestions on how to get lost in the fiction?
I write stories that go into sexual detail, and somehow I've managed to use neither "vagina" nor "pussy" in my writing. My stories aren't romance or erotica, necessarily. Sex is a part of my characters' lives, and their stories reflect that. I might say, "He spit into his hand and rubbed himself vigorously before entering her," or, "She shut her eyes and grit her teeth as he parted her legs and slipped himself between them." Other times I'll simply describe the setting, the touching, the feelings and observations of a character. The woman might feel her surroundings drop away as her senses buzz and the smell of cologne and Irish Spring fills her with anticipation. She might feel a sense of hopeless desolation as she stares at a fly caught in a spider web on the ceiling while he pumps away.
Sex isn't really metaphorical. It is in fact a proper term for a women's (or less commonly a man's) private parts. Hence the sentence: "He put his sex in her sex and they had sex." But obviously if you don't like "sex" you don't have to use it.
I feel that, if you are gong to write about sex, then you should be comfortable with words like "pussy", "cock" etc. I write about sex sometimes, I tend to agree with @joanna, characters have sex because people have sex, it's a normal part of adult people's lives. But in erotic writing, euphemisms are often used, especially for females, and I like using "her" as in "she could feel him deep inside her". But if a sentence calls for a name, it needs to have it, otherwise the scene loses quality and becomes somehow vulgar, purple-prose-ish. Because in my opinion, giving things their proper name (and no, it doesn't have to be "vagina" as it is a bit of an ugly word, just is, unmelodic and clinical somehow), coupled with good writing (ie. sex scene has context, isn't gratuitous etc) elevates the narrative to something reader can identify with. Because, if you are a female, what do you call your private parts? Those same words need to be used in writing, when appropriate, methinks
Ditto! I have always had trouble focusing on just one single idea, when I have so many floating around upstairs.
I would really like to get better at unique voices, just as another poster said earlier. I sometimes put to much of myself into characters, thats another thing to improve on.
Ah I'd probably enjoy reading your work! Sometimes I read sex scenes where the female anatomy descriptions actually leave me feeling like I've just been to the gynecologist...
-Write drunk,edit sober- Ernest Hemmingway I've tried this method of writing before.It's mostly leads to a slash and burn edit in the morning but sometimes...
I write drunk and edit later to make the work make sense where it does not. It's a very 'tally-ho, into the breach dear friends' type attempt at writing (in my case comedy) in one go but hey, works well enough for me!
