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Writing Filter
Jul. 19th, 2008 11:18 amIf you're on this filter and would prefer not to be, tell me. I won't be offended. It's rather specialized.
So I write sex scenes because it's a way to strip the characters' psyches. They may not be honest with themselves about what's going on, but it's easier for me to dig into little corners of their minds.
( Talking about a specific new Weiss fic )
I'm putting the story aside for a while. The ending doesn't work quite right, and I need some distance from it before I try a rewrite. A beta reader would be a good thing, too, but I'm afraid to go looking for one because the one I tried with my last set of kink meme fics got seriously squicked and ended up giving me a lecture about why stories like mine are morally bad. She gave an I'm-not-talking-about-you-just-about-other-people-who-write-this-stuff exception which made my reaction worse. I had warned her that the stories were probably going to squick her, and she'd assured me that that wouldn't be a problem. She had some good advice on the stories-- slanted with the assumption that I was trying to write erotica-- that I ended up not being able to take because I was too upset about the lecture.
Thinking about it, even without the problematic parts of what she said, I'm not sure her advice was good for what I was trying to write. It was excellent advice if I wanted to write something that many readers would find arousing and sensuous, if I were focusing on the touch, taste, smell and general physical effects of sex. I think, though, that while some readers may find my fics arousing due to the sexual/physical details, that's an incidental effect and probably not common. These stories are more likely to be arousing in other ways, ways having to do with psychological complications, anxiety, adrenaline and such. Improving those aspects requires advice offered with a different set of filters.
So I write sex scenes because it's a way to strip the characters' psyches. They may not be honest with themselves about what's going on, but it's easier for me to dig into little corners of their minds.
( Talking about a specific new Weiss fic )
I'm putting the story aside for a while. The ending doesn't work quite right, and I need some distance from it before I try a rewrite. A beta reader would be a good thing, too, but I'm afraid to go looking for one because the one I tried with my last set of kink meme fics got seriously squicked and ended up giving me a lecture about why stories like mine are morally bad. She gave an I'm-not-talking-about-you-just-about-other-people-who-write-this-stuff exception which made my reaction worse. I had warned her that the stories were probably going to squick her, and she'd assured me that that wouldn't be a problem. She had some good advice on the stories-- slanted with the assumption that I was trying to write erotica-- that I ended up not being able to take because I was too upset about the lecture.
Thinking about it, even without the problematic parts of what she said, I'm not sure her advice was good for what I was trying to write. It was excellent advice if I wanted to write something that many readers would find arousing and sensuous, if I were focusing on the touch, taste, smell and general physical effects of sex. I think, though, that while some readers may find my fics arousing due to the sexual/physical details, that's an incidental effect and probably not common. These stories are more likely to be arousing in other ways, ways having to do with psychological complications, anxiety, adrenaline and such. Improving those aspects requires advice offered with a different set of filters.
