Forum: Author Hangout

I think that's a good description Keet. I've been a member of this site for close to twenty years now and it matches my interpretation as well.

I think that some sex would fit best. The majority of the smut scenes play an important role in driving the plot, although I could fade some of them to black if I wanted to.

Some Sex: As Minimal Sex but the story obviously has sex scenes that are just there for the sex. The story wouldn't suffer without them.

I don't have any sex scenes that are just there for the sex. The story would suffer if any were removed. Yet most of my current stories are some sex.

The sex scenes that DO matter often are more about the social interaction than about the actual sex.

Yeah, that's the case with my story too. It's the social interaction that makes them a must, but I could have toned down the graphic parts.

I mostly write the story for myself though and not so much for the readers. I wanted to write a story that I'd enjoy reading.

I hope that in turn it'll mean it's also going to be a story that the readers will enjoy. :-)

The story would suffer if any were removed.

Note that you can have a sex scene without it being an explicit, stroke type, sex scene. I've done that with my "family friendly" version of ATHB1 - edited out the hardcore stuff, while still leaving it PG-13 or soft R.

Note that you can have a sex scene without it being an explicit, stroke type, sex scene

Not my writing style. My fight scenes are graphic and explicit. My sex scenes are graphic and explicit. All my scenes are showing unless telling is called for. So I might end an explicit sex scene (showing) by telling something like, "And they did it a second time."

I get what you mean Switch Blayde. I show all the scenes that are of interest to the story, but I tell everything else.

For example, you can make a road trip of X number days only so interesting before it becomes repetitive. When I feel like a scene is a repeat of what happened earlier in the story then it's better to summarize it and simply tell what happened.

It's taken me several years to find a good balance between showing and telling a story.

When I feel like a scene is a repeat of what happened earlier in the story then it's better to summarize it and simply tell what happened.

Exactly

Some Sex: As Minimal Sex but the story obviously has sex scenes that are just there for the sex. The story wouldn't suffer without them.

I like to think that the sex scenes I put in are necessary for the story. If we are talking about a marriage, what place sex has in the marriage and how each partner feels about the sex are critical details to understanding the marriage.

OTOH, it would be misleading to describe most of my storiies as "minimal sex."

It would be a cocktease and fall under minimal sex. :-)

I think that such a hypothetical story would probably not do very well and lose the readers interest quickly. You're leading them on with one thing, but then don't make good on the promise. As a result anything other than minimal sex would probably lead to disgruntled readers and low scores, even if it has an otherwise good plot.

I think it'll help your reader a lot if you're being honest with the story codes. Only add a story code if there is a graphic scene that involves it. For example, I wouldn't add 'oral' as a code if I only write something like 'She gave him a blowjob.' However, if I write a graphic scene where she gives a blowjob to the protagonist, then I would add that code.

Most likely you'll have few codes in your story (which is absolutely fine by the way) and that by itself will tell the readers what they can expect.

In fact, I try to add as few codes as I can. I find that stories that try to tick almost all the boxes often make for cluttered stories that are harder to follow. In some cases codes apply to my story, but they're such a minor detail in the story that I don't check that specific box.

With the current story I actually have graphic scenes for which no boxes exist.

I wish all authors only added codes for graphic scenes and not if a specific action is only mentioned.

That doesn't work very well with the rape tag, as we've discussed on here previously. The biggest issue is the level of how bothered someone is by something. That also translates into the real world, of course. My wife is a nurse, and has no issues at all sticking her gloved hand up someone's rectum to help clear out a bowel impaction. At the same time, she saw a snake in our shed yesterday and came unglued. (It was about a 4' long rat snake, which if you know anything about snakes, is basically harmless, even if it was a good 2" in diameter.)

So, as an author, I simply err on the side of additional tags, even when the action isn't necessarily 'on camera.'

Here's the list of tags from ATHB1-3, and my reasoning:

mt/ft, Fa/Fa, ft/ft, Fa/ft - Welcome to the main characters
Mult, Teenagers - It's a coming (cummming) of age story
Consensual, Romantic - No forced sex, and lots of love
Lesbian, BiSexual, Heterosexual - That's what the sex is
Fiction - As far as OUR world is concerned
Farming - Oblique reference, but Kansas farming is a part
Historical - Lot's of real history here, actually
Humor - because I'm a sick bastard with a sense of humor
Military - Lots of armies that don't get to do much but lose
School, Sports - High School and College, and three sports
Superhero - You think? :)
War - More than 10,000 years worth, even!
Science Fiction, Alternate History - again, for OUR Earth :)
Mother, Daughter, Cousins, Group Sex, Harem, Orgy, Polygamy/Polyamory, Black Female, Hispanic Female, Indian Female, Anal Sex, Analingus, Cream Pie, First, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pregnancy, Tit-Fucking, Menstrual Play, Small Breasts - Yeah, pretty much all the assorted sex acts and descriptions. Since there's not a tag for Indigenous, and Helen is very dark-skinned and from Australia, I still went with Black Female
Politics, Royalty - It's thick with this, isn't it?
Violent - There's also been plenty of this, too. More than twenty million dead counts, I think.

No, Harry's not doing a lot of farming now. But the tags also apply to the series as a whole, too.

I also went with 'some sex' as I really only describe in detail the actual important to the story sex scenes. Otherwise, just saying that they went to bed, and the next morning they looked 'fucked out' is good, as far as I'm concerned. I figure if someone wants a detailed sexual description of 17 woman and one guy ... yeah, no.

I mean a story that would be a pure stroke story for those few crazies sharing the very specific probably obscure or complex kink, but while obviously sexualized might be without any sex in general, and may even make little sense to general public as a story, as there little to nothing "real" happens.

In such a case, tag that fetish in combination with the minimal sex story code. That would do it justice to both types of readers. You can also add an explanlation in the story description.

My recent, longer stuff is harder. `The General's Store has 15 chapters without any sex, 1 chapter in the middle with fairly graphic but rather brief sex, annd a last chapter which is almost all sex.

I would rate this as 'some sex' myself I think.

In my case, I've just started on chapter 29 this morning and the first three chapters are without sex, then the fourth is with.

After that it sort of develops as to what makes the most sense in the story. Most scenes are only 1 page in Word while a chapter has about 5 - 6 pages on average. I'm keeping the chapters short this time since it'll make it easier for proof reading once I'm ready to publish (I want to publish 1 chapter a week) and I found that it creates a natural flow where I can seperate the scenes easier. Each chapter has typically 1 to 3 scenes in it.