December Daily: writing evolution

[resonant]

Everything's all out of order, which I did not intend, but blnchflr asked: what has changed (most) about your writing?

I thought about going back and reading some of my old Sentinel stuff to answer this question, but I was afraid I wouldn't like it when I read it, so I didn't.

I do remember that when I started out, I wrote romance in a more emotionally explicit way -- I wanted feelings expressed directly in words, preferably at length, whereas now I enjoy the sense that profound things are happening while guys say, "Dude, uh, yeah."

My sex scenes have gotten shorter; I don't know if that's an improvement or not. But after a while I begin to feel that the words I'm writing are words that I've written before!

I still find it difficult to create plot --- in the sense of "action that's meaningful in terms of significant story conflicts," but also just in the sense of "things that happen that aren't talking or sex." But it's a lot easier than it used to be, and so my stories are going through fewer backs-and-forths with betas saying, "No, but, see, when it's this easy it's not really a story, is it."

Comments

[realpestilence]

Stories where men do the romantic, OTT, talking thing usually make me laugh. They do express themselves differently than women, with much more implied by gesture-like fixing your car before a road trip to show concern, when they won't even tell you they'll miss you. They're not going to sit down and dissect the relationship over lunch, or acknowledge the need to cry or that they're hurting. Not easily.

[out_there]

my stories are going through fewer backs-and-forths with betas saying, "No, but, see, when it's this easy it's not really a story, is it."

I'm weirdly thrilled that I'm not the only person to get that beta feedback. It got to the stage where I started internalising that point and worrying about it while in the process of writing -- and yet the stories pulled together anyway.

My sex scenes have gotten shorter; I don't know if that's an improvement or not.

I've noticed that my writing is the same -- I'm all fade-to-black these days, but I remember writing sheer smut before -- and I don't always have patience as a reader for the truly smutty stories. (Sometime I do, but sometimes I want the relationship more than the sex.)

[monanotlisa]

"things that happen that aren't talking or sex."

Are people genuinely interested in those other things?

Huh.

O:)

[blnchflr]

As a non-writer I imagine specifically sex scenes must get harder and harder to write without becoming repetitive?

[resonant]

No ... and actually I think I'd find a romance a little boring if it involved a woman who did that. Less unrealistic, but still pretty tell-y.

[resonant]

I get a real thrill from a story that can combine heart-squeezy with smutty, but they're rare, and I think the novelty of pure smut has worn off so that I can't really enjoy it the way I did when I first discovered slash.

[resonant]

As a reader I have a surprisingly high tolerance for stories that begin and end in a bed and are nothing but talking and sex -- if they're good talking and sex.

[monanotlisa]

Naturally. g

Sent from my iPhone

[resonant]

Well ... it's not so much the actions that become repetitive, because of course they are; let's face it, sex is an awful lot of the same thing over and over, and that was just as true the first time I wrote a sex scene as it is now.

The problem is that the obstacles are feeling a little repetitive. That delicious hesitation to touch and commit yourself -- I still adore reading it, but it's harder to write it when I've written it before.