Uncut Precious Stones
Jan. 5th, 2021 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
I wrote about 450 words last night and hated most of them. There's always this disconnect between what I intend with a particular work and what eventually happens. For some reason I write myself into a corner of minutiae that requires more writing to get out of, so I spend so much time getting down uninteresting stuff just so I can feel justified getting to the "good" stuff. I know there's an easier, quicker way of laying down the groundwork. I just have to keep practicing until I know what that is.
The work is for "A Bearable Partner", the werebear M/M romance I had stalled out on for the Patreon last year. I think one of the reasons I'm having so much trouble is that Laquan doesn't really feel like a person yet, just a cypher for my lived experiences and weird desires. And because I'm not really sure how I feel about those experiences and desires, trying to get into his headspace feels like trying to part an anxious fog. Working on this story made me realize how far out of touch I am with what I like and what I want; it's been a very long time since I haven't been ashamed of having the desires I do.
Which is precisely what the work is supposed to help me with. It just doesn't feel all that helpful right now. I'll work through it, but that may also mean I won't be really happy with my work for a minute or so. On that score, at least, I feel like a proper writer.
Over the weekend I listened to a Skillshare course from Daniel Jose Older about writing stand-out opening scenes. He compared the first and published drafts of Shadowshaper, one of his novels, to illustrate the three main things to consider when building your opening scene. It actually helped to pinpoint a flaw in my writing that I hadn't quite put my finger on -- how passive or reactive my protagonists tend to be. More often than not they're observers of the world around them, and their internal monologue is merely an excuse to tell the reader how they're supposed to feel about what they're seeing. Which is fine for a scene, maybe, but it's nothing you can hang a story on.
So thinking about scenes in terms of movement, motivation, and action is going to be the next challenge for me. I'd like to move away from those long passages of description and internal debate and more towards establishing a character's goal, detailing how they try to achieve it, and musing on what that says about them. Building character through action is a much more interesting thing than doing it through observation and rumination.
With "A Bearable Partner," I want Laquan's conflict between his desire (to fuck a werebear) and his misgivings (does this mean I'm into bestiality?) to be weighed against each other right up to the moment they're entwined. Cody, the werebear in question, is the catalyst for this dilemma as well as the driver of needing that resolution. I think ultimately, Laquan decides that for all the fur and claws and everything, Cody is a sapient individual who can communicate what he does and doesn't want. Having sex with him in 'shifted' form -- and even the desire for it -- is no different from wanting to have sex with, say, an alien. Which is admittedly a bit left-field for most people, but not amoral.
Alan Ball, the showrunner of Six Feet Under, once said that he tries to make sure characters are made better through having sex -- they come to a realization, or resolve some inner conflict, or nurture a connection with their partner. It's always stuck with me, and I think that might be the big difference between porn and erotica, maybe. Porn is all about titillation, stoking the immediate desire. Erotica titillates but also tries to have a conversation; sex is a wonderful part of the human experience, but it's so easy to turn into this massive knot.
I'll be the first to admit that my sexuality is all kinds of knotted. I feel selfish when I try to build a setting I desire, or make a judgement about wanting this instead of that. It feels selfish to even admit that I want certain things, or to try guiding other people towards those things. A big part of that is my experience with partners in general, who want one thing out of me that takes energy to give. It's hard for me to get into, say, vore or bondage, but for many of the people I regularly partner with that's the price of admission. It's hard to say "I don't want that, I just want to have sex with someone big and chill."
It's terrifying for me to think of pushing someone into a sexual experience they don't really want. And it feels like most of sex is me yielding what I want to provide something it's hard for me to give. I never have the spoons to be generous, but I'm legit frozen against being assertive. It's no wonder Laquan is so hard to write for.
The work is for "A Bearable Partner", the werebear M/M romance I had stalled out on for the Patreon last year. I think one of the reasons I'm having so much trouble is that Laquan doesn't really feel like a person yet, just a cypher for my lived experiences and weird desires. And because I'm not really sure how I feel about those experiences and desires, trying to get into his headspace feels like trying to part an anxious fog. Working on this story made me realize how far out of touch I am with what I like and what I want; it's been a very long time since I haven't been ashamed of having the desires I do.
Which is precisely what the work is supposed to help me with. It just doesn't feel all that helpful right now. I'll work through it, but that may also mean I won't be really happy with my work for a minute or so. On that score, at least, I feel like a proper writer.
Over the weekend I listened to a Skillshare course from Daniel Jose Older about writing stand-out opening scenes. He compared the first and published drafts of Shadowshaper, one of his novels, to illustrate the three main things to consider when building your opening scene. It actually helped to pinpoint a flaw in my writing that I hadn't quite put my finger on -- how passive or reactive my protagonists tend to be. More often than not they're observers of the world around them, and their internal monologue is merely an excuse to tell the reader how they're supposed to feel about what they're seeing. Which is fine for a scene, maybe, but it's nothing you can hang a story on.
So thinking about scenes in terms of movement, motivation, and action is going to be the next challenge for me. I'd like to move away from those long passages of description and internal debate and more towards establishing a character's goal, detailing how they try to achieve it, and musing on what that says about them. Building character through action is a much more interesting thing than doing it through observation and rumination.
With "A Bearable Partner," I want Laquan's conflict between his desire (to fuck a werebear) and his misgivings (does this mean I'm into bestiality?) to be weighed against each other right up to the moment they're entwined. Cody, the werebear in question, is the catalyst for this dilemma as well as the driver of needing that resolution. I think ultimately, Laquan decides that for all the fur and claws and everything, Cody is a sapient individual who can communicate what he does and doesn't want. Having sex with him in 'shifted' form -- and even the desire for it -- is no different from wanting to have sex with, say, an alien. Which is admittedly a bit left-field for most people, but not amoral.
Alan Ball, the showrunner of Six Feet Under, once said that he tries to make sure characters are made better through having sex -- they come to a realization, or resolve some inner conflict, or nurture a connection with their partner. It's always stuck with me, and I think that might be the big difference between porn and erotica, maybe. Porn is all about titillation, stoking the immediate desire. Erotica titillates but also tries to have a conversation; sex is a wonderful part of the human experience, but it's so easy to turn into this massive knot.
I'll be the first to admit that my sexuality is all kinds of knotted. I feel selfish when I try to build a setting I desire, or make a judgement about wanting this instead of that. It feels selfish to even admit that I want certain things, or to try guiding other people towards those things. A big part of that is my experience with partners in general, who want one thing out of me that takes energy to give. It's hard for me to get into, say, vore or bondage, but for many of the people I regularly partner with that's the price of admission. It's hard to say "I don't want that, I just want to have sex with someone big and chill."
It's terrifying for me to think of pushing someone into a sexual experience they don't really want. And it feels like most of sex is me yielding what I want to provide something it's hard for me to give. I never have the spoons to be generous, but I'm legit frozen against being assertive. It's no wonder Laquan is so hard to write for.
