Writing Styles, particularly lemons
Aug. 3rd, 2004 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootOk, since Omi encouraged me to come back to it, here's that nice, calm essay I was planning to write yesterday.
There are three main categories of style that spring to my notice, when I read how fans write lemons, though it does extend to general style, too.
One seems to derive from doujinshi. It uses a lot of the same conventions, despite being a text rather than pictoral format. This is the style where no holds seem to be barred. A lot of crack-fic is done in this style. Peculiar things happen, narrators intervene at random, the characters are often aware of being characters, and often act in ways that would be thoroughly bizarre for their original incarnations, and all these things are taken completely and blithely for granted. Mpreg is a good example of the oddness in question. In specifically sexual terms, extremely conventionalized roles are generally adhered to for both the males depicted (and it's almost always males, when this style is used to write sex scenes in English-speaking fandom). One character will become delicate, weepy and victimizable, while the other will become oversexed and aggressive, regardless of how badly these roles may clash with their usual characterization or physical appearance. This style is the source of the infamous "height rule"; that is, whoever's taller gets to be on top. Physiology is one of the things that is cheerfully ignored, in this style. All the parts in question self lubricate, and, for the purposes of description, the anus may be assumed to be between the legs at times. Not to put too fine a point on it, the males in question are written using exaggerated versions of "traditional" Japanese feminine and masculine roles. These are the roles described by the borrowed terms uke and seme.
Myself, I find the psychology that comes along with this style of writing sex to be extremely disturbing and not erotic. One of the standard conventions is for the uke to protest and resist, and for the seme to ignore it. The source of the convention appears to be an assumption that good girls always have to claim not to want sex (example: Kaoru, third season or Rurouni Kenshin, fantasizing about her wedding night with Kenshin, and repeating "no" and "stop" all the while giggling and, in reality, having a nosebleed), and the uke role is the role of a good girl. This convention also appears to be the source for a frequent eroticization of rape, in this style. The line of consent is blurred in the first place, and the underlying assumption that the most unwilling/resistant uke will become willing once touched enough, makes it possible to rationalize the use of force and violence by having the uke accept it after the fact.
Let me rephrase that. It's possible for some people to rationalize it. It turns my stomach, very literally, whether in the "token resistance" form or in the "acceptance of brutal rape" form. They're different stopping points on the same continuum, and they both make me ill.
That unwilling-to-willing shift also gives rise to one of the conventions that seems to have wandered out of the dj style's bounds and infected other styles. This is the assumption that the beginning of sex will be painful. Always, or damn near. But that it will get better, as the sex goes on, and eventually result in a foaming, frothing, drooling orgasm.
While it might not sound like it, I actually consider the dj style a perfectly valid one, at least physically. The improbabilities, the variable geometry physiology, the cross-dressing and pregnancy and all the other crack, I think it's perfectly viable, especially if it's done without apology. That's the trick, you see, not to even try to rationalize it. And if it's a given author/reader's cup of tea to make one character pleased to have been raped by another, it's not like I can stop them. Avoid the stories, definitely. Point out, in appropriate forums, that I think it's really sick and twisted, certainly. Write long essays on the cultural roots of the phemomenon and earnestly encourage both Japanese and US denizens to be aware of them, you betcha.
Onward, then.
Another style is the realistic one. This tends to be the style most favored by fans of domestic US media, most probably because the majority of that media is live-action. A realistic style comes more easily when describing real, live people, however improbable the setting in which they're put. The realistic style attempts to preserve whatever acculturation the characters seem to have. Because a lot of it is US-middle-class based, that acculturation tends to be men who grunt and scratch and have pissing contests, figurative and literal both, and women who deal in some fashion with pressure to be delicate and ladylike and soft. When it comes to sex, and especially male-male sex, this style makes sure to take Issues into account--gay issues, feminist issues, racial issues, job issues. It also takes some trouble to adhere to human physiology, always mentions the lube or lack thereof, is careful to use physically possible sexual positions, makes sure first-time sex is embarassing and uncomfortable for all parties, and avoids any emotional mushiness when both characters are manly types. Or, at least, makes them deeply embarassed about it. The sex tends to be strongly flavored by whatever existing relationship the characters have in the source text, rather than being taken out of context.
A lot of very powerful stories come out of this style, and I consider it a perfectly reasonable choice. But I do not consider it the be-all-end-all of writing styles, nor the only worthwhile one that a serious writer should aspire to. If a proponent of the realistic style were to insist that I, for example, should only use that style for writing either gen or sex, and I were to ask them why, what that style has going for it that it should overwhelm all other choices, judging from what I've read on bbs, the only answer most such proponents could come back with would be "Because it's more real!" Tautology, anyone?
Because my goal in writing sex scenes is usually to have my readers identify with the view-point character, I tend toward the romance style.
The romance style derives from US serial and historical romance novels. It revels in emotional entanglement and emphasizes interpersonal relationships over action. And, whatever the angst and emotional storms, the sex is always good sex, and generally fluffy sex. Everyone has excellent orgasms, or at least every vpc does, and every sexual partner is either experienced and/or careful enough that any pain or discomfort is minimal. While trust issues arise, they are resolved in good time to lead into easy sex. When the romance style is applied to non-fluffy sex, it tends to be so overwhelmingly pleasurable that there isn't any room for Issues to crop up because the vpc is having too much fun.
When this, traditionally female-male, format is applied to male-male fic, interesting compromises tend to get made. The romance style usually adheres to the proper physics of the designated location, and the average physiology of the human male. On the other hand, it just as often assumes a greater willingness to verbalize and act out mushy emotional attachment than most socialized males in either the US or Japan are comfortable with. The style of pleasure described also tends to take forms more generally considered feminine: whole body, slow building.
In it's own way, the romance style is every bit as unrealistic as the dj style, just in a different direction. As long as it's the direction you want the story to go, that should be no problem.
You see, the thing is, I think the choice of style really has to depend on what you want to do with the story in question. If you want to explore gritty, real-life problems, the realistic style is probably your best bet. If you want to write a story that makes the readers laugh and say "that's so incredibly fucked up, but really a lot of fun", then it's time for the dj style.
For myself, when I write sex scenes, I aim for a female audience. I want my readers to feel safe, as well as titillated. For this purpose, the romance style, which puts the vpc's experiences in terms that are familiar to feminine socialization, and goes straight for maximum pleasure, however unrealistic, is the most useful style. This is not to say I don't add twists, whenever it seems appropriate or called for: a switch to the penetrative view-point, an interlude where trust and comfort do affect the sex and make it uncertain, a first time that's as messy and sloppy and clumsy as most first times really are.
It all depends on what you want to do with the story.
There are three main categories of style that spring to my notice, when I read how fans write lemons, though it does extend to general style, too.
One seems to derive from doujinshi. It uses a lot of the same conventions, despite being a text rather than pictoral format. This is the style where no holds seem to be barred. A lot of crack-fic is done in this style. Peculiar things happen, narrators intervene at random, the characters are often aware of being characters, and often act in ways that would be thoroughly bizarre for their original incarnations, and all these things are taken completely and blithely for granted. Mpreg is a good example of the oddness in question. In specifically sexual terms, extremely conventionalized roles are generally adhered to for both the males depicted (and it's almost always males, when this style is used to write sex scenes in English-speaking fandom). One character will become delicate, weepy and victimizable, while the other will become oversexed and aggressive, regardless of how badly these roles may clash with their usual characterization or physical appearance. This style is the source of the infamous "height rule"; that is, whoever's taller gets to be on top. Physiology is one of the things that is cheerfully ignored, in this style. All the parts in question self lubricate, and, for the purposes of description, the anus may be assumed to be between the legs at times. Not to put too fine a point on it, the males in question are written using exaggerated versions of "traditional" Japanese feminine and masculine roles. These are the roles described by the borrowed terms uke and seme.
Myself, I find the psychology that comes along with this style of writing sex to be extremely disturbing and not erotic. One of the standard conventions is for the uke to protest and resist, and for the seme to ignore it. The source of the convention appears to be an assumption that good girls always have to claim not to want sex (example: Kaoru, third season or Rurouni Kenshin, fantasizing about her wedding night with Kenshin, and repeating "no" and "stop" all the while giggling and, in reality, having a nosebleed), and the uke role is the role of a good girl. This convention also appears to be the source for a frequent eroticization of rape, in this style. The line of consent is blurred in the first place, and the underlying assumption that the most unwilling/resistant uke will become willing once touched enough, makes it possible to rationalize the use of force and violence by having the uke accept it after the fact.
Let me rephrase that. It's possible for some people to rationalize it. It turns my stomach, very literally, whether in the "token resistance" form or in the "acceptance of brutal rape" form. They're different stopping points on the same continuum, and they both make me ill.
That unwilling-to-willing shift also gives rise to one of the conventions that seems to have wandered out of the dj style's bounds and infected other styles. This is the assumption that the beginning of sex will be painful. Always, or damn near. But that it will get better, as the sex goes on, and eventually result in a foaming, frothing, drooling orgasm.
While it might not sound like it, I actually consider the dj style a perfectly valid one, at least physically. The improbabilities, the variable geometry physiology, the cross-dressing and pregnancy and all the other crack, I think it's perfectly viable, especially if it's done without apology. That's the trick, you see, not to even try to rationalize it. And if it's a given author/reader's cup of tea to make one character pleased to have been raped by another, it's not like I can stop them. Avoid the stories, definitely. Point out, in appropriate forums, that I think it's really sick and twisted, certainly. Write long essays on the cultural roots of the phemomenon and earnestly encourage both Japanese and US denizens to be aware of them, you betcha.
Onward, then.
Another style is the realistic one. This tends to be the style most favored by fans of domestic US media, most probably because the majority of that media is live-action. A realistic style comes more easily when describing real, live people, however improbable the setting in which they're put. The realistic style attempts to preserve whatever acculturation the characters seem to have. Because a lot of it is US-middle-class based, that acculturation tends to be men who grunt and scratch and have pissing contests, figurative and literal both, and women who deal in some fashion with pressure to be delicate and ladylike and soft. When it comes to sex, and especially male-male sex, this style makes sure to take Issues into account--gay issues, feminist issues, racial issues, job issues. It also takes some trouble to adhere to human physiology, always mentions the lube or lack thereof, is careful to use physically possible sexual positions, makes sure first-time sex is embarassing and uncomfortable for all parties, and avoids any emotional mushiness when both characters are manly types. Or, at least, makes them deeply embarassed about it. The sex tends to be strongly flavored by whatever existing relationship the characters have in the source text, rather than being taken out of context.
A lot of very powerful stories come out of this style, and I consider it a perfectly reasonable choice. But I do not consider it the be-all-end-all of writing styles, nor the only worthwhile one that a serious writer should aspire to. If a proponent of the realistic style were to insist that I, for example, should only use that style for writing either gen or sex, and I were to ask them why, what that style has going for it that it should overwhelm all other choices, judging from what I've read on bbs, the only answer most such proponents could come back with would be "Because it's more real!" Tautology, anyone?
Because my goal in writing sex scenes is usually to have my readers identify with the view-point character, I tend toward the romance style.
The romance style derives from US serial and historical romance novels. It revels in emotional entanglement and emphasizes interpersonal relationships over action. And, whatever the angst and emotional storms, the sex is always good sex, and generally fluffy sex. Everyone has excellent orgasms, or at least every vpc does, and every sexual partner is either experienced and/or careful enough that any pain or discomfort is minimal. While trust issues arise, they are resolved in good time to lead into easy sex. When the romance style is applied to non-fluffy sex, it tends to be so overwhelmingly pleasurable that there isn't any room for Issues to crop up because the vpc is having too much fun.
When this, traditionally female-male, format is applied to male-male fic, interesting compromises tend to get made. The romance style usually adheres to the proper physics of the designated location, and the average physiology of the human male. On the other hand, it just as often assumes a greater willingness to verbalize and act out mushy emotional attachment than most socialized males in either the US or Japan are comfortable with. The style of pleasure described also tends to take forms more generally considered feminine: whole body, slow building.
In it's own way, the romance style is every bit as unrealistic as the dj style, just in a different direction. As long as it's the direction you want the story to go, that should be no problem.
You see, the thing is, I think the choice of style really has to depend on what you want to do with the story in question. If you want to explore gritty, real-life problems, the realistic style is probably your best bet. If you want to write a story that makes the readers laugh and say "that's so incredibly fucked up, but really a lot of fun", then it's time for the dj style.
For myself, when I write sex scenes, I aim for a female audience. I want my readers to feel safe, as well as titillated. For this purpose, the romance style, which puts the vpc's experiences in terms that are familiar to feminine socialization, and goes straight for maximum pleasure, however unrealistic, is the most useful style. This is not to say I don't add twists, whenever it seems appropriate or called for: a switch to the penetrative view-point, an interlude where trust and comfort do affect the sex and make it uncertain, a first time that's as messy and sloppy and clumsy as most first times really are.
It all depends on what you want to do with the story.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 12:40 pm (UTC)I think I can happily say I've never fallen into the dj category. Just... not my thing. [ponders]
no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 12:59 pm (UTC)*ponders* That "Finals Week Outtake", lo these howevermany years ago, came pretty close.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 04:03 pm (UTC)Pity I didn't know the tenipuri boys back then. I'm sure they would have been lovely additions to the
brawlfun.no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 03:58 am (UTC)...
...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 05:00 pm (UTC)Rationalising improbable sexual acts/conventions in fanfiction always seem strange at best and absurd at its worst. I can take it for what it is: CrackFantasies. Which is fine, but it is when people begin to go 'but, it is because...' and so forth that annoys me to no ends. I read what I like and avoid the rest.
As for conventionalised roles, this issue annoy me more than anything else in fandom. The fact that one of the male party in yaoi is consistently dubbed the 'uke' (or as like to call it 'girl with dick') gets to me. Height rule aside, it gets downright aggrivating to go through over 100 fics with the exact same pairing, with the exact same roles gets very tiring. Very fast.
Slash, as you said, is defintely more 'realistic', however, I find that it still suffers the same phenomenon as anime/manga fandom. There are always designated roles for two men in a sexual relationship. Throwback to Highlander, it's more likely for McLeod to be top than Methos (though good authors -always- switch the sexual roles at least once in their pieces). The same can be said for Due South or Angel fandoms.
And I have realised I have lost my original point.
*sighs* Going back to school work.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 07:55 pm (UTC)Oh, and probably why I -can't- read Tezuka/Fuji. I just can't.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 05:44 pm (UTC)I'm not much for working out the sexual roles in my fic -- in fact, I find the happier the story, the vaguer the sex. If I get detailed, it's probably because I want to make you uncomfortable. (Perhaps I have some issues. *g*) It's more about the relationship dynamics, anyhow, not whose bits go where. And most of the time, I don't like to write about anal sex anyhow, so it's all blowjobs and handjobs and frottage. (Oh my!)
I've been thinking lately about how we create spaces for ourselves when we write. Every new fandom, the spaces I find don't fit quite the same and I either have to learn to fit or make my own spaces. I usually end up doing the latter.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 06:35 pm (UTC)I'm in favor of the making-one's-own-space approach. It's one of the reasons I don't participate a lot in fandom communities at large. I suppose it could be taken as insular, but my fic journal is a space I control sufficiently that I'm comfortable having fandom come to me there; the comms and mls never feel as safe. *crooked grin* Kind of the same way I never liked the club scene.
And I think that's healthy for fandom, as well as for the individual. It helps make little pockets of relative calm, somewhat insulated from the rushing craziness of lively comms/mls.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 06:34 pm (UTC)Actually, I have read quite a few fics in Japanese where the seme doesn't just ignore protests, he (we'll assume it's a guy) goes, hey, that's a turn-on, and then tells the uke it's his/her fault for tempting him. And, yeah, you know the rest. I have to say that out of all these little rituals I see in doujinshi style anything, this is one of the ones that I still just can't accept as sexy. Drives me effing insane.
I think the reason doujinshi style gets away with having "uke" and "seme" being immutable roles is because it's a style that comes from pictures. If you can draw the character in question, it's much easier to inflict these roles on him or her because they're already something you can recognize. The drawing itself, the appearance, is a huge part of characterization. (By the way, I'm PRETTY SURE I stole this idea from reading one of those essays on aestheticism.com that that cool lady writes. I forget her name, but yeah, she smart. You're all so smart. Gumdangit.)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 06:42 pm (UTC)Yes, we are all so smart, including you. I agree that you can strike a far more subtle balance of recognize-the-character and recognize-the-role with a visual medium. MJJ did mention that it's easier to pull this stuff in a pictoral form because you don't have to explain it. I think she also noted that Japanese writers tend to do it in text, too, though, so maybe it's just so established at this point that no one questions it.
I have to say, though, uke!Hiei still sends me into gales of hysterical laughter. Visual cues or no, it's still just so utterly bizarre and at odds with his character that I can't do anything but laugh.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-03 07:50 pm (UTC)I can't really do seme-Kurama, either. Though...yeah, if I saw Hiei running around wearing nothing but an apron and blushing or participating in any of that uke nonsense...sorry, wrong guy, try again.
Yes, I think Japanese writers do tend to do doujinshi-style in text, too, since a lot of the writing is actually inspired by doujinshi, but it's a little more diluted. Some fics don't do it very much, and some fics have the uke in a frilly maid's uniform, but it does always seem to be there in some way or another. It is very established, but only within the realm of, well, porn. In the real world, it's a fantasy, and while it's repeated often enough to kind of make me wonder, it doesn't actually have very much to do with real life. (I mean, how many men are actually obsessed with girls who are barely legal or JUST TURNED 18 or some bullshit like that? So very few. Thank god. But it still seems to be all over the place in porn.) (Omigod, what was that, some kind of warning label? Oh, I give up.)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 07:05 am (UTC)It all depends on what you want to do with the story.
very true. *nods nods nods* my crack fics are almost entirely written in a dj style. it... lends itself so well to parody, it's almost scary. i mean, showers of flower petals? self lubricanting boy parts? and let's not forget the DRAMA and the ANGST and the BEAUTEOUS TEARS WELLING UP IN THE UKE'S HUGE BABY BLUES... ahem. but i digress. ^_^;;;
as for the infamous 'dame, yada, itai' (respectively no, hell no, and it hurts! i believe) warcry that is the lot of most ukes... as you pointed out, part of it would be that 'good girls', or ukes as the case may be, aren't suppose to like/initiate sex. unless it's an agressive uke, which is a whole other subspecies. another part is that in a fair number of these stories, these boys are usually in serious denial, of their uke-ness, or of their feelings, and these protestations just showcase that denial or embarassment, which the seme would then have to koff overcome koff the blushing uke.
and after countless numbers of the same, i'm afraid i've been more or less desensitivised to this entire process... the trick, for me at least, is to draw a very clear line between fantasy (sick or otherwise presented in such materials) and reality.
for myself, personally, i find that no matter what fics i write (crack, dramatic, angsty, or pron), the only smut i write is unapologetically good smut that my protangonists enjoy. XDD
no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-04 11:02 am (UTC)