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seriousficI was looking through ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
crack_van the other day because I was in the mood for nine thousand Man From UNCLE recs, when I saw that I’d gotten another fic recced, Tamaranian Hatesex, which is exactly what it says on the tin. Which is good, it’s a fic I’m pretty proud of, but it also got me thinking. It is an unabashed smutfic and, let’s be mature about this, the keypoint of a smutfic is schlock or fap or hopefully unf (haven’t we all dreamed of Jackie Earley Haley bursting through our door, saying he was worked into a frenzy by our Dan/Walter porn, then giving us the hot bean juice injection? Siiigh).
But what separates good smutfic from a Penthouse letter column is characterization. No matter how intense your imagery, it’s just Slot A Into Tab B without characterization. I love trying to incorporate the little idiosyncrasies of each character and relationship into a story, because no two are alike. Peter/MJ is goofy and lovey-dovey, Kory is wild and passionate, Felicia is sultry, Bruce has Teh Issues, and so on. So in Hatesex, we have a little twist on the “Say my name, bitch!” cliché and a cute reversal on the bog-standard orgasm denial bit. (At least, so I hope.) There’s some insight into their psychology and respective cultures, and just general stuff that’s more Insert Tab Polo Into Slot Warm Mittens.
Another thing I think is underappreciated in smutfic is mood. Imagery, description, language, it all works toward a very specific mood, which is usually arousal. I don’t think many people realize how hard this is to evoke. Everyone laughs at Airplane, everyone is thrilled by T2, but you ask ten different people what’s sexy and you’ll get eleven different answers.
And with comedy, you have a leaden line, big whoop. Unless you’ve made an offensive joke and run into someone overly politically correct (in fandom? What're the odds?), they’ll drop it and move on. But say tallywhacker just once and you’ve got a one-way ticket tofanficrants. Every word you can possibly think of to describe erogenous zones will have 20 people who think it’s ridiculous and/or demeaning.
Now, for all that, the much-maligned sex scene is still an important card in the writer’s deck. “And then they dun sex” is a cliché, but as clichés go, it’s Wolverine, on three teams at once and getting a movie all to itself. We’re conditioned by popular fiction to see sex as going along with love and happiness. While it can be frustrating to wade through miles of plot to get to smut, a well-placed sex scene can advance the story in a way the audience is intrinsically fascinated by. All that UST and frustrated longing can work to your advantage in a way it’s hard to do with pure smut.
In Hatesex, the stakes are small--—will Kory cheer Dick up?--—but there’s still rising action, falling action, a climax (quite a few, actually), and a denouncement that makes fun of Batman. So by adding just a little context, the mood I’m trying to evoke is strengthened. Likewise, by not fading to black, the plot is strengthened. Would it have worked as a drabble where the story goes straight from Kory teasing Dick to Kory calling Bruce. Maybe, but it wouldn’t have near as much to say about the characters, and that’s something smutfic can offer that no other pornography can.
crack_van the other day because I was in the mood for nine thousand Man From UNCLE recs, when I saw that I’d gotten another fic recced, Tamaranian Hatesex, which is exactly what it says on the tin. Which is good, it’s a fic I’m pretty proud of, but it also got me thinking. It is an unabashed smutfic and, let’s be mature about this, the keypoint of a smutfic is schlock or fap or hopefully unf (haven’t we all dreamed of Jackie Earley Haley bursting through our door, saying he was worked into a frenzy by our Dan/Walter porn, then giving us the hot bean juice injection? Siiigh). But what separates good smutfic from a Penthouse letter column is characterization. No matter how intense your imagery, it’s just Slot A Into Tab B without characterization. I love trying to incorporate the little idiosyncrasies of each character and relationship into a story, because no two are alike. Peter/MJ is goofy and lovey-dovey, Kory is wild and passionate, Felicia is sultry, Bruce has Teh Issues, and so on. So in Hatesex, we have a little twist on the “Say my name, bitch!” cliché and a cute reversal on the bog-standard orgasm denial bit. (At least, so I hope.) There’s some insight into their psychology and respective cultures, and just general stuff that’s more Insert Tab Polo Into Slot Warm Mittens.
Another thing I think is underappreciated in smutfic is mood. Imagery, description, language, it all works toward a very specific mood, which is usually arousal. I don’t think many people realize how hard this is to evoke. Everyone laughs at Airplane, everyone is thrilled by T2, but you ask ten different people what’s sexy and you’ll get eleven different answers.
And with comedy, you have a leaden line, big whoop. Unless you’ve made an offensive joke and run into someone overly politically correct (in fandom? What're the odds?), they’ll drop it and move on. But say tallywhacker just once and you’ve got a one-way ticket to
fanficrants. Every word you can possibly think of to describe erogenous zones will have 20 people who think it’s ridiculous and/or demeaning.Now, for all that, the much-maligned sex scene is still an important card in the writer’s deck. “And then they dun sex” is a cliché, but as clichés go, it’s Wolverine, on three teams at once and getting a movie all to itself. We’re conditioned by popular fiction to see sex as going along with love and happiness. While it can be frustrating to wade through miles of plot to get to smut, a well-placed sex scene can advance the story in a way the audience is intrinsically fascinated by. All that UST and frustrated longing can work to your advantage in a way it’s hard to do with pure smut.
In Hatesex, the stakes are small--—will Kory cheer Dick up?--—but there’s still rising action, falling action, a climax (quite a few, actually), and a denouncement that makes fun of Batman. So by adding just a little context, the mood I’m trying to evoke is strengthened. Likewise, by not fading to black, the plot is strengthened. Would it have worked as a drabble where the story goes straight from Kory teasing Dick to Kory calling Bruce. Maybe, but it wouldn’t have near as much to say about the characters, and that’s something smutfic can offer that no other pornography can.
