Telling The Tells
Aug. 9th, 2014 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teddy_radiatorMy friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tamlane wrote a fascinating post about her favourite writing ‘tells’ this week – it was so interesting to read, and when I was finished, I felt as if I understood her and her writing, and loved her all the more for it.
But she also asked us to ‘do our tells’, and it reminded me of somethingdragoon811 said to me a couple of weeks ago about being able to recognise my fics by some of my identifiers, and so I sat down and gave a lot of thought to what makes up my stories and how you can spot the Teddy.
This is going to be uninteresting to anyone who doesn’t write smut or who doesn’t like my writing style, but it's a bit of navel-gazing and I wanted to place it all down here so I can have it for future references.
What are your "tells"? Are there certain elements that show up repeatedly in your work? Certain words or phrases your find yourself using often? Certain character dynamics, sexual acts, kinks, etc. that dominate your oeuvre? Do you have any signature moves that would make readers spot your work in an anon fest?
Some of these are NC-17, and there's a fair amount of navel-gazing TMI in here, so N-really SFW.
1. You Can Leave Your Hat On.
If there is one thing that will get my motor running, it’s sex between a fully dressed man (preferably in a suit) and a completely naked woman. I think it's that D/s thing, which is my major modus operandi. There's something about a handsome man in a suit sexxing up a nekkid woman that really melts my butter.
2. Talk Dirty To Me. And I Mean Make Me Blush.
Give me a man who can talk dirty and I'm his, in both my real life and my characters. All my sexual situations will have a dirty talker. I love a dirty talking Snape for example; my rationale being that he learned early on that his voice was one of his most attractive assets and he would learn to use it thus. With any dirty talker, I do love to have the Dominant lover command his sub to orgasm. One of my dead cert favourites and one I use sparingly now because I overused it so much!
3. You Say Potato, I Say Potahto.
I like blending the poetry of eroticism with the coarseness of smut, and it tends to be gender and class related. For instance, Hermione's POV will show sex as intensely arousing, dreamy even, while Severus' will be must more lust-driven and harsher. His wording will be more working-man's and urgent. I also like to make the words of smut as soft as possible – the verbiage I use will be as poetic as I can make it in a romantic story; if I’m going to sheer PWP, I’ll be a little more crass.
4. You Can Call It What You Want, But I Call It Messing With The Kid.
In Snape’s POV I will use different words for genitalia than in Hermione's. She will use folds, core, cock, bottom, fundament; he will use cunt, hole, arse, dick, pussy. I also just as a matter of course refer to bodily parts in a certain way and tend to use the same ones - the saddle between her thighs, her heart-shaped bottom. I also tend to have my men uncut, since many British men are and I tend to write British men, even in my original fiction.
5. My Heart Belongs To Daddy.
I have spent many months exploring my 'daddy issues' kink and know more about myself than I ever thought I'd want to know, and while I'm not as comfortable with what other people may think about my daddy kink, I was relieved and a little disappointed to know I’m a perfectly normal person who had a perfectly normal relationship with my dad. I'm totally comfortable about it myself, if that makes sense. In the psychology stakes I'm definitely a late bloomer, but hey, at least I get it now.
Let me state for the record that a woman with a Daddy Dom kink does not mean she has been the victim of incest or any form of sexual congress with her father. It doesn’t work that way. D/s as Daddy Dom/lil' girl is the ultimate hurt/comfort scenario; it’s the one we hurt/comfort folks recognise as what we want ourselves. As you say, you write what you know. Sometimes in writing this particular dynamic, a lot more goes on between your characters’ ears than between their legs.
6. Contributing To The Delinquency of a Semicolon.
I love putting ideas together with semicolons; my poor editor chases after me, hastily shooting them down like fish in a barrel. I had a very poor educational background in grammar skills, so when I grew into adulthood, my grammatical foundation was horribly patchy. Even to this day, I write what feels right, not necessarily what's grammatically correct. Thankfully Stgulik (or Jules as she is known), has an exemplary education and manages to surgically correct a multitude of sins. I can also mix metaphors like a boss, which brings us neatly to:
7. Contributing To The Delinquency of a Semicolon, part 2.
As a Southern writer, I subscribe to the Pat Conroy school of description and metaphor, but I have a lot less subtlety. I tend to over-describe and metaphor something into an early grave. I love to write metaphorically, and to mix my ingredients: ("She cashed in her last fraying strands of courage to say the words.") I, too, love to split dialogue; to me it helps to set up a visual image of what's going on without being obtrusive or distracting (which is funny, since it's a distraction method in and of itself). One of my favourite examples comes from an old school SSHG writer Redskyatnight: "I," he said, rather grandly, "couldn't give a fuck." It totally gives me the visual and audible image of not only the pause between the 'I' and the rest of the sentence, but I can envision exactly how he sounded and looked when he said it.
8. Baby, Rock Me, Chaka Khan.
I love pet names when they have been given to one specific character. One of my characters in Her Minder is a true practicing Dom, who called the main character "Kitten" when they first met. It was done then to establish him as the Big Daddy of the jungle and her the little one, but as his feelings for her changed and grew, it became a term of endearment. I also like the pet name 'little girl', which serves my daddy kink well. I'm also a sucker for ‘bitch’, if it's said in the heat of passion, almost in anger and admiration. What someone says during the throes of passion can be very sexy, but quoting grunting noises is a turnoff, and I never use them, unless it’s for comic effect. I used ‘Lass’ in an SSHG fic, but I got a lot of crap from many American readers who didn’t realise this is a ToE in the Northern Counties as well as Scotland. By the time I’d written about fifty explanations I was really sorry I’d used it, but a Northern (England) man calling me ‘Lass’ will short-circuit my brain in a very good way.
9. The Man In The Long Black Coat Syndrome
Ever since I was very, very, VERY young (we're talking three or four years old), I have felt a complete and total pull toward a physical male archetype - tall, pale, dark-haired and dark-eyed (and just so it isn't contributed to #5, my dad was short, swarthy, with brunette hair and green eyes). For reasons I won't go into here, I have been attracted to this ever since - every major boy or celebrity or literary crush has had to meet this profile. Because I spent too many years feeling shameful and unworthy of this archetype, I deliberately dated blonds, and gingers and only worshipped the dark-haired, dark-eyed men from afar. I finally came to my senses and married to type. My protagonists will always be of this physical type, and they will always be dead sexy. I also love a treasure trail, and there's something about a taint line....
10. Sometimes I Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me.
Voyeurism is one of my things. So is a person’s double. I have a real thing about a character watching his ‘double’ or close friend have sex with his lover. LOTM’s An Army of Snapes nearly had my brain exploding because it stomped on this kink button and jammed it in the “ON” position. I think it might be one of LOTM’s kinks as well; she used this several times herself, using the word ‘doppel’ with items in her universe that doubled a person or thing. See also For Someone Special.
11. Insert Witty Title Here.
If there is anything I hate to do more than writing a summary for a fic, it’s come up with a decent title for it. Many of my fics have song lyrics or titles because I’m so shit at it. So often I just want to title a story, “The One I Wrote On - insert date” or do the Friends title thing: "The One About The Mirror". Nine time out of ten my story is going to have a reference back to either a song or another story. And summaries are even worse. A reader on ff.net said that she usually didn’t read a ‘half-arsed’ summary because she felt if a writer didn’t have enough repect for their own work not to write a good summary, why should she read it? I did point out that summary-writing is the least fun part of writing. It’s the fanfic equivalent of the Query Letter, and they are designed to break your heart.
12. So That’s What I Was Trying To Do!
Apparently, and this is something someone pointed out to me, I will often take a past plot point (usually canon), and try and mesh it into the story in order to give more weighty significance to what is currently happening. I know I did it in several stories, like Burn Down the Mission, Father Figure, Lay Me Low, etc. I love parallel lines and I love it when stories parallel other ideas and concepts, like the Seven-part drabble series for GrangerSnape100 I did based on the Seven Books. I love juxtapositions between events and I like doing stories based on well known ‘lists’ or events, like a four chapter story with each chapter evoking one of the Four Seasons, etc. Sometimes it’s pretty subliminal, even to myself. It was only after looking up some reference stuff that I realised that my story Burn Down The Mission had a lot of parallels to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. But since I didn’t do it deliberately, the chapters are wrong, and there are only six instead of seven. Christ knows what I’d written if I’d been deliberately doing it. But it is a fun way to write, and provides instance structure.
13.The Rhythm Method.
I like to write with rhythm in mind. I often read my stories out loud before I post them, to get a feel for the rhythm of the narrative. I also tend to double my adjectives when I describe something. His wet, hungry mouth...Her creamy, smooth breasts, etc. I love descriptions and adjectives are boss. I also enjoy adverbs, which many professional writers dismiss as the anti-christ, but hell, I can't help it. A good adverb will tell you exactly the tone of voice a person is using, the expression, the entire scene can hinge on one well-placed adverb.
tamlane wrote a fascinating post about her favourite writing ‘tells’ this week – it was so interesting to read, and when I was finished, I felt as if I understood her and her writing, and loved her all the more for it.But she also asked us to ‘do our tells’, and it reminded me of something
dragoon811 said to me a couple of weeks ago about being able to recognise my fics by some of my identifiers, and so I sat down and gave a lot of thought to what makes up my stories and how you can spot the Teddy.This is going to be uninteresting to anyone who doesn’t write smut or who doesn’t like my writing style, but it's a bit of navel-gazing and I wanted to place it all down here so I can have it for future references.
What are your "tells"? Are there certain elements that show up repeatedly in your work? Certain words or phrases your find yourself using often? Certain character dynamics, sexual acts, kinks, etc. that dominate your oeuvre? Do you have any signature moves that would make readers spot your work in an anon fest?
Some of these are NC-17, and there's a fair amount of navel-gazing TMI in here, so N-really SFW.
1. You Can Leave Your Hat On.
If there is one thing that will get my motor running, it’s sex between a fully dressed man (preferably in a suit) and a completely naked woman. I think it's that D/s thing, which is my major modus operandi. There's something about a handsome man in a suit sexxing up a nekkid woman that really melts my butter.
2. Talk Dirty To Me. And I Mean Make Me Blush.
Give me a man who can talk dirty and I'm his, in both my real life and my characters. All my sexual situations will have a dirty talker. I love a dirty talking Snape for example; my rationale being that he learned early on that his voice was one of his most attractive assets and he would learn to use it thus. With any dirty talker, I do love to have the Dominant lover command his sub to orgasm. One of my dead cert favourites and one I use sparingly now because I overused it so much!
3. You Say Potato, I Say Potahto.
I like blending the poetry of eroticism with the coarseness of smut, and it tends to be gender and class related. For instance, Hermione's POV will show sex as intensely arousing, dreamy even, while Severus' will be must more lust-driven and harsher. His wording will be more working-man's and urgent. I also like to make the words of smut as soft as possible – the verbiage I use will be as poetic as I can make it in a romantic story; if I’m going to sheer PWP, I’ll be a little more crass.
4. You Can Call It What You Want, But I Call It Messing With The Kid.
In Snape’s POV I will use different words for genitalia than in Hermione's. She will use folds, core, cock, bottom, fundament; he will use cunt, hole, arse, dick, pussy. I also just as a matter of course refer to bodily parts in a certain way and tend to use the same ones - the saddle between her thighs, her heart-shaped bottom. I also tend to have my men uncut, since many British men are and I tend to write British men, even in my original fiction.
5. My Heart Belongs To Daddy.
I have spent many months exploring my 'daddy issues' kink and know more about myself than I ever thought I'd want to know, and while I'm not as comfortable with what other people may think about my daddy kink, I was relieved and a little disappointed to know I’m a perfectly normal person who had a perfectly normal relationship with my dad. I'm totally comfortable about it myself, if that makes sense. In the psychology stakes I'm definitely a late bloomer, but hey, at least I get it now.
Let me state for the record that a woman with a Daddy Dom kink does not mean she has been the victim of incest or any form of sexual congress with her father. It doesn’t work that way. D/s as Daddy Dom/lil' girl is the ultimate hurt/comfort scenario; it’s the one we hurt/comfort folks recognise as what we want ourselves. As you say, you write what you know. Sometimes in writing this particular dynamic, a lot more goes on between your characters’ ears than between their legs.
6. Contributing To The Delinquency of a Semicolon.
I love putting ideas together with semicolons; my poor editor chases after me, hastily shooting them down like fish in a barrel. I had a very poor educational background in grammar skills, so when I grew into adulthood, my grammatical foundation was horribly patchy. Even to this day, I write what feels right, not necessarily what's grammatically correct. Thankfully Stgulik (or Jules as she is known), has an exemplary education and manages to surgically correct a multitude of sins. I can also mix metaphors like a boss, which brings us neatly to:
7. Contributing To The Delinquency of a Semicolon, part 2.
As a Southern writer, I subscribe to the Pat Conroy school of description and metaphor, but I have a lot less subtlety. I tend to over-describe and metaphor something into an early grave. I love to write metaphorically, and to mix my ingredients: ("She cashed in her last fraying strands of courage to say the words.") I, too, love to split dialogue; to me it helps to set up a visual image of what's going on without being obtrusive or distracting (which is funny, since it's a distraction method in and of itself). One of my favourite examples comes from an old school SSHG writer Redskyatnight: "I," he said, rather grandly, "couldn't give a fuck." It totally gives me the visual and audible image of not only the pause between the 'I' and the rest of the sentence, but I can envision exactly how he sounded and looked when he said it.
8. Baby, Rock Me, Chaka Khan.
I love pet names when they have been given to one specific character. One of my characters in Her Minder is a true practicing Dom, who called the main character "Kitten" when they first met. It was done then to establish him as the Big Daddy of the jungle and her the little one, but as his feelings for her changed and grew, it became a term of endearment. I also like the pet name 'little girl', which serves my daddy kink well. I'm also a sucker for ‘bitch’, if it's said in the heat of passion, almost in anger and admiration. What someone says during the throes of passion can be very sexy, but quoting grunting noises is a turnoff, and I never use them, unless it’s for comic effect. I used ‘Lass’ in an SSHG fic, but I got a lot of crap from many American readers who didn’t realise this is a ToE in the Northern Counties as well as Scotland. By the time I’d written about fifty explanations I was really sorry I’d used it, but a Northern (England) man calling me ‘Lass’ will short-circuit my brain in a very good way.
9. The Man In The Long Black Coat Syndrome
Ever since I was very, very, VERY young (we're talking three or four years old), I have felt a complete and total pull toward a physical male archetype - tall, pale, dark-haired and dark-eyed (and just so it isn't contributed to #5, my dad was short, swarthy, with brunette hair and green eyes). For reasons I won't go into here, I have been attracted to this ever since - every major boy or celebrity or literary crush has had to meet this profile. Because I spent too many years feeling shameful and unworthy of this archetype, I deliberately dated blonds, and gingers and only worshipped the dark-haired, dark-eyed men from afar. I finally came to my senses and married to type. My protagonists will always be of this physical type, and they will always be dead sexy. I also love a treasure trail, and there's something about a taint line....
10. Sometimes I Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me.
Voyeurism is one of my things. So is a person’s double. I have a real thing about a character watching his ‘double’ or close friend have sex with his lover. LOTM’s An Army of Snapes nearly had my brain exploding because it stomped on this kink button and jammed it in the “ON” position. I think it might be one of LOTM’s kinks as well; she used this several times herself, using the word ‘doppel’ with items in her universe that doubled a person or thing. See also For Someone Special.
11. Insert Witty Title Here.
If there is anything I hate to do more than writing a summary for a fic, it’s come up with a decent title for it. Many of my fics have song lyrics or titles because I’m so shit at it. So often I just want to title a story, “The One I Wrote On - insert date
12. So That’s What I Was Trying To Do!
Apparently, and this is something someone pointed out to me, I will often take a past plot point (usually canon), and try and mesh it into the story in order to give more weighty significance to what is currently happening. I know I did it in several stories, like Burn Down the Mission, Father Figure, Lay Me Low, etc. I love parallel lines and I love it when stories parallel other ideas and concepts, like the Seven-part drabble series for GrangerSnape100 I did based on the Seven Books. I love juxtapositions between events and I like doing stories based on well known ‘lists’ or events, like a four chapter story with each chapter evoking one of the Four Seasons, etc. Sometimes it’s pretty subliminal, even to myself. It was only after looking up some reference stuff that I realised that my story Burn Down The Mission had a lot of parallels to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. But since I didn’t do it deliberately, the chapters are wrong, and there are only six instead of seven. Christ knows what I’d written if I’d been deliberately doing it. But it is a fun way to write, and provides instance structure.
13.The Rhythm Method.
I like to write with rhythm in mind. I often read my stories out loud before I post them, to get a feel for the rhythm of the narrative. I also tend to double my adjectives when I describe something. His wet, hungry mouth...Her creamy, smooth breasts, etc. I love descriptions and adjectives are boss. I also enjoy adverbs, which many professional writers dismiss as the anti-christ, but hell, I can't help it. A good adverb will tell you exactly the tone of voice a person is using, the expression, the entire scene can hinge on one well-placed adverb.
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no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 09:25 pm (UTC)But I love seeing what other people have to say about their writing :D
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:08 pm (UTC)Yay remembering!
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 09:49 pm (UTC)And semi-colons; i love them; use them all the time; and the splitting of words so you can define how they're saying things or what they;re doing early on.
For 11. A good title always helps me write. Sometimes a fic's theme and tone will be defined to me totally once I've pinned down a name and others It'll be the last thing I do.
12 is fascinating, I wish I built things like that into my writing subconsciously.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:22 pm (UTC)And I didn't know you were a Southern writer, too. Do you think it's something about growing up in the Bible Belt that makes us Southern gals such hopeless perverts? All that repression...
A few thoughts that came to mind as I read this:
Without a doubt, to write good smut, the verbiage must match the tone and characterization.
Semi-colons are so underrated (if you're not JKR). It reminds me of a line by my biggest erotica author crush: She knew how to use semicolons, which is a rarity these days bordering upon the freakish. You don't see them a lot, but they do have a purpose.
There really is not enough doppelganger porn out there. Especially considering we have Polyjuice Potion to play with. I think I'm going to have to make it a personal goal to write one of these.
Titles are the worst, the absolute worst. I'd rather write kissing, ha.
Thank you so much for this detailed and droolworthy post. I'm bookmarking it, and foresee many, many plot bunnies arising from re-reads.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:28 pm (UTC)I think there honestly may be something to the whole Southern-writer-repression thing.
I read your Dr Mabeause Hard-Boiled Dick rec (had to pause in the middle. I came over all funny and had to lie down in a dark room for a bit ;) Is this the same Dr Mabeause that used to post art on dA? I am in love, it that is indeed the same person.
I think I'm going to have to make it a personal goal to write one of these. My work is DONE!!!! Mwuhahahaha!! You, Polyjuice, doppelganger porn. I'm coming over all funny again.
The idea that something I did or said spawned plot bunnies is one of the greatest compliments you can give me.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:39 pm (UTC)Alas, that's probably not the same person. As far as I know, Doc isn't an artist. But hooooooooooooooooly shit, his erotica. This might sound crazy or melodramatic, but I had to stop reading it. It was doing things to me I've never felt from erotica.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:41 pm (UTC)You know this post has seriously, seriously made my day! ;)
♥
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:36 pm (UTC)The main thought I want to leave you with is that regardless of how or why you write, you are one of the most talented writers on my list of favorites.
Thank you for giving us a peek into how you wield the tools to weave your magic.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 11:30 pm (UTC)An seriously? American readers had a problem with Lass? God, I LOVED that endearment in LML. It was so very sweet, showed such affection and care, and gave the smallest hint to the daddy thing.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-09 11:45 pm (UTC)Oh well. I patiently explained that in Yorkshire and Lancashire it's very common among men of Severus' generation. But lots of folks just didn't get it. But thank you! I'm glad it didn't bother everyone.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 03:28 pm (UTC)It was something that gave several folks pause, but it was something one of my Yorkshire friends called me all the time, and it kind of gave me a little jolt, as he always said it in a very sharp way, then hissed with sibilant a little longer: "Lassssssssssss"
Still gives me a bit of a buzz and I haven't spoken to him in over six years ;)
no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 01:35 am (UTC)If there is one thing that will get my motor running, it’s sex between a fully dressed man (preferably in a suit) and a completely naked woman.
Ohhhhhh yeah. Major swoon for me as well.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 03:13 am (UTC)You are one of my favorites on many levels. Your characters and plot are always well done. But for me, you get a shiny gold star in the smut category. When I read other's stories where the plot or characters are good, but they just don't totally wow me, I still enjoy them very much. However, smut can go so wrong so fast, and I find it painful to read if the words don't match the tone of the scene or the person who is saying them etc. You have a phenomenal gift for writing steamy bedroom (or where ever!) scenes, and while that may or may not be what you want to be praised for, you are in a minority of people who nail it every time. Um, pun not intended, but I'll take it. And, I'll just be sitting here patiently waiting for some #10.
I read Burn Down the Mission, although I haven't reviewed yet because I was on my phone at the time. It is one of the few promptfest stories I chose to read in my limited time. I chose it because I looked at the title and it sounded like it might be yours, lol. Then, as I started to read I decided it was definitely yours. And any time I make that distinction, it is more due to overall quality and word choices than content. Funny enough, as I got near the end, I talked myself out of you as author because it seemed so out of character for you. Which can be a good thing sometimes. I won't tell you my thoughts here (rest assured they are positive) because I've already talked too much, but I will put it on my ridiculously enormous to-do list. I will say that having read the ending, I think it warrants a re-read before making any statements. In fact when life slows down, I think I have several of yours to finish/start. Something to look forward to!
no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 03:31 pm (UTC)I didn't end it to shock or disturb anyone, but it was the right ending - the only ending as far as I could see. To make it HEA would be to render it toothless, and I couldn't do it. Didn't make me any friends, though.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 10:33 am (UTC)And I SO SO SO hear you on the semi-colons. I had a disrupted education so I have gaps where some finer points of grammar should be, and the semicolon is my number one victim. :)
no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 03:33 pm (UTC)