Moar Expert Writing Advice: How to Not Be a Douche (Plus Ellipses and How To Do Love Scenes)

[triedunture]

Hey guys, remember when I used to do that thing, what was it called?

Oh yeah.


T's Giant Expert Writing Advice for Writers
and other people who wanna write good too


OK, now remember when I went to that gay bookstore last month and bought that reprint of lesbian pulp fiction?

Well, I think I can kill two birds here with one stone. Because this book is such an appalling example of writing in general, and gay writing in particular, I think it should be discussed in the context of What Not To Do.

Now, to be fair, this book has two novellas in it, and I have only read the first, "Amanda." Both stories are copyright 1965, so they are truly antique. But. They are so, so bad, I just don't know where to begin. I don't know if they were originally intended to be campy and tongue-in-cheek, or if they have been reprinted with that intention now. The sassy, hilarious new cover art would point to the latter, but the completely brutal depiction of gays and lesbians makes me think that the author was either a straight woman who had never met a gay in her life or a man.

In fact, I'm not sure who this book was originally written for. It certainly wasn't written for lesbians. And I'm not even sure straight men would get a kick out of it. There are no overt sex scenes. I can only imagine these sorts of novels were originally meant to appeal to straight women who perhaps wished to indulge in some kind of taboo fantasy, because nothing in this book showed me any facts about lesbian or gay life.

But I digress.

Let's talk plot. Erm, spoiler alert?

The main character (MC), Ev, is a straight woman who writes lesbian novels despite never having had a lesbian experience or even knowing any lesbians. This sort of slapdash writing-about-writing plot makes me think the writer was actually a straight woman who writes lesbian novels despite never having had a lesbian experience or even knowing any lesbians. She ends up going to bed with a fellow lesbian novelist, who turns out to be a cheater, a liar, and a thief (of course?). Heartbroken, Ev wanders through a life of torment, haunting lesbian bars and freaking out when seemingly normal and polite women approach her. The only stable lesbian character, the one who "takes control" in the bedroom with Ev, must be firmly told off by a repentant and stoutly heterosexual Ev by the end of the book because (as Ev is SUCH a wise person after her emotional ordeal) the stable lesbian can't possibly be in the correct frame of mind to pursue a relationship.

This book offers gems like:

Even they [the older women] had the benefit of having a gym teacher look rather than glaring bull dyke. There is, for me, nothing more unforgettably depressing than a full-fledged bull dyke.

O RLY? Not even, say, starving children? Amputees? Sad puppies? Plus, WTF is the difference between a gym teacher and a bull dyke?

The place was entirely gay--the presentable kind, not the swishy or dykey ones.

*facepalm*

In fact, the author, I mean, the main character, seems very concerned with separating the GAY gay people from the gaaaaaaay people. Wink wink.

Look, I'm not going to be offended by this as a gay person. I'm going to be offended as a writer. I know a lot of people who write slash are straight, and that's cool; you don't have to be black to write a black character (although there's a huge argument brewing in the sci-fi writing community about that right now, so I guess don't quote me); you don't have to be gay to understand gay ones. But you do need to realize when you're wrong. And this is wrong.

And the incredible sanitizing of the lesbian subculture isn't the worst sin the book offers.

The worst sin is having a MC, who's a writer, writing awfully.

Let's forget the misspellings and missing punctuation in places. This thing is a '60s reprint at one of the smallest houses in the country. Obviously not every error could have been caught.

Let's forget the fact that they could have made this story a straight one with just a few name changes.

Let's forget everything like that.

Let's talk about ellipses.

Dot. Dot. Dot.

I'm going to open the book to a random piece of dialog. Oh, here's one:

"Sure . . . shall I get you a beer too?"

And another random page:

"It's not . . . I'd written to other authors before about reading my manuscript. . . ."

And one more, just to prove my point:

"I'll check . . . I think I've got some stashed away somewhere."

Bear in mind these pieces of dialog all come from different characters. The BEST/WORST part of this phenomenon is this writerly exchange:

"Try to break up what people 'sound' like on paper. One person will swear too much, another will have a very limited vocabulary, another guilty of malapropisms, and so on. You've an advantage with the written form by use of punctuation. Let one person speak using long sentences broken up by semicolons, another speak in spurts using ellipses. . . ."

"What?"

"Ellipses," I repeated. "Three dots. And, mind you, it's only three dots followed by the appropriate punctuation."

Whoa. Talk about a writer who's too in love with ellipses to take her own advice! In all of the above three pieces of dialog, the exchange could be made stronger by doing away with the ellipses. I don't mean to say ellipses have no place in writing, but goddamn it, they are the WIMPIEST of wimpy.

Instead of:

"Sure . . . shall I get you a beer too?"

Why not:

"Sure. Shall I get you a beer too?"

OR, if you must have a small pause in the dialog:

"Sure," I said, turning away. "Shall I get you a beer too?"

Yes, in normal life, we do take natural pauses in conversation to breathe or to think. But this is FICTION. It should be better than life. It should be UBER-LIFE. It should be paced and plotted better than life is. Let's face it, life sucks. Fiction is our way to escape it. So fuck it! Just fucking-- ARGH!!!

*deep breath*

This is a pet peeve of mine, obviously, or I wouldn't be so harsh on that one tiny thing. If I've brought up the question of ellipses to you in a beta or whatever, it's only because I love you and I have an irrational fear that Ellipses Fever will spread to you and turn you into something like this, which is absurd, because no one can be THIS bad without trying. So please take my rant as directed towards *looks at cover* Paula Christian and not you, dear, sweet petal. You are a Pulitzer candidate compared to this lady.

OH. That reminds me. You know those blurbs you see on the back covers of books? Often, books will put blurbs from the trade magazines on their covers if they're flattering enough. There are four publishing industry trades that review books: Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews (notoriously snarky), Library Journal, and Jesus Fuck, one other. *Googles* Booklist!

Those of you who have been published know that these four magazines constitute the most important reviews you can get. If you're "lucky" enough to be reviewed in them, then you're probably going to get reviewed by other outlets, because these four run early reviews far in advance of the book's publication.

Now, sorry to burst anyone's bubble. But these trades, particularly Publishers Weekly, are kind of a huge racket. To be reviewed in them, the publisher almost certainly has to take out ad space in the magazine. It's very "scratch our back, we'll review your book favorably" in that world. Except for Kirkus, who don't ever review anything favorably. But even being insulted by Kirkus is better than being passed over.

So when the Publishers Weekly blurb on the back of this book says, "Thoroughly enjoyable. Christian's snappy, racy style and unusually well developed characters will delight both gay and straight fans of vintage pulp fiction," you know that Kensington Fiction has almost certainly paid up for ad space in that month's issue. Because, boy, this is one fan of vintage pulp fiction who was not very delighted. (And "snappy?" How can you be snappy when your characters are pausing every other sentence with a string of ellipses!?)

OK, OK, I need to move on from ellipses or I'll have a coronary.

I need to talk about this as gay fiction, because hopefully y'all enjoy reading and writing gay fiction. This book is NOT gay fiction because everything gay about the MC's encounters with women is taken away. This explains it best: the love scenes have no teeth.

Here's a good example of what I mean:

She gently pushed me back against the couch and then went down on her knees next to me. Very softly she wrapped her mouth around mine and ran her tongue over my lips, and at the same time began to fondle my breasts. It was the most peculiar sensation I'd ever had; I was aware of nothing but my own body, I didn't have to think about where to put my legs or my hands, of what I should be doing. I was simply receiving pleasure without any demands. It was neither a lesbian nor heterosexual act because I was not in contact with a body; only with lips and hands which could have had any gender.

Cynthia undressed me very carefully, very slowly. I have never spent a night of lovemaking like it before, or since.


When I awoke [yadda yadda yadda]....

OK, let's ignore the obviously pussyfooting fade-to-black there. We can have fade-to-blacks in slash and still be classy and sexy. That's not the main problem here. The main problem is one of physics.

If you're sitting back against a couch and someone's "down on her knees" next to you, what does that look like? I assume she's on her knees on the couch, in which case you have to be turned to kiss her. If that's the case, then surely you have to think about where to put your legs and hands, because you're off balance. They have to be SOMEWHERE; they haven't become disconnected from your body. They might feel leaden, and they might be held limply, but if that's the case, then that doesn't seem like a very natural or even possible pose for two people to be in. Hands! Where are they? Where are yours, where are hers? That's problem one.

Problem two: She wrapped her mouth around yours? SOFTLY? Erm. That doesn't seem like an act that could be done with grace, let alone softness. Have you ever placed your mouth around someone else's? It's like mouth-to-mouth: it's sloppy and kind of gross. And definitely doesn't need to be bunged into a love scene. Ugh. Unfortunate.

Problem three: Realism of the MC's reactions. She states that she's never felt the sensation before, but it's not clear that her sensation is mental. She focuses on bizarre physical details, so we must assume her feelings stem from the physical. And yet, how can she have never felt the sensation of being kissed while having her breasts fondled? She's not a virgin; surely some man has done a similar thing? At some point? Unless I guess men in the '60s hadn't figured out how to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time?

Problem four: Adverbs. Let's count them up. Gently. Softly. Simply. Carefully. Slowly. That's a lot of adverbs for such a small few paragraphs (really a paragraph and a bit). Now, I have a personal problem with the overuse of the word "softly." My name is T, and I'm an addict. But I'm working through it, and I must, because adverbs are the lazy man's way of getting the mood across. Anyone can say she pushed you gently, but how about going the extra mile? Describing the tactile sensation of velor fabric brushing the backs of your arms, for example? That would both describe the push's direction and level of force because it's an image that evokes gentleness.

Problem five: Taking out the lesbian's teeth. By describing the act as asexual, the writer appears to be trying to reach a broad audience of people who may or may not be comfortable with imagining themselves in a lesbian act. But in the process, everything real and sensual about the act has been excised. Can you honestly expect me to believe that a woman's kiss and a woman's fondle is absolutely no different from a man's? Are you seriously saying that lips and hands aren't marked by gender, that this woman's hands were the same size and shape as a man's, that her mouth was the same texture?

I CALL SHENANIGANS.

It's complete rubbish. If you ever endeavor to write a gay love scene, for the love of Christ, give it some teeth. Even if you've never had anal sex or lesbian sex or frottage or whatever you're describing, just don't fucking puss out and describe it as nothing. Nothing is fucking ridiculous. You may as well risk going all in and squicking out some people instead of boring all people.

Fuck! *kicks a box in a rage*

And for the love of God, if you ever write original fiction where your main character is A Writer . . . I will kill you.

See? I just used ellipses in what I think was an okay way.

To recap:

1. Ellipses can go to hell.
2. Writer main characters are thinly veiled Mary Sues who can go to hell.
3. Gay love scenes shouldn't be shitty.
4. The publishing industry is corrupt.
5. I think I just broke a box.

Re: 1. OK, I'm over it now.

Re: 2. Bertie Wooster is a main character who is also a writer. Here's why he works and Ev doesn't: he's not A Writer. Bertie is constantly diminishing his own writing abilities in a self-deprecating way. For comedic purposes, whenever writing is mentioned in a story, Bertie proudly states he once wrote an article on "what the well-dressed young man is wearing," which is obviously not his penultimate writing achievement. It's one of Wodehouse's most genius devices: the other characters are allowed to think Bertie in untalented, and we are left wondering if Bertie himself believes he's untalented, or if he's just cleverly downplaying his Jeeves stories, or if, in the universe of the stories, Bertie's stories are not actually very popular (difficult to believe, given how many "he" writes).

Re: 3. This is a topic that could be written about in tomes, and I know some fandom folks already have. These were just a few pieces of advice for non-gay slash writers, because honestly, y'all are on quite the learning curve.

Re: 4. It's not all bad. I shouldn't say "corrupt." I should say flawed. Except for PW, which is actually pretty corrupt. Geez, those guys can go to hell.

Re: 5. Ow.


WHEW. If anyone actually read all that, I am sorry. This was less of a lesson and more of a multi-tangent rant. I hope it helped in some way?

Let's argue about it! :D

Comments

[lynnafer.livejournal.com]

I actually read all of that and there's no need to be sorry for it. I find these very interesting since I am a non writer.

Although, I somewhat disagree about the ellipse thing. But as I mentioned, I'm not a writer so what do I know. You did however make me curious about the etymology of the word 'ellipse' and how to properly pluralize it.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Yanno, ellipses are fine, upstanding pieces of punctuation that I think have just been abused in such awful ways. I should really pity the ellipse and not blame it. But like any punctuation, overuse and misuse make it look very grating. I'm very close to being an em dash addict, and I have to control that impulse or else it will be just as bad as Ellipses Fever.

[lynnafer.livejournal.com]

In the end, in my brain, an ellipse is still a mathmatical thing. When I see it in writing though, especially dialogue, I often imagine that a facial expression or hand gesture would be there.

I'm very guilty of over using commas. I write like a think, haltingly. I need alot of commas.

[blackletter]

For comedic purposes, whenever writing is mentioned in a story, Bertie proudly states he once wrote an article on "what the well-dressed young man is wearing,"

Oo! Thank you for reminding me of this!

One of the things that struck me when I started writing the Holmes/Jeeves and Wooster x-over is that it's buckets of 1st person POV of two people who are obsessed with their brainier companions and write stories about them. So I have this scene where Bertie fanboys Watson (Bertie being a fan of crime novels and all, there's no way he would have not read the Holmes stories, especially considering they were still being published up until 1927). And Bertie tentatively mentions that he's written a thing or two himself, and I was trying to figure out how to play it without it being writery-wanky and your observation is totally it!

(I think one of the other reasons that both Bertie and Watson work as writer characters is that the stories are so very much *not* about them as writers, or really about them at all, so much as about the fabulous person they want to tell the world about. They're sort of the antithesis of self-absorbed 1st person POV.)

Ahem. Forgive the excitement. I enjoyed the rest of the rant, too.

*makes a note to watch my use of the ellipses of death*

[bernie-laraemie.livejournal.com]

OMG I HAVE TO READ THAT. OMG

OMG

THIS STORY IS AWESOME WHEN ARE YOU POSTING IT I MUST READ.

Also fanning over brainy companions is love.

[blackletter]

So far I have about 6000 words, which is one and a half sections out of nine (plus an epilogue). I, er, got carried away while plotting.

I'll probably be begging you for beta once it's done.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

1. I still cannot wait for this X-over.

2. Yes, a narrator who is NOT self-obsessed is always a plus. Can you name one famous first person narrator who isn't focused on someone else? Like you said, it's just better for the narrator to be obsessed with the brainier companion. You'll notice in the few Holmes or Jeeves stories where Holmes and Jeeves narrate, something special and magical is missing; that weird lens on an unfathomable character is gone, and it makes them look naked. It's awful. That's why Wodehouse and Doyle only did it once apiece.

3. Bertie has def. read Holmes stories. I am 99% sure that's canon. Anyone back me up here?

[bernie-laraemie.livejournal.com]

TJ, I think you just need to . . .calm down. Just . . .a little. Things would be a lot . . .easier and go betterly if you just took things softly and . . .gently, I think.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

*EYE TWITCH*

[bernie-laraemie.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, I hear you. I hate ellipses as well. I'm of the school of thought 'If you don't know how to use them, don't.'

Also, don't you love when a writer tries to break a taboo without offending anyone?

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

That's just the thing. It wasn't about not offending anyone. It was about not offending straights. The writer (oh, I'm sorry, NARRATOR) made it very clear that this book featured only a certain kind of lesbian, because let's face it, lesbians are mostly skanky prostitutes or butch rapists! *says that in a goofy voice along with goofy head waggle*

I'm not even kidding. At one point the narrator goes to a lesbian bar and is APPALLED to see a butch girl look at her (the horror!) and, when she sees a lipstick girl, says, "I assumed she was a whore for hire." OMG. MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T GO TO LESBIAN BARS? It's like being upset when you order a sundae and find out it's cold?

[mxdp.livejournal.com]

I read it all! I read it all!
And I agree with every single word you've written here.(Not that I can have an opinion as a writer, of course, but I still agree.)
Anyway. Really gotta go learn now. *siiigh*

P.S.: Sorry about your box. I'm sure it was a lovely one. May it rest in peace.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure I was a little too harsh about some things. But yay.

[mxdp.livejournal.com]

Maybe? But it does feel good to freak about things a bit from time to time-and if it's funny...^^

[juwely-d.livejournal.com]

Well, I won't argue with you. I'm in complete agreement regarding points 1-3, can't say much about the publishing industry. I can't stand it when straight writers go nuts with gay fiction, only to be completely unrealistic and stereotypical about it.

I remember reading a book once, a Danish one, about homosexuality and AIDS and something else that I can't be bothered to remember. I hated that book, not for the subject matter, but because it was so cliché, the characters were so two-dimensional and, worst of all, all schools loved it and felt it had to be on the syllabus every year. Uh, no. Please don't.

Ah yes. Sorry for ranting; you just summed up my opinion on this (AND on adverbs and ellipses, those horrid things) so very nicely.

I do hope the box got a decent funeral.

- K.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

It's such a thin line. I remember reading one of the Lackey books eons ago, and it didn't strike me as horrible gay fiction. It at least wasn't, you know, offensive! That is, it didn't class my people in the same categories as child molesters and drug addicts, right? So on that front, job well done, Lackey.

I'm not familiar with this Danish book, but several US schools do a similar thing with books about the Holocaust. (We'd never read anything about gays or AIDS in school, so at least, even if the book is bad, it's better than nothing? Or maybe it's not.) Anyway, these Holocaust books are often two-dimensional and not very in-depth, but because they're meant for young adults, I guess it's okay, since they're more for historical educational purposes than literature education.

It's a very complicated thing!

[juwely-d.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever actually read anything as bad as the book you describe above, thankfully. The Danish book was meant for young adults, true, but the other books on our syllabus treated sensitive topics with much more elegance and style; they didn't make you feel like the author felt uncomfortable with the subject matter.

But yes, it's a thin line. A lot of the time, I suppose it's all about interpretation.

My girlfriend told me once, she wished someone would just write a book about being gay that didn't make our life style seem so stupidly different and I agree. While we do face some different conflicts, we don't all run around like crazy animals, trying to shag everything with a pulse.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

YEAH. The worst part of this book was that it treated all gay people like they couldn't possibly be in a couple. All the lesbians were cruising and lonely and ended up all sad in the end. Uh, wtf?

Though I suppose if gay people were portrayed realistically, it would be so shockingly normal that people wouldn't like it.

[juwely-d.livejournal.com]

Aw, the poor, poor lesbians. Save our children from ending up gay, or they'll be dysfunctional. By default. Or something.

And yeah, while tolerance is growing in many places (we're happy that you deign to tolerate us, people, really), I think dealing with homosexuality is something a lot of people like to do on an abstract basis. They can deal with gay people being funny, colourful, odd or just plain psychotic - but normalcy? Dear God.

[lynnafer.livejournal.com]

All the lesbians were cruising and lonely and ended up all sad in the end. Uh, wtf?

I dunno, this sounds an awful lot like my single straight girl life.

[smutnazi.livejournal.com]

I really must pick up this book now, because it sounds like the worst of bad pulp fiction, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it the same way I enjoyed the cinematic masterpiece "sorority house vampires from hell" (which was just as bad with the whole lesbian thing.)

You're awesome for pointing out the horribleness of adverbs though...although I'm not fond of you reminding me yet again that elipses are evil, considering I have a bond for them. But you're awesome, and even though it's a rant, it's an educational rant.

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Plz, plz, take my copy! I'm nearly done with the second novella, and you can surely have it since I don't know what else I'll do with it.

[muhsilisk.livejournal.com]

Heh, that was entertaining.


But this is FICTION. It should be better than life. It should be UBER-LIFE.

Yes. Yes! YES!!!
This isn't only true with dialogues (thanks to my slow brain I speak in ellipses myself, but I would never think of writing it that way), but also with other things.
Sometimes, I read "love" scenes and there are things mentioned like stray hairs and smells and I think yes, these things happen, but this is porn, I didn't want that much reality, thank you.

And also yes to A Writer characters. The only author who can get away with crap like this is Stephen King, and only because I love him (and he hates adverbs).

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Now that is an interesting observation, re: uber-love scenes. I agree that in fanfic especially, we're all here for that kind of escapism, and unless you need to go for gritty and real for some separate reason, pr0n should be more hott than real. But some real-ness can be hott, as long as it's done in a certain way.

Like, bad smells are obviously not hot, but other smells can be evocative and hot. Like the smell of crisp sweat. It's not technically beautiful, I guess, but it can be sexy. But then it all depends on the mood and all.

It's a thin line!

[cadeira.livejournal.com]

Ha! I expected you to come up with King in this discussion. It´s so good that you hit me over the head with that adjective thingie right the first time I attempted to pen something fictional.

The wonderful Mark Twain remarked on the relation of fictional worlds and its realistic elements:
'Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.' And with porn it´s the same I guess, things happen that are outrageous or ugly or unpleasant--that doesn´t mean I want to read about. Unless of course it serves a function in the story, I´ve read tons of awkward sex scenes that worked perfectly because the setup fitted.

[muhsilisk.livejournal.com]

I have a healthy obsession with Stephen King (we have the same initials, narf), and reading his autobiography/writing advice book was really helpful for me, so I try to spread the word :)

Of course awkward sex scenes can be great and I don't need overwhelming utopian hawtness in those scenes. What I was talking about are little details that don't help the scene at all and are just... too much information. (In that particular case that is burned into my mind it was unimportant enough to go in brackets. Brackets! Only Stephen King can get away with brackets!)

[lady529.livejournal.com]

*gently shoves paper she wrote on homosexuality in fiction towards you*

Read it all (found it rather interesting), must say I know what you mean re: that book..

The Lady 529

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh, a paper! With research! I just shouted instead.

[lady529.livejournal.com]

Well, it had some research, yes. It had a bit more on male homosexuality than female (hard enough finding things on men snogging in films when you're at a rather prestigious Catholic university) though, which is partially why I found your so-called shouting so interesting : ) I'd recommend Richard Dyer's book The Matter of Images, brilliant book, used it quite a lot for that paper, and we didn't do half bad either (wrote the paper with this Californian girl). I still read that book every so often, I find it rather interesting..

The Lady 529

[hwshipper.livejournal.com]

Ah I've missed your how-to-write posts :)

I use too many ellipses. I've been aware of this recently and trying to eliminate wherever possible. And gosh that love scene you quoted was unbelievably awful. Lack of first hand experience has not stopped me writing better gay sex scenes than that... I hope. (Was that a correct ellipse?!)

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Technically ellipses have spaces between the final word, and between themselves, and before the next word. The spaces are "nonbreaking" which is a term in proofreading and only means that they're connected so that if there's a line break, they all stay together on the same line.

So ellipses . . . technically look like this. Except no one does that. Everyone goes...like this in real world writing. *shrug* It's such a small thing, I can't even bring myself to be mad about it.

I applaud your attention to your ellipse use. We must all be vigilant about what we overuse--like, for me, dashes.

[almostlifesized.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. I haven't read this one, not surprisingly, but similar stuff, and it's awful. 50's pulp by Ragnar Mykle... Gaston, a bucket for monsieur! Makes it more exciting to go treasure hunting in grandmother's pulp library, I suppose.

"It was neither a lesbian nor heterosexual act because I was not in contact with a body; only with lips and hands which could have had any gender." Is this for real? I feel silly to be offended by this, but it's just, er, OFFENSIVE! "I kissed a girl and I liked it", version one!