Do you prefer more detail or less detail when you read an erotic story?
I've considered leaving some details up to the reader; i.e. writing in such a way that if they prefer big boobs they can make them so, or imagine smaller boobs instead... letting them apply their own preferences to the story (and potentially broadening its appeal), but making the story more vague.
Is it better to leave such details to the user's imagination, or to put in more detail from my imagination/memory in order to make the story feel more 'real'?
What do you think?
Not describing the size of a girl's tits will not make your story more vague nor, for that matter, will describing them make your story any more real.
In my most recent story I spend two paragraphs describing the main character's tits - there's only about a dozen paragraphs in the whole story! I go into a lot of detail because that's what the story is about: the narrator fixates on the woman's tits - so we need a lot of detail. It needs to be that way so the reader is in no doubt that the narrator knows more about her tits than anything else about her.
Put detail where you need it but don't rely on your reader's imagination to do your story-telling for you.
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NEW! Want a quick read for your coffee break? Why not try this... Flash Erotica: Scrubber I'm pretty detailed in my writing and I appreciate reading things that give me a clear visual or psychological view. But, readers are different. It's good to leave some room for them to fit in. It's a fine line though. One of my favorite writers said that if she can remove a line or a phrase or a word and it does not change the story, she gets rid of it. Only keep what's necessary to the story--what the reader needs to know. I try to do that. You will have to let me know if it's working.
Immature writers over indulge in descriptions of the mundane and obsess over sizes. I picked that up somewhere and it's true.
Yeah, that's kinda how I feel myself. Over-description can boring and/or clinical, but you need enough detail to suck people in. I just thought a story might appeal to more people if they could fill in some of the details themselves.
P.S. And I wasn't JUST talking about cup size! :P I also meant things like hair colour, ethnicity...
I am pretty descriptive in my writing. I would suggest that you find ways to work the details of your characters' looks into your narrative. The list of attributes that reads like a description to the police of a missing person with added sexy bits is not the way to do it. For instance, you can say that a female character is tall and redheaded and later say that a male character looked into her green eyes as he spoke to her. You can leave the description of her body to a later point in the story if and when she gets undressed. Feeding the reader the information slowly allows them to build up the picture as they read. Bra sizes and penis lengths are not necessary. Leave room for something to be imagined by the reader.
I like detail but it has to feel natural to the narrative. Think about the story, rather than the laundry list of fast details - they should be woven into the narrative, rather than taking a break from the story to fill a paragraph with what someone looks like.
Also - if it's a first person narrative, it makes sense that as your character is seeing others, they will notice and/or react to what they look like. They will not know a woman's cup-size at first glance, nor would a woman know the length of a guy's penis, so I prefer to opt for descriptives rather than specific 'sizes'. Breasts can be full, pert, modest, there can be a swell of cleavage... this is the better way to give a descriptive rather than "Lola dropped her bra and I gazed at her 34D breasts with medium sized pink nipples."
In a first-person narrative story, describing what your main character looks like may be a little more tricky. I dislike stories that take a break from the plot or use a basic-intro tactic like "I have blonde hair and a hot body, with 34C breasts and a shaved snatch," all in a single paragraph. If you can work details into a story in a natural way, it's far more effective and it will come across as less elementary-writing. If it doesn't feel right, then leave it out - the reader will create an image in their mind based on the personality/feel of the character. I don't need specifics - my imagination will fill in the blanks based on the vibe of the character.
To give a quick example - in my story series, West Coast Games, the only character that really gets well physically detailed is the female because it's the way the main character sees her and first becomes enamoured with her. It's written from a male first-person POV, and to me, it would have felt unnatural and vain for the guy to be detailing his own good looks. It would feel similarly awkward if he was to detail what his two male friends look like in any lingering way. I kept the details brief and related to the action, only when I felt I could weave things in without making the narrative feel cheesy. I try to bring the characters to life with the story and then let the reader fill in the blanks.
I like detail. I like feeling as if I am there, and I want my readers to feel as if they are there, as well.
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Personally I like detail. It is what I like when I read and what I do when I write. However, when I think of detail it is not nessicarily about describing the exactness of one's personage always, like "boobage" or each physical trait (though I like that but here you have a limited number of characters to use). Such "detail" would be about the dress she is wearing, the expression in her eyes, the setting sun at the canjun restaurant behind her and noise... things like that. It nice to hear exactly what they look like, but that is your choice, of course. We are all different and that is what makes for vairity in the stories we read and we all have our own styles. A more generic writing in a story, to speak with ambiguity, may work if the story itself is good. (?)
Okay, I'll try to address this question as a reader.
I love details! I want to feel like I'm able to see the characters and what they're doing in my mind's eye. I love it when a piece straddles the graphic with more creative metaphors. I would much prefer a well-described sex/action scene over well-described human (or non-human, now that the Supernatural comp's on!) appendages. Movement is very diverse and may also suggest particular physical traits. For instance, a brilliant description of a sport-y action like say, swimming, would give me a clear impression that he/she's athletic. And then, quite naturally you might be able to slip certain physical characteristics into the action.
Also, I'm an intensely visual person, but I love other tactile senses to be engaged as well. So if you describe the smell, sounds, feel of something, I'd just be happily pulled along for the ride.
But I'm one of the many, many readers out there so don't just take my word for it!x
As a reader and writer, I think emotional details are more important than physical details. Emotion is the blood of the story, bringing the characters to life and making them interesting enough to want to see where the adventure takes them. As for physical details, and especially descriptions of characters' bodies, I strongly agree with Dancing_Doll's comments. Also, the way we see/experience a place or person is often colored by our emotional state, and the same should be true for characters in a story.
"It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.” Raymond Chandler
I've always been selective with physical detail. I describe physical things enough to paint the setting and the scene. Some things are never described. I don't think I've ever taken the time to focus on the shape or size of breasts and cocks.
I don't really need all that little detail when I read, either. I want to experience things through someone else's mind - not through a video camera feed. That's why I read and write erotica rather than watching porn.
I spend a lot more of my time touching on my character's emotional, psychological, and physical states more than anything. This is where the tension and drama is at - where the heat really is, at least for me.
This sounds like the show don't tell rule. Don't say someone is hot--tell us about how his t-shirt stretches across his broad shoulders and how he has straight teeth and strong hands. Don't say someone has great tits, tell us about the deep vee her cleavage makes or the way her hardened nipples press through the sheer fabric of her blouse.
And try and accomplish this in as few words as possible.
I like detail, but you can go too far.
For me, details are part of what makes a story. There is a big difference between telling the reader a woman has 42DD breasts and saying something like "Her breasts are the size of cantaloupes." or "Her exquisite breasts threatened to spill out the top of her red blouse." Exact measurements are too detailed. Giving the reader something to compare them to, or imagine is far more entertaining for them.
Generally, an artful light touch does more for me than exhaustive detail. I like to feel my imagination has been set free. But if a writer is convincing I'll happily step outside my comfort zone.
I love it to be vivid enough.. but would leave some things for me to imagine. and process on my own.. So I can be brought to a world of my own. Where the writer is my guide and I am experiencing all on its own
I like detail that's relevant. A good piece of writing allows me to build up an image of the characters and setting that is sufficient to the purposes of the story. The image in my mind might be completely different from the writer's, but that doesn't matter if the differences don't impact at all on the story or the characters' relationships.
Overly-detailed descriptions, just for the sake of it, are not endearing. I think some writers, wanting the reader to see things exactly as they do, fall foul of this. Think about what's important and what's natural to say.
As a writer, I have sometimes omitted detail on purpose. With one story, I wanted my male readers to be able to put themselves in the position of the main character, so I left his physical characteristics very vague. I know other writers have kept a character's gender ambiguous, either for wider appeal or as an experiment.
But you also don't want to leave too much to the imagination without good cause. Good, relevant details are important in shaping your characters and their environment.
I don't think too many details are a good thing in a sex story. Of course we need you to paint a picture, but in the end we all have our preferences and on of the best things about stories is that they actually allow your imagination to color in the details. Make the people fit my ideals. So it is a fine line between enough detail to give us a picture and just enough so you can fill in the blanks.
"Snatch" is an excruciating word for something as wonderful as a lady,s pudenda
depends on the story and the style it's written in. sometimes stories call for a lot of detail, sometimes they don't.
You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.
My profession, for a short period of time, was as a Geographer. One of the central concepts of geographic studies is known as "a sense of place." That is the strong identity and character that's deeply felt by the inhabitants of a particular locale. Not always, but usually, I will use this concept to convey what the world is like in my stories. To give the reader an insight into what the characters may feel as they interact with each other and their environment. Of course that means using details. And it's the whole point for me, often. To tell a good story. You see, I write for myself more than anyone else. And I simply trust and hope the reader will follow me down whatever rabbit hole I am exploring. If I'm lucky enough, then, more often than not, I succeed. And it really doesn't matter in the least, to me, whether I am writing erotica, or not.
I love detail in a story...descriptions of the surroundings and everything a character is experiencing mentally and (especially) physically...detailed descriptions of the orgasmic sensations are pretty cool
It does depend on the story. Some are just more atmospheric than others.
Sometimes, I like to give a character a distinguishing feature that I mention more than once. In Mastered, it was a red braid. In a non-erotic story I wrote, I emphasized how small and skinny the main character was. But, rarely do I give too many character details. I'm trying to do better with that.
The other place where details get in the way are action scenes. One of my writing teachers used to call it "stage managing". So, if you write, "Kate woke up, sat up, pushed back her covers, sat up, slid her feet into her slippers, and stood before walking the seven steps to her bathroom," when you could say, "Kate got out of bed and went to the bathroom," I do tend to get impatient as a reader. I get grumpy with myself as a writer, too.
However, when it comes to sex, I love to give the full description of sensations and emotion.
Totally dependent on the story. If a guy's looking at a girl, he'll notice (and thus describe) different things, depending on his personality and perceptions. It's hard to go into much detail about a character's looks when writing in the first person unless the protagonist is looking in a mirror or being told they have great tits/eyes/hair. Even then it's tricky, because who knows the motives of the person talking to them? Perhaps he just wants to get her into bed. Shock. Horror. Gasp.
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