coaltide | Writing Post 2019

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Writing Post 2019

If you give anyone coal you lose your rights to the good egg list.

NYR due before you sign up for 2019 Yuletide.
Prompts revealed and Madness opens: Approx 9 November
Default deadline: 11 December, 9am UTC
Assignment deadline: 18 December, 9am UTC
Main Collection Reveals: 25 December (Countdown)

Yuletide Discord for Hippos. Google Group for PHs.

yuletide |

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Can we have a (this) thread for the quick questions that seem easily solvable but lead to you getting stuck on your fic because you get hung up on the decision/because Google fails to give you an answer?

Like:
- Wryly or dryly? Moan or groan?
- What popular TV show would people be watching in Tel Aviv on a Sunday night?
- Does this sex thing actually work or would it just hurt?

How much handwaving regarding casework do you accept in shipfic for cop/crime/spy canons? I don't usually much enjoy writing casefic (although I have written some), nor do I read it much because I tend to be into canons and related fic mostly for the relationship dynamics. And so my references to police work/spy stuff are often limited to how the work affects the characters and their relationship. But it means that I don't always have a fully developed framework of all the details of the case that might be relevant if someone was actually writing or desiring proper casefic.

Is there a line up to which you tolerate handwaving/glossing over of facts/information related to criminal cases or spy stuff? Are you like me and tend to skim over those parts anyway because you want to get back to the main characters making out?

I am struggling with this for the fic I am currently working on ... I don't want really it to get any longer, and I am not really interested in the crime stuff beyond it serving as background and as character motivation.

But I wonder if there's a point at which handwaving starts to look more like lazy writing/lack of research.

I think it depends a lot on how important case-related details are to the story. Unless something specific about the case and procedure is a key plot point, summaries like "they processed the crime scene" as opposed to "they sprayed Luminol in the entryway and found no hints of blood evidence despite...") will probably get you there.

And really, if you can throw in an odd detail or two, like the Luminol or noting that the blood spatter indicates X manner of death or use some term that's correct or whatever, those alone give a sense of verisimilitude that lets you get away without loads of heavily researched details.

A lot probably depends on your recip's request, too. Do they seem to be in it for the police procedural aspects, or the relationships? I'd go a little heavier on real-world detail if they seem to want the casefic more than the relationships.

Thank you! The recip does mention liking case stuff in their general likes but only as one among many relationship-centric likes, and they don't emphasize it especially for the canon that I'm writing. So I hope they are fine with the amount of case-related stuff (or lack thereof) in the fic.

But your comment was very helpful also in terms of strategies to make the case stuff more relatable!

AYRT

I think you'll be fine, coalie!

Thank you!

How do you decide whether to leave porn at an m-rating or bump it up to explicit?

Assuming both you and recip are comfortable with either.

Overall pacing of the story? My explicit porn tends to be a lot longer than mature because I'm describing more - the sex scenes aren't even usually a whole scene in my m-rated fic. Does the sex feel like a diversion/distraction or does it fit into the story more, er, organically?

It’s more like the tone of the canon and of the fic are on the lighter side. I feel like it’d be jarring to break out into bodily fluids and dick descriptions though I’m more of an explicit porn writer. Frankly, the story itself could end with a kiss and the porn is extra, but I don’t want to disappoint.

For me, if I'm using euphemisms, I'm talking about characters moving in/on/against each other, and there are no actual outright descriptions of aroused genitalia, that's M. Once I've gotten genuinely ... well, explicit ... about sex acts, or am starting to describe the colors/fluids dripping off of/visual appearance of naked genitals, that's E.

SC

And I guess I should expand a little and say - so bumping from one to the other just depends on whether I've got those specifics in mind and really feel like it suits my intentions with the story to include them. For me, there are some characters whose POVs just don't lend themselves to E-rated fic; and sometimes the emotional point of a scene isn't the sex itself but something happening before or after, in which case zooming in on the fucking at that level of detail doesn't serve that point.

But sometimes the point is the sex, or something specific that's going on during it (first time bottoming for a dude who's struggled with that, say, in an internalized homophobia fic) and in that case E's probably the better option. Or sometimes the point of the fic is in fact the porning for porn's own sake, and that means E all the way.

Yes, it’s about intentions with the story. I’m thinking along the same lines and M seems like a better stylistic choice in this case. Thank you!

I do it pretty organically? Depending on the vibe of the scene or the tone of the story leading up to it, I’ll do outright sex or have it drift out.

I’m not a 1-2-3 fingers and then fuck type writer, through, so I sometimes wonder if readers don’t consider my sex to be “full” sex. Sometimes the main event is just hands/mouths, sometimes I start the scene mid-sex and it carries after the orgasms, sometimes the scene is just jumping into the fucking and it will end before anyone comes or only one of them does, and sometimes I’ll have a full sex scene but it’s literally just kissing to fucking with no other foreplay beyond talking/mental stimulation.

DA

I was actually wondering the same thing re: difference between T and M.

Like, I tend to rate things "T" when the characters start making out, maybe there's the beginning of a handjob/blowjob, then mention of fucking, and fade out. Would be people be uncomfortable with that level of sexual content for T, or should that be M? I am not sure if my Euro-vision is affecting my judgment here.

I often lean towards rating things "M" more likely if the general tone of the fic is darker, or if there are sensitive topics involved ...

Now I need to go back and see how many fics I've actually rated as "E" ... maybe one or two, where I experimented with more niche kink?

Wow I should be clicking on T-rated fics more often :D

From a former European, I get what you mean by T v. M doubts, and I end up tagging higher. Anything harder than kissing or light groping gets an M from me.

This made me go check my posted fic, and I've never tagged anything explicit no matter how descriptive the sex or the violence. I'm going to watch this thread carefully to see if I can figure out what I should be tagging explicit.

For me it’s do people come and/or do I show the sex scene from start to finish?

If so, it’s E. If I only show a snippit or cut away before they come/the sex is over, I go with E.

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Writing Post 2019

Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions

Re: Helpdesk: Word choice, Fact checks, Sex positions