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Twilight Forums - Twilighted • View topic - To Lemon or Not to Lemon....
I admit it. I love mah lemon. I like reading it and I like writing it. I'm a giant perv. It's true.
I will say that I try to write for my audience. By that I mean that if I know the general readership is able to handle a more explicit, graphic style of writing, then I can and will whip out the 'c' word without batting an eye and make it do tricks. For Twilight, the two sex scenes I've written so far I've used a broader brush and a few coats of gloss. Concentrated on the emotions and sensations instead of the mechanics.
I totally agree with the person that said a lemon can end up sounding like an OB/GYN exam if you're not careful. And frankly, that's just no fun for anyone.
You know, I have to say that I too (yeah yeah, laugh if you must) had a very difficult time coming to terms with the sexual content. In fact, I finished writing a book a little while ago in which the sex scenes were far less graphic than my Twilight fics!
That being said, I cherish a good love scene, but I also really need there to be some semblance of a plot around it, something with substance based in the reality of the characters/story, no matter how short the build-up. Once I got into the lemons, I realized that it helps if you are a generally emotional person when writing them. If you can put yourself into their shoes, feel what their feeling as the dialogue plays itself out in your head, and one of the characters says or does something that causes you, the writer, to have a physical or emotional reaction, then yay, you may have hit upon something.
And as Capricorn knows I have trouble with the "words", myself. Perhaps someday I may build up to them, but for now they just don't flow from my fingers in a natural way, especially with regards to E & B.
JenWordSong wrote:And as Capricorn knows I have trouble with the "words", myself. Perhaps someday I may build up to them, but for now they just don't flow from my fingers in a natural way, especially with regards to E & B.
I have trouble with B/E too...which is why I make R/Em total tramps and J/A so lovey. I'll have to jump in the deep end eventually, but it's definitely something I'll do with a lot of care.
I always skip over A/J and E/R lemons because it feels kinda incestuous to me to read it. Like I'm reading about my brother or best friend getting it on, or something. I adore B/E lemons because I lust after Edward and can identify with Bella.
Capricorn75 wrote:I always skip over A/J and E/R lemons because it feels kinda incestuous to me to read it. Like I'm reading about my brother or best friend getting it on, or something. I adore B/E lemons because I lust after Edward and can identify with Bella.
As someone who writes only Em/R and A/J smut, I think that you are missing out if you skip over them!!
I mean, not to "toot my own horn" so to speak, but I get comments about 2 particular scenes in PF that are A/J and Em/R
First, COWBOY JASPER!! Twice even!! Someone actually said that they can't shorten chapter to chap anymore, because they get Cowboy Jasper vision.
And the other, the gym. That's all I need to say...Rose and Emmett in a gym.
Like I said, I think you are missing out if you skip over them!!
I think a sex scene is pretty much like any other scene in a (longer) story ... does it need to be there? Does it serve a point towards either plot or character development, or both? If it doesn't, it's deadwood and should be cut.
Now, in some short fiction (like erotica) the POINT of the story IS the sex scene, and there is definitely a difference between erotica and pornography, which is one reason I tend to be against using "ratings" which were created for a visual medium imposed on a written one. By the rules of fanfic 'ratings,' both Penthouse Letters and N. Scott Momaday's Pultizer-winning House Made of Dawn would get an NC-17 code, because they describe graphic, not allusive sex. But they have no more in common than horseradish and honey! It's not in the what shown, but the HOW WRITTEN.
The responsibility of the author is to make ANY scene in a novel (not just a sex scene) serve a purpose in the building of the story. I've been writing novels for a long time. Most of my novels wind up including sex scenes, largely because the themes I like to deal with (such as "coming-of-age") lend themselves to that, even require it. But it really does HAVE to fit the story, and I'm far less likely to include such scenes in short fiction, unless I'm writing deliberate erotica (which I'm usually not). I can recall one of the funniest pieces of feedback I ever got was for a short story in X-Men called "Chocolate Milk," which did involve a fairly high degree of UST (unresolved sexual tension), but it was sublimated, and the story was fundamentally about the inability of the characters to talk to each other. One young man reading the story, wrote to me to say, "Good story, but next time, write more SEEEEEEXXXXX!!!!!" Which pretty much cracked me up. (Talk about really Not Getting It.)
Anyway, I think any author has to ask herself or himself hard questions about the ultimate point of a sex scene -- but again, that's true of ANY scene. Useless scenes (deadwood) slow down the rise of plot tension and screw up pacing.
One other point about writing sex -- for me, it's getting it realistic. I know that sometimes 'realism' isn't the point of the sex -- it's escapist fantasy. But I honestly can't read that. A girl having sex for the first time with a guy who's COLD and HARD is probably not going to have the best time ever. Ha! No matter how much he dazzles her. Some years back, there was a discussion on LJ about "Writing what you know" and one of the tangents it got off onto DID involve writing sex, so I'll share it here:
I will warn it is blunt and perhaps TMI, but in a clinical way. But yeah, personally, I MUCH prefer stories showing realistic sex, even if one of the partners is Undead.
I started off with the hives. So many hives, and it took me forever and a lot of music playing on the iPod to drown out the voices in my head that were trying to tell me what a fool I was making of myself.
I mean I'm married and have kids, so obviously I've been around the block, but I don't even have those kinds of talks with my girlfriends. That kind of thing is so deeply personal to me, and writing it for posting on the INTERNET of all places... well it gave me the heebie jeebies for many of the reasons that Spring and HB1 mentioned.
And the words. God help me on the words.
And ya, I've had people tell me that I could have put more detail in there. But I've also had people write to say thanks for putting emotion into the story instead of the anatomy lesson that happens so often.
I've loved the lemons that I've read that were written by people who've already posted to this thread. I think a lot of you can write things that are so much hotter than anything that I can get down on paper. I'm jealous in a way, and wonder if what I put down is worth it at all, but that's how I'm wired and so that's what I do.
Really, I loved writing the Carlisle/Esme lemon - even though a lot of people said it felt like they were watching their parents or something. I don't see them as mommy and daddy so it worked for me.
And Claire/Quil, I built that one up so much that honestly writing that lemon was something of a relief.
So ya, I think that they can be good. Like all things, in moderation. (in the actual writing anyway. The characters themselves can't keep their hands off each other but that's where implying satisfaction comes in handy.) And as long as it doesn't hijack the plot, it can be great.
I do not write, but I read quite a bit.. and I have to say that I find that different stories need different "strength" of lemons. I think that depending on whether the story is in cannon, AU, human, whatever variety it is, the lemon that I feel see fitting is different.
I do have to applaud all of you for writing such wonderful stories, it so happens that all of you htat have responed to this thread have really awesome lemons.
One other author that for some reason I always think of when I think of in cannon lemons is Alice Laughs. She has one of my favorite breaking dawn stories and the reason why I think her lemon work is because it is not about the graphic act itself, but more about the emotions. Like Birdee said, it one of those that you finish reading and go AWWW.
Oh and I will come out and say that I do enjoy a good DTE, and the more graphic stuff.. but never when it is an anatomy lesson.. (i.e. insert par A in slot B kinda deal) I am not a prude.. heck thats why im here !
One thing that also came up in another thread.. I am still coming to terms with the amount of younger authors out there that are writing lemons. It is a big shock to me when I read a very graphic story and then theres an A/N at the end stating that the author is 14 or something like that. I could not write a lemon to save my butt and I got 2 kids that I did not order via catalog.
thanks for all the thoughtful responses so far-they are all fantastic!
Cristygen brought a very good point that I think gets lost alot in ffland, and that's the idea that different stories will need to treat sexuality and sexual expression differently.
What I think happens alot of the time is there is a sort of protocol or pattern involved with Twilight "lemons" that people think need to be followed. And this may be due to alot of younger authors writing out there and following the suit out of necessity. But there tends to be a graphic standard out there that usually doesn't actually fit with the actual style or vibe of the story. You'll have this sweet story and the next thing you know bella's going down on edward while he's doing interesting things with his fingers and cussing really loud....lol