Pronoun Hell
There is a special torture for writers of
same sex erotica and romance which doesn’t affect writers of heterosexual
romance. Pronoun hell.
It’s hard enough writing sex scenes as it
is. Keeping track of whose hand is on what body part, whose fingertips are
walking, strumming, dancing on whose breast, thigh, belly. More than once, when I’ve been editing
my own story, I’ve realized that one of my character’s hands is in her lover’s
hair, the second is smoothing the skin of her lover’s thigh, and the third hand
is running over her lover’s shoulders. It reminds me of that scene in Galaxy Quest where the alien tentacles
come bursting out of the human skin to engulf their lover in passion.
But if your lovers are the same sex, you have to allow for the
ambiguous “her”, especially if there are more than two participants in the
scene. Consider this heterosexual
love scene.
A swift indrawn breath from beneath her and then
he grasped her bottom with both hands, pulling her cunt down on his mouth. She
gave herself over to the tongue on her pussy, the speed, the dexterity, how
damn good it was. Her thighs, slippery with sweat, locked around his head and
more hair escaped from the hasty twist she’d shoveled it into, clinging
stickily to her neck. His tongue must be getting tired, but her lover didn’t
let up. Flick, lap, moving across her cunt, dipping into her folds, every
crease and valley.
Even though it’s only “he” and “she”
there’s no confusion about what body parts belong to whom. Of course it’s easier too when the
participants have different parts where it matters. But if they are both she, if they both have pussies, then
that scene won’t work as written:
A swift indrawn breath from beneath her and then
she grasped her bottom with both hands, pulling her cunt down on her mouth. She
gave herself over to the tongue on her pussy, the speed, the dexterity, how
damn good it was. Her thighs, slippery with sweat, locked around her head and
more hair escaped from the hasty twist she’d shoveled it into, clinging
stickily to her neck. Her tongue must be getting tired, but her lover didn’t
let up. Flick, lap, moving across her cunt, dipping into her folds, every
crease and valley.
Holy moly, that’s both confusing and laughable—not necessarily in that
order. I wish I could lock my
thighs around my head and lick myself where it mattered. Okay, I wish I were a cat. ;)
When you’re writing same sex erotica, you have to be more
specific. Yes, it means using
names more often which doesn’t flow as smoothly, but it’s better than having your readers howling with laughter because
they’ve interpreted your character as a mutant contortionist.
An alternative to using names is to use labels: “the blond pilot”,
“the nurse”, “the older woman”. Used sparingly this works well; used too
frequently and it’s annoying and cumbersome.
A friend
has a collection of little rubber people figures. She acts out the sex scenes
in her writing, like a plasticine twister: blue man’s right hand on red woman’s
left hip; red woman’s right foot on back of blue man’s thigh. That might be further than you want to
go, but her characters never have the wrong number of extremities.
Right now, I’m sifting through submissions for my upcoming anthology
“Forbidden Fruit: stories of unwise lesbian desire”. And yes, even in the most
polished, professional manuscripts pronoun hell can rears its ugly head.
Here’s the final version of the example scene earlier. It’s taken from “Outback Christmas”
which appeared in “A Christmas to Remember” published by Ladylit last December.
A swift indrawn breath from beneath her and then
Casey grasped Simona’s bottom with both hands, pulling Simona’s cunt down on
her mouth. Simona gave herself over to the tongue on her pussy, the speed, the
dexterity, how damn good it was. Her thighs, slippery with sweat, locked around
Casey’s head and more hair escaped from the hasty twist she’d shoveled it into,
clinging stickily to her neck. Casey’s tongue must be getting tired, but her
lover didn’t let up. Flick, lap, moving across her cunt, dipping into her
folds, every crease and valley.
“Forbidden Fruit: stories of unwise lesbian desire” edited by Cheyenne
Blue will be published by Ladylit in late August 2014,
Cheyenne Blue’s erotica has appeared in over 90 anthologies
including Best Women's Erotica, Cowboy Lust, Best Lesbian Romance, Lesbian
Lust, and Frenzy:60 Stories of Sudden Sex. She lives and writes by the beach in
Queensland, Australia. Visit her website at http://www.cheyenneblue.com
Hi, Cheyenne,
ReplyDeleteOh, do I resonate with this!
It's so distracting to worry about these craft issues when you're in the throes of a love scene, too!
Good luck with the antho. I'm looking forward to reading it. Fabulous theme.
Thank you, Lisabet. Hard at work on the antho right now, looking out for those pronouns.
DeleteOmg, yes! This is honestly the reason that 90% of my f/f stories are written in first person. I just get too annoyed with pronoun hell. Of course especially the one I sent you for that antho had to be third, so I assume it's a right mess ;). But yay, August!
ReplyDeleteI suspect it's why a lot of f/f stories are written in the first person!
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