how much build-up is too much build-up?

[Guest bitamin717]

I know this is a lot like asking 'how long is a peice of string?', but generally speaking when you're reading an adult fan fiction story, about how much plot-development and characterisation do you like to read before the sex scenes kick in?

I guess what I'm really asking is just how much set-up are people willing to work through before they get bored and start skipping ahead in search of a bit of the old in-out in-out?

I'd like to know because I'm currently working on a fairly heavily plotted story, and have written nearly 3000 words sans-shagging - and since I only started writing this kind of fiction a couple of months ago, I was hoping that maybe some authors who've already written a few well-received stories might be willing give me some pointers.

[MorbidFantasy]

In chapter with 3000 words (my average) about 1500 is devoted to the sex scenes, although sometimes I do spend most of a chapter expanding the plot. Some people have no need for plot, and can get off on just reading the sex scenes. I don’t skimp on the plot because to me that’s just as important as the sex. Usually what I do is write the sex scene first after having thought out the plot. After completely fleshing the sex scene out then I tie it all together with the necessary plot points. This also gives me some leeway with plot, like the current two chapters of my Fat Man Remake, which have actually swapped chronological order since I’ve started working. I started out with the sex scenes, and soon realized the benefits of placing one chapter ahead of the other, so changed the plot links to order.

[Petofsuccubus]

Depends on the buildup. If it's to the point where someone would actually get bored reading it, it's too much. Too many useless details bog the story down. Unless your character has some sort of mental disorder, the method in which they select oranges at the supermarket probably isn't very relevant.

[hanyou-elf]

it all depends on the kind of story you want to write. if you want sex to be something that's major and important to the story, then you need to have a decent amount of build-up, but make sure the sex scene is fitted to the build-up. really, as long as a story is interesting, you don't have to worry about having too much build-up. you just have to make sure that when you write the sex scene, it's a gratifying moment for the reader as well as for the characters.

if it's a one shot, and sex is vital to the central plot, then you don't want to drag out the build-up to the climax.

a rule of thumb i like to use when i'm writing sex and the build-up to it: anticipation heightens the experience.

a good example of build-up is The Nerd by animehead.

[canterro]

Sex is a part of a plot.

So the place and time you put it in depends on its role in your story. You can start your story with sex, or wait with it for 10 chapters.

Think about a good story as a whole. Well, if you want to attract people looking for a story, not just sex

[Keith Inc.]

I really wouldn't worry about where to place the sex. It'll be where it needs to be, or you're sacrificing the story for the sex.

What i have done on certain fetish forums is announce at the beginning that i'll make it easy for them to find the sex. Something like:

This story deals with drugs, violence, evolution, the rage of space, forced entry to political tiers and a male/female relationship that includes graphic sex depicted on elephant-back in a leather Howdah. The sex scene will be annotated below.

Then after however long it takes me to feel that a romp of whoopie smoochies has been justified, there will be an author's note: Sex begins at the start of the next chapter. Right after 'the elephant paused and sniffed the air, trying to figure out why he heard so much squeaking from the hooker-red leather howdah.'

You could put an author's note in teh front saying that sex starts on Chapter 7 or whatever. Let them go straight to the payoff, if that's all they're interested in.

[Guest bitamin717]

Cheers to everyone who replied! This forum's great. Based on the suggestions I've decided to go with an extended build-up for my story - I'll jazz up the action a bit and put somre more effort into the dialogue/exposition scenes.

MorbidFantasy: yeah, I tried a similar approach to plotting/sex-scenes on a previous story, but ended up having to bin it - after a bunch of re-reads and a few frustrated attempts to tie together all the loose ends of the plot-line, it was an un-readable mess! Still, I just need more practice, I reckon: descriptive writing tends to be my strong-point; plotting puzzles the shit out of me.

[JCullen]

I'll admit, sometimes I have started to read a story solely for the sex scenes but as I read, found it intriguing and end up reading the entire thing, which makes the sex scene all the more gratifying as was previously mentioned.

I personally depend the build up on the characters I'm writing. Is the character meek and/or shy...a virgin even? Or is the character sexually confident by nature? The answer to this is usually what determines how much of a build up you have, I have found.

[Penumbra]

Ah, build-up...

I seem plauged by the question of "why can't I just get too it?" so often it effects my output. But from what I've learned, the more ridiculous, drawn-out sexual content you want to put in while still having a "story" the more build-up you're going to need.

Some on AFF are masters of the get to it, stay on it, keep with it style, but when one of them pulls it off, it turns out they've just smuttified the plot of the actual seris.

but 3000 words sound perfectly honest for a good-multi chapter fic based on your own work.

It's tough to slog through the first ten pages of setup to get to the mind-blowing snogging you had planned a week ago, but hey.

that's writing.

[Harley Quinn hyenaholic]

If it's not a plot-based story (which I can put up with provided there's good suggestion)...

I'd say about 10% of the fic should be build-up. Like, if there's 30 chapters, there should be about 3 before the first sexual encounter. Of course there doesn't need to be sex in every chapter after that.

[SkyaraSnow]

I cant say that I have the same experience as some of the other writers that have responded, but I just get to it when I think it's appropriate for the characters. Sometimes thats four or five chapters, sometimes it's three. (I don't post a lot of what I write. It's just me messing around and seeing what I'm comfortable with, so a lot of it stays in my binder.)

I agree with the one shot theory, especially if sex is the main point. Though, I like to write, (Or, as one of my proffessors put it, I really like to use my words) so my one shot that I have posted went seven or eight pages before I actually got to the sex. And then it was three pages of slight foreplay and teasing, and one page of actual sex.

I guess it all depends on the writer though.

[DodgeSuperBee]

If the characters in the fanfiction are canon characters that the readers are presumably quite familiar with, imho it's not necessary to reiterate every detail of their lives that's already been established in the canon material, but if there's anything that particularly affects their relationships and the way they approach sex then it's fair game to mention it.

I appreciate a plot rather than a hasty few lines where characters A & B suddenly discover they're alone and now would be a perfect time to have sex. IMHO, the more plot the less chance you have of writing an "any two guys" (or any girl and any guy, any two girls, and so on) fanfic where the action could be going on between virtually any two characters, personalities be damned.

Like MorbidFantasy, I've written the crucial sex scene first, set it aside and then wrote three decently long chapters that got the main characters into that situation. In that fanfic the characters ended up progressing one "base" with each chapter though I didn't intend to write it that way or even notice it until later. In short, build-up is generally hot, hot, hot in the stories I've read unless the author goes on about a character's love for a certain style of clothes or Hot Topic or Starbucks and that information plays no role in the sex scene. Then it's not build-up, it's filler.

[Supersonic Bitch]

As with almost everything, the real point is not what but how. So, the amount of pr0n doesn't really matter, but it must be believable. Characters should have real reasons to fuck each other. (Okay, not all characters if one is writing dubcon or non-con .) If the main point of the story happens to be pr0n, it should in my not so humble opinion be PWDP (porn with devious plots), not simple PWP.

Umm... maybe I should explain why devious plots are so important to me: I have not written even single one fic without Malfoys (except for one gen drabble about Bellatrix Lestrange).

Edited May 8, 2009 by Supersonic Bitch