Y'all have made me very self-conscious, since I just wrote my first ever really explicit sex scene tonight and now I'm all worried that it sucks.

Heh. I just came here from working on, not my first ever sex scene, but the consummation scene of the work-in-progress. I was thinking how very awkward a rough draft it was, how hard it was to get both the emotional impact and the physical details on the page simultaneously, etc., and wondering if I'd ever be able to edit it into something all sexy and poignant and just a little heartbreaking like it needs to be.

But I'm feeling much better now. It may be bad, it may need draft after draft of rewriting, but I'm fairly confident I didn't misuse any words or concoct any bizarre metaphors.

I was just thinking, actually, that when everyone's done the bad metaphor thing to their heart's content, someone should ask about good metaphors: what makes a good metaphor? How far can it be extended before it gets silly? Do you have a favourite one? In fanfic, do you demand that the comparision be with something from the world in which the characters are living, or can you cope with elves whose motors run like a lorry's?

I'm finding this all amusing because I'm here avoiding making a meta post on sex scenes.

Specifically, why is it that I (and so many other writers) go for the OMG ANGST sex like flies to honey, when fun sex is, well, fun.

I mean, I've written a lot of sex scenes, in various levels of explicit from Hayes Code to HAWT NUDE CO-EDS FUXING 4 U!, and I'd say a good 90% of them are Hand-Staple-Forehead (dickdickdick). What's up with that? Hell, even when I was Angst Queen of the Known Universe, Depress-O-Chick #1, 90% of the sex I actually had was of the fun sort. (I mean, it may have been sex with the wrong people for the wrong reasons, but usually? Still angst-free for the actual act. Angst usually came later, and was less angst and more ::facepalm::) Why am I not reflecting reality in my writing?

You want a not-in-the-fandom pair of eyes to give it a look?

Errr, not as yet. I've got a little group who will look at it. And no, it's SG-1: the culmination of the big OT3 series I've been working on. Just in time for the New OT3 wars, I think, given what I've seen of the new spoiler pics. Daniel/Cam/Vala will be posted before the end of the first episode, if I know this fandom...

You crazy Stargate kids!

Though, S1 is on my Netflix Queue.

I have no idea where my sex-writing muse wander off to, but she's AWOL at the moment. It's kind of sad, as I used to write sex scenes when I was bored and either AIM them to SA or see if I had a story I could write around them.

Just in case anyone wants to weep helplessly: [link]

So. Very. Good. ::sniffles::

Though, S1 is on my Netflix Queue.

Heh. SG-1 is like the Borg, only with worse wardrobes. I think it's the casting: they overlap with Every Other Fandom around, except maybe Doctor Who. Gaeta from BSG even showed up as an Egyptian guy a couple of months ago.

It's the sci fi ghetto. It protects (and employs) its own.

Am-Chau's question about metaphor is sort of like defining porn -- it is known when seen, and very hard to describe. I do have to call foul on cross-universe metaphors (elves like jackhammers, e.g.), because unless it's intentional, kicking the reader out of a fictional world and into this one, it's a mess.

I attended a lecture once about historical fiction, and the research done for same. After a while it got into "things you can't do in history," like have someone thrill with electricity before the 1700s, or telegraph his punches before the middle 1800s. A lot of expressions you don't even think about, that are related to technology, embedded in our worldview that aren't appropriate to history (or to alternate, technology-free worlds).

like have someone thrill with electricity before the 1700s, or telegraph his punches before the middle 1800s

Yes, this! I'm just about finished with my 1498 Italian fic, and I kept thinking of all these Shakespearian type things and telling myself "Idiot! He's not going to even be born yet for another 50 years!"

like have someone thrill with electricity before the 1700s, or telegraph his punches before the middle 1800s

Even good writers and translators aren't immune from this, sadly. I refuse to believe that Virgil actually called anything "gun-metal gray".

I refuse to believe that Virgil actually called anything "gun-metal gray".

Well, yeah. He didn't speak English.

I'm okay with a reasonable amount of using current idiom to describe things that happened in the past, if you're writing in a third person omniscient. God knows, if everyone was really period accurate, it'd drive me batshit.