Tips for Writing Good Gay Fiction

[LJH]

To add to what Cia is saying, I find the best words to use when describing, or tagging dialogue (apart from he said/she said), are onomatopoetic words.  These words add to the detail, they are filled with clout in their sound: snarl, whip, swizzle,snigger,flail,beguile, wheedle.  I would classify these words as "packing a punch words", those words that add value.  The money words.  Cia wrote a post detailing Money Words if I recall correctly.  Good gay fiction / any fiction,  requires the writer to create exciting sentences. 

 

How's this from Stuart Macbride's novel called Dark Blood:

 

Her feet were going numb, even through two pairs of socks.

Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen.

She tightened her grip on the truncheon.

Twelve. Eleven. Ten.

Vicki inched closer to the French doors.

Six. Five. Four. Three.

She placed a black-gloved hand on the door handle.

And then she heard it. A low growl coming from right behind her.

Oh . . . crap.

She turned, slowly.

There was a dark shape SLINKING through the snow towards her.  Big. Muscular - snow sticking to its black fur.

Jesus that was a big dog.

Vicki backed off, nice and slow. 'Good doggy?'

The growl became a snarl.

Fuck . . . 

 

As the reader I am in the scene.  Crapping myself.  Expecting to be attacked.  Fear envelopes me.  The author has made it memorable for me.  He has created an image in my mind without interrupting the flow of the story.  It's all about words, exciting words.  That's why GOT has me stumped.  It's just not exciting at all. 

 

But how is that word SLINKING? Love it.  

[Mark Arbour]

Thanks Cia! i have been trying to expand my descriptions. One thing I've done lately is go back and reread the stories I've completed and taken note of some of the things that were repeated, or fell flat, so i could avoid making the mistakes in the stories i'm currently working on. 

 

There seems to be this emphasis on heavy descriptions.  There's something to be said for getting to the point, without a lot of flowery adjectives or lengthy descriptions.  As a reader, I like it when there's enough vagueness in the description to let my  mind fill in the blanks as I see it, whereas overly descriptive passages represent, to me, the author demanding that I see things entirely their way. 

 

I also think there's a very good use for common words like "got".  Because they are so generic, they indicate that the action, IMHO, is not significant.  Someone getting up to go answer the door is a mundane action, and I think the word works quite well there to indicate that it's mundane. 

[Cia]

For me, it's not about flowery descriptions. If anything, it's the opposite. "He walked heavily out the door to confront his brother." could easily become "He plodded" or "He stomped" which give 2 very different views of his feelings regarding the confrontation. Plodded is more of a slow, rounded shoulder heavy walk like someone tired/depressed and stomped invokes quick, loud, heavy footsteps of someone angry. It's not about long, or overly-descriptive phrases it's using the best action word for the scene to reduce the amount of writing I have to do so the reader knows how the character is feeling. It invites sub-text in the scene without me having to write the character's emotions more than a single word because most people will pick up on the physical cues they've learned since they were children.

 

She snatched the cup I held or She rescued the cup I held.

 

His words stirred me compared to His words disturbed me.

 

She darted to the door compared to She ambled to the door.

 

Of course there is always times when you CAN use vague descriptive words. If you don't want to draw attention to something, a 'mundane' word like walked, got, made, do let the reader visualize it how they want to instead. .

[Adam Phillips]

There are so many varieties of good writing; by contrast, there's a dreary sameness to bad writing.

 

Whether your writing at any given point or for any given book should be straightforward or ornate, spare or quality-dense, depends entirely on circumstances. Sometimes "straightforward" can be "flat.," "dull." In other contexts, it can be "direct." "Efficient." "Tight." "Quick-moving."

 

Lyrical or image-laden or description-dense writing can add depth and dimension. It can sink the reader that much more deeply into the author's narrative world. Or it can jar the reader out of the narrative, it can seem "mannered," it can feel as though the writer is putting on airs, it can detract from the story.

 

It all depends on the context and the skill an author employs in both using spare or lush writing and in discerning when the use of one or the other will be effective.

[The Pecman]

And as an update: Stephen King has some very good tips for new writers in this recent interview in The Atlantic...

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/09/how-stephen-king-teaches-writing/379870/

 

I think he has some good observations on what can be taught, what can't be taught, what basic skills are necessary, and how writers have to observe life. Some very thoughtful comments in the piece.

[metajinx]

literally, even, that and though.

 

My personal nemesis. Thanks for adding "got" to the list, I can't stop noticing that word now that someone brought it up ^^

 

Word repetitions are the worst thing in a story, but quite hard to notice. Also nice to write but hard on the reader: never-ending sentences with dozens of commas. The funny thing is - you only know what to avoid if someone points it out in your own story. So my tip for writing good gay fiction (I don't claim writing GOOD gay fiction btw.) is: get a good editor and/or beta and let them rip your works apart.