Forum: Author Hangout

Who needs plot?

Switch Blayde 🚫

I read a critic's review of a new movie called Nobody 2. The following are extracts from the review:

It's rare that a sequel improves upon its original, but in the case of Nobody 2, everything is kicked up a notch in all the right ways.
…
The plot is as barely there, but in a commendable way: It gets in, gets out and doesn't waste any of our time.
…
It's a lot of fun, if you're into this sort of thing. John Wick clones like this live or die by the action within, and thankfully, Nobody 2 delivers in that department.

Why am I posting this on a story site forum? Replace "action" with "sex" and read it again. No one who likes this genre is going to fast forward (skim) over the action parts. Again, replace "action" with "sex."

Replies: awnlee jawking Joe Long

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Isn't that circular logic? If you're reading a story for the sex scenes, you're not going to skip over the sex scenes.

AJ

Replies: Switch Blayde Crumbly Writer

Switch Blayde 🚫

@awnlee jawking

I guess it was the second paragraph that I created the thread for:

The plot is as barely there, but in a commendable way: It gets in, gets out and doesn't waste any of our time.

I've been starting a lot of stories lately that are highly rated, but not finishing them. They're listed as "much sex" but there really isn't much plot. I guess just enough to keep the story going. I quit the stories because I thought they should have been listed as "stroke" even though they were long. Like the critic said in the movie about plot, "It gets in, gets out and doesn't waste any of our time.

Then I read that comment in the review which triggered this thread.

Replies: Bondi Beach

Bondi Beach 🚫

@Switch Blayde

The plot is as barely there, but in a commendable way: It gets in, gets out and doesn't waste any of our time.

From the NYT review: [The "raging dad's] violence can be as righteous as Abraham's or whatever it needs to be as long as it burns slow enough to fuel a story until it explodes with consuming intensity.

That tracks with the review you cited, but the key seems to be "enough" plot. How much depends on the reader, as you point out, but there's got to be something. In fact, you probably can't have a successful sex scene, or series of them, unless there's something more to each encounter than Tab A and Slot B.

In the good stories, sex is more than sex, especially in this genre.

~ JBB

Replies: Switch Blayde Crumbly Writer

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Bondi Beach

the key seems to be "enough" plot.

I loved the movie "Nobody." But I'm afraid "Nobody 2" is not going to be as good based on the review. It sounds like "Nobody 2" is more action/killing and less plot. In fact, the reviewer used "John Wick" as an example of that to say the sequel was better. The first "John Wick" was pretty good, but each sequel had more action/killing and less plot meaning the sequels got worse and worse.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Switch Blayde

The first "John Wick" was pretty good, but each sequel had more action/killing and less plot meaning the sequels got worse and worse.

That's a common problem with sequels where the creators feel required to escalate :-(

AJ

Crumbly Writer 🚫

@Bondi Beach

So maybe rather than Tab A into slut B, you go for Tab C into, around, on top of and sometimes behind slut Catherine! After all, variety is the spice of life.

Crumbly Writer 🚫

@awnlee jawking

The point is that action-adventure stories aren't known for their depth or development. Instead they're renowned or their fast-paced action. Though again, it's hard applying the rules governing a specific genre to ANY story with ANY degree of sex, because again, each genre has it's own specific expectations, which sex, like romance, is only one of many differing ongoing elements (i.e. one size most definitely doesn't fit every one).

However, like active-adventure stories, I prefer when the romance covers a lot more terrain and grows slowly over time—through extensive character development—while the sex is mostly short, sweet and intense. So here too it's the opposite. Rather than focusing exclusively on the sex, or any specific sex scene, keep the them exiting by being intense, where brevity and immediacy make the biggest impact.

Romance takes time, a quick snag in the office doesn't!

Joe Long 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Well, I for one read stories for the relationships...and often a mother and son or father an daughter can be a very intense relationship, where sex brings it to a new level.

So, when I read, I'd like the first time they have sex to be very emotionally consequential for both characters. It changes them, and they know it.

At the same time, if they suddenly start doing it five times a day, each and every day, it jumps the shark for me and I can start skimming over the sex as I feel it's been trivialized. I want to know who the scene develops plot and character, rather than the 100th play-by-play of their coupling.

Yes, I want a plot! (or, if in a short story, just a very earned triumphal climax)

Replies: Bondi Beach

Bondi Beach 🚫

@Joe Long

So, when I read, I'd like the first time they have sex to be very emotionally consequential for both characters. It changes them, and they know it.

At the same time, if they suddenly start doing it five times a day, each and every day, it jumps the shark for me and I can start skimming over the sex as I feel it's been trivialized. I want to know who the scene develops plot and character, rather than the 100th play-by-play of their coupling.

Exactly. It's not how much sex, it's how meaningful the sex is to them.

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Who needs plot?

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