Need help also

Ok guys be serious or maybe I need a female point of view. Another guy told me (e-mail) that I didn't portray masculine sexuality realistically that it is not so emotional. Well, I least he hit on the fact that I was trying to explore that, trying to put into the story what I read about it -- I guess I read/asked the wrong people. Any constructive criticism?

I prefer pert sun-kissed breasts with a portion of erect nipple chips meself.

I hesitate to come in again on this one Gini because I think we have almost talked it into the ground, but all I was musing over was whether you could really set out to portray somethin as universal and grandiose as "male sexuality" rather than portray convincingly the sexuality of a particular male character. You said in an earlier post "I was trying to see if I could portray male sexuality from what I understand.." and this seemed like a massively ambitious thing to try to do. But maybe all you meant was that you were trying to get inside the thoughts and attitudes of a (particular) male character, being female yourself, which seems a much more realistic thing to attempt. It's interesting that male writers like D.H. Lawrence and Boris Pasternak and Tolstoy and Dickens and Hemmingway and many many others are recognized as having created very convincing and believable female characters, but I find it harder to think of examples of women writers whose portrayal of male characters has been outstanding. No doubt I will be bombarded with examples by other ABCers.

I don't see a lot of point in all this breast fixation, so with the permission of my fellow-ABCers I'll take the task seriously (humourless old fart that I am) and try to give you some feedback. First of all for anyone wanting to find it, it's at: ahttp://www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewstory.cgi?s=21576 First question, does it do what it sets out to do? I assume it's aiming at an erotic description of a teenage seduction. I didn't really get very involved in what was going on, maybe because I couldn't quite picture it or believe in it. I think the boy lacked passion, he seemed to be going through with the thing almost out of a sense of duty. There is a shift in the point of view about half way through when you present the girl's thoughts, and the flow of the piece is rather broken by that in my opinion. Then you go back to the boy. Perhaps it's the fact that the whole thing is a translation but for me it seemed a "cold" account of something that should have been red hot and passionate and visceral. On the visual level I couldn't really "see" either the boy or the girl, or the scene itself. Sorry if this seems negative but there is no point in posting a critique unless it's honest. I think you should rewrite it with a lot more abandon and less "technique", concentrate more on what's going on inside people's minds, and to be honest I think it might work best from the girl's point of view unless you really understand the boy's motivation and emotions, which I don't think you do. On the technical side, the language is a bit stiff and formal (translation problems again I think) and you get mixed up several times between the past tense and the past perfect (She drank her tea, she had drunk her tea) which is quite difficult in English. I should just stick to the simple past tense all the way through. Hope that's some use. Obviously the piece has more merit than the above would suggest since it's been cherried by the ABC editors but I can only tell it to you as I see it.

Sirat My answer to that is, What is the ratio of male/female writers especially in the 19th century (Tostoy/Dickens) and the beginning of the 20th (Lawrence)? And even the deciders of what is a believable/convincing character (critics) are overwhelmingly males. In a small microcosm as ABCtales you see this ratio among short story writers. As far as I have been able to determine the majority of female contributors prefer poetry to prose. So you don't think either Jane Austen or the Brontes created a believable male character? Gini

I'm just thinking aloud really, to see what people come up with. I don't think the ratio of male to female writers is very relevant to the discussion, what I was talking about was whether there were female writers who had created outstandingly memorable male characters. I think the group of women writers you have mentioned are in fact a lot more celebrated for their female characters. One woman writer who created a marvelous male character is Harper Lee (Atticus in "To Kill a Mocking-bird") but no matter how much I think about it I find it very hard to come up with other good examples. All that I am suggesting, and you are very welcome to disagree (indeed I may well be wrong!) is that it is harder for a woman to get inside the head of a man than the other way around. Go on, tell me I'm wrong, I know you're going to!

Sirat I don't agree in the least that the ratio is irrelevant. If you have 100 good male writers against 1 good female writer, then the 100 males have a greater probability of coming up with whatever it is that you are looking for. I am not saying that there is only one good female writer but that the critics only recognize one among the 100 male writers. While the famous names of the 19th century go on an on among males you can name only a handful of recognized good female writers. Gini

My comments WERE serious! Any serious reader is going to let their heart sink when they come across "white, full breasts." It's bleedin' Mills & Boon! And my other point was totally ignored by all and sundry and their seven sisters! It ends too abruptly for my liking - I will say that I was personally left feeling there should be more to it, that the conclusions reached by young wassisname were too sudden and convenient. After the sex, girl, after it. Then comes the reflection. At least, that's how't seems thru the eyes of this beholder. I also agree with Sirat that the shift in perspectives is a little unnerving. Perhaps if we saw more of the girl's thoughts from the start - if they were to compete for the narrative voice? At the beginning, the girl is very anonymous, and the character emphasis is on the boy. But it may well be worth trying to understand the boy's perspective, and maintaining that throughout. I don't find it's particularly wrong, and I like the way his experience and common sense tells him to refuse her, but his curiosity, then desires, get the better of him. Considering she starts off as a cheeky little temptress, bringing the girls' thoughts and feelings suddenly lurching in didn't seem to add much to it. Much better if the boy perceives her giving way maybe?

Thanks Sirat and Henstoat and Sirat you are completely right (well I am embarrassed about the English mistakes) but it is true that I am guilty of trying to put too much into the story. I was trying to see if I could portray male sexuality from what I understand and also to show how the problems at home ... lead her to yield and even to play those games. I failed and a cherry means nothing more than a desire to encourage my first time contribution. But I love to learn and this has certainly been a learning experience. Gini

I would add Bernard from the Waves by Virginia Woolf and the narrator in Written on the Body by Winterson (although that narrator may well be female, the work is ambiguous enough to be convincing as a male). I wouldn't say that Austen ever wrote a plausible character of either gender. Having said that, it is a fairly obvious flaw in the writings of most critically acclaimed male writers, that their female characters are cardboard and fall too often into the vixens or shrews categories. Martin Amis in particular is guilty of this and most of the American heavyweights likewise. Updike pulls it off in Eastwick, but throughout the rest of his work, there's no female characters who look anything other than sketchy archetypes compared to Rabbit.

I love learning that is --

Hi, Hameline. I just finished Siesta Time, and wanted to give you come constructive suggestions. I found it a bit repetative in places, going over and over the girl's confusion and the boy's focus. One mention, strongly worded would suffice. I also agree that I found it abrupt. Not sure what the point was supposed to be. Hope this is helpful. Stace

Andrew -- Yes I agree with your comment re: Jane Austen. I only mentioned the most readily recognized among the 19th century female writers. I still think that if someone says I have found 5 male authors (from among 300 famous ones) who have portrayed believable females characters but I haven't found their counterpart among the 20 or so (famous) female writers is not fair.

hameline, just picking up on a line in one of your posts: "I was trying to see if I could portray male sexuality from what I understand". Is there such a thing as male sexuality that's the same for all males, or a thing called female sexuality that's the same for all females? I rather think not. It makes a lot more sense to talk about your sexuality or my sexuality or somebody else's sexuality than just male or female. I'm criticizing my own post really. Just because the inner life of your character didn't connect with my inner life doesn't mean it's a false account of "male sexuality". It just means your character isn't specially similar to me. The real question should be: is your character convincing? Can we believe in him? Does he live and breathe? After all, you're writing a story, not a thesis in social psychology or something. I think there is a strong internal consistency to your character and your story and it isn't really up to me to tell you how you ought to be writing it. This is your view of the world that you are offering to your readers. My comments didn't really take that into account. Sorry.

I don't want to get into the men-versus-women thing but I'll just say I liked the fairly restrained way you've written Siesta Time. You haven't gone for the obvious (white-hot passion) but have presented a very reflective and controlled kind of male personality. I'm tempted to say a very British kind of man, but that will probably spark off another big row! I'll just say I liked it, it wasn't the usual seduction story, and it was all the better for that.

Sirat --- Maybe we can't generalize but we can find basic generalities that apply to most males or to most females. something that defines their differences maybe concentration/diffusion or some other terms. I think also that gender influences how a reader "reads" a story as well as background, education, nationality, age, etc. If not, why most males who have commented on the story concentrated on the boy while, I thought he was more of a two dimensional character (in general) than she and I think that I as a (female) reader would have made a connection between her (relationship with)/family situation and her responses while it was overlooked by males maybe because it is not so readily a part of their experience in sexual situations. Gini

Yes, good points, but arguably more to do with socialization and upbringing than gender per se. My thought was that you get very different sexual attitudes and tastes in individual members of both sexes. Not just whether you are gay or straight but whether you have (let's say) an interest in blondes, or little boys, or big "butch" men, or frail "maidens in distress", or whether you are a sexual "predator" or sexually very reserved, or whether you like it gentle and sensual or rough and sweaty, or whether your response is largely visual or whether you need to know and like the person before you feel attracted to them: there are so many possible variations in people's attitudes and tastes that it would be easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we "understand women" or "understand men", when the individual in front of us might happen to be completely non-typical of their gender. I'm very uneasy about the big generalizations that try to take in everyone from Fred West to Pope Paul II. On your other point, I think the reason I concentrated on the boy was that most of the story was told from his perspective. In fact I would have liked more from the girl's side.

elegantly put.

Sirat The variations in taste which are also in some way related to early experiences (socialization) can be found in members of the other groups mentioned: religious, national, racial, cultural, etc. A catholic (Orthodox, Jew, etc.) may prefer being non-practicing, a religious fanatic, may like the Church innovations as opposed to the traditional one (like the Latin mass), etc. However, there is something that more or less defines a person as being Catholic as opposed to being Greek Orthodox, no? There is a universal that encompasses all the members and once that universal is no longer then he/she can't be defined as Catholic, etc. This is a badly put example but can't find a better one. I'm starting to be sick of my own story but I mentioned it because it was the only point of reference (at the moment) for this discussion. When you talk about "understand women". Surely you don't mean understanding them as in psychological reactions within a long term relationship. That is a topic for John Gray's books on Venus/Mars language/communication (gender difference rather than sex). On the other hand I was not trying to "understand" (as in to explain - if I said so I was wrong) male's sexual reactions but to portray them as I was naturally curious. Gini

Henstoat -- I finally had the time to read one of your stories and I really enjoyed it (O Horror or Tights). I am now embarrassed you read my poor first attempt . . . Sorry but there is no e-mail to write to so I had to resort to this indirect way. Gini

Me only complaints izzat it ends too abruptly (maybe they should finish their little sesh before she realises what has awakened?) and that the mention of "white, full breasts" was a little cliched. I know us boys *always* notice white, full breasts when they happen to present themselves before our ogle organs, but maybe a more subtle reference, like you managed with the rest of the bonking?

..suggests 'wondrous orbs' would be a good replacement for 'white full breasts'..

..suggests 'enormous baps' would be a good replacement for 'white full breasts'..

"busom buddies"

*wonders if any bottoms need replacing* *poised with hopper*