Clop Writing Workshop 1 · 2:49pm Jun 19th, 2018
So I want to just write out some thoughts about what I’ve learned from my early attempts at writing clop. I quickly realized that the challenges I faced were very different from writing regular fiction.
I actually did write a couple more clop pieces after The Cadance Symposium went live. I’ve written a third chapter of the Symposium, and two chapters (first drafts) of another story, but I never published them. Mostly due to reasons of editing.
One of the first things I discovered is that while making the characters have sex is easy, making the characters talk to each other first is very difficult. And really, the reason I write clop in the first place is because I’m inspired to write a steamy sex scene, not agonize over how to get the characters to that point in a believable manner. I also find it hard to limit myself, and end up just throwing everything in that I think seems hot, so the sex scenes tend to be very ambitious. Rather long, lots of participants, lots of positions, that sort of thing.
A consequence of this is that these stories probably have a larger sex scene to non-sex scene ratio than typical clop stories. They tend to move from sexy warm-up conversation to sex scene to more sexy conversation to more sex, with little downtime in between. That affects the story’s pacing, and I worry that the readers will, ahem, lose interest before they reach the end.
Part of me looks at the end result and thinks “this would be much more manageable if each of these sex scenes had its own chapter, with its own buildup.” But that would mean giving the characters something to do in their regular lives, something else to talk about, actual story arcs… and then I am deterred by how much extra work that would be. Which is why I’ve written three chapters that I haven’t published.
At least that’s one reason. Another reason is that I am, honestly, still rather self-conscious about this. As a clop writer I’m an unknown quantity, but I’m not starting small: the unpublished second story is full of incest and bestiality. And since the conventions of porn require me to write exactly what sex acts will occur in the story description, I have to present the most objectionable elements before people have a chance to decide whether they trust me with those elements. I feel like I'd have to put in a "I know that sounds horrible, but trust me, this will actually be good".
All of that said, it is a shame to have these stories just lying around unpublished and unread. I think to some extent I’m just building up the nerve to publish them as they are, or with a minimum of revision. So there might be more coming in the near future, of both the Crystal Palace gang and others.
I suppose I see that the complete opposite way. The sex scene is basically the ground stock. The fun thing for me when I write clop is figuring out a way to get my characters there in a fun way that's still consistent with their characterization.
So as far cramming too much into the sex scene itself, I've never really had a problem with that. Maybe that's because of the way I write a scene or a short story.
Here's how my process works:
1. I get an idea for characters and a fetish. Often that's some artwork I see. But basically that's the bare bones of the sex scene. Who's in it and what's the main fetish here? I'll usually only add a second or third position. No more. What's important is that they complement each other, so they can be changed into without breaking up the flow of the story.
2. I plot out a starting point for the characters and a reasonable arc they can follow towards that eventual sex scene.
Example: In Shimmering Spark, I had a premise of Twilight giving Futa Sunset a blowjob to start with. But making Sunset a futa out of nowhere wouldn't make sense. So I turned the problem into a story point by having human Twilight fiddle with magic. Why is she fiddling with magic? Because she's crushing on Sunset. What's the catalyst for trying this kind of magic? Cause she knows Sunset used to be with Flash, so doesn't think Sunset would like her ... etc.
So, really. Writing good clop requires just as much characterization and plot as any other form of writing. Now, that doesn't mean it has to be focused on and needs a great amount of work. You just need to sell it. After all, one of my most wildly successful stories is that the Sparkles have a family tradition that the winners of game night can give orders to the losers, so sex ensues. But even that had time to build, going from a mundane scrabble game that had these characters simply interact as family, to inserting innuendo, to lighter sexual acts, to the heavier sexual acts, always escalating towards the one central "climax." (pardon the pun
)
Huh, actually it all comes back down to the hero's journey, now that I think about it. Yes, I'm seriously about to equate the monomyth to a good clop scene. So strap in!
- Starting off in the mundane world = characters simply acting naturally with each other
- Call to adventure = inserting and heightening the sexual tension
- Threshhold = bringing the fetish into focus, a reasonable trigger to start the sex
- Challenges and temptations = expanding the sex, going for the second position
- Death and Rebirth = the climax
- Transformation and Atonement = the afterglow
- Return (Gift of the Goddess) = the sexual tension is now out of the scene, characters acting with each other with a new sense of closeness
Maybe it helps if you look at things through that lense? Hm, I suppose Cultural Exchange is also a good example, with a more literal descent and return into a supernatural world.
I suppose we can't call this Joseph Campbell's Monomyth in this form, though. I hereby dub this concept Naughty_Ranko's Wheel of Clop!
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The Hero with a Thousand O-Faces!
I don't mean that characterization isn't important, mind you. It definitely is. But in the clop stories I've written so far the characters' characterization is built into the sex itself, it comes through in how they interact and talk to each other while they're going at it. Like Spike's arc, if it can be called that, towards gaining confidence and broadening his relationship horizons in the Symposium.
Maybe that's a result of the way I do it, starting with the sex scenes and everything grows naturally out of that. So that's one less thing for the story outside of the sex scenes to do, which doesn't make it easier to craft those parts. I'm sure it would all fit together more smoothly if I'd designed a more complete story concept from the start, as it sounds like you do. But since so far I've started with ideas that are just hot sex scenes, trying to fit it into a more conventional story frame this late in the process makes it feel tacked on and ill-fitting.
Anyway, while I haven't worried much about building story arcs, I do care a great deal about making the characters feel alive and recognizable rather than as cardboard cutouts. The rule I've had in mind is "Mindless, but not heartless".
On a side note, I think a large reason porn is so prevalent in fanart is because we feel like we have an intimate connection with these characters. We know them, and that makes them sexier than some random conventionally attractive character or performer we know nothing about. Which means that good characterization is integral to sexiness.