Vampire story will need a title when it's done

[julian_griffith]

Project: Goth geek chick-lit vampire thing

Market: Etopia Press, maybe? There's gotta be plenty of markets for contemporary vampire het short stories.

Deadline: I want to finish it before Arisia

Total words so far: 6493

Mean things: Cold tile floors

Fun things: Vampire physiology is awesome; also, quoting Lost Boys

Related Google searches: bloodborne diseases carried by rats and deer, duration of single unit blood donation, stuff I can't tell you because Easter egg

Well, I've managed to get through the major sex scene without wrecking the tone of the narration. She's less flippant than she is in the clothed parts, which is reasonable, I think, but she's just as acute an observer, and I think I managed to keep the language feeling modern without being crass or juvenile.

Speaking of which. Can we talk for a minute about how there are practically NO USEFULLY SEXY WORDS FOR FEMALE GENITALIA?

In a sensible world, the counterpart to "cock" would be "cunt". Both short, plain English, not medical Latin or flowery euphemism.angevin2 would say that it should be "yard" instead of "cock", but hardly anybody says that any more. But that to one side, as Stephen Maturin would say. "Cock" is a perfectly useful word. It's easy to say without laughing, and in terms of emotional connotations, it's pretty neutral. But "cunt"? In modern American English, it's hateful.

Fuck the patriarchy.

And there's nothing else. "Pussy" can be friendly, in an affectionate sort of way, but if I try to use it in a sex scene, it sounds like a '70s porno flick. "Twat" is kinda gross, and only a watered-down version of "cunt"'s hatefulness. "Ladyparts", "girlbits", and "vajayjay" are silly and flippant, and "cooch" and "cooter" are ridiculous. I can in fact use ALL of those when writing modern girl talk involving stuff like periods, bikini waxing, underwear that crawls up your butt, and so on, but when you want hotness, they just won't do.

Let's not even talk about "slit" or "hole". Ew.

And "vagina" and "vulva" and "labia" are things your gynecologist writes on a medical form. Not sexy.

The best I've been able to do is to use simple unadorned English for the component parts of the genital region. Mound, lips, folds, clit ("clit" is less clinical-sounding to me than "clitoris"), and the ever popular "in", "into", and "inside".

At least I'm not resorting to "down there".

Fuck the patriarchy.

Okay. Rant over. I'm also proud of how I made the transition back to flippant once they were done having (totally fantastic) sex and she was heading for the bathroom. This narrator is a very cheerful and breezy sort, and even amazing sex doesn't turn her into a swoony and serious thing for very long.

Next up is a Q&A about (F*cking) Vampires, How Do They Work -- well, she's already gotten the score (pun intended!) on the parenthetical part, because she has priorities, but now that they're into the postcoital cuddling stage, it's time for the REST of the questions.

In which I will get to scatter MORE Easter egg clues. Like how long he's been a vampire, and where he came to be one (Greece), and he'll probably shy away from details of his personal life before he was turned. 

Heh. I think I will be able to drop a GIANT clue, actually. Our narrator will hit the bullseye, without realizing it, and he'll just flinch and ask her not to say that again.

And then I think the narration will segue back to "and so, he became my boyfriend, and we started living together, and this is our life now," with more of the silly lines I thought of for a girl to deflect questions in a way that keeps her from needing to say "he's a vampire," because this is not one of those paranormals where everyone KNOWS there are vampires and werewolves and they all go around having Jets-and-Sharks fights all over the city and need vampire-hunting lady cops to arrest them and fall in love with them and stuff. Nope, this is a world where almost everyone believes vampires are fictional and almost nobody has evidence to the contrary. So she makes jokes about how her freelance programmer boyfriend is just one of those geeks who's gone nocturnal, and that's why he's not at brunch, she's stopped trying to drag him out in the daytime, the sunlight would probably kill him.

She gets a kick out of doing that, actually.

So that is where my brain has gone. Into this silly, silly vampire story. Which I think I can make hit 10K (watch, it'll go 14K, like the last one I was worried about), and which might need a smaller, second sex scene to make it fit the genre, or perhaps just her enthusiastic mention.

Then I just have to figure out where to send it.

Comments

[annayork]

I have that same issue. I've used "most sensitive place" for when she's in the moment, or "lady parts" when something funny happens (a warming lube incident went bad!)

[julian_griffith]

Augh, I stay very, very far away from warming lube, after an Incident with a partner who'd just eaten some habaneros, once. But yeah, that'd be ladyparts. ON FIRE!

The excerpt's up at the comm.

[ukefied]

But "cunt"? In modern American English, it's hateful.

This, so much. Sociolinguistics. ~___~

[julian_griffith]

So hateful, in fact, that I can't use it in historical contexts where the characters would have said it as a blunt but neutral anatomical term, because it would jar a modern reader out of the story. A truly great writer can make that work. I'm not at their level.

[anne]

Taking guess out! Yay me!

[julian_griffith]

Tell you when I see you!

[clare_dragonfly]

I am a big advocate of using "cunt" to describe ladyparts and not ever, ever as an insult. I think it's a sexy word. I think it should be used more often to take the stigma away. (Of course, I'm a bit hypocritical because I don't like any of the other words you've listed, like "pussy" and "twat," which I also think should not be used as insults.)

Though of course it depends on the narrator, and in practice I probably use other euphemisms more often, or just the tried-and-true "inside."

Icon very related ;)

[julian_griffith]

I wish I could do it! I've seen it done and done well, but I have to sigh and admit that I'm not up to it, because if I try, it feels like a sudden bucket of cold water.

[musyc]

You could go old-fashioned and use prick or quim (though that one may gain favor again once everyone on earth realizes Whedon got away with having Loki say it in Avengers), but I find "cunt" to be the best word to use in sex scenes. All the other make me think the writer's trying for Penthouse Letters (pussy, twat), laugh hysterically (vajayjay), or cringe and back away as fast as possible (gash, slit). I had an RP partner once who insisted on using "slit", and I stopped writing with her posthaste. I never have any problem with a writer using the word "cunt" when it's actually being used as a descriptive anatomy term instead of a feminizing insult.

[julian_griffith]

My Georgian viscount would be able to say it when conversing with his ex-lover the actress, as they're both very matter-of-fact about things. However, he married a gently-reared girl of eighteen, and he's been keeping his language delicate, so as not to shock her. He is going to be startled silly the first time she says "fuck" to describe what goes on in bed. The amusing thing is that she won't really feel like it's a bad word, because she's been enjoying it all so much.

It is *possible* my musketeer and lady playwright could use it, but everything they say is theoretically a translation of the French they're actually speaking.

But I am just not skilled enough to write it easily and not have it be jarring.