Eddie Whitlock's Blog: Reader and Writer - Posts Tagged "prostitute"
Going at It: How Sex Screws Writers
In my book Evil is Always Human, I used the euphemism "going at it" for sex. It sounded reasonable for a rural Georgia kid in 1912 to say and it kept me from having to give many details.
In the sequel, my narrator is an adult and I need to reference his sex life because it will matter to the plot. I am a bit hesitant to do this because I don't want to eff up the effing.
In attempting to describe an encounter with a prostituter, my narrator says this:
I ain’t going to try to tell you what she looked like. Ruth Ann weren’t what folks nowadays call pretty. She was a whore and she looked like a whore. It was a made up kind of pretty that fell off when she stood up and she had a belly and wrinkles and a scar here and there. It was what women really look like when they whore.
I like that because it seems honest, bordering on harsh, which is how I see my narrator. For what it's worth, he and the prostitute get along well and I am considering their having a relationship beyond the transaction.
I hope I can handle writing about actual sex delicately without getting offensive. After all, I want my mother to be able to read this.
I have thought back to how other writers have done sex scenes and I think most glide above the situation rather than even skimming the surface. This is probably for the best because erotic plot strands can overwhelm a story, I'm afraid.
I think of three authors' approaches to sex. First, Richard Braughtigan in The Hawkline Monster has a pretty wild sex scene between a cowboy and a young girl pretty early on. It throws a curveball to the reader, but in a way that Braughtigan makes work by having other curveballs later.
Next are two novels by Cormac McCarthey. Child of God is about a necrophiliac. Outer Dark is about incest. Neither is erotic though the deviant sex is important to both.
Finally, Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov does a fantastic job of centering on sex without ever having sex. As I recall, the unmentioned act of sex between the older man and the young girl is not described at all. In fact, the narrator all but chastizes the reader for expecting it.
My goal is to make my story as true to life as possible. I am still not sure how I will handle it in the final draft.
Just for your amusement, though, here's another passage from the draft:
I walked down the little hall and seen that the one on the left was open so I went in. There was a little kerosene lamp setting on the dresser and it give off pretty good light since there was a mirror behind it. That was the first time I ever seen Ruth Ann. She was laying there on the bed with that sheet pulled up.
“What’s your name?”
“Waymon,” I told her.
“Well, Waymon, my name is Ruth Ann. You take your drawers off and get in this bed.”
I done like she told me and we went at it. It didn’t take long and I got up and started putting my drawers back on. “You like being a whore?”
She didn’t say nothing back right off. I turned back around and seen she was taking a squat over the slop jar and washing herself off good.
I pulled my overalls up and fastened them and set down to pull on my boots.
“I reckon I do,” she said after she was back in the bed with the cover pulled up.
“Do what?”
“Like being a whore.”
“Why is that?”
“Good money.”
I hadn’t thought about that, but I reckon it was if you had fellows like Cap bringing in their work crews every Saturday night. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Uh-huh,” I told her. “You ain’t seen fifteen in fifteen.”
I thought she would get mad at that, but she didn’t. She laughed. “I tell you what,” she said, “I’ll tell you you the best I ever had and you tell me I look fifteen.”
That made me grin. “How old you reckon you’d look if I was the second best you ever had?”
“Twenty.”
We both laughed then and somebody beat on the door. It was Toothy. “You all right, Ruth Ann?”
“Yeah, Buck,” she hollered back to him. “This fellow just told me a joke.”
I didn’t say nothing. I looked back at her. She was still grinning.
She said, “Most fellows don’t tell me a joke, they show me one.”
Keep your fingers crossed that I can finish this sequel.
In the sequel, my narrator is an adult and I need to reference his sex life because it will matter to the plot. I am a bit hesitant to do this because I don't want to eff up the effing.
In attempting to describe an encounter with a prostituter, my narrator says this:
I ain’t going to try to tell you what she looked like. Ruth Ann weren’t what folks nowadays call pretty. She was a whore and she looked like a whore. It was a made up kind of pretty that fell off when she stood up and she had a belly and wrinkles and a scar here and there. It was what women really look like when they whore.
I like that because it seems honest, bordering on harsh, which is how I see my narrator. For what it's worth, he and the prostitute get along well and I am considering their having a relationship beyond the transaction.
I hope I can handle writing about actual sex delicately without getting offensive. After all, I want my mother to be able to read this.
I have thought back to how other writers have done sex scenes and I think most glide above the situation rather than even skimming the surface. This is probably for the best because erotic plot strands can overwhelm a story, I'm afraid.
I think of three authors' approaches to sex. First, Richard Braughtigan in The Hawkline Monster has a pretty wild sex scene between a cowboy and a young girl pretty early on. It throws a curveball to the reader, but in a way that Braughtigan makes work by having other curveballs later.
Next are two novels by Cormac McCarthey. Child of God is about a necrophiliac. Outer Dark is about incest. Neither is erotic though the deviant sex is important to both.
Finally, Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov does a fantastic job of centering on sex without ever having sex. As I recall, the unmentioned act of sex between the older man and the young girl is not described at all. In fact, the narrator all but chastizes the reader for expecting it.
My goal is to make my story as true to life as possible. I am still not sure how I will handle it in the final draft.
Just for your amusement, though, here's another passage from the draft:
I walked down the little hall and seen that the one on the left was open so I went in. There was a little kerosene lamp setting on the dresser and it give off pretty good light since there was a mirror behind it. That was the first time I ever seen Ruth Ann. She was laying there on the bed with that sheet pulled up.
“What’s your name?”
“Waymon,” I told her.
“Well, Waymon, my name is Ruth Ann. You take your drawers off and get in this bed.”
I done like she told me and we went at it. It didn’t take long and I got up and started putting my drawers back on. “You like being a whore?”
She didn’t say nothing back right off. I turned back around and seen she was taking a squat over the slop jar and washing herself off good.
I pulled my overalls up and fastened them and set down to pull on my boots.
“I reckon I do,” she said after she was back in the bed with the cover pulled up.
“Do what?”
“Like being a whore.”
“Why is that?”
“Good money.”
I hadn’t thought about that, but I reckon it was if you had fellows like Cap bringing in their work crews every Saturday night. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Uh-huh,” I told her. “You ain’t seen fifteen in fifteen.”
I thought she would get mad at that, but she didn’t. She laughed. “I tell you what,” she said, “I’ll tell you you the best I ever had and you tell me I look fifteen.”
That made me grin. “How old you reckon you’d look if I was the second best you ever had?”
“Twenty.”
We both laughed then and somebody beat on the door. It was Toothy. “You all right, Ruth Ann?”
“Yeah, Buck,” she hollered back to him. “This fellow just told me a joke.”
I didn’t say nothing. I looked back at her. She was still grinning.
She said, “Most fellows don’t tell me a joke, they show me one.”
Keep your fingers crossed that I can finish this sequel.
Reader and Writer
I began to write because it seemed to be a realm in which one could exercise omnipotence. It's not.
My characters demand to make their own decisions and often the outcomes are wildly different from wha ...more
My characters demand to make their own decisions and often the outcomes are wildly different from wha ...more
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