I’m certainly no prude, but I’d rather have a root canal than write a sex scene in one of my books. It’s not about the content–people have sex, it’s often a significant thing when they do, and significant things should be told. It’s the technical aspect of writing about it that bugs me.

Sex scenes resemble action scenes in that you have physical movement that needs to be described, and like action scenes there’s a frenetic energy about the whole thing that demands immediacy. So far, no problem. The problem is that sex is a private thing, and that shapes the language we use to describe it. The euphemisms–my god the euphemisms–come off as either giggle-inducing or cliche. You’ve got to avoid them like the plague. Last fall, the Guardian ran an article about the lack of good sex in fiction:

Martin Amis has remarked that there aren’t many literary descriptions of orgasms that quite, as it were, do the business. We cringe when we read a sex scene, not because it is explicit, but because it is usually so bad – as porn movies are dull, not because they are right-on and in there, but because they are joyless, witless, and boorish.

We’re watching, which already makes things awkward and imposes a sort of social construct upon us, like it or not. Now, if you’re writing prose with the explicit purpose of being explicit (ie., erotica) this is, as they say, not a bug but a feature. But for fiction prose, it’s slow, agonizing torture. Sometimes the work survives, sometimes it dies. It rarely thrives. Or this:

Nicholson Baker, in the funny and much-discussed The Fermata, in which the hero can suspend time, make himself invisible, and spy on the sexual lives of the women that he encounters. The sexual scenes reported become accessible and unembarrassing through the self-conscious playful coyness of the vocabulary. The novel is styled a Dildunsgsroman, silly names are given for women’s parts, and the fact that the narrator is playing with writing porn largely to amuse himself, keeps us from taking it too seriously.

And that’s the other problem: taking it seriously. Because, as I said, sex is often serious business, or at least should be. And the easiest way, the way least likely to wind up with you on the Guardian’s Bad Sex Award list, is to … elide it. Not deny that it happened, but to simply begin the action and fade out. That’s unfortunate, because sex between to characters in a novel can have the remarkable way of clarifying things, even as it confuses and complicates. Sometimes those moments happen in the moment, and if you’re not there you’ve got to find some other way of accessing it.

Writers are fans of stories, otherwise we wouldn’t tell them. We absorb narratives, often at a subconscious level. This is great, because we’re always learning even as we’re being entertained by a book, movie, or whatever. The problem is that we don’t always spend time thinking systematically about story structure.

One of the most common questions is whether we must stick firmly to the three-act structure in order to write a successful novel. KM Weiland over at Wordplay, answers the question this way:

The short answer is yes. A quick perusal of any number of successful published books will show us they adhere to all the basic principles of story structure we’ve talked about… On the other hand, the longer—and potentially misleading—answer is that not all the authors of these successful books were necessarily conscious of structure as they were writing their bestsellers.

There’s a whole series on story structure over there that’s basic but comprehensive. I find it’s good to rehash the basics once in a while when I’m in the middle of a project, just to keep focused on the big picture.

In any case, writers internalize the structure of telling a story and don’t always explicitly lay things out. The three-act structure simple feels right. We follow it without thinking.

However, if we’re talking about purposely deviating from structure, then we’re wading into murky and dangerous waters. Writing rules are made to broken—but only when we can do it brilliantly. And I don’t know of any author brilliant enough to spurn story structure and live to publish a successful tale.

I’ve seen a few self-published books that do spurn story structure. Nearly all fail. I’ll note (as I have before) that Nathan Lowell’s Trader Tales of the Solar Clipper does seem to avoid the obvious ups and downs of typical story structure, and yet it still succeeds. However, even those novels have at least some of the same narrative topography, even if they are more like rolling hills than rocky mountains.

It strikes me that writing a novel that deviates from the three-act structure is like writing a haiku with 19 on. It stops being what you’re claiming it is and starts being something else. It’s also worth noting that the three-act structure is infinitely flexible–unlike the rigid form of say haiku and sonnets, the three-act structure is more like a natural boundary around a vast wilderness. You can still die there, but you won’t wander off the edge of the world.

So, should you consciously think about the three-act story structure when writing? Yes and no. The truth is, most writers will have the three acts in mind before they sit down to write, even if they don’t think of them that way or even have the work outlined. A main character, a beginning, an endpoint, and a few complications along the way. That’s really all you need to know. As in any creative pursuit, there are dangers in both underthinking and overthinking. Which one you’re prone to as a writer will vary with your personality and style.

Either way, you can’t ignore it completely. When you’re in the middle of writing and are feeling a bit lost, going back to basic story structure can be like a map leading you back to what’s important.

I’ve never quite understood the concept of a “guilty pleasure.” If you take pleasure in something, there should be no reason to feel guilty about it. Perhaps this is a foolish philosophical habit of mine–a conscious choice to simply be honest about likes and dislikes. I’m not one of these postmodernists obsessed with authenticity. I simply think it’s a matter of respect to others. I’m honest with them, they’re honest with me. Pleasures are, after all, idiosyncratic things.

Pleasures about which we feel “guilty” are almost always the result of social pressure. I’m a hard rock/heavy metal fan, who also plays a bit of guitar. I’m simply not supposed to like Coldplay.  But I do, occasionally. Authentic hard rock lovers are supposed to hold Nickelback in contempt. I’ve seen them in concert. Twice. Three times? So many that I forget. I can feel my metal cred being shredded with Malmsteenian speed.

Who cares. Life’s too short to worry about other people disliking you for things that you like. Particularly when it doesn’t much matter. No reasonable person makes judgments about people based on aesthetic tastes–at least not after high school. Well, maybe college. Given the broad range of aesthetic choices we make, we’re going to overlap with some people in some areas and not in others. Is it worth feeling guilty over these disagreements? Hell no.

I’ve known some people who feel positive anguish over book genres they like. It’s not just about the judgment of others, but our judgment of ourselves. Writers, in particular, can be susceptible to this sort of thing. We want to be taken seriously–but we like silly urban fantasy novels. Or romance novels. Or–gasp!–even some more “adult” novels, if you know what I mean. Literary fiction writers who don’t want it to be known that they are readers of “pulp” style fiction. Elitist nonsense. It’s a form of intellectual bullying.

I’m reminded of Twilight. I’ve been honest here on this blog–I think the book is complete crap. I’ve never read anything so atrociously written that actually got published. Clearly the publishers knew something that I didn’t, because millions of people love it. People that I love love the book. I may not understand why, exactly, but I’m not going to make judgments about people who actually do love it. The book scratches a mental itch for them that it doesn’t for me. The things that bug me to no end do not bug them. I’m not going to make anyone feel guilty for liking it. And neither should anyone else. Wear your Twilght love with pride, say I.

For me, being honest about likes and dislikes is about setting a firm foundation for your own aesthetic choices. It’s about removing a few social shackles from your imagination. Yes, I’m mixing metaphors here, but this is a blog–get used to it. Even with the works of art and music that we love, we have complex relationships. I am a huge fan of Joss Whedon, for instance, but not uncritically so. The internet has this awful habit of turning people into either haters or fanboys. Forget what others think about what you think. Don’t feel guilt at liking something that others find hideous, and don’t guilt others into shame at liking something you find odious. Instead, take the opportunity to explain to others what they might be missing from works you love. And vice versa. I haven’t changed my mind about Twilight, but I can recognize that it did something valuable for some readers. For creative people, those are valuable grains of truth.

Getting into a character’s head can be tough, especially if they’re nothing like you. Which is why writers have a tendency to write characters a little too much like themselves. I’ll admit it: my protagonists can be introverted a bit, just like me. I have a deeper well to draw on when it comes to those kinds of characters and so that’s often where I go. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but you’ve got to keep an eye open for some of the problems that result: most notably, you’ve got to find flaws in your characters. Little niches where you can dig and and give them grief. And that’s harder to do authentically when your characters are too much like yourself.

Even moderately self-aware people can be blind to their own issues. It’s human nature. And it’s one of the problems with the Mary Sue type character–you know what I’m talking about. The nearly perfect character that acts as wish fulfillment for the writer. Oh, sure, they often have little problems. Like being clumsy. Something that’s not really their fault that makes them look flawed, but in the end doesn’t make a difference. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this sort of character in moderation. I mean, I loved the character of Wesley Crusher on Star Trek:TNG when I was a kid, and he’s an almost perfect example of a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu, if you will). I think any boy my age who watched the show wanted to be him.

And yet these sorts of characters often wind up flat and uninteresting. They need authentic flaws, and their flaws need to contribute to their failures along their way through the plot. Otherwise, they’re just punching bags. Not everything bad that happens to them can be at the hands of others. Some of their failures should be self-inflicted. You can’t do that without finding those weaknesses.

Not that it’s easy to do when you have characters that aren’t anything at all like you. The problems are merely different. You can only write such characters from your outside observations about them. You can put yourself in their shoes, but never fully. You’re more likely to be aware of their flaws, because you probably know people just like them. Nearly all the characters I have written have been inspired (in part, only in part, I swear!) by people I know. We’re finely attuned to their faults. The problem there lies with empathy. Characters like us often have a surfeit of it, characters unlike us often have a deficiency of it.

Characters live and breathe based on our hopes and expectations as readers. If a character inspires no hope from us, we don’t care about them. That’s part of the problem with Mary Sue characters–characters who get everything they want without true adversity usually earn the ire, not admiration, of readers. Adversity breeds hope. It’s not just about overcoming external obstacles, but internal obstacles as well. We have to believe characters capable of overcoming those obstacles even when those characters don’t believe it themselves. If our heroes don’t disappoint us along the way, they can never rise to the occasion.

This all sounds easier than it is. Writing a novel is like putting together a puzzle where you can change the shape of each piece at your whim–knowing that if you do, every other piece must necessarily change shape as well as a result and in ways you can’t always predict. We carefully choose obstacles to showcase the flaws of our protagonists, and hope that their better natures triumph. Those character flaws are the load-bearing walls of a novel. The weight of everything else is held up by them.

I minor flare-up in videogame commentary hit over the last few weeks (starting with this article by Taylor Clark over at The Atlantic), and I’ve been watching with interest. The original article was a profile of game designer Jonathan Blow (whose game, Braid, I greatly disliked, by the way). To get a sense of the tone, here’s part of the opening slug:

Never mind that they’re now among the most lucrative forms of entertainment in America, video games are juvenile, silly, and intellectually lazy. At least that’s what Jonathan Blow thinks. But the game industry’s harshest critic is also its most cerebral developer, a maverick bent on changing the way we think about games and storytelling.

Ouch. You can see why some gamers might be a bit irritated. Still, Clark (and Blow) are right, to a point. The irritation was vocal and widespread, and caused Taylor to write a clarifying response (over here, at Kotaku). Despite my lack of interest in Blow’s games (and his general approach to game design and narrative) I actually enjoyed what he had to say. I’ve commented before on gaming boards about how dumb the narratives are in most video games, and I usually get shot down in a hail of fanboyish, juvenile rhetoric that explained to me precisely why those types of narratives win out.

Truth is, while the average gamer might be in his mid-30s (yes, most gamers are still men), designers do tend to aim for the teen and 20-something demographic, and that is … less mature.

Blow thinks most games are dumb, and he’s right: 90% of most games are basically variations on the same first-person shooter metaphors with roid-rage men in bulky power armor shooting glowing balls at aliens or other humans. Of course, then there’s Blow who is going to “shake up” the gaming industry with:

Blow intends to shake up this juvenile hegemony with The Witness, a single-player exploration-puzzle game set on a mysterious abandoned island.

He’s remaking Myst. Good luck with that.

Still, going in what I think is the wrong direction doesn’t mean he’s wrong about the problem. Games haven’t generally matured along side the gaming audience. It’s different with books. We have young adult fiction, and many of us grew up reading it. Then we graduate to something more complex. Next thing you know, we’re reading adult books. It’s a seamless transition for the most part. Not so with games. You have the kiddie-oriented, primary color dominated Nintendo-esque games with happy music and chipper, anthropomorphic animals one day, and you’re a space marine the next. You have happy stories one day, then profanity laced murderfests the next.

And while there are games not geared toward outright violence and mayhem, those games dominate. There used to be adventure games with stories and puzzles and they were quite a bit of fun. Hell, I can make fun of Blow for remaking Myst, but that sort of game doesn’t exist anymore and there’s no reason they shouldn’t. Most games eschew story for action. That’s life.

But even when games do focus on story, they aim too low. We get stories like that in Skyrim, which are fine. Just fine. But not good. Overly cliched, yes. Lacking in any depth or interest? Definitely. Occasionally you get something a bit better, like Mass Effect. But even that relies on far too many standard SF cliches, literally ripping sideplots off of bad episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. Seriously, if you’re ripping off Enterprise, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Games are more like blockbuster movies than books these days. They’re expensive to make, and so they appeal to the lowest common denominator. Gaming has become far more friendly to indie development in the last seven years (thanks, in large part, to XBox Live Arcade, PSN, and Steam), but the quality of those games is uneven. I see quite a bit of parallel between indie games and indie books. There’s room for smaller games with niche audiences. Not everyone wants an “intellectually mature” game. I certainly do. But even games that claim this maturity can be asinine (as Blow’s Braid was, when it was trying to be all philosophical, and was instead brain-dead, overwrought nonsense).

So yes, I think most games are dumb. And I wish developers would respect the intelligence of the audience. But I doubt they’ll make as much money if they do so.