Hiccups

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Reading is subjective. One man's treasure is another man's trash. What ruins a book for one person, will be the reason another person loves it.

Can you get into an erotic story and really enjoy it yet not really be into the sex or does that ruin it for you? I have read a few book I love and I adore the characters but the sex does nothing for me. 

There are books I may love but my girlfriends may not be able to get into at all. Then there are books that I'm not into at all other people are raving about. (That book I will not name. I just don't get it!)

Then there are the hiccups. Little minute details that make you pause while reading and can pull you out of the story.

The most common hiccup for readers is poor editing, and behind that is crazy spellings to names. These statistics come from years of reading reviews. Those are just the two most common complaints I see. There are a lot of, I loved the book but I wish there weren't so many errors, or I kept stumbling over the heroes name. How is it pronounced?

I'm currently agonizing over a Rhian. I believe it's supposed to be Ryan, but my brain is all, Ry-ann? Rain? ReeAnn? Every time he's mentioned. I settled on Ryan only for my mind to switch it over to Rain.

I once read a first person that was written like a third person. Yeah. I couldn't lose myself in what was a pretty good story because I kept mentally editing each line and paragraph. Every single review mentioned this.

There is a reason we have a first, second, and third person narrative standards. It isn't to hold writers in their creative box and not allow them to be different. The standard is how 99% of readers comfortably digest the written word without hiccups. 

That was a pretty big hiccup, everyone who read it had the same reaction, but we each have some small ones that are own personal hangups.

The following are some of the weird random things that make me hiccup while reading.


Big Meals Before A Sex Scene:

I personally have to digest for at least an hour or more before I'm able to orgasm. I can get aroused after I eat, I can not orgasm. (swimming if fine) Characters depicted eating a hearty meal or foods that would cause me indigestion  before a sex scene slows me down. I often have to walk away from the story at that point and give the female character time to digest her food and maybe use the fictional potty. Then I can pick the book back up and actually enjoy the sex scene. I know. Weird.

Specific Flavored Beverages: 

I have a strong gag reflex only made worse by a turbulent  pregnancy. I can't even think about someone drinking a strong smelling fruity sports drink or Mountain Dew without my stomach churning. No orange soda, no grape soda. No specifics.

One of my favorite authors, who is always nondescript with her sodas and sports drinks, recently made her poor characters drink Strawberry sports drinks and Mountain Dew.  Even worse the hero kept sipping at the Mountain Dew through out a scene. The whole time my tummy was roiling and churning while I was mentally screaming, WHY, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!?!?!



The After Intro Description: 

I've read quite a few stories lately that don't describe the characters until a scene or two after they are introduced into the story. One book didn't name any specific character traits of the main character until the third chapter. Then we got the full run down. Nothing was vague. In the third chapter.

Are you kidding me?

That's too late for me.My imagination has already decided that the heroine is a chubby redhead a chapter ago and the hero is blond. I can't come into full descriptions at the end of chapter two or three, followed by appearance details through out the book, without constantly having hiccups.

When my blond hero runs his fingers through his black hair I get thrown off for a moment. When my skinny brunette is sad about being a chubby blond I hiccup.



Mustache:

I love beards. I even enjoy a goatee, but I'm not about the lone mustache. Every time a mustache is mentioned on a hero I either have to stop reading and mentally have the character go shave or turn it into a goatee.

I recently read some books written in the eighties and nineties by an author I really enjoy. In one of these books the hero had long dark hair and a mustache. This was the eighties. The author was probably picturing more in the line of Tom Selleck with long hair. I had my hot beef cake of a hero mentally in place, but every time she mentioned the mustache all I could think of was....

Ron Jeremy

Under-prepared Assholes:

Okay, fantasy is generally fiction for a reason. Some stories sweep up the reader and are meant to be light. They eliminate the negative and extenuate the positive. Therefore proper stretching of virgin bottom holes doesn't always happen in erotica. These tantalizing reads caused me, and others like me, to make a gross error of judgement. Which is silly. It's an erotic novel. Not an instruction manual. 

I now know from experience that things need to be prepared. For a long time after this discovery I couldn't read these quick flow anal scenes without wanting a disclaimer or warning at the bottom of the page. 

Warning: Written for titillation only. Sticking a massive cock in a virgin rear hole after only minimal fingering will result in discomfort and possible injury. Please consult a A Guide To Anal Sex for real instructions. 

Now I just think, Enjoy fictional characters. Take that huge meat stick like a seasoned pro. 

Cage Time and Fisting:

..You can thank me later for choosing this pic. 

These aren't my kinks, they are both hard limits for me, but I can read something that's not my kink. As long as it goes with the flow of the book, and feels appropriate for the characters and scene, it's fine. Most of the books I've read with either of these elements have seemed forced. Like the author needed something different or wanted to make the book more edgy. I'm always left wondering what the author was thinking at this point in her writing.

If I have to reread a scene, and things that lead up to it because I can't figure out how it got placed there, it's a hiccup with a capital HIC. 

Fisting:

Fisting is actually pretty big in BDSM. I know this because Google image search has pages, and PAGES, of fisting for his and her pleasure. Ironically, the above pic, was the only one that didn't put me in the mind of barnyard animals getting examined. I grew up around a lot of farms. I can't read or see a fisting with out thinking of livestock getting checked over. 

Kink.com used to have a link to nothing but fisting videos on their Site search. They took it down a while ago for new shinny kink sites. Maybe fisting is going out of style. Either way when it's in an erotic tale I'm usually thinking, Oh no! They're not about to have a fisting scene are they? Dammit. Is the calf breached? If not get out of there!

I've only read one fisting scene that didn't pull me completely out of the book and that was Allyson Young's The Promise. I still didn't think it was hot, but it fit the characters and the scene. No other book I've read thus far can claim that.

Anything that makes me have the same visceral body reaction I had to watching a birthing video is going to draw me out of a book. 

Cage Time:

Now, here's the thing about cage time. Cage time doesn't seem nearly as popular, yet it keeps getting forced into stories it doesn't seem to fit. And I'm not talking about reasonably scary kidnapped slave books. I'm talking about consensual, fun time, BDSM type dynamic. I've yet to read a consensual cage scene in a BDSM themed book that didn't make me scratch my head. Every time it comes off as superfluous and unsuited to the tone of the book. I believe cage time scenes can not be used to enhance or make a book emotionally stronger. The book has to already have a strong emotional current to be able to carry a cage scene. 

Somethings just aren't that sexy or sensual in written out description. Many people have different ideas of what those things are. In my world fisting and cage time fit in that category. For me they are just much more enjoyable filling the back drop of a scene.

So...

Any of my hiccups strike a cord? Any weird things that make you hiccup in your reading? Please feel free to share.