Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Emotions and Desires

Many who read my writing complain that my prose is bloodless and is way short on exposition that appeals to emotion and desire....They claim that I rely way too much on dialogue to covey what I should be beefing up with exposition that appeals to emotion and desires.

Well what the heck does everyone expect...My limited background is stage plays and the body language and attire of the actors and the designe of the sets taken with the dialogues and monologues is what you get.

Yeah they answer but when you write short stories and novels you ain't exactly following the drama format and if you expect to succeeed in the realm of expository prose you better wake up!

Alas, this is a valid criticism. As an author I tend to have the dialogue of the characters bring it all out. In a short story or novel emotions and desires tend to find expression in the narrative description and to a lesser extent in the conversational exchanges of the characters. Sometimes, as in dialogue, it is implied in the language being bantered back and forth. Sometimes we get a full dose of emotions and very little of the passion and desire felt by the characters. Then again sometimes we a whole lot of the graphic detail and not much of the lubricating emotion that make the physical act of love palatable.

Emotions are what goes on inside a person’s head. They are thoughts which set physiological chords to vibrating. In writing sensual prose the emotional exposition should appeal to the mind just as the aspects of desire appeal to the body. Show below are examples lifted from a vignette showing emotion. By themselves the emotions of the characters show the reader the importance that a frame of mind plays in the writing of sensual prose. It’s almost as if the mind triggers chemical reactions that drug the psyche from the raw obscenity of the act of intercourse. Here the exposition begins to numb the mind and make almost surreal what would otherwise be a numbing animal experience. It converts a bloodless clinical trial into one of the most delightful moments that life has to offer.

So in the first case you have emotions, the narcotic of love, used to prepare the mind for what is about to transpire in the flesh. To the extent that an author can do this in prose, like an experienced lover creates a mood of seduction is a tribute to the skill of the story teller. This example is effective in doing it.

The emotional part is full of metaphor, simile and euphemisms as well as adjectives that give emphasis to what is largely an imaginative experience. Some appeal is made to also to the senses of touch, and a reference to the absence of sound. Heat imagery is used extensively as well as hunger.

I won't cite examples because I don't have permission of the author....I will however refer to them. The vignette showed the influence of desire which was acting to excite the prurience of the reader. Descriptive prose is interjected that pandered to sensations that compelled the lovers to make the experience one of the flesh. The senses of touch and to a lesser extent sound were used again to achieve this. An example of sound iwas expressed when she whimpered in a low tone. The “hunger “metaphor was a euphemism that softened what was otherwise a raw bodily attraction. “Heat” was another that served the same purpose. Flooding was a metaphor that described a strong and continuing sensation.

In addition to emotional appeal there were also examples of the author appealing to desire using mostly the sense of touch.

Together the two pointed out the effectiveness of using not one but both in a format that included a full range of literary devices. For example the piece relied heavily on exposition that interplayed emotion with desire….More dialogue might have added a third dimension. The two appealed to the senses of touch and sound ….the other three are not visited. So the author might have done more but the point is how much was actually included.

It was a well written vignette and demonstrated how sensual prose should be used to elevate the context of prose to the next higher level. The readers were lulled into a mood that let them warm to the graphic truth without feeling it’ thrust into their faces.