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Hurrah for bad writing!
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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Gollum on Tue Dec 14th at 11:45am 2004

This year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award goes to Tom Wolfe: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4091643.stm

Have some pity for the poor man; writing sex scenes is notoriously difficult. An extract:

Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns. Oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say 'No, Hoyt' and talk to him like a dog...

"Otorhinolaryngological", in case you were wondering, means "of the ears, nose or throat".





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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Yak_Fighter on Tue Dec 14th at 11:49am 2004

I'm not one to claim to be an eloquent writer, but that stuff is really s**tty. Why exactly did it get past an editor? Besides, if you're trying to talk about sex in some sort of sensual or erotic way why would you ever use the mouthful of "Otorhinolaryngological" to describe part of it? Oh baby, talk sciency like that, you're getting my motor running! [addsig]



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by wil5on on Tue Dec 14th at 12:45pm 2004

The ladies love it [addsig]



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Gwil on Tue Dec 14th at 2:30pm 2004

? quote:
This year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award goes to Tom Wolfe: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4091643.stm

Have some pity for the poor man; writing sex scenes is notoriously difficult. An extract:

Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns. Oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say 'No, Hoyt' and talk to him like a dog...

"Otorhinolaryngological", in case you were wondering, means "of the ears, nose or throat".



Haha, I caught this on the end of Newsnight last night - even Jeremy Paxman was struggling with the over eloquent language and said "and if you have no idea what that means, he had his hand up her jumper!"

Classically bad.
[addsig]



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Tracer Bullet on Tue Dec 14th at 5:24pm 2004

I know what it means, but that doesn't make it any better. Good god. My rule of thumb is that when in doubt, you should always leave things to the reader's imagination. Particularly when it comes to sex. [addsig]



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by satchmo on Tue Dec 14th at 7:12pm 2004

It sounds she's about to be dissected in an anatomy lab instead of having sex.

But the main questions is: How far apart are her sternocleidomastoid muscles from each other? Does she really have her platismus attached to her clavicles?
[addsig]



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Andrei on Tue Dec 14th at 9:52pm 2004

Look at the picture while reading the stuff between quotes...eeeechhh!

[addsig]



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Spartan on Tue Dec 14th at 9:57pm 2004

He must get all the ladies. I guess when you got as much experience as this guy you know how to right about the stuff.

[addsig]



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Nickelplate on Tue Dec 14th at 10:20pm 2004

? quoting Spartan 34

He must get all the ladies. I guess when you got as much experience as this guy you know how to right about the stuff.

He got ALL the ladies back in the Crimean War. He was the Mack Daddy!





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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Hugh on Tue Dec 14th at 10:36pm 2004

If you'd read the CNN article about this prize, you'd realize that he'd intended it to be bad. So in that sense, he succeeded. [addsig]



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Cash Car Star on Wed Dec 15th at 7:47am 2004

Which is probably also why he's being a sore sport about picking up his prize.



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 Re: Hurrah for bad writing!
Posted by Cassius on Wed Dec 15th at 7:55am 2004

Tom Wolfe is sometimes a master of expressing a feeling or stream of conciousness, but his subject matter is almost always ridiculous.






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