Hurrah for bad writing!

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:

<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
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...

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

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!

The ladies love it :wink:

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:

<blockquote style="margin-right: 0px;" dir="ltr">
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".

[/quote]

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Spartan 34</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

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.

</DIV></DIV>
He got ALL the ladies back in the Crimean War. He was the Mack Daddy!

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.

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

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