Aug 19, 2022·edited Aug 19, 2022Liked by Simon K Jones
"I don’t know why I went for a fishing metaphor."
Cuz you're out of your water, Nisha.
Yes, Nisha, that was a bad fucking idea - pun intended.
Right, Simon's first on-screen sex scene... Sex is hard to write. It's usually pushed off the page, too graphic or clinical to be sexy, or full of outrageously terrible metaphor or hinting description.
Well, you pretty much nailed it - pun intended.
In seriousness, good use of description, and well done, continuing to illuminate the character's inner life.
Good choice of illustration.
Good on Zoltan for a really short refractory period. I remember my 20s and 30s... Now I'm 50.
We'll assume the transcript was edited. It didn't have three paragraphs of "Oh, oh.... OOH!" Don't think about Justin reading your thoughts by your words, Nisha. This isn't just a joke for a joke's sake. The first person present tense implies being in real time with Nisha. She's not narrating in past tense.
Oh, well... If you're going to do something so self destructive and dumb, at least the sex was good. Doing something that dumb for a lousy lay is just insult to injury!
And Zoltan gets his post-coital smoke,
Last chapter I almost commented, "Nisha don't do the dumb thing just because you're happy he's not dead."
Glad it worked for you! This was a real challenge, simply due to not having written anything like it before. You outline the risk perfectly - it's so easy to tip into cringe or being gratuitous.
At the same time, the nature of the story and the proper examination of Chakraborty's character (and Kaminski's) meant that this couldn't really happen 'off-screen'.
This was originally going to be labelled as a 'bonus' chapter, before I realised that it was a bit more integral and shouldn't be 'downgraded' in that way. It does of course break the narrative style of the main book, but I think I just about get away with that given the context. Though your in-universre explanation is rather amusingly neat!
"I don’t know why I went for a fishing metaphor."
Cuz you're out of your water, Nisha.
Yes, Nisha, that was a bad fucking idea - pun intended.
Right, Simon's first on-screen sex scene... Sex is hard to write. It's usually pushed off the page, too graphic or clinical to be sexy, or full of outrageously terrible metaphor or hinting description.
Well, you pretty much nailed it - pun intended.
In seriousness, good use of description, and well done, continuing to illuminate the character's inner life.
Good choice of illustration.
Good on Zoltan for a really short refractory period. I remember my 20s and 30s... Now I'm 50.
We'll assume the transcript was edited. It didn't have three paragraphs of "Oh, oh.... OOH!" Don't think about Justin reading your thoughts by your words, Nisha. This isn't just a joke for a joke's sake. The first person present tense implies being in real time with Nisha. She's not narrating in past tense.
Oh, well... If you're going to do something so self destructive and dumb, at least the sex was good. Doing something that dumb for a lousy lay is just insult to injury!
And Zoltan gets his post-coital smoke,
Last chapter I almost commented, "Nisha don't do the dumb thing just because you're happy he's not dead."
Glad it worked for you! This was a real challenge, simply due to not having written anything like it before. You outline the risk perfectly - it's so easy to tip into cringe or being gratuitous.
At the same time, the nature of the story and the proper examination of Chakraborty's character (and Kaminski's) meant that this couldn't really happen 'off-screen'.
This was originally going to be labelled as a 'bonus' chapter, before I realised that it was a bit more integral and shouldn't be 'downgraded' in that way. It does of course break the narrative style of the main book, but I think I just about get away with that given the context. Though your in-universre explanation is rather amusingly neat!