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[personal profile] louiselux
Writer's korner: I've a sneaking suspicion that I've been writing run on sentences for years and not realising. I feel very little shame about this, but then I'm carefully avoiding all your gazes, okay?

Moving on, [livejournal.com profile] randomblade wanted  squee about:

Yay!
Tortured discretion and restraint. Otherwise known as the stiff upper lip

One of the most beautiful things for me in any sort of story is restraint. Before you go picturing handcuffs and ropes, I'd better clarify that I mean the sort of restraint that comes from taking it on the chin and not complaining, or a manly determination not to give in to the powerful desires that lurk below the surface of polite society or a man's own throbbing breast. In the best possible cases this determination will become desperate, massively strained yet maintained until the poor quivering sap can't hold back a moment longer.

I love it. I can't tell you how much I enjoy it when characters endure these sorts of artificial yet very real barriers between what they are allowed to have and what they truly want or need. It's torture!  But it's  a swooning, romantic torture of the very best kind because, and here's the good bit: at some point the stiff upper lip starts to tremble, nay, quiver, nay collapse!

I can't think of anything more satisfying, apart from watching them suffer in the first place. And here's the really good bit: the greater the self-denial and the external oppression, the more fulfilling the shattering break-down when it finally arrives, and the release of the passions so tightly bound up inside. Because, of course, this sort of thing is likely brought about by the appearance of a particular person: the one person it's worth letting your lip go soft for.

As an addendum, the manly handshakes squee [livejournal.com profile] lovelzelda wanted fits nicely on the end.


Manly Handshakes

Is there anything more exciting than a firm, manly handshake? I can see you nodding your heads and agreeing with me. There is nothing more satisfying than a well-timed, well placed clasping of hands. If it leads to it-preg than all the better, [livejournal.com profile] lovelyzelda, but I don't insist on it.

But, back to the handshake. Quite simply, it's a tease. Think of all the types of handshake you can have: the trying too hard squeeze, the soft, sensual massage, the firm, dry clasp that denotes extreme manliness and a background of derring do, the handshake that drags on for slightly to long and begins to look like you're holding hands.

The latter type tends to start to appear just about the time catalogued above, went the SUL start to become beaded with sweat from keeping homoerotic thoughts at bay and hanging onto another man's hand is the nearest they'll get to any sort of palm action any time soon (because self relief will give them warty fingers).

Quite simply the handshake is the only route of expression for some characters, such as certain gay Victorian soldiers, some angels and some demons. In all its forms, it's a sheer delight.

self induced frustration

Date: 2005-01-31 09:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randomblade.livejournal.com
Ooh! Thanks. This is greatly expressive squee. You lay out one of the things that I find so appealing about the literary device of restraint, which is its function in delaying gratification. The author does not need to resort to external machinations to keep the lovers straining towards one another, but cruelly kept apart, because they are torturing themselves.

*torturer's leer* So much more efficient, I find.

Thanks again!

Re: self induced frustration

Date: 2005-01-31 10:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] louiselux.livejournal.com
The author does not need to resort to external machinations to keep the lovers straining towards one another, but cruelly kept apart, because they are torturing themselves

Yes! That's exactly it! And they go on keeping themselves apart for so long that the eventual is hopefully, if it's done right, a huge relief of tension and very satisfying for the reader.

Re: self induced frustration

Date: 2005-02-01 12:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randomblade.livejournal.com
yess! Georgette Heyer is king at this.

Date: 2005-01-31 09:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cicer.livejournal.com
*squeals* Love it! Tortured restraint! Manly handshakes! Repressed desires! *squees excitedly*

Date: 2005-01-31 10:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] louiselux.livejournal.com
Yay! What could be better? Don't answer... *g*

Date: 2005-01-31 11:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cicer.livejournal.com
Nothing. Except it-preg, because that's my favorite thing in the whole wide world.

Oh, you said not to answer. Whoops. *whistles innocently*

Date: 2005-02-01 02:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lovelyzelda.livejournal.com
Huzzah! Stiff upper lips and handshakes! leading to snogging!

because self relief will give them warty fingers
I thought it was hairy palms...

Date: 2005-02-01 05:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cicer.livejournal.com
No, no, it's blindness, right?

Date: 2005-02-01 09:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] louiselux.livejournal.com
And warts and a dissolving of moral fibre in general!

Date: 2005-02-01 08:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daegaer.livejournal.com
Yay!

Oh, the joys of repressed manly sighs, reluctant turnings of eyes from the object of one's manly and heterosexual regard, the purely innocent handshakes that lead to purely innocent handholding to purely innocent browkissing to purely innocent cuddles to desperate clutchings and whimperings. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Date: 2005-02-01 09:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] louiselux.livejournal.com
Oooh, yes, that just sums up the whole squee very nicely! You can't have a stiff upper lip without it leading to eventual desperate clutchings.

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