harems in books

[goldenarms]

To what degree are we going with this, though? From everything I've been gathering, you don't seem to care that much about human interaction, so long as the story is good. If character feelings are getting in the way of an interesting story, it's perfectly acceptable to sacrifice them to tell a wonderful tale, is that what you're saying?

If what you've been gathering is that I "don't seem to care that much about human interaction so long as the story is good" then you're misunderstanding my position. What I'm stating is that I believe that the determination of whether a story is good or not has little-to-nothing to do with how much it matches real-world expectations. The presumption that a particular story is a bad one solely because "we know that's not how things really work" is, to my mind, a poor metric for judging a story's overall worth.

If you can't get basic information right, if your foundation is faulty, and there is no good explainable reason for things to be like so, you have a worthless story.

That said, I do believe that anything that's getting in the way of telling an interesting story should be discarded if doing so allows the author to tell a wonderful tale. If a particular element is bringing down the qualitative merit of the story, and removing it allows for the work to be told wonderfully, then why is that a bad thing?

Because it's a contradiction of what makes a story "good" -- how authentic is it to itself. To tell a good story, you have to know what makes a story good. Knowing what makes a story good means experiencing it. You can't write about something if you have no experience with the matter. A man who has never experienced failure cannot believably explain a failure of a man, just as a man who has never felt love cannot write about a man tormented by a woman that remains out of his grasp in a way that makes us feel his pain and suffering. You can write a technically competent story based on formula, but if it doesn't have any heart in it, it's worthless. To have heart in your story, to make it good, you have to take your experience and let it out. Take out something that prevents you from telling a wonderful tale, you have to add in something else to offset the balance, or else, you don't have a wonderful tale -- just a piece of hacked tripe that's devoid of personality and magic of a great story.

 

[Christopher Robin]

HAHAHAHAHA.

Oh. You were serious.

 

[Alzrius]

If you can't get basic information right, if your foundation is faulty, and there is no good explainable reason for things to be like so, you have a worthless story.

I find it rather ironic that a person that thinks that flaxseed can't be part of a gluten-free diet - let alone can't seem to use the idiom "in a nutshell" correctly - is lecturing others about getting basic information correct.

That said, your point here is one that moves the goalposts rather badly. There is a major difference between "getting basic information correct" and "must adhere to how things work in the real world." I'll mention, once again, how the utter lack of real-world physics in many sci-fi stories seems not to be a point of concern for most of the audience.

Because it's a contradiction of what makes a story "good" -- how authentic is it to itself.

I think you've overlooked the last two words in your own sentence here. The story needs only be authentic to itself - that is, it only needs to maintain its internal logic and consistency - rather than following what the real world tells us to be true.

To tell a good story, you have to know what makes a story good. Knowing what makes a story good means experiencing it. You can't write about something if you have no experience with the matter. A man who has never experienced failure cannot believably explain a failure of a man, just as a man who has never felt love cannot write about a man tormented by a woman that remains out of his grasp in a way that makes us feel his pain and suffering.

Here I disagree completely. This idea that "you must have personally experienced something in order to write about it (well)" is a fairly narcissistic one, and even the most casual of examinations of available fiction will show you how untrue that is.

H. P. Lovecraft wrote haunting tales of terror without ever having been at the mercy of unknowable alien monsters. Robert E. Howard wrote Conan the barbarian without having braved ancient temples and rescued exotic women. J. R. R. Tolkien did not go on an overland trek to throw a magic ring into a volcano, etc.

One can create a compelling work of fiction without having had to experience it; that's part of the defining element of fiction.

You can write a technically competent story based on formula, but if it doesn't have any heart in it, it's worthless. To have heart in your story, to make it good, you have to take your experience and let it out.

This is more of the same nonsense as the above, except that you've now taken a vague, undefined term - and a Captain Planet one at that ("Heart!") - to try and suggest some sort of nebulous essence that can only be evoked in writing by the memory of real experience.

Take out something that prevents you from telling a wonderful tale, you have to add in something else to offset the balance, or else, you don't have a wonderful tale -- just a piece of hacked tripe that's devoid of personality and magic of a great story.

To reiterate, you're suggesting that if you remove an element that's weighing a story down, you then need to add in another bad element that makes the story less enjoyable so as to preserve some sort of "balance"? And that stories that don't have this so-called balance of enjoyable and unenjoyable elements, the entire story becomes "hacked tripe that's devoid of personality and magic"?

You're going to need to try a lot harder to show how that makes any kind of sense whatsoever.

 

[goldenarms]

If you can't get basic information right, if your foundation is faulty, and there is no good explainable reason for things to be like so, you have a worthless story.

I find it rather ironic that a person that thinks that flaxseed can't be part of a gluten-free diet - let alone can't seem to use the idiom "in a nutshell" correctly - is lecturing others about getting basic information correct.

I find it more hilarious that you don't even understand basic comprehension, or else you wouldn't have wasted all that time to "clue me in" on flaxseed being a gluten-free source when it's pretty clear that I already knew that and was positing as an example as to why you needed to get details right. As for the nut commentary, you also fail to understand subtext, as I purposely used the word "in a nut" instead of "in a nutshell" because a) it's a personal stylistic choice of mine, like when I say convo instead of conversation, and b ) I think you're a fucking idiot to have even brought that up at all, and I chose to purposely ignore you.

No, I take that back. You're not an idiot -- you think you're better than everyone else. You didn't come here for a debate; you came here because we are wrong because it goes counter to what you believe in, and thus, you must correct us for our flawed thinking. I don't know what kind of education you had, and, now, I don't care. I haven't even read past the line I quoted because I have no respect for you whatsoever now. Far as I'm concerned, this convo is done, just like how I'm done with you.

 

[Alzrius]

I find it more hilarious that you don't even understand basic comprehension, or else you wouldn't have wasted all that time to "clue me in" on flaxseed being a gluten-free source when it's pretty clear that I already knew that and was positing as an example as to why you needed to get details right.

Except that it's clear that you didn't know that, as you demonstrated back in post #63 in this thread:

The second example, you have to be on point with the details, like why you can't throw seminole flour into your cake mix, why overbeating is bad for normal baking, and why on earth are you adding flaxseeds to the gluten-free recipe.

Trying to say that you knew at the time that flaxseeds were gluten-free is, simply put, disingenuous.

As for the nut commentary, you also fail to understand subtext, as I purposely used the word "in a nut" instead of "in a nutshell" because a) it's a personal stylistic choice of mine, like when I say convo instead of conversation, and b ) I think you're a fucking idiot to have even brought that up at all, and I chose to purposely ignore you.

Leaving aside that you said "used the word" to describe a phrase, claiming that something is some sort of personal signature does not somehow make it any less incorrect. Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with deliberately misusing a particular saying as some sort of personal catchphrase; but using it while at the same time saying that attention to detail is paramount serves only to undercut the point you're trying to make.

No, I take that back. You're not an idiot -- you think you're better than everyone else. You didn't come here for a debate; you came here because we are wrong because it goes counter to what you believe in, and thus, you must correct us for our flawed thinking.

This is simply the use of the strawman fallacy; misrepresenting your opponent's position and then attacking that misrepresentation. I've never said anything like what you're attributing to me here. Ergo, it's meaningless to rebut the above, since what you're arguing against doesn't represent me in the first place.

I don't know what kind of education you had, and, now, I don't care. I haven't even read past the line I quoted because I have no respect for you whatsoever now. Far as I'm concerned, this convo is done, just like how I'm done with you.

Talking about respect for others while "rage-quitting" a thread makes about as much sense as pontificating about attention to detail while (deliberately) misusing an idiom. So I do have to give you points for consistency, if nothing else.

 

[the DragonBard]

A Brother's Price by Wen Spencer
And
Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury

Yeah, really think should write that list.

 

[burnerx7]

I jus got a few bucks to burn, and I'm kind of in the mood to buy a few e-books, can you recomend a few harem, sexy maybe even graphic books, they don't have to be inteligent just redeable or entertaining

 

[zerohour]

So, what does everyone think is necessary for a good harem story.  For the purposes of this discussion, the harem needs to be a central plot point if not the focus of the story.  Corrolary to that, the females should be developed unique

-A reason for the harem.  If there isn't a reason for a relationship like this, the story will probably fall apart.  The reason can be pretty much anything, from political marriage to keep the kingdom from falling apart, to a mystical bond that ties them together, or even just being stuck on a desert island with only one available bachelor, or just a major imbalance between the sexes.

-Size limitations:  The bigger the harem, the more difficult it is to properly develop all of the female characters, and the more it stretches credulity.  This can be alleviated somewhat by dividing them into tiers, (primary, secondary, and tertiary characters,) but the further away the girls are from the spotlight, the less impact they have on this discussion.

I would think that for the most part, you don't want a harem bigger than five girls.  That gives you enough variety without risking repetition, and keeps the pace of the story from dragging too much.  It also gives you a huge number of secondary relationships to explore between the girls, without making it overwhelming.  Five girls and a guy give you 30 individual story lines between two characters, which should give you plenty of aspects to explore

-A reason why it's accepted.  Most people want to be the one and only in their partner's life, so we need a reason for them to accept something different.  One of them is because the protagonist is too wishy washy/dense to choose a girl, so the harem exists in a weird quasi relationship state.  This is the form seen most commonly in anime harems, and while it isn't a proper harem, generally ending when the hero finally chooses someone, it still has many of the dynamics.  Other options include political necessity, cultural differences, or even just keeping it secret (though if it's ever found out, there should be some fallout.)  Whatever the reason, there has to be some justification within the story for why people go along with the harem existing.

-A decent pace of development.  You can't just go straight into them being in love.  There is a degree of adjusting to the unusual situation, getting used to your new family, and the like.  There probably are and should be some dissent and growing pains, since that is what makes a story interesting.  Love at first sight can happen, but there should be some realism in that just loving them doesn't make everything perfect, and your certainly don't know everything about them.


Probably missing a few point I wanted to make but I'll come back to this later.  For now, this should do.

 

[Azure]

I think the most important thing for a harem to work as the drive for a story is conflict. It will take a lot of work to make a relationship like this to really work well even if the people in it like each other, and that's not even talking about harems that are more political in nature. How each girl interacts with each other gives you a lot of room to make interesting plot lines, specially if they start disliking each other. That sort of thing gives you a lot of room to explore when dealing with a situation this complicated.

 

[Abendroth]

 You can't write about something if you have no experience with the matter. 

You totally can. Literally the entire genre of Military SF is an example of that. Indeed, how many movies and books feature completely unrealistic depictions of war, conventional or SF, frequently written by people who've never even enlisted, let alone fought. And yet they can be good.

When it comes to relationships, "realism" or "healthy relationships" aren't remotely required to entertain audiences. See: Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, Anita Blake, or the entire 'bodice ripper' genre of romance. Or really the rest of romance too, as it frequently features rich, handsome men who, for no real reason, decide to romantically pursue dull, ordinary girls despite the fact that they could instead bag supermodels with the same personality.

When it comes to characters in stories, "not normal" is not remotely the same as "not interesting."

 

[byakuryuu]

 You can't write about something if you have no experience with the matter. 

You totally can. Literally the entire genre of Military SF is an example of that. Indeed, how many movies and books feature completely unrealistic depictions of war, conventional or SF, frequently written by people who've never even enlisted, let alone fought. And yet they can be good.

When it comes to relationships, "realism" or "healthy relationships" aren't remotely required to entertain audiences. See: Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, Anita Blake, or the entire 'bodice ripper' genre of romance. Or really the rest of romance too, as it frequently features rich, handsome men who, for no real reason, decide to romantically pursue dull, ordinary girls despite the fact that they could instead bag supermodels with the same personality.

When it comes to characters in stories, "not normal" is not remotely the same as "not interesting."

In Science Fiction - and they keyword is Science Fiction - the premise is based on speculation. Star Wars, for example, isn't Science Fiction. Neither is Warhammer 40k. This makes the speculation forgivable - but that doesn't mean research isn't done to an extent, at least to the premise; rank, file, ships, etc. Even My Little Pony's writing crew do research. What's the excuse there?

In your second paragraph, are you referring that those works - as general as they are - are examples to support the "And yet they can be good"?

You do know 50 Shades of Grey, while can be forgiven for the romance aspect, is lambasted by the BDSM community because of its example of how it represents Master-Servant roleplaying? If you're talking quality means readership, that's a very dangerous way to go about thinking about literature conventions. By that logic, why not reprint the Bible over and over again? Most read book on the planet. I have a whole library of trashy romance novels courtesy of my late aunt and I have in my 27 years of life been through about 3 of them - it doesn't make them any better. A readership doesn't mean you're good - it's an indication you have an audience.

More people bought Robert Kiyosaki's works on self-help than better books on self-discipline on economy. It's not an indication. It's merely that its found its base.

Likewise, a good Harem needs your characters to be human and at least sympathetic. The relationship has to grow, it has to evolve with constant interaction. The girls need to have a reason to like one another enough to be all right with sharing a character. The growth has to be organic instead falling over mutual cocklust.

Conan the Barbarian had women clamoring over his manhood and they were tearing each other apart.