Only erotica and George Lucas have celebration scenes

[elfs]

I was at an erotica writing workshop recently, and one of the women running the panel on characterization said that one of the scenes she likes to write is the "celebration" scene. That's what she called it. The whole "We've been through a terrible time and survived. Let's celebrate... by fucking!"

I asked her about that. Shouldn't every scene move the story forward? She was adamant that a celebratory scene was acceptable on its own terms, that it didn't need to advance the plot or characterization in any way.

I disagreed, and I still do. I find the "celebration" scenes at the end of Star Wars and Return of the Jedi rather boring (although My Little Pony's send-up is cute) in that they don't really wrap up anything. "The Heroes lived happily ever after" is all fine and dandy, but the throne room sequence goes on and on.

And I think it's especially true of erotica. The whole point of erotica is to get the characters to reveal something important of themselves in the bedroom, to realize their own self-knowledge or their knowledge of the other, or to advance a personal, perhaps even inimical agenda.

To paraphrase a common writer's saying, "They fucked and it was good" is just an anecdote. "They fucked and it was good when she overcame her fear of hurting him" has a plot.

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

The celebration scene strikes me as being easily mistaken for closure by people who've read too many classic fairy stories that end with "... and they all lived happily ever after". It's intended as a glimpse of the "happily ever after" bit, by people who don't really understand how works of fiction are articulated. (Or that "and they all lived happily ever after" has a very ominous subtext ...)

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

While I usually avoid things that don't move the plot forward, showing a bit of a character's life is useful in establishing the bond between reader and character. How else am I supposed to give a flip about his impending doom if I don't know or care what his life is like up to now?