Z is for Zane Grey

Some authors write mainstream fiction which sometimes carries one or more hints of a strong interest in spanking.   Zane Grey neatly fits into this bill.   His genre was Westerns - indeed some of his work is considered to be pot-boiler Westerns.   But sometimes his keen interest in all things spanking would shine through.   Usually to ambiguous references:  one of his heroines complained that after meeting the hero she had gotten black and blue mark in places she could not show.    The reader was left to draw their own conclusions - and if the reader was you or me, we would get it in one,

In his book "The Water Hole", his heroine actually goes across someone's knee for a spanking:  a scene that was the major publicity shot for a movie made out of the work.   (She hated being spanked, but found that it deepened her feelings towards the man:  a bit lame, but Zane was pretending that he was vanilla).

Robert Heinlein was foremost a sci-fi author but his works are so peppered with spanking references that he was clearly one of us.   He confused his vanilla readership by having a lady have an unexpected orgasm during her spanking, without giving any hint of why it had happened - or, more to the point, why he had included it as an unexpected element to the scene.

Enid Blyton was famous in England for her children's stories which had naughty fairies and naughty children often on the receiving end of more than one painful whack.    At the time, virtually all kid's reading material was built around kids who could and would get whacked from time to time:  so it was not so surprising that she followed suit.   What is a little disturbing are the accounts that she took her relish over into real life, and routinely took a hairbrush to the backsides of her two teenage step-daughters.

But for some reason, the heyday of fiction which also had one or more (unexpected) spankings is over.   In the 1970's and 1980's, even the alpha male heroes of Harlequin romances routine walloped the rumps of their true loves.    And then the mother lode ran dry.    There is probably a PhD for the person who can adequately explain why spankings turned from mainstream to suppressed quirk in such a short space of time.

But with out help, we can perhaps push the pendulum back.   All we have to do is write best sellers in which spankings are not the only purpose of the book.    Hmmm.    Put like that, it might not be such an easy task, after all.

Y is for Yachts

Well, yachts, dinghies and all sorts of other craft that float or sail out in the deep blue seas.

The link between spanking fiction and the maritime is varied and inevitable.

At the very basic, a yacht has a great big mast to tie the insolent whelp's wrists to, and a whole stack of ropes, bits of wood etc etc to utilize as a spanking implement.   Furthermore, mutiny at sea has always needed to be firmly quelled, and what better way of quelling an attempted mutiny by a teenage daughter than giving her a damn-good whacking?

The sea is a big and lonely place.   A place where instant justice was often the norm, and keeping good order was of paramount importance to the safety of the entire crew.  And even today, there are regular real life reports of spankings taking place on cruise ships around the globe.   (Not as much as takes place in spanking fiction, but at least we authors can point to clippings to rebut any claim that we are out of our minds to dream up such fantastic tales).

In reading the works of others, I guess I have come across a dozen variations of why some beautiful young woman is tied to the rigging on a pirate ship, to have her bare backside blistered with one form of nautical whip or another.   A scene repeated (in fiction) so often, it must have a deep meaning for both writer and reader.

The things that really happened at sea can inspire some fine tales.   But one must take care.   Females on convict ships en route to penal colonies got beaten so savagely that to recount it would be more likely to be a turn-off than a turn-on.   Turning it all down a notch or two is permissible, and since it is your story, who is to argue that what you describe is not what actually happened.

And the boat does not have to be the central prop of a tale - just a necessary element.   This tale was written as an entry to a challenge to explain why a lime green dinghy was moored at a dock.   As was this one.   My entries were very light weight.   Enjoy.

X is for Xmas

Christmas is rich in its traditions of spankings and its opportunities to invent new traditions.

In olden times, a child did not know until Christmas morning whether the afternoon would be spent playing with presents or nursing a freshly birched bottom.   Saint Nickolaus had no qualms in delivering a fresh birch rod to the parents of children whose behavior warranted one or more good hidings to even up the score.

And so, in some circles, Santa Claus (a modern-day corruption of the name Saint Nickolaus) is quite willing to dish out instant justice - especially to scantily dressed young ladies.    It is mainly in the visual arts that we are treated to the sight of a pair of feminine buttocks being paddled to become as red as Santa's robe:  it is rare to find a spanking fiction author to portray this particular scene except as a satirical parody.

Christmas comes with its own built in vibrancy.   And in only a slightly different manner, spankings come with their own built in vibrancy.   It is no wonder we authors find so many ways of combining the two.

There are a number of plot structures we can use to show that an Christmas spanking is not that out of the question.    Teenagers often get access to alcohol on Xmas Eve, which leads to all sorts of reasons why one or more might find mom or dad belaboring their backsides for conduct unbecoming during a religious holiday.    There are a stack of reasons why over-excited people might do something silly, and in spanking fiction, there is only one outcome for somebody who has done something that is considered to be "too" silly.

In fact, we fiction authors may be able to generate a new tradition of Christmas Spanking to supplement the wonderful work we have done to make the Birthday Spanking part and parcel of our modern culture, vanillas included.    If we can get everyone to link spankings with happy times, our need for secrecy will surely abate.

W is for Waiting

There is a sub-set of spankos who find the idea of corner time to be quite delicious.   Having whacked a butt until it is extremely tingly, the culprit is made to stand still, possibly in a corner but not necessarily, to contemplate further their misdeeds, with a very stern warning not to massage any relief into their punished backsides.   A hands-on-head stance adds to the emotions of the ordeal.

But clearly not everyone is of a like mind over this.   In fiction, as probably in real life, once the paddling is over, it might well be a time for cuddles of varying degrees of intensity that could lead to all sorts of romantic or erotic activity, now such a blazing fire has been lit.

But it is not that sort of waiting I wanted to discuss with you today.   There is a time lag between the spanker deciding a spanking is going to take place, and the spankee feeling the first swat to the rump.

And we fiction writers can use that gap to good effect.    At the simplest level, we can describe the reaction of someone who realizes that in the next couple of seconds or so, they are going to be subjected to some form of instant justice.   This might range from annoyance through to an unexpected thrill of anticipation, or to some degree of desire to put as much distance as possible between self and deranged disciplinarian with evil intent to inflict damage to the nether regions.   It is our choice.

Far more complex possibilities arise when there is a significant period between sentence being pronounced and the deed being carried out.    Many who recounted real life instances of genuine corporal punishment agree that the agony of waiting is often worse than the beating itself.   Six of the best do not necessarily have to result in uncontrolled agony - but for a first timer, waiting half a day or more for them to be delivered could prove to be a subtle and sublime torture.

This is because it can happen that a chemistry occurs between paddler-to-be and paddled-to-be during the waiting time.   A chemistry that can give the author the opportunity to explore what is going on inside their two respective heads.

On the other hand, as authors, we can blandly state that the victim had to wait some specified time - as part an parcel of the ritual - and let our readers fill in the missing detail with their own imaginations.    You do not have to say that waiting outside the headmaster's study for half an hour was hell:  everyone knows that it must have been.   Sometimes letting the readers' personal demons do our work is the most effective way of inducing a chilling reaction to a future event.

It is worth noting that, in general, the shorter the wait, the more intense it is.   The split second between told you are acting like a child and being face down across a lap probably is of a higher emotional pitch than being told you will be beaten at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon.    The longer the delay, the less intense the wait.   Putting the moment of reckoning off for a week or more dilutes the waiting time to nothing more than a matter of endurance.

Recognize the time lag your tale has created - decide how you are going to use it - and, if it adds to the experience,  make the most of this golden opportunity to get into the head of your characters.   Or into the heads of your readers.

V is for Vanilla

We spankos call non-spankos Vanilla on the grounds that they are bland souls who do not appreciate the finer nuances of the human experience.   But we respect their odd stance and it would be a very rare event for a spanko to set out to recruit a Vanilla to join our ranks.   "Never give hot spice to those addicted to vanilla ice cream" sums up our live and let-live attitude.

But we are afraid of them, for they clearly outnumber us and majorities have a reputation of being quite nasty to minorities, simply on the grounds that they are minorities.  When responding to spanking surveys, over 75% of us say that our spanking side is a very closely kept secret.   And when asked what Vanillas think of us, 40% of us think that Vanillas look on us as perverts who are a potential danger to children.   (No wonder we keep it a secret, if that is what we think).

Well, 50 people who identified themselves as being Vanilla took part in a spanking survey to tell us what they really think of us.   Here are the responses to that survey:

1.       Are you male or female

Male                 22
Female             24
Prefer not to say 4

2.       How old are you?

Under 30                    13

Between 30 and 40      2

Between 40 and 50      2

Over 50                       5

          Prefer not say            28

3.       Were you spanked as a child?

         Never                            3
         Rarely                          18
         Often                             8
         Very often                     6

Abusively                     1

Prefer not to say         16

4.      If you were to guess, how often do you think spankos were spanked as children

         Never                         0
         Rarely                       6
         Often                      16
         Very Often              12
         Abusively                 8
         Cannot Guess           8

5.     In general, which of the following statements do you believe to be true?

        I cannot understand spankos                           5
        They tend to be very nice people                  15
        They are perverts                                             1
        They need medical or pschr treatment             1
        They are harmless                                          18
        They are a danger to children                           1
        They are like everyone else                            25
         They are fun people                                         3
         Consensual activity between adults is OK     39

So, with one exception, vanillas do not see us as perverts in need of medical treatment.   And I mean one exception, for all three negatives came from the the same person,   Which, on the whole, should be some comfort to us all.

And having said that we spankos believe that you should not serve hot spice to those addicted to vanilla icecream, one of my colleagues points out that there are almost an infinite number of more subtle flavors inbetween that might be worth exploring.

U is for Uniform

Uniforms are very popular in the spanko community.   The very wearing of a uniform can, in itself, give reason for a punishment to take place and spell out the proper ritual to be followed in delivering that punishment.   When a willing victim dons a uniform, then a pretense that the punishment has become non-consensual is also donned.

There is something almost surreally erotic in seeing a naked young woman touching her toes to accept several strokes of the cane across the bare bottom she is offering for such treatment.   That a few minutes earlier she was dressed in the uniform of a sixth-form school girl adds an extra veneer to a ritual that resonates with most apankos.

When we spanking fiction authors put our characters into uniform, a sort of contract comes into effect between us and our readers that when the spanking arrives, it will be keeping with the uniform chosen.   A prison uniform will inevitably result in a bout of prison discipline and a school uniform in a trip to the headmaster's study - or similar - for six or more of the best delivered in a suitable method of chastising students in a school setting.   Should we want, say, a school girl to be on the receiving end of something harsher than school discipline, the reader is entitled to be given logical details of why such an event took place - even in a fictional setting.    If you want your Principal to have a dungeon below his office, you have got some explaining, in depth, to do.

Historically, military uniforms are associated with specific types of corporal punishment.   It really was the practice of the British Royal Navy to use the cane on the bottoms of female cadets from the inception of the WRNS until the practice was formally abolished in 1958.    My tale "Over a Breach of Discipline" is based on an account given by an ex-Wren on what had really happened to her during her period of training.   

Another delight of uniforms, for us authors, is that the identity of the wearer is hidden from view.   It is a very common plot element in spanking fiction to have a female disguised as a male, by wearing a uniform.   When she eventually gets her beating, it is delivered with the same force as would be delivered to a boy's backside, and the unstated implication is that it results in far greater pain than that usual given when a girl gets a whacking as a girl.    In fiction, as in real life, ladies are not expected to endure the same level of force that is inflicted upon menfolk.

The girl dressed as boy is getting a little hackneyed, and a boy dressed as girl a little too twee for many of us - so do use cross-dressing with a degree of care.    (And the one where adults are role playing and it turns out - what a shocker - that the "school girl" is actually the male partner of the duo:  well that one has been done to death.    You will need more than the shock ending to successfully use that artifact again successfully - at least, for most readers of our genre.)

Uniforms can give a story form, natural flow, and be both easier on the keyboard to write and easier on the eyes to read.    Consider - you are contemplating a new tale and start off with a mental image of a six-form girl tied to a horizontal T-Frame, awaiting to be punished.   Answer the questions of how and why she is so bound, and describe what then happens to her defenseless bottom and you have over half of your story completed.   That is a very solid start to writing your next eagerly awaited piece of spanking fiction.

T is for T-frame

A T-frame is constructed by using a solid wooden post as the up right, and attaching to it a cross beam so that the finished assembly looks something like a giant letter "T".   T-Frames were used extensively in Europe and the Americas as whipping frames in the 19th Century.

Early whipping posts where constructed from having a single pole erected upright, the top far higher than any person's wrists (when held upright, extended over the head).   But some genius spotted that by tying the victim to a T-frame, arms extended outwards(as opposed to over the head arms) flattened and squared the back, giving a better target for the lash.  And as an added bonus, should the sentence be half the strokes across the back and half across the buttocks, the person so sentenced was perfectly positioned to receive all of them in one uninterrupted session.

As far as I can ascertain, a T-frame lying horizontal to the ground, on trestles or similar, never made it to institutions of corporal punishment.   (The upright T-Frame had, but it was solely for punishment).   The horizontal T-Frame has made its appearance in videos, fiction and custom spanking furniture - for it makes the victim vulnerable to other forms of "abuse".

From adopting the real life T-frame to the spanking scene, it was almost inevitable that X-frame would make its appearance.   Wood slats are constructed to make a frame that looks line the letter "X" and now we have four securing points - two for the wrists and two for the ankles.   And a nice narrow bit for wrapping some securing material around the waist and the frame.   A spread-eagled securely secured naked penitent can be dealt with in anyway that comes to mind, and has become a staple of a certain class of disciplinary scene in which pain may be followed by sexual activity.   The X-frame never made any sort of appearance in real life, but turns up regularly in fiction.

As writers of spanking fiction, we can create spanking benches and whipping frames out of just about anything.   We can dream up of a tree of exactly the right height so that it becomes a substitute for a Y-frame.   With a little bit of misdirection, an overturned wheelbarrow can be put into use as a spanking bench.   And so on.

We might need an excessive amount of description to explain an out of the ordinary spanking implement (as discussed in Q is for Quirt), but when it comes to the furniture used to secure the miscreant, we have a far easier time of it.    And having an unusual spanking bench not only might give a tale a new twist, it can be instrumental in the whole set up the entire piece.    If you are struggling to start a new tale then you might want to try the technique of identifying some unusual spanking bench.   Work backwards to show how it came to be used, and you will be well on the way to fleshing out the finished piece.

S is for Stuffing

In real life, spanking play often starts with a fully clothed bottom getting slapped with the hand, then a partially clothed one, then a bare one and then the implements are brought into play, to turn an already reddened backside into full glorious technicolor.    In order for the partner to withstand repeated hard swats from a paddle, the flesh needs to be warmed up first to get it, and its owners psyche, ready for more stringent attention.

I have not witnessed very many real life discipline sessions, but by all accounts, the penitent does not have a lengthy warm up period before the disciplinarian gets down to business.   They tend to be more of a touch your toes, instant agony, punishment over sort of regimen.

So why do video producers and some spanking fiction authors have miscreants go through a series of increasingly painful encounters, all in the name of discipline?   In a word - stuffing. 

A video producer would like to produce an hour (or so) video in order to maximize sales potential.   And to fill a full hour is not easy.   Even pain-fest Mood Pictures find that one of their floggings is completed in about five minutes.   So - directorial choices.   We can have a small cast beaten often, or a large cast each beaten once.    The first option is relatively cheaper, the second more fragmented.

Let us make up a theoretical script for a large cast.   A dozen "schoolgirls"  each get a classroom paddling and two or three of them "confess" and get sent to the headmaster for a caning.   Well, allowing some time to get into and out of spanking position, we will have generated about 25 minutes of spanking action.   For a one hour film.    To make it last an hour, we need about 35 minutes of stuffing to pad it all out.  So we need to stuff 25 minutes of non-spanking material into it to bring it up to the required run time.

About the first half of the masterpiece "South American Vacation" is stuffing in which the oddest and really bizarre court case is portrayed in order to set up the whackings to come.    It does not particularly add much in quality (a 3 minute edited highlight would have worked just as well) but it gets us to use up enough time to qualify the production as "a full length" work.   (Incidentally, rumor as it that the first two recipients of a caning in that film - a mere 10 strokes each - were volunteer vanillas so the producer could show how such discipline affects those not into a pain for pleasure foible).

When we have just one or two victims on the receiving end, it is inevitable that they are going to receive several spankings.   First across the knee, in stages as clothing is removed and then bending to get various implements of increasing severity, ending with the cane,   Perhaps half an hour of spanking action.   In order to fill the rest of the allotted time, directors have the spanker take time out to lecture, to grope. to examine the effects of the beating on the bottom, to tap excessively, to shout abuse between strokes:  to do anything, but anything, to wind the clock down a few more minutes.    Which is why most discipline videos give the viewer a sense of shocked disbelief that this is how the cast really thinks schoolmasters go about whacking errant schoolgirls.

Since  we fiction writers are not recording the action with a camera, we have an easier time of it.   When it comes to the written word, there is no expectation for us to provide a minimum number of words for any one piece.

Should we spend a lot of time viewing videos of a spanking nature (aka "conducting research"), we may get beguiled into thinking that the video producers have a deep insight into what a spanko audience wants to watch.   And by inference want to read.   It is not impossible to think that videos represent the accepted "correct" attitude towards portraying spanking action and try to mimic video scripting within our tales.

Which is why we occasionally come across a short story which has as much stuffing as one of those really bizarre "English" discipline classics.    May I offer you counsel?   Please leave stuffing to video productions and make your tales, sharp, crisp and a joy to read.   I for one would find that to be a better read, and from the chat boards, I am not in the minority.

R is for Reviews

One of the stocks in trade for all authors are the Reviews their works get.   But we spanko authors have an additional handicap when it comes to getting reviews.  I shall explain.

The perceived wisdom of the authorship world is that it takes about 750 readers to generate one review.    _(Which means that newly minted works that arrive with half a dozen glowing reviews are treated by all with considerable skepticism).

The work of a promotions department at a publishing house is to bring attention to new works by such means as having the author go on a lecture circuit, send promotional copies to professional reviewers and use social media to get the title in front of potential readers' eyes.    The more people who read a book, the more likely there will be reviews and the more reviews - even mildly unfavorable ones - the more sales the book will likely get.

For most of us writing spanking fiction, the thought of going on a speaking tour is a double disaster:  for not only would you be expected to stand up and speak in front of strangers, you would also reveal to them from the get go your most private and carefully hidden secret - that you are into spanking.   While there have been some very brave souls who have outed themselves, none with any sort of set back - but having kept it secret for ten, twenty or even thirty years, few of the rest of us can face the prospect of standing up in a lecture hall brandishing a sign that reads "I am a Spanko!"

For the self same reason - the preservation of our most cherished secret - we never use social media that is likely to get into the hands of our family circle/   Yeah, they have a pretty shrewd idea what makes us tick - but we refrain from shouting it from the roof tops.  Discretion and all that.

So we sit and pray that people will review our books of their own accord.   But now another snag:  our readers are virtually all spankos - and they are afflicted with the same desire to stay in the shadows that we ourselves have.   While the average book may take 750 sales to generate a review, I have personal experience that suggest spanking fiction takes four or five times that number to get each review.    No matter how unlikely a reverse search may find the author of a review, not making one eliminates any possibility of the real identity of a reviewer being discovered.

So - dear reader - we have yet another solid reason why we should march arm in arm down the high street in the spanko equivalent of a Pride March - so that the world is aware of our foibles, we can also face the world back without feeling that we are doomed to disaster by telling it who we are.

I know deep down that will never happen.  So - do tell - what is your rational for keeping your spanking secret hidden from sight?

Q is for Quirt

Having a limited range of motives for a spanking, and a limited range of aftermaths, we spanko authors often look at the spanking itself, to see if new ideas can be explored in that area.

The first notion that might come to mind is to consider an implement that has not been featured in any of our prior tales.   Such as the quirt.

The quirt is a two thonged whip with a short handle and is about three feet long.   Historically it was used as a riding whip, but ranchers found that by tying the handle to some reigns, the extra length meant it could be used to control cattle - not by slapping them but by making loud cracks close to their ears.   And it was also used as a tool of discipline, for its lash could be aimed accurately to deliver a very sharp sting.

While contemplating punishments dished out in the old Wild West, you might come across the term "larruping" (which, counter-intuitively, has a secondary meaning of "exceptionally good").   A larruping would have been no fun for the victim.  Dad would have taken his trusty Colt 45 out of its holster, held it by the barrel, and walloped his offspring's backside with the flat side of the handle.   A harsh, unyielding implement that would have left extensive bruising.

A third variation on the old Wild West was a buggy whipping.    If a young lady broke curfew by an excessive amount, the usual and customary way of atoning for her indiscretion was a formal buggy whipping in front of the rest of the family.   The back board of a buggy would be dropped, to turn the cart into a whipping frame.  She would go face down across the back, wrists often tied to the top of a wheel exposed on either side of the carriage, skirt up, drawers down.   And then get her bottom striped thoroughly with the buggy whip.   A deterrence to all, and an end to her attempts to share her charms too freely.

Then there is the multi-thonged knout, favorite of the Cossacks, the rhino-hide sjambok inflicting great havoc in South Africa - and so on, around the world, each region having its own variation of implement designed to administer great pain to the nether regions of the naughty.

Well, unless you are writing a full length novel, and have ample room for long and detailed descriptions, you might want to give a miss to the more exotic instruments of spanking.  You have to assume that your average reader has no idea what, say, a quirt is.   Having your disciplinarian simply pick one up, and lay into the penitent's backside with it, has gained nothing over using a cane, but complicated matters unduly.   So, in order to put the scene into proper context, you have to describe in some detail what a quirt is, how it is used, and what the likely outcome is.   Now that might be of great interest in some non-fiction piece you are writing:  but in a spanking romp, I think we should avoid having to go into lecture mode, simply to ensure that the reader knows what is going on.    It is my own experience that when I am reading fiction, the more time an author has to spend on describing the spanking implement, the more impatient I get with him or her.

I rather fancy that the method of inducing a sting to a rump is of far less importance than the why it is was being imparted, and what the effects and after-effects were.   

P is for POV

The very first decision of every author of every genre of fiction is to decide from whose Point of View (POV) the story will be told.

By far, the two most popular POVs are first person, singular ("I picked up the cane and gave it a test swish") and third person, usually singular ("She picked up the cane and gave it a test swish.").    Occasionally I have come across a work in second person singular ("You picked up the cane to give it a test swish.") but, for me, that comes across a bit awkward.   The narrator is telling us what happened by addressing some third party, or is trying to put us into the tale ourselves.   Either way, we the reader may feel disconnected from the action.

First person plural would make little sense, unless we were writing as Queen Victoria over some household incident ("We were not amused at the news from Prussia, so we ordered a cane to be brought to us so that we could give it a test swish.")    Possible, I suppose, but so unlikely a scenario that it is one that I have yet to come across.   Third person plural happens all the time, but is very temporary before we get back to third person singular ("They all shivered at the swish the cane made.")  And second person plural is hard to distinguish from second person singular "You all picked up your canes to give them a swish.")   Drop the "all" and make cane singular and the sentence is identical to second person singular - unless you happen to be writing in Spanish, Texan or some other argot that has a distinct term for plural "you".

Rarely, very rarely, the POV is from some inanimate object that is central to the story,   An account, say, as seen by a paddle used in some school over a period of several years.   This tactic does allow the writer to explore the moment of impact from a fresh angle:  but, I think, the author has paid a very high price for that single moment of novelty.   Furthermore, it has cropped up enough times to make it difficult for you to bring a fresh angle to this particular gimmick.

So - in all normal circumstances, the choice is between "I did it." and "He did it." from the perspective of a human being taking part in the action,   The advantage of "I did it" is that, as the writer, I can sidetrack off all over the place to explain nuances of the plot:  such sidetracks can read awkwardly when simply telling the reader what actually happened.    The advantage of "He did it" is that you can describe scenes not observed by the I in "I did it."   If you are in first person, and your characters go off and do stuff you never saw, it might be difficult for you to describe those activities.

One of the really neat techniques available to the spanking author is that, done properly, you can change the POV from time to time to advance the tale from the perspective of different participants.   A very mundane piece ("Abuse of Power" in the Free Stories section) started as routine pot boiler of the class "Schoolgirl caught smoking gets the paddle".   By switching the POV between the three main protagonists, the tale was lifted from its somewhat dire fate into a tale rated as OK - which is about all you can hope for when using a plot that hackneyed..

But it does have to be done properly.   The different sections should be separated by any filigree you use to show a change in time, place or - in this case - a POV.    (A filigree:  something like ---oo0oo--- stuck in the middle of the page as a section breaker.    If you don't use one, you risk confusing the reader about what is going on if the scene completely changes without warning).

The second thing is to put some very clear verbal clues that the switch has happened.   The trap of having speakers name the listener as a device to tell the reader who is talking to whom has been discussed before.   But a similar device on the switch of POV is fair game.

An example:   I took the cane, gave it a practice swish and put it down on Jack's desk.

 ---oo0oo---   

 I picked up the cane that Jane had placed on my desk, and used thumb and forefinger to feel how sharp and mean it was.

The text prior to that  ---oo0oo--- was from Jane's POV, and that after it was from Jack's.   The switch in POV has been made, and the reader should have accepted the change without pausing in their mad-cap chase to get to the end of your epic.

Finally, a quick segue - in the preceding piece I used the term "pot boiler".   It originally meant a work so good, people got totally enraptured in it, allowing untended pots to boil over.   Over time, the meaning has deteriorated so that today, it is used to describe a mediocre work churned out purely to make some quick cash.    A few years ago, calling 50 Shades a potboiler would have been seen as high praise, but, in the main, nowadays the identical term would be quite derogatory.    (Just another gem from my stockpile of useless trivia).

O is for Older

In my view, ageism is rampant in spanking fiction.   Cheerleaders and girls dubbed as tomboys regularly are subjected to fictional whackings of a long and sometimes excessively severe nature.   It always seems to be a young housewife who abuses a credit card or bends the family vehicle in order to be subjected to domestic discipline that may, or may not, be followed by more erotic sorts of romp around the bedroom.

I have yet to come across a work in which a granny gets her backside whacked with any degree of vigor.   Full disclosure - if I did, I would probably tip toe past it on the other side of the street while pretending to be fascinated by roof tops and distant clouds.   For I admit it - when I write fiction imagining the act taking place on a firm, young pair of buttocks is far easier on the mind and on the typing fingers than if the bottom was old, flabby and - how shall one say? - a bit past its prime.

But in real life?   That is very different.   I have not spanked a schoolgirl since I was a schoolboy - and if one presented herself to me today to get a walloping, I would probably be so embarrassed by the whole thing as to make a right royal mess of it all.    Moreover, the number of more mature backsides that have felt a swat or so from me - in jest, flirt or outright spankings - are suitably numerous.    In real life, all bottoms (regardless of the age of their owners) are made for an occasional, yet thorough, working over of a somewhat disciplinary nature.  There are ladies who are free from the threat of a slippering - but not because of age, but because of some other factor.

In real life spankos are not ageist.   It is in fiction that almost all authors and almost all readers get more out of some nubile teenager having her bottom thrashed than any description of a rotund matron receiving the same treatment.

There are exceptions.   Some of your fellow readers of this blog really do like to see older ladies get their comeuppance, and the bigger and more wobbly the hindquarters, the greater the fun.   But from the number of you who, like me, enjoy the firm white flesh that is the inherent right of the young, the conclusion must be that ageism is rampant in our way when it comes to fiction

But I think that may be part and parcel of spanking fiction.   Spanking fiction is ofter far, far darker than anything we would condone or endure in real life, taking place in situations and settings that would never really happen and with implements that can only result in unbridled abuse.   In a genre where the spankings themselves are distorted from reality, it should be no surprise that the same sort of distortion also happens to the recipient.   I would wage a sizable bet that very, very few of us experience real life spankings of young girls:  but just about all of us have no problem in reading about it happening in a work of fiction.

We can cope with totally unreal spanking situations:  it should be no surprise that the ideal spankee is at the younger and firmer end of the scale.

N is for New Free Tale

I have added a new tale to the Free Stories section.   Not only that, it comes with a competition.

Those readers who have lasted throughout the last year of posts from me will have had dozens of nuggets of wisdom about how to craft good spanking fiction.

For the competition, you have to spot ALL the rules that I broke while composing this story.   If you do get to make out a full list, then you can enter it to win a near totally worthless prize.   Partial lists, and those that contain rules that were not broken, will be eliminated from the drawing.

May the best nit-picker win!

M is for Metaphors

All authors use metaphor, and its twin simile, to enrich the reading experience.   We spanko authors use it, and its partners-in-crime allusion and euphemism to try to describe the same old scene, the same old consequences and the same old reactions in ways that are fresh, and stimulating, to our readers.   Also, if you only use factual - and thereby clinical - descriptions all the time, your readership audience is surely going to dwindle.

So instead of describing in detail each action that tells the reader how he reacted angrily to the news, you might use the metaphor "he flew off the handle.".   But don't.  Most metaphors that have become part of everyday speech are so hackneyed that they should only be used in everyday speech, and not your next masterpiece of spanking docudrama.

The mark of a competent wordsmith is an ability to coin new phrases - particularly when it comes to metaphors, similes and their kin.   If your first thought at the description of her spanked bottom was "her butt was as red as a beet" - well, no, that is the way a word hack would go about it.   You need to come up with something like "as scarlet at a Maiden Aunt's blush" or "as red as sun dried tomatoes sizzling in olive oil in a fry pan."    The choice does not have to be spectacular - just fresh.

You can get away with using well worn phrases if you mix them up in an original manner:  "He plowed into her butt like a rottweiler going at a fresh steak."    OK - not prize winning, but putting two old ones together in this way gives the illusion of crafting something new.   And in writing, as in all other things, perception is 99% of the game.

There is one group of wordsmiths who spend all their lives searching for new ways to say old things.   They are called "poets" and if you have not tried it recently, do read some of their works to pick up inspiration.   If Ronald Reagan could borrow "and touched the face of God" from an aviator's poem to use in an eulogy, then it is fair game for you to be inspired enough by "The fog comes on little cat feet" to pen "she entered his study as light footed as a kitten stealing through a meadow."  I am not suggesting that you plagiarize - but you should see how others do it, and try to copy their techniques (and not their words).

And another technique in your armory is to start off with some old hackneyed cliche and do a rewrite to change it into a factual description.    "He was a bull in a china shop when dealing with her excuses." (Bad)    "When she made any excuse, he would roar with rage and stamp around his desk as he yelled rebuttals, threats and arguments until her eyes filled with tears and her shoulders slumped."  (Better - but needs another rewrite:  an exercise I shall set as your homework for today).

Pithy turns of phrase should be one of your standard targets.   But there is a caveat (there always is with my posts).   Take care you don't overdo it.   You can end up with mixed metaphors that give a hopelessly wrong impression of what is going on:  "He smelt a rat and decided to nip it in the bud" is one famed example.   "He saw it was only a storm in a tea cup so decided to pour oil on troubled waters".   You could get away with those if you were writing a farce, but in serious spankerotica, you should avoid them as much as you can.

L is for Limitations, Responsibilities and Expectations

There is a moment when the flirtation is not enough, and it is time to move on to more satisfactory ways of enjoying each others company.

With a "vanilla" relationship, the time tested method works reasonably well, most of the time.   One partner makes some sort of move that suggests and upping of the ante, and is encouraged or discouraged by the other partner's response.

But for spankos it is not that simple.    The stronger the spanko urge, the less simple it gets.

Which leads us to "The Chat".  A time when all defenses are lowered, in order that a meeting of minds takes place, to avoid unexpected and extremely embarrassing situations farther down the road.

I suspect the BDSM community have it slightly easier than us spankos, for their initial flirtations will have been heavily flavored with dominant and submissive themes.   Should they get to The Chat stage, personal foibles may be so clear as to let them sit down with drafted contracts of behavior already written, as the basis for detailed negotiation.

The first problem we spankos have is that really do not know if our intended new close friend is one of us, or not.   The extremely light pats that can happen during light flirtation may be seen as nothing more than harmless "slap-and-tickle" by those of the vanilla persuasion, and not as an invitation to unleash some hard wallops to an backside quivering in suppressed anticipation.

Which is why The Chat for us often starts by some variation of the simple question "Are you into spanking?"   A negative reply is as eagerly accepted as a positive one by the person asking - on the grounds that such a major disappointment should not ruin what might otherwise prove to be some very enjoyable bedroom romps.   Even to the extent, on hearing a no, to saying "Thank heavens for that - but I really needed to get that one out of the way."   Followed by some lame alibi as to why, if pressed for more information.

But a positive answer means that we are now into a full-blown Limitations, Responsibilities and Expectations negotiation.   Those three can be talked about in any order, but the sequence given indicates the relative importance of each.

The most important is Limitations, for we really, really must establish what is off-limits.  We each hope that the two off limit boundaries are an identical match.   If one party hopes to be able to do some particular act, and the other vetoes it - the disconnect could be fatal to the relationship.   Not necessarily, but it is in the back of our minds.  And two people with identical limits may convince themselves that they are a pair of soul mates.

When it comes to limitations, it is quite common in spanko relationships (less so in BDSM ones I am told) that bodily fluids should be safely kept in the body.   It is extremely rare for blood to be drawn as a result of a safe, sane and consensual spanking - so reinforcing that limit has a side effect of iterating the SSC nature of the budding relationship.

Responsibilities part of The Chat revolve around the active part of spankings themselves - such as whether rules need to be broken prior to a whacking, and if so, what those rules are.   It attempts to answer the questions "When will spankings take place?"   And it is often the case that it is entirely up to the spanker, whether as part of foreplay or part of role-play.

Expectations is the tricky part - for, in essence, it is an attempt to answer "Why do we actually want spankings take place?" :  moreover, how hard should they be and for how long should they last.   Even if this part is skipped over (for a Chat on expectations is entirely optional), it would still be a good idea to establish if any safe words are to come into play.   Perhaps even the "Green, Yellow, Red" conditional safe words to indicate how enjoyable (or not) the buttocks are feeling towards the current onslaught.  

The Chat can be a light-hearted session of banter, or a serious detailed setting out of precisely who does what to whom with which.   Either way, it should always be part and parcel of engaging in activities with an as yet unknown partner.    For it is the only recognized way of ensuring that everything that happens afterwards is safe, sane and consensual.

K is for Kindle Unlimited

If you self publish your works as e-books, then making it available to the public at large is relatively simple.   Download it on or all of many publisher's sites, push the "I agree" button to their terms and conditions, and away it goes.    (Print is slightly more complicated - we shall talk about that anon).

But even with the simplicity of e-publishing, you do have to make tough decisions.   The price you set could possibly kill potential sales if it is set too high, or lose you a lot of missed income if set too low.   And you can never be sure what level is too high, and what is too low.

A further consideration is that if you give Kindle an exclusive contract for each work, you get to keep 70% of the sales income from that source - which is very nice.    For six months, my books were published with every e-book publisher out there.   But virtually all of my sales were through Amazon, and it became a no-brainer to sign up with Kindle to virtually double my income.

Then along came Kindle Unlimited.   This marketing ploy gives the reader unlimited access to everything available in the store, for one flat monthly fee.    If a KU customer reads more that 10% of one of your works. you get a flat fee regardless of your published price.   (The 10% threshold is pretty low - we typically put that amount out as a free preview for all potential customers).

The price you set for a book is irrelevant for a KU customer.   The customer is prepaid and you will get the identical amount per sale, come what may.

So the normal economic rule is reversed.   For a cash customer, the higher the price, the greater the disincentive to buy.   For a KU customer, the higher the price (and therefore the higher the assumed value of the transaction) the greater the incentive to download it.   If someone has paid a fee to get to all books, the the higher the price of those books, the more valuable the purchase of the KU membership will seem to be.

So - for a while - I increased the price of my two slowest selling books from $2.99 each to $15 each - and as a result, they did indeed start to be picked up by KU readers.    Cash sales for them went to zero, but I rationalized that that was OK on the grounds that they were not very big sellers to start off with.

Then came an epiphany - I have not set out my stall to be a niche author writing exclusively for the KU market.   So last month I reduced their prices back to $2.99 each, in line with all my other works.   The KU cash flow has dropped significantly, but cash sales have started again.   And that is OK - I really do want my books to be available to everyone, and not only to those who have a "free" pass to everything that catches their eye.

J is for Just in Time

The thing about motivation is that those self help books are really only any use for putting royalties into the pocket of the author.    Hmm ... Since I actually possess the ultimate secret of self motivation, perhaps I could write a world best seller motivational text and make me richer than my more realistic speculations.

Except that big secret does not seem to be a money winner = at least not to my way of thinking.

What is the secret?    Well, suppose you have promised your editor a final working draft by next Friday.   Now, honestly, which is the first day you will do any real work on it?   Yeah - me too.    Thursday evening when there is really not enough time left to get it finished properly.

The urgency of having to hit a deadline - or face really unpleasant consequences - has a two-fold effect.   First, the distaste at having to actually sit down and get some work done is finally pushed to one side and the fingers fly across the key board like demented little honey bees let loose in the ecstasy of a clover patch grown wild.

And second - even more important - the creative juices bring ideas teeming into play which (this is very important) would never have occurred to you without the pressure of a deadline looming like a guillotine over your future career.    I am truly amazed at some of the plot twists that came my way because my demented muse had left me no time to consider where they were going to take me.   A sort of "stream of consciousness"  writing style, but one, due to avoiding an impending disaster, causes the stream to flow in a coherent and logical manner.

Procrastination comes easy to all of us.    Indeed, I would have been accepted as a member of the Procrastinator's Society, but unfortunately my application arrived just before the final, final dead-line ran out.  Life can be cruel, at times.

I have an on-line acquaintance who has to produce work of an educational content from time to time - and, oh boy, does she cut it fine every time.   Promises of rewards if written earlier?  Hah! - not a chance.    Threats of dire consequences if not written ahead of time?   As she put it, "Don't make me laugh so hard, my ribs cannot take it."   

But the night before the deadline looms?   Easy peasy - no problem in whipping out a couple of thousand words that would satisfy the most pedantic of professors.

So - if you want to write really great spanking fiction, make an irrevocable commitment to deliver it by no later than a set time on a set date.   And then sit back and wait.

(I really do not see how all of this can be turned into a full length book on self motivation.   If you can spot a way, and you write such a tome - that is perfectly OK provided a small portion of your loot is shared with your inspirational source.)

p.s. On my schedule for the AtoZ challenge, I need to publish each piece at 8 a.m. (local) each day of the challenge.   Guess what time it is now, as I finish writing this post.   Gosh - you are clever.

I is for Interview

A problem for all writers is that we need to tell the readers some background material - and we often attempt to do so by subtle reveal, rather than a lengthy, detailed and possibly off-putting explanation of why our characters are acting in the way they are.   If we don't want to have great chunks of explanatory text, then the only real technique is to break it all down into manageable bits.    Not giving the reader any idea of what going on is an alternative, but not one that seems to have any merit.

A trap I think we discussed in a previous post is to put such information into statements made by one or more of  the characters in our tale.   The first problem with this, is that we have one person tell another something that the listener already knows:  "Hello Mister Brown, famed harpsichordist".  And the second is that unless we are careful, they say to each other words that would never get spoken in real life.   An extreme bad example goes along the lines of "Hello my beloved wife of fifteen years of often tumultuous marriage who was recently unexpectedly promoted to office manager at the chagrin of her bitter rival - how are you on this morning, one on which a crucial meeting is planned to take place?"   This is an example of an excessive use of a variation of the too much information syndrome.

So now where do we go?    Having one character "interview" another character might be worthy of your consideration.

Consider:

"Here, I've made you some tea."   He handed her a small tray holding a delicate china cup and saucer, the cup almost overflowing with her favorite Earl Grey.   She sat up in bed to take the proffered cup,  She gave a grimace in the general direction of the sunrise taking outside their bedroom.

"What's wrong, petal?   You look out of sorts."

"I have a meeting this morning.    A planning meeting.   They can be very demanding."   She pulled the bed covers up around her bare shoulders and took a tentative sip at the hot fluid.

"You will have lots of meetings now you are in management.   You've never had a problem with them before you got promoted."   He brushed the fringe from across her forehead so that he could look into her deep blue eyes, almost as if to work out what was wrong simply by staring into them.

"Janet will be there.   She expected to get my job.   She is out to make trouble for me.   Nothing is more certain than that."

"Janet?   I never thought she was cut out to be management.    Is she off her rocker?"

 "Actually, she was favorite to get it.   I was the dark horse.   She was not happy that it was me, of all people."

"She has never liked you, as she?"

 "Not since the petty cash incident.   And that really was not my fault..."

"So - what are you going to do?"

"I shall have my wooden hairbrush in my tote."

"?"   Not so much a question as one eyebrow raised in a quizzical way.

"If I sink her without trace during the meeting, afterwards, in private, I will put her in her place once and for all, for all time.  And if it goes bad for me ..."

 "If?"

"Then vengeance will be wreaked in a way she will never forget."

"You sure are still my feisty hellion..."    He smiled.

 "And I shall always be."   She put the empty cup and saucer on the bedside table.   "And now a shower and then my sharpest business suit.   I've got a battle to fight..."   She swung her long shapely legs out of the bed and set off towards the bathroom.

Now that passage is not presented as a masterpiece of literary excellence, but simply as a case study in how to get your reader set up without a lecture of one sort or another.   All relevant facts were revealed, without once going into anything like lecture mode.

Show rather than tell is the soundest advice that any spanko writer can be given, and dialog is one form of show.   When that dialog is set out as an interrogation, or, more politely, an interview, we can show our reader exactly where our tale is likely to go.   All quite painlessly - and that cannot be a bad thing.

But of course - there is a caveat.   Don't start every tale you write using this technique, or it will become hackneyed from over use.   (I shall talk about the slow reveal, and its usefulness, in some other post).

H is for Heaven Sent Opportunities

We spanko authors have a really hard time coming up with fresh ideas - particularly for the first stage of a story: the "there is going to be a spanking" stage.    There may be thousands and thousands of different combinations that make up the bits and pieces of the spanking itself, but why it is happening has a very finite list of reasons.

So when Heaven sends you a nugget, grab it with both hands and see what hidden treasure it may contain.

For example, there was a short item some years ago in the English newspaper "The Sunday Telegraph" in which it was stated that a trainee at a Royal Navy institution had had her bottom caned for some infraction.   It triggered me to do some research into the reality of corporal punishment in the British military over the years, and several tales ensued.   "Over a Breach of Discipline" is a fictional rendition of what is now thought to be a real life event:  the details all make sense within the traditions of the Royal Navy and the events of World War 2.  And all from a paragraph in a newspaper.


If you chat on-line or in real life with members of the spanking community, you sometimes get a complete tale handed to you on a plate.    A young lady recounted to me the exact events of a school paddling she had endured, and "Abuse of Power" virtually wrote itself.   She regretted having worn jeans instead of a skirt - because in the bathroom afterwards her bottom was too sore to pull her jeans down: and therefore she had no cold water to lessen the sting.   I would never, left to my own musings, dreamed up that sort of detail.   And it was the people involved that turned what could have been a bland "teenager caught smoking" episode into something I think has a life of its own.

I should observe that the things you get told, particularly on line, should be taken with a huge grain of salt.   I once wrote a story about the Maid of Honor at a wedding getting a vigorous whacking after her mother spotted that she was dancing at the reception without wearing any underwear.   The nagging doubt that I was having my leg pulled, resulted in a missive so dire that you are very unlikely to get a chance to read it.    (No - honestly - it really is dire and has little hope of improvement from doing some more re-writes).

And then there are straight forward challenges:   a request to write a spanking story involving a genie led to "Djinn and Flick" - not really what the challenger was hoping for, because I made the Djinn conform to ancient tradition, and not the modern one of a jolly granter of three wishes.  Still, I liked it, and that is over half the battle in finishing a tale that works.

Over on LSF, we were once asked to try to create a spanking tale by looking at a picture of a lime green rowing boat, at anchor, on a small lake.    That led me into combining science fiction with near farce:  a combination really way out of left field.   Which only goes to show where you might end up if you never ignore one of those Heaven Sent Opportunities when they come your way.

G is for Girls and Boys

Sit down and take a deep breath - I have something very important to tell you.   Ready?   Girls and boys are different.   There, I have said it.

And it is more than a simple matter of plumbing.   We all know that lady bits and gentlemen bits are in different shapes and sizes, yet often fit together very comfortably.   Wat we often miss is that the two sexes also have dissimilar mental processes which work quite wonderfully in their different manners.

So what does this have to do with writing spanking fiction?    It is all a matter of what is called the "Point of View".    A quick segue for beginners to the craft of writing fiction:  a point of view (or POV) is used to identify who is telling the tale:  the line "I listened carefully before entering the room" has a different effect on the reader depending upon whether the person "writing" that line is supposed to be the hero or the heroine.

It is quite nifty to change the POV during a short story:  the first half, say, from one character's viewpoint and the rest from the others.   A trick I have used more than once to dress up what would otherwise have been a pretty lame standard tale.   (Changing POV's during a novel is trickier:  do it too often and you can confuse the reader and don't do it enough makes the exercise not worth doing.  A tricky line to keep your balance on.).

The potential problem with selecting a POV for us short story writers?   We might find that we are telling the tale from the POV of someone who is of the opposite sex of our own.

You have to go where your guts tell you on this one.   For me, when I am relating the incident from a lady's point of view, I try to keep to the basic facts of what is going on.   If the plot demands that my heroine has an orgasm, I will state that this is what happened.   I, personally, would never try to describe the sensations or emotions that happen to ladies when this welcome event takes place in such a lady's life     Lack of empathy with what is actually felt by them can lead into writing something that ia a total disconnect for readers who have actually experienced the event.   Plowing on and making up stuff that your think will be adequate is sometimes known as the "50 Shades syndrome".

Having said that you should take great care in staying within your own sexual experience, you might have spotted that in more than one of the tales written under my nom de plume, descriptions are provided in full and complete detail - even thought they are ones that are impossible for me to have any personal experiece.    Well - one of the perks of writing with a nom de plume is that it is perfectly OK for a co-author to step in from time to time to flesh out the bits we have no idea about. 

You might want to consider this approach when your plot takes you into unfamiliar land.   Say you have no idea what goes on in the mind of a switch when acting in manner 180 degrees from your own inclination (assuming that you are not a switch).    Getting helpful prose from a fellow writer who has the necessary quirk to be an expert - that is no sin.   Particularly if you have made some sort of arrangement as to how to share the proceeds, if you are writing is for profit.

F is for Fact Finding

I write spanking fiction and have given myself perhaps excessive liberties to ignore some factual background elements in my tale.   I call it poetic license.   My critics call it bone idleness.

Sometimes it is obvious that what you have written has no bearing on the real world.   If you have Julius Caesar and his army using their wrist-watches to coordinate the invasion on the English mainland, at best your readers will think you are playing some sort of joke on them.

In one of my tales set in the early 1800's, I had a young lady disguised as a Midshipman get a caning while tied to the barrel of a gun on a Royal Navy battleship.   It might not matter to you that I had her across a 21-pounder on the top deck of the vessel.    And it did not matter to me.   But I got such a chorus of boos from those who knew that putting a 21-pounder on the top deck of wooden battleship was as silly as having Roman soldiers wearing wrist-watches.

Knowing about what guns went where on ancient Royal Navy vessels might lead you into the trap of go-gullibility (a condition of believing anything that is in a wiki).   But even so, there is some basic research you really ought to carry out if your tale is not set about today, about where you reside and about activities you are familiar with.   Our aim is to entertain, and the distraction of impossibilities really ought to be kept to the least we can manage.

But sometimes we don't stand a chance.   Suppose, for instance, you want some Puritan wench to get a beating for whatever plot device you happen to be using.    And suppose a Cromwellian soldier asks your heroine a question.  Her answer "I don't know" might be the very trigger that sparks the spanking action.   Now - did you spot the deliberate error in that short set up?   No - and neither did I when that very line of dialog took place in my piece,   A very kind person let me know that no Puritan could ever have said "I don't know" for that language format was another century in the making.   She could only have said "I know not."   I would suggest that knowledge of things that arcane is beyond the reach of most of us.  

So, having said you should do sufficient research to satisfy your average reader, it is quite OK if that piece of advice is taken with a large pinch of salt.    After all, some readers would find great pleasure in contemplating Roman soldiers coordinating their attack by using wrist watches.   It really does take all sorts...

E is for Extreme

I was chatting on Second Life to a fellow spanko - he goes by the name of Hammer - and we were sharing prior real life incidents.

It has always been clear to me that the sex drive and the spanking drive are quite separate:  spanking can be part of foreplay, but it does not have to be - and spankings do not lead inexorably to some sort of sexual relief.    Of all things spanko that baffle vanillas is that sometimes the spanking is the be all and end all of some mutual time spent together.   It is not always a substitute for Viagra.

It does occur to me that at the extreme end of those who get pleasure from the pain side of spanking really do take away the consent part of the usual occasion.    We who spank get most of our kick out of the reflected glow coming from the partner's real tingle:  and the reverse sometimes happens.   The willing victim is getting all her pleasure second hand from the tingle the spanker gets by delivering a whack.   The harder the whack, the more pleasure the spanker must feel and it echoes back to her.

Now, when it comes to writing spanking fiction, you might want to pitch your plot at a level the widest audience finds acceptable - unless of course (usual caveat) you have found a niche market place and your readers revel in your ability to bring extreme actions and extreme emotions into a sharp, if second hand, reality.    If you are on the fringe and are enjoying the ride as much as your fans, then you do not need me to tell you that not everyone enjoys the extreme.

And although I have not met such a lady, I am told that some just revel in the sheer sensation of pain across their backside - the harder the pain, the greater the sensation, the more enjoyable the experience is.   A welted, bruised and lacerated pair of buttocks is not regretted for one second, but simply the price of achieving a great experience.

I have never been out at the extreme limits - despite what my fictional fantasies may suggest.   For me, the prime purpose of giving a spanking is to meet the needs of my partner first, and my own second.   And the mutual delight is as satisfactory as it is important.    So - I am not really sure what the outcome would be if I did come across some lady who wanted to be given a non-consensual beating to the maximum.    I sort of think it might end up not working out how it was hoped to unfold - but if such a session ever comes my way, I promise to report what happens in some future post to this blog.

Incidentally, if you have never tried Second Life, you might like to give it a go.   You get to steer an avatar around a virtual world, and if your travels should take you to one of the spanking sites (such as RLD) you will meet other avatars being steered by spankos.    Worth a try, I promise you

D is for Discipline

Surveys show that we Spankos are far more opposed to the corporal punishment of children than the population at large.   77% are against the practice as opposed to 35% of adults in general.

We take our stance from the personal knowledge that non-consensual spankings are very unpleasant indeed, and will not condone any form of child abuse.

I think we might have taken the propaganda from the "no-Spanking" brigade hook, line and sinker without bothering to examine the rhetoric that they have brought into play.   We are all opposed to abuse, and they shout from the house tops that all spankings are abusive and hitting children is invariably wrong.

There are a number of "single issue" campaigns out there from "No Vaccinations!"  through to "Ban Tobacco!" - and they all use pretty much the same tactics:   The state personal unsupported opinions as if they were facts, they use bad science to bolster their claims, and they use shame tactics to try to silence any opposition.

As I discussed in the piece "O Canada", independent researchers find that when "conditional spankings" are examined in isolation from other types of corporal punishment, they turn out to be the very best parental method known for removing bad behavior traits from kids.   A conditional spanking is one that is administered under control, after due warnings, to the clothed bottom, with the bare hand, for a short duration, for a lapse in some behavioral conduct.   That is, one should not spank a child for being bad at some academic topic - but if that child continues to play with matches in reckless manner, then a couple of slaps to the rump might start a change in behavior:   one that perhaps saves your house from getting burned down.

In general, conditional spankings tend to be beneficial in their effectiveness - and all others are abusive.    I think it behooves us to distinguish between the two, and to accept that conditional spankings can have a positive effect when it comes to discipline.  And continue to make it very plain that no child should ever suffer and abusive beating.    Regardless of circumstances - never.

C is for Coarse language

A dilemma that faces all writers, and not just spanko authors, is whether to use coarse language in their works.   Euphemistically called "Adult Language", it often has the effect of making a scene very childish indeed - as if the plot has been taken over by a smutty school-boy who revels in using the most swear words he can remember.   On the other hand, you might make note that using anatomically correct terms to identify specific parts of the human body is no longer considered coarse - a tad clinical maybe - but never coarse.

But in adult situations, adults use language that would be very impolite in other situations.   In the bedroom, almost anything goes between consenting adults.    On the other hand, telling a group of acquaintances how enjoyable last night's romp was, using graphic phraseology, might mean that you never get invited to another tea party hosted by your local Vicar.   There is a time and place for everything.

What we writers have to come to terms with is that the use of obscenities in our text will turn some readers on and some readers off.   And never using rude words might make your piece sound as if it had been written by one of your maiden aunts.    (Incidentally, my maiden aunt likes to read stuff so spiced up that it would make a Navy stoker blush with embarrassment - but I think she is an exception to the rule).   The thing is, you can win or lose readers by using, or not by using, really steamy descriptions.   Either way is the writer's equivalent of a crap shoot.

My advice?  Use the blue pencil sparingly when it comes to dialog:  adults in romantic settings are very likely to use words to engender intimacy:  use the words that your characters would really say in those circumstances.   But in line with what we discussed in A is for Asinine if you could.    She looked up at him, eyes glistening and whispered "That spanking has given me soaking wet panties"   For some audiences, that would be a knee trembler:  but even they would agree was a very strange thing to be said aloud.   Realistic first, added steaminess second.

And in the rest of the text?    I have said this before:  write to your own comfort zone.   If you revel in reading works peppered with four letter words, then if you do the same, you will attract readers with identical tastes as yours.   And if you don't - you don't have to boldly go where no infinitive was split before and force yourself to write material you don't like.    (Exception:  if you are commissioned to produce a specific type of material, and you accept the commission, stiffen your spine and get on with it.)

When you write outside of your own comfort zone, in areas that are new to you, you might end up with a piece on par with "Fifty Shades" without the resources to pay for rave reviews.   And you would not like that, would you?

B is for Bondage

Bondage isn't really embedded into the spanko psyche, but (pardon the pun) is often its bed-mate.

The dynamics are very complex:  the relationship is consensual but when one partner is tied to a spanking frame, handcuffed to the bed or immobilized by the other partner's personal most enjoyable form of restraint, then both players - to some degree - are pretending that the session has become non-consensual.  Even though it really hasn't - not at its heart - both pretend the victim is totally at the whim of the spanker.  Why.    Because it makes the game far more intense.

There is not one chance in hell that a member of the vanilla community can understand why that works.

So - may I offer a bit of advice?   In your tale, by all means have someone incredibly securely bound to be unable resist the upcoming whipping - and since it is just fantasy, you might make her/him really not enjoy the experience - but (particularly if your characters are in a consensual relationship) do not try to explain the "why" of what is going on.    Your spanko audience already knows, and your vanilla audience (if they have stayed with your this far into your tale) will never believe you, even if they care to try to understand.

This will save you from taking on an exceedingly difficult writing chore, and improve the readability of your story at the same time.   Which cannot be a bad thing.

Now - should you really, really like to propound on why bondage pushes the intensity up a notch get your characters to talk to each other (using realistic dialog) about what is going on.    Use their curiosity about each other to unravel the mystery.    That way what might be read as personal posturings is turned into part and parcel of the plot, without ever getting you to look as if you are standing on a lecture podium.

A is for Asinine

The word asinine refers to acts that are likened to those of a mule, or ass, than those that relate to the hindquarters.   But sometimes some of us get the wrong end of the stick, if you know what I mean.

There is one area of spanking entertainment that stands out as being capable of being as asinine as one could ever imagine:  dialogue.

When we write dialogue, it is possible to revamp it and reword it until it rings true - both in how it sounds and what it says.    Take a first pass of "You should not do that if you expect me not to smack your naughty little bottom with my finely tooled oaken paddle,' he sneered evilly.  With enough rewrites your might get to something like: "You say you're sorry.  You expect me to buy that?   You expect me to ignore what you've done?   By all that is holy, before I'm done, I'll make you howl your regret - but this time as if you mean it!"      Yeah - that one probably needs another four or five re-writes to get to where we need to be...Which is without all those horrible cliches.

But we do have the ability to go back and change it as often as change is needed.   Sloppy dialog in the market place for written works simply indicates that those who self publish can be very lazy when it comes to crafting good material for readers to enjoy.

But to a pet peeve.   Spanking videos.     A delight to watch (most of the time).    But when it comes to dialog in those videos, we see (hear) three main approaches for the actors:   those who say nothing (or very very little), those who make it up as they go along and those who work to scripts.

The "less you say" brigade have a fairly easy time of it:  the victim is strapped down for some unstated "crime", is whacked and is released.   The only "dialog" is "Ow!" and "Ouch!" as the whacks are delivered.

And by my way of thinking, that works far better than actors who are told to ad lib dialog within the general direction of the plot.   I am honestly not making up - one actor wielding a school cane came up with "I did not get to become a leading accountant without knowing the value of firm discipline".   (I sort of think that gets to be number one on the list of asinine lines in spanking videos.   And why, oh why, do directors think that shouting makes watching more fun?    Not only are the lines puerile, they get yelled at the top of one's voice to make them more real.)

There are well scripted and well acted spanking videos out there - but well scripted and well acted costs a lot of money to be spent before anything has been earned.   The cost/risk ratio may be irrelevant if you cannot afford the initial cost.

So - if you are going to make a spanking video - do consider the less said the better: if you cannot afford a spanko author to give you well crafted lines.

And if you are a spanko author, do consider making your fees ridiculously small when working with a first time video maker.    The enhanced success of the early releases will stand you in very good stead when later releases are planned.


And since the A to Z challenge is also a blog hop - might like to visit this site to a see a fellow author's entry for "A is for ..."