Another new free tale has been added to the Free Stories page.   This time I Remember Her Well examines a dark relationship in which a young lady is engrossed by the fact that her lover once received a birching when serving as a cadet at a military training establishment.  He wants no more to do with it, but she has other ideas.

More on motivation

Let us talk some more about the motivation of the spankee.

It happens in real life as well as in fiction that a young lady is told to touch her toes by a man holding a cane,   And she does does, knowing full well some time in the near future that cane is going to be smacking against her bottom.


The act of her touching her toes stretches the credulity of the vanilla to breaking point.   How could anyone willingly let themselves get hit like that?

The first explanation is the one that troubles the vanilla mind the most:  she presents her bottom for a beating simply because she is going to enjoy it.   For her, pain is a source of pleasure.    To the vanilla, pain is bad, not having pain is good, and making pain into something good is downright perverse.   If not, in fact, downright perverted.   Therefore, the vanilla will argue, such a woman must have a broken psychology.  

Indeed, until quite recently, the spankee would have tended to agree with that point of view.   Enjoying getting your bottom slapped was both shameful as well as being impossible to understand.    Just about every spanko around the globe spends a good deal of time convinced that each is the only human with such tendencies, and very, very determined not to let anyone else know about it.   It is reported on one of the forums that a couple were wed for more than 10 years before they each found out that the other was a spanko.  Quite ironic really just how far some people can go to hide the truth from friends and family.

The second set of explanations revolve around different forms of coercion:  she does not want to be caned, but is submitting because of blackmail, false sense of duty, because he has brain washed her and so on.   If she is not a willing victim, then some sort of force must be being applied against her.   Ergo - if she is not demented, then her tormentor is.   Either way, this caning should not happen.

But in adult relationships, all parties take part willingly.   There simply is no room for abuse in an adult relationship.   Not that abuse never takes place:  when it does, it is because of the lack of an adult relationship, not because there is one.

In short, the spanker and the spankee will both gain pleasure from the pain of a spanking.   The spankee as a direct consequence of a stinging bottom, the spanker as an echo of those stings.

And those of us who have been there need no better motivation.

Motivation - 2

In the real life spanking of adults, the word "no" rules.   The spankee explicitly or implicitly gives the spanker permission to proceed:  to the extent of sometimes being known as "topping from the bottom".    And if, for whatever reason, the spankee decides enough is enough, that is usually sufficient to bring matters to an immediate close.

But in fiction, spankees allow themselves to be coerced into the most fearsome beatings with hardly a protest:  and never one that amounts to a flat "no".   In fiction, victims are always willing victims no matter how unlikely their real life counter-part may be.

Authors tend to use three plot ploys to ensure that the spanking promised to the reader actually takes place:  the spankee accepts for whatever reason that a spanking is called for, some outside pressure makes refusal impossible, or the spankee really enjoys the sting.   And to stir things up, sometimes all three are present in different mixes.

Some authors (often new to the trade) will spend a lot of page space explaining why the spankee is consenting to be whopped.    And often, this is an area where the more analysis that takes place has the effect of reducing the reader's interest in the character.   A reluctant spankee may spend a page or two coming to terms with the emotional, physical and psychological impact of what is about to happen.   The reader accepts that convention demands that once a spankee has been told to assume the position, the spankee will promptly comply.   This is not the time for detailed reflection of why spankees willingly go to their fate.   At list in fiction they always do.

There are times to explore the relationship between the two parties:  but that can take place in the set up, or in the aftermath.   All resistance from an unwilling spankee can, perhaps, be dealt with even before the "crime" is revealed.    And for those who have spanking rituals as part of their foreplay, the whys and wherefores may be part of the post coital relaxation.

For most readers do not really care about the motivation of the spankee unless the set up is so unbelievable that it beggars belief.   You might have come across something of the sort:  a school rebellion results in the headmistress accepting a caning from the head prefect.   The author is absorbed with a role-reversal disciplinary punishment, and it all works ,,, because ,,, because..    The motivation may very well require a suspension of disbelief larger than that required for the set up itself.

The reader wants the victim to find a quick excuse to assume the position:  authors need to recognize that when they ponder why this particular spankee would accept a spanking from that particular spanker.

Another tale No Jesting Matter has been added to the Free Stories page.   This one contains some material of a more explicitly erotic nature.

Motivation - 1

The whole point of spanking fiction is that someone gets spanked.    There are two important pieces of information that an author may wish to tell the reader:  why the spanker wants to spank, and why the spankee wants/allows/accepts the spanking.   We shall deal with the spankee in a future post.

The reader - and the writer - knows that spanking has an arousing effect that is very difficult to explain to the vanilla community.   Even the harshest discipline spanking can ignite a fire in the spanko:  provided that it is a fantasy.   The vast majority of spankos are as horrified of excessive pain as anyone else.   It is when it is clearly unreal that it can add spice.

That the spanker can get a buzz from the spanking is, at first sight, a little odd.   Pain is being imparted on some third party, and the pain the third party feels triggers an emotional/sensual response of a pleasurable nature.   Vanilla researchers have hypothesized many possibilities, from red buttocks being a sex signal to dark dominant/subserviant roles that adults have or play at having.

Well, the first thing to note is that surveys among spankos constantly reveal that about 75% got hooked at an age well before puberty (5 years old seems to tbe median), and about 25% long after puberty.   Spanking as foreplay is not associated with the sex drive being switched on.   In most spankos, a non-sexual fascination in spanking gets "attached" to sexual fantasy.   And for some, to sexaul activity itself.

Totally confusing and compounding the issue is that spanking is a common punishment for children.   The pros and cons of that are for another time and place.

But there is a brand of spanking fiction in which the spankee is a child.    And, on a personal note, that disturbs me.   The fantasy of non-consensual spankings can be a turn on:  but, for me, having children in such pieces is so close to kiddy-porn that I am unable to read, or write, such fiction.

So - the given motivation for the spanker in a tale is nominally just a device to make the set-up more realistic.   Regardless of the given reason "Doctor Johnson was a strict disciplinarian of the old school", the assumed reason is here is a person who has the power to inflict pain on someone's bottom.   If you are a spanker, you may empathize with the spanker's actions as a fantasy to inflame your own personal passions.

The Pay off

After the spanking is over, an author can take one of three routes:  erotic, therapeutic, some other punch line.

And to some degree, the final route is dictated by the initial set-up.   If the set up is judicial and non-consensual, an erotic pay off is going to be difficult to pull off:  and in some scenarios totally against the grain.   But we shall leave that issue alone for now.

On the other hand, if the set up has two adults who are clearly using spanking as part of their foreplay, not to have an erotic ending is likely to annoy most readers.   So, if one has set up an expectation of human sensuality, you need to be able to deliver the goods.

It has been my experience that most main-stream spanko readers do not want find that they have been led into a porn-storm climax.   (Mainstream:  a preference for male/female relationships that do not include extremely bizarre fetishes).    There is a brand of pornographic literature that uses spanking (and other more savage forms of pain infliction) as a starting point.   Readers who want that sort of reading material know where to find it, and will not bother with more pedestrian spanking material.

If you describe the erotic ending to a spanking in too genteel a tone, you may end up parodying Fifty Shades - not a criticism per se, but possibly an outcome to avoid.

So - a middle ground is recommended where it is quite clear that sexual union takes place, but in terms that does not sound like a medical discourse on the mechanics of what happened.    Very tricky - so we shall have to return to this topic again before long.

But onto the final punch line.   Most good stories have a pay off line of one sort or another.   A surprise twist.   A hint of future action between the characters.   Or may be an epigram or adage to bring things to a close.

I shall tell you a sad truth - nearly all the good surprise endings have been used up.   If you come up with new one, cherish and use it on a piece that is publish-worthy.  And in the attempt to invent new surprise endings, some authors are straying close to Spanish-language soap opera surprises of  a "My God - He Is My Father!" sort.    Accept that surprise endings are no longer the cause celebre they used to be.   Instead, a good hint of future entanglement is fine.   Or a simple wind down back to normalcy will work as well.

The set up and the spanking were the two big things.  If you have succeeded there then putting everything away is a chore that must be done, but not too excess.

I have just uploaded another free story - The Cabin In The Woods.   You will find a link to it on the Free Short Stories page.

Enjoy.

The Action

Assuming the set up has given a realistic reason for a spanking to take place, at first sight describing the resulting spanking should be relatively easier.

The most cursory research will show that the number of possible permutations (people, site, implement, position, dress, etc.) gives the author over a million different basic scenarios.   An embarrassment of riches.   So telling the reader what happens should be a piece of cake.

Alas - no.   The description of the scenario simply adds - or distracts - from the realism and atmosphere of the action about to take place.

The biggest problem the writer faces is that there are very few words to describe the act of smacking a bottom, and just as few words that can describe the resulting effects.

The absolute beginner, wanting to make a spanking as painful as realistically possible, might repeat the word "SMACK!!" twenty or thirty times to show just how much the spankee is suffering.  Such laziness usually causes the reader to abandon the tale.  So much so, that some editors will reject a story out of hand if there is as much as a single five word SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! sequence anywhere in it.   And using SPANK! instead does not improve matters.

On the other hand, describing each slap in slow-motion close-up detail quickly leads to the same reader reaction - not reading to the finish - but for completely a different reason.   Not only is there too much information, the sparsity of descriptive words means that repetition quickly sets in.   Or to avoid using the same words repeatedly, the author may be forced to find rare and obscure ones in an attempt to keep the telling fresh.   The first time I came across the word "nates" as a synonym for "buttocks" was when a writer had run out of words that meant "bottom", and had found that one in some obscure thesaurus.

Getting the spanking scene down - so that it is realistic, as painful as the tale demands, and does not turn the reader away - is possibly the most difficult task any author, in any genre, ever undertakes.

So we shall return to this topic many times over future posts to see if the art is, in fact, one that can be learned.

The Set Up

Most spanking stories have three stages:  there is going to be a spanking - there is a spanking - there was a spanking.

Once you get started, the rest just sort of flows along.

But getting the set up "right" is the second biggest problem spank-fiction authors face: unless the spankee has done something worthy of a spanking, the story is not going to get very far.   (We shall discuss the biggest problem in a future post).

It would seem to me that there are only three basic events that can trigger a spanking:  the rules (domestic or judicial) demand it, the spanker demands it or the spankee demands it.   The author can set out a rule that is to be followed, the spankee does not follow that rule:  the set up is complete.   Or someone is on the prowl and wishes to spank someone for their own gratification:  well, perhaps in some forms of erotica maybe, or we are hell bent on having an abusive outcome - rarely used.   And the spankee wanting to be spanked can also lead us into dark erotica or frothy farce.

Over and again, we find the opening plot device is that a rule has been broken, and the consequence is corporal punishment.   The number of "rules" that can be devised are not that extensive.   A credit card has been maxed out, a curfew broken, a cigarette smoked.   The sum total is not that big:  so over and over we read about some hapless housewife who has over-spent her budget...   To such an extent, eventually, when we read in the opening paragraphs that the hapless housewife has overspent her budget, our heart may sink and we yearn to read of some other, realistic, reason for us to get to the next stage.

Some writers have taken to simply ignoring the set-up, per se.   The action starts just before the onset of spanking action, and the "crime" is alluded to do but never spelt out.   I suppose this is sort of ok-ish:  it largely depends upon the quality of the writing; if it is good enough, you might readily ignore the lack of a set up.

Which means that those of us who really want to bring the reader original and entertaining fiction spend large amounts of creative time on the set up.   If we get that right, the rest will flow almost of its own accord.  Well, almost.   We still have to tackle the biggest problem next.

The light and the dark

Authors of spanking fiction tend to write material designed to push the hot buttons of those spankos most in tune with the author's own tastes.   An author who is interested in M/f domestic discipline will tend to attract readers who have that very same taste.   And those readers who enjoy the erotic side of spanking will find what they are looking for from a writer who also enjoys that side.

But, as writers, we have the freedom to explore areas that are dark and edgy.    Not because we have dark and edgy sex lives, or revel over the hapless victims who tend to get treated rather badly in such tales - it is an area that offers wonderful opportunities to explore the motives and motivations of those on either side of the equation of pain simply for the sake of pain.

So, dear reader, when you come across one of my darker tales - please do not read into it any more than a portrayal of how sometimes things could happen.   Not as an endorsement, purely as an illustration.

For when I put my pen away, I really am the most gentlest soul you are every likely to bump into shopping at the supermarket.

My latest work Just Wilhelmina was published on Kindle over the weekend.   It tells the tale of a young girl and her three friends as they wreak mayhem around a small village, and routinely get whacked for their efforts.   The aim is to provide a fun related approach to discussing things of a spanking nature and, hopefully, providing a laugh or two on the way.

A paperback version is being created in the near future.

Welcome to the world of spanking literature.   Here you will find some of my short stories - from comic to dark - and details of the novels I have published or am working on.

Your comments are greatly appreciated, and I shall try to respond to all of them.