S is for Surprise Ending

As authors, we seem to delight in giving our readers an unexpected twists at the end of the tales we tell.

It probably starts with our early (non spanko) childhood efforts - where we pile on invention after invention to put our protagonist - often ourselves - into a wilder and wilder situation.   I bet  you, like me, resolved the impossibility we had created so used the twist in the tale in the manner of:  "... and then I woke up."   Gosh - we thought to ourselves - no one will spot that one coming.

But ask any English teacher of kids under the age of 13:  they will tell you they see that at least once a semester if not once a week.   It would seem we all do it, at least once, in our formative writing days.

This illustrates the nub of the problem - finding really new dramatic twists for short stories is getting almost impossibly hard in all genres.    O. Henry alone is charged with using up about 50% of all realistic ironic endings.    Fortunately, he was not into spanking faction

That does not help a great deal - for us authors of spanking fiction, the task of finding a novel ending is even harder.   We are expected to turn out a tale that meets our reader's expectations that the set up for the spanking is realistic (no easy task), that the spanking will be realistically described (no easy task) and that the aftermath will be consistent with steps one and two.   OK, if you have set up steps one and two in a workpersonlike manner, step three is relatively easy.

Step three is relatively easy until you decide it is to contain a twist in the tail.   It doesn't have to - mind - if the aftermath is raw, unadorned slaking of lust, the need for a surprise ending has largely gone away.   And often a simple acceptance of all that has gone before is quite OK.   Not stunning, but very acceptable.

But if you do decide you want a surprise ending, I think you should take counsel that some surprise endings have been done so often that they now are virtually cliches.    You might know the sort of thing:  the school-girl is actually his adult wife.   The assumed victim of the beating was really in charge the whole time.   The unwilling victim finds the event has really been extremely rousing much to much mental confusion.   If a beating for such a minor offense is warranted, just wait until the major offense is discovered.   And so on.

There are new surprise endings waiting to be mined, and the mind games to unearth them are great fun.

But if you are new to writing spanking fiction, I would suggest you go and read a vast amount of spanking short stories by other authors - as due diligence to understand what the reading audience expects, and to make sure your "new" really astonishing twist hasn't been used so many times it causes a yawn rather than a shocked smile of congratulation.

When you do succeed in your quest for a new twist in the tail, I promise you your reading public will sure let you know.