Cliches

If you're talking punishment spanking, then how many different types of wrongdoing are there? I bet they've pretty much all been used. Let's see... you have lying, swearing, having sex (with the wrong person, at least), dis-respecting parents, stealing. There - I'm half-way through the Ten Commandments. Spanking', though, is bit light for murder. But what else have you got? Cheating, car accidents, traffic violations, being late, drinking, smoking, fighting, carelessness, bullying, uniform violations, laziness, missed assignments, not following directions, invading privacy, doing something unsafe, general rule-breaking, going off a diet, and of course, going through the underwear drawer. Ok, maybe I've missed a few, but there can't be more than two or three dozen different offenses that people commit - in life, not just in spanking stories - and ALL of them HAVE been used as the reason for spankings, many times (some just more than others!). I've used most of them myself. Of course the particulars may change so that it 'seems' different, but it's really not. Wait - maybe someone should write a story about members getting spanked for not posting comments to stories they read here at the Library. Oh, darn... it's already been done!

What makes a story fresh is not just finding a different offense for which a spanking will be given, but how a story is told, how the characters are developed, what the relationship of the characters is, how everything is described, what the motivations of the characters are, etc. Ok, maybe it's also helpful to avoid the boy checking out the underwear drawer, or the schoolgirl smoking between classes, UNLESS there is a twist to it.

Quite frankly, when the well runs dry on fresh ways to tell a disciplinary spanking story, it's time to find totally different reasons for spankings - ones that aren't disciplinary in nature. I find myself doing that a lot. Even her there are a lot of common ones - realization of a fantasy, just plain curiosity, the outcome of a bet or a game, a sexy way to win the lady, and so forth.

Or, try something really different. What if spanking (not the threat of spanking, but the spanking itself) helped you lose weight? What if a spanking caused you to taste your favorite dessert, without actually eating it? What if the urge to spank (or be spanked) spread like an infection? What if someone offered you money to spank your spouse? What if a spanking calmed nerves and helped you sleep before a big day at work? What if a spanking was something you did subconsciously IN your sleep? What if you had to get spanked for a story you were commissioned to write? What if someone just showed up at your door and told you a spanking was paid for? There are SO many creative plots for a spanking story if you divorce yourself from the notion a spanking must be disciplinary.

I think the readers are happy with what they get from us authors. I really do. I believe they simply care about the whys and the wheres. I've had comments on the judicial spankings I've done, and seen comments from other authors who've done them, too. I've been told the mother-in-law ones are loved. The brother and big siter or vice versa.


This is what I've been saying all along. The way it's told. The characters. The buildup. The porn movies come to mind again. If there's no buildup you simply have three minutes of dialogue and then right back to screwing again. The same applies here if we're not careful. They read because it's their fetish and they want to live it through words.

So, I'll think up some fun stuff, but I'm not going to ditch the obvious, which is what the readers come here for. Anyway, we could beat a dead horse here on this subject. Let's just write what we like to write and let the readers decide. What we need is more readers to come to the forum and give us a hand. We authors can talk ourselves blue in the face and agree to disagree. One says one thing and another says something else. It all boils down to simple opinion. I'm just going to keep writing. If I get ONE comment on a story that's fine. I've made that person happy and that makes me happy.

B

njrick wrote:

´What if the urge to spank (or be spanked) spread like an infection?´

Done that! Curiously it´s titled ´A Curious Case of ASS´

You left out the most obvious wrongdoing, nj: Failure to read and comment on a Rick Marlowe story.
(a severely punishable offense!)

This rather shows ignorance of the First Rule of Children's Fiction and that is "Get rid of the parents".

Now spanking fiction is similar to children's fiction in that one often has to suspend the usual rubrics of society to ensure that a spanking is a normal course of action, and in the same way the children's author ensures that things in the fictional world are believeably different from those in the reader's world.


Some years ago I had a conversation with Vincent (author here) on why every story seemed to contain a handsome and rich alpha male husband with a pretty but troubled wife who needs a stern hand...Yawn. Needless to say these characters now only appear in our works as parodies. I just hope the reader notices.

I think there is room for all types of stories, both those with often-used themes, and those with a new take on things. Its the quality of the writing thats important and of course one's own tastes.
I always enjoy a good story with one of the standard plots- mother spanks bratty teen daughter, hubby spanks shrewish wife, store clerk spanks shoplifter, etc.
But new, unusual or unexpected twists in stories are a wonderful idea. Like say instead of mistress spanks her maid or housekeeper, its the other way around, or the cleaning lady spanks the president of the company.

Bingo! In that case, the "terrible accident" isn't actually part of the story, it's just part of the initial "scene setting". I unrepentantly used that exact device in my series "Instant Parenthood". Perhaps I could have thought up some more original way to separate the girl from her natural parents, but why? The story is actually about the delicate, emotional and interesting process of a girl and her uncle learning to live together as daughter and loving parent, and not about how the arrangement came to be necessary.

Guy

I also used it in The Explorers' Daughter, though the deaths of the parents were very bizarre - this was an attmept to set the tone of the story as light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek - though I fear some people didn't get that.

There are standard cliches in our genre just like any other, but it's not so much the presence in the story of such a cliche as how you use it that makes the difference between something hackneyed and something original. In part this is why I wrote that article about the "Nine Plots" in Wellred Weekly. There is sometimes a tendency to recycle old plots and it is easy to fall into that trap. But an author can take an old McGuffin and, hopefully, breathe new life into it. I've tried to do this on a few occasions and I think I pointed them out in that article. The point is, look at your story and ask yourself if this has been written before, and if it has, think of a new twist. A recent example is my "desperate housewives" story that looks like a pretty standard domestic husband-wife scene---until you get to the end. This is a way you can actually use an old cliche to your advantage.

That's interesting, I've got that sort of idea in the pending file under the title "The Invasion of the Botty Smackers" I'll get onto it once the current stalled story is done

As for unusual ways to get rid of the parents, Roald Dahl had James' parents eaten by a rhinoceros in James and the Giant Peach.