What's the hardest part to write?

Another part I skip writing much about - wardrobe.

I own like 80 bras, you would think I would know what they are called, but I don't. (TIL there exist 'minimizer bras'...)

Funny you mention it, because it occurs to me that my few descriptions of what the women in my stories wear are basically just a nod of acknowledgment that male readers like to hear about what women are wearing. (Okay, fine, here you go: she's wearing black lace underwear, happy now? Moving on...)

As for the guys, I suspect most female readers don't care (I know I don't), so it's always the same thing - jeans and t-shirt for bottoms, and... I don't think I've bothered to even mention anything for tops.

This is exactly my approach too. Occasionally I feel obliged to mention her tight jeans or sexy underwear, but mostly I don't bother. Bras don't get much air time in my stories, because almost always, shirts stay on.

No, no! Tell us more...what kind of lace? what shade of black? Did they cling deliciously? With what degree of eroticism did her pale flesh contrast with the shiny black lace? (Slobber, slobber).

I think it actually depends on what kind of brain the reader has...

It was fashionable in education until fairly recently to give pupils diagnostic tests to discover if they were predominantly aural, visual or kinaesthetic learners so that the schoolteachers (who of course already know exactly what each of the 120 students they teach a week can and can't do, know and don't know, at any given moment of any day - and who keep copious written records to prove it) can tailor their lessons even more minutely to the individual needs of each student. (Excuse the little rant there ).

Perhaps visually imaginative readers easily picture the characters dressed just how they like them, and find any wardrobe description an annoying interruption on the part of the author whereas those without the same degree of visual imagination (of whom I confess myself one) welcome a bit of help in picturing the character? Personally, I just don't 'see' things in my mind's eye or when I close my eyes the way others tell me they do. Whether this is because I'm more 'aural' or 'anal' or whatever, or it's a result of an excess of hallucinogenics in my youth, is probably impossible to judge at this late stage.

So...not so casual please, you visually imaginative female authors!

Having said which, it's touching you feel obliged to give a nod of acknowledgement to males' pleasure in the clothed female form along the way to your characters' spanking agony/bliss. Thanks, at least, for that.

What a thinly disguised request for a strip tease. However... Challenge: Accepted!
I wrote this in five minutes, so please be gentle with me:

"She looked up at him where she sat on the bed, her lips parted, and leaned forward towards him. Her sudden motion made her heavy breasts spill forward, dislodging one of the flower-embroidered shoulder straps onto her soft goose-prickled arm, and he watched them, unblinking, as they nearly escaped the tight confines of her satiny silver-coloured bra entirely. A flush crept up her neck as the skin on her chest waved up and down, in rhythm with her frightened breathing.

His eyes trailed further down, taking in her long thighs, their shape spread out by their own weight on the unmade bed. The lacy strip of satin holding her matching silver panties together disappeared inside the feminine crease that marked the bottom of her hips. She leaned further down and hid her face in her arms, inadvertently baring her lower back to his gaze, past the dimples on each side of her spine above her rounded bottom cheeks. Her squirming did nothing to change his mind, and she failed to notice that she only succeeded in tugging the only piece of protective clothing left to her further and further down along her legs.

She sat up again, hitched the fallen shoulder strap back up onto her neck, squeezing the soft roundness of her breasts together as she did so, but then gave in and pulled both straps down again. They hung loosely around her upper arms, leaving only the thin lacy material of the cups to support the heaviness of her smooth breasts."

OK, I've had enough. Clearly I need to stick to spanking.

I do intend to address the other points in your post too later.

Well, it was tongue in cheek (to continue the physical descriptions that seem to have overtaken this thread), but thank you and...not bad for 5 minutes work!

I do see your point though about can we get the hell on with the spanking please?

I know it was tongue in cheek - is anything ever not with you people?

Regarding your rant about giving students diagnostic tests so the teacher can tailor their teaching to the student's needs:
[Nelson from the Simpsons] Ha - haa!! I teach adults, so they can suck it! My way or the highway!
I could never teach children or adolescents, though, so... respect for all those who do.

Regarding picturing the characters, on average men are a lot more visually driven than women, and that explains why men care more about picturing a character in their head than women do, statistically. But you make an interesting point that this trait is perhaps partly responsible for men also being less able to picture something that is not explicitly described. I shall keep that in mind when writing.
Or alternatively, perhaps you were indeed just hopped up on goofballs


I sense subtle sarcasm...
But seriously, when you write, do you try to write for what women want? Or do you just write what turns you on? In the end I just have to write what I like, because trying to do anything else causes instant writer's block. I'll keep throwing in some pretty clothes and cleavage here and there, tho.

I'm not sure whether to cry or laugh: My characters don't have looks, they rarely have names, and the only time you get to hear what they have on, is when they have to take it off. It's not that I'm not trying to write pictorially, but I try to trick the readers into creating their own images - that's what I have always done myself when I have been reading, and I have always assumed that others do it the same way. I must admit I sometimes get irritated with authors who put in too many (irrelevant) descriptions as I feel they are imposing on my right to create my own images (for those of you who don't know, the murder in "The Brothers Karamazov" took place at my grandparents' house in Norway).

Still the right description can send your head in new directions. I loved the following from TheEnglishMaster's latest serial:

"... a young woman, with short blond hair. She walked a bit strangely, with steps too big for her height. It was an eccentric but determined gait, and Emma realised she knew it; she recognized that walk!"

I must admit I immediately forgot the blond hair and - for some reason - pictured her dark for the rest of the story, but I never forgot the walk, and immediately understood when Emma later fell in love with it's owner.

Ah! Wrong this time - entirely straight-faced. I was rolling up your 'nod of acknowledgement' with Rosie's 'obliged' to make a genuine acknowledgement of my own.


What turns me on, but of course with an eye to the reader's experience of it, and that's any gender of reader; I'm with the Indonesians, who apparently think in terms of five genders.



Thanks, but don't put yourself out on our account!


Seriously? That's amazing. If there's one thing I do (vaguely) remember from that immensely long novel it's that study with its double doors into the garden.


It's interesting what we choose to take in and what we ignore whilst reading, isn't it?

First of all to go back to the original question, I always suffer from what I like to call "Chapter Two" syndrome. My notebooks are full with sensational first chapters, filled with promising characters, interesting situations, and, most of all, I do adore a good cliff-hanger.

Typically, though, this is well before the actual bum-blistering begins, and I find this to often be the most workmanlike part of the story. I have the setup and the characters; I have the first punishment in mind, but the effort of getting them there is often too much. I feel that things start to slow down a little too much here - I'm all for delaying the gratification, but the pace of the story and, in my case, the humour, has to keep going until it's knickers-down time. I've tried non-linear stories, but these just don't seem to work with my plot-driven brain.

I always find the actual punishment very easy to write; usually the easiest part of the entire piece; that said, it could be because my spankings arrive quite late and I have pretty well-set characters by then with predictable reactions.

I don't really like to be too specific on description, as I myself when reading a story like the freedom to picture a character in my mind. Typically I'll go for the basics physically; blonde, five three, slim, might be all. Then you have a much more detailed non-physical description: your fairly generic blonde has recently graduated from Cambridge with a double first in Classics and Economics, speaks with a slight Somerset twang and curls her toes when she's nervous - these for me are far more 'visual' effects than breast size or measurements.

I know I am late. Please what is wrong with tighty whities? Male or Female. Easily dispatched otk.