Suspension of disbelief

I think that when someone reads a spanking story, there is a sort of unwritten contract between that reader and the author that goes along the lines of "I will willingly suspend my disbelief that the events in your tale could have really happened, in order that you can give me a story that is satisfying to me, in some way."

We authors use all the tricks of the trade to enhance the willing suspension of disbelief - by placing the tale in a time and place where the spanking we describe would be commonplace - or by giving our characters motivation not experienced everyday, and so on.

I think that I sometimes fail on my side of the bargain by making my characters act out of character, if that makes sense. What I mean is, having delineated the traits for a person, having he or she do something that that sort of person would never do: this alone can cause a rejection of the story as being "not believable".

I wonder if there are other areas in which we cause our readers to turn away, because no matter what twists and turns we may offer, the tale lacks sufficient credulity.

And, more germane, what can we authors do to reduced the incidence of such turn offs in our writings?

This reminds me of a line I've read or heard more than a few times, and I wish I knew who first said it:

"I want to suspend my disbelief, not hang it by the neck until it's dead."

There are three cardinal rules when it comes to maintaining suspension of disbelief.


1. The fictional world must be internally consistent.

In fiction (particularly speculative fiction, though that's beside the point), the characters inhabit a world that might differ from our own. While their world may not follow the rules of ours, it does have to follow its own. If cold fusion technology exists, the reader should expect everyone to use it for everything unless there is something that prevents it. If magic exists, the reader should expect people to have a different view of the universe because of it, and the author must take magic into account when thinking through the history, cultures, and technological level of his world.

In regards to the spanking story, what kinds of spankings are allowed in this world? If people are publically bared and paddled by the nearest authority figure for a variety of infractions, everyone should be aware of this, and the social paradigm that resulted in such a law should be visible in other ways as well.


2. The characters must act like real people.

The single worst thing a writer can do is have the characters just act as the plot demands. People do things for a reason, and that reason is what allows the reader to connect with the characters. Characters need to stick to their personalities and behave in a recognizable fashion, even if the character evolves or changes over the course of the arc.

Spanking stories (and erotic fiction in general) are all too often terrible at this. Children are subjected to overtly sexual punishments by their parents or neighbors, in full view of the public, without anyone saying anything. Characters decide to administer spankings to other characters at the drop of a hat, without it being justified by the personalities involved. No matter how outlandish the situation, people MUST act like people with realistic motivations and interactions, or else you're basically writing a story about a bunch of marionettes on strings.


3. You can break rules 1 and 2 as long as its funny.

Irony trumps everything. You can write a story that's totally out there and ridiculous as long as the story acknowledges its own implausibility and makes light of it. The story can't ever be completely devoid of internal consistency and relatable characters, but you can work around them here and there by playing up the absurdity and encouraging the reader to laugh along with you. This cannot ever be used to EXCUSE violations of rules 1 and 2; for rule 3 to work, the story has to be written humorously and sarcastically throughout. Remember also that rule 3 cannot carry a story by itself; however absurd the story is, you need SOMETHING relatable and believable to serve as a foundation. You can NOT just write without regard for realism and then lazily cite comedy as an excuse.

I tend to use rule 3 fairly liberally in my spanking fiction, as I prefer my porn with a healthy dose of humor (and, really, I'm turned on by people getting their butts hit with pieces of wood. If I can't laugh at myself on that count, it means I have some serious ego issues). In general, my favorite spanking stories are ones with realistic characters andsettings, with one or two absolutely off the wall and nonsensical elements that drive the action. The inanity of the characters' predicament plays right along with otherwise realistic character interactions and personal developments, and ends up being touching, kinky, engaging, creative, and really goddamned funny.

A topic near and dear to my heart. Guyde, I have read a number of your stories and I can't recall one in which I did not believe in the authenticity of your characters. Examples are Road Rage and No Jesting Matter. I think you do a very good job making your characters real and entirely believable.

SNM, I'm envious. You said it very eloquently. Too ofter I find myself reading a story here and rolling my eyes saying, 'no way--you would never do that' or "that's totally out of character' or "where did THAT come from? He proposes a spanking and she just says, Ok?". It is hard under any circumstances and especially hard when you are trying to create plausible spanking scenarios. And to make it even harder, when you refuse to use the old saw that your character is a "spanko" or that they have a "DD relationship" already.

I won't repeat what I said in my essay on this subject, "Plausibility and..." but it's nice to know that I have company.

Well, if you set a story a century ago and then have an Irish mother administer severe corporal correction to her teenaged child for a major offense, and the boy cooperates without resistance or even protest, does that require a suspension of disbelief? IMHO not at all, that scenario is perfectly credible for its setting--in fact, if the woman simply sat him down and had a heart-to-heart discussion with him about his misconduct, it would strike me as much less believable since that kind of a parental approach would've been almost nonexistent in the established setting.

But suppose that it turned out that the child hadn't really misbehaved but simply was gratified by having his bare behind soundly whipped by his mother, and the woman understood that but pretended to believe his 'confession' of wrongdoing because she in turn enjoyed administering the chastisement? AFAIC that would be a relatively unlikely motivation a century ago, very few mother-son combinations would have had those feelings (or at least been able to identify them as such) back then. To make such a story reasonably believable, I'd venture that the reader would have to concede that the top-mother/bottom-son relationship described was highly atypical but did nonetheless occur in the particular situation being described.

However, establishing a character's personality and value system and then having him/her inexplicably behave contrary to them, that would be a serious credibility issue--I'd find it very difficult to suspend my disbelief unless a rational underlying reason for the unexpected, out-of-character behavior were eventually to be provided.

I can easily suspend my disbelief to embrace a clandestine world of magic, but if Harry Potter had suddenly switched to Lord Voldemort's side in the middle of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, after opposing 'You-Know-Who' for six-and-a-half books, then I'd very likely have been incredulous--unless a solid reason (perhaps a faked 'defection' to learn the Death Eaters' plans) had surfaced later on. (No 'spoilers' here--for those who just watch the movies.)

Having a character behave in a manner that's statistically unlikely, such as all those children in Grace Brackenridge's stories who angle to repeatedly receive seriously stinging chastisements from adults and even other children, isn't necessarily a problem in terms of credulity to me--but if there's a sudden and unexplained change in attitude and/or actions, like a child who finds spankings to be only painfully punitive trying to get his/her naked buttcheeks blistered, there had better be a sensible reason provided for me to consider it a plausible circumstance.

Some spankophiles seem to believe that there's a scene in the novel GONE WITH THE WIND in which Rhett Butler spanks Scarlett O'Hara, but of course there isn't; IMHO it wouldn't be consistent with Scarlett's character for her to be 'tamed' via being corporally chastised by a 'dominant man'--which AFAIC is why, in spite of several verbal threats to that effect, Rhett never does lambaste her derriere. Based on Scarlett's character, being walloped by Rhett would make her angry and resentful but it would never 'tame' her--although that outcome does apparently occur fairly regularly in other historical romance novels.

Ahhhh well, that's my analysis anyway... --C.K.

Not that Rowling's take on the secret magical world was a sturdy one. Taking all the elements she introduced into account, there's just no way in hell that magic would have been able to stay secret for any length of time, or that wizard and muggle society would have been able to maintain so much isolation from one another. She also had plenty of more minor continuity issues (for instance, waiting all year for the mandrake potion to be ready in the second book and then having mandrake potion be a readily purchasable commodity year-round in later installments).

But I get your point.

OMG! OMG! OMG!
I can't read any more of your post. I'm exactly halfway through Deathly Hallows (for the first time--as if that's possible). I'll come back to this forum when I'm done with the book! (just in case).

That's the rule I've been living by of late. For the longest time, I strove for realism and believability in most of my stories (not always with complete success). Now I let the humor take over (except, of course, in Traveling Spankerman, which is completely serious).

The most unlikely things do happen, I don't think suspending disbelief should be a problem. Imagination is what any writer needs!! Predictabilty is definitely the enemy!

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with this. People acting out of character, or the story ignoring its own premises, can bring suspension of disbelief crashing down faster than the stock market in 1929.