What is desired in a spanking story?

Whenever I hear someone suggest that there is an optimum length for spanking fiction, I am reminded of the scene from the movie Amadeus in which the composer first presents his work to the Austrian emperor. After listening to it, the emperor and his court composers respond with the simple critique, "Too many notes," after which they go on to suggest that the ear would grow tired from having to listen for so long.

Well, I'm with Mozart on this one. I'll grant that a story of less than 5,000 words will have a wider popular appeal since more readers will be willing to give it a chance. But if we are talking about what makes a good spanking story, I say word count has absolutely nothing to do with it. I can't recall ever having read anything in any genre and said, "The characters were appealing, the plot was interesting and there were a lot of neat ideas in it, but I just wish it had been shorter!" I'm also quite certain that I've never said of a short story or novel, "It was badly written, unimaginative and a complete waste of my time, but I'm going to recommend it to all my friends because it was just the right length."

For me, what really makes a good spanking story ( or any story, for that matter ) is its uniqueness. Give me fully-realized characters, unusual settings or a plot that I actually have to pay attention to. Give me something I'll remember, something I haven't already read a hundred times before. Do that and you have not only my attention but my admiration as well.

On the other hand, books are usually divided into manageable chapters, and you can stick a bookmark or fold a page to keep your place anyway. Online reading requires a similar device for stopping and continuing a long story. I don't think anyone is seriously proposing that a serial can be too long; more a matter of how long each chapter should be, so that you don't have to sacrifice too much time in one sitting to reach the next waypoint.

Hmmm....seems to me over the year and a half I have been on site, and on the stories I have read and commented on, I would have wrote something close to this comment about 3 times.....it does happen.


CS

One in a thousand. Statistically insignificant.

I can't do a length. My stories tend to be on the long side. I think my record is 20,000 words. I broke the last Spank Shop into 3, because I felt it was simply too long to be read in one go, and it was 3 separate stories in one, really.

Regarding length: A story should be like a woman's skirt, adequate to cover the subject, but brief enough to be interesting.

Very well put!

I thought that worked well, too, Seegee. It worked for me because I could read each one at my leisure instead of going through the entire lot.

Thanks for that Ben. I wrote it, and looked at it, and just thought, you know what, this needs to be broken into 3.

Let me just add one thing to the excellent points made. A good story of any kind will contain an element of surprise or suspense. Maybe the detailed description of a spanking is enough to turn some KLSF readers on, but I want to be gripped by a story. It could be an element of fantasy, a puzzle or an unexpected twist in the plot. I particularly enjoy reading about a struggle for power that could go either way.