How essential is first hand experience?

It is always nice to wonder if the Romance Writers like Johanna Lindsey and Karen Robards have ever received the type of "big girl" spankings they describe in their books?

I would like to think yes.

If you can think it then it can be so, your imagination can do the rest.

For me, the art is more about capturing the atmosphere of the event rather than the punishment itself. I find writing the description of the punishment can get quite tedious, which is partly why I tend to keep the number of strokes moderate. I feel it helps a lot to have been in or witnessed those situations, but would it be so hard for someone who hasn't to imagine themselves either on the receiving end or viewing a punishment? It might even offer a different and highly interesting perspective.

Point 1, agreed. I suppose I assumed a qualifier that was not stated that it be a 'good' spanking story.

Point 2, again agreed. But for me, I think I would rather be the unpaid, unknown inventor of something useful to humanity than the rich creator of the "pet rock". But that's just me.

In fact I found one of the recent comments to be very interesting in saying that writing from personal experience can limit one's audience, and I have found that to be very true. I write from experience to different degrees.....from pieces based on real recollections and fictional suppositions to tales that are nearly 100% (OK maybe 99%) autobiographical, and my most encouraging feedback has come from those who feel an emotional resonance in my stuff. Meaning: a small following indeed. I probably could write more popular pieces.....but then, I think, "really? could I?........nah, I don't think I could."

I suspect everyone has got a particular favoured niche within spanking literature, or any references to it in the Main Stream, that is based on both their preferred fantasy and their personal experience.

These days finding a way to experience your preferred fantasy is not as difficult as it once was. Needless to say I exclude fantasies that are illegal for very good reasons, largely because they are not consensual.

I would say that experience is not necessary, mainly because you are making it up anyway. The issie with fiction is that it is a fairly convoluted way of transferring the ideas in the author's head by way of her understanding of the meanings of words into text, and then that text has to be translated back via the reader's own, and subtly different interpretation of those words into ideas in his head. Obviously there is plenty of scope for things to get changed along the way, but that doesn't matter, it isn't a safety-critical engineering text, it's a story for the purposes of entertainment, and, hopefully to shed some light upon the human condition at the same time.
What does happen in this process though, is a certain amount of dilution, and so the reader needs to exaggerate a bit to get the right ideas to lodge in the readers' minds. That is why all the spankees are real beauties or more silly than a normal person is, and why the smacks are worse.
So, is it important to have been a policeman (or a criminal) to write a believeable crime novel? Clearly no, and that is probably because most of the reader's are not criminals or police. What is important is enough research to maintain the bubble of suspension of disbelief in the reader, and this is where the comments about 50SOG from the BDSM community are apt, because that research plainly wasn't done.
The most interesting parts of a spanking story are the mental parts where the embarrassment is described, and most folk have got something similar in their past they can refer to there even if it's not cp related, so if the spanking is off kilter this can be compensated for with realistically describing the mental torment

I agree to a point, and I believe there is an elderly English lady who is a famous author of Cowboy Westerns and there are a number of cheesy Romance novels are written by men.

However when it comes to spanking stories, I would imagine most writers are like the majority of novelists and do have some first hand experience either naturally or through intensive research of the subject manner.

If I read a spanking story that is OTT, I immediately start to wonder if the person writing it has had any experience? I admit that is somewhat prejudiced, but I feel the same with mainstream fiction generally. Sometimes you think "Yeh right? pull the other one."

Interesting comment. I would venture to say that it's a bit dangerous since what constitutes OTT differs from person to person. I say this because as I wrote in a previous response, my work contains either fictional situations where the events in them, especially the spanking elements, are well within my own experience, or things that are nearly completely or mostly autobiographical. These latter pieces describe events almost exactly as they occurred with just enough 'fiction' to smooth out the plot or give the story a little something extra.

Now here's the kicker: I have received more than a few comments challenging the believability of either the spanking severity itself or the interpersonal relationships providing the situation. And the even funnier part is that more of my 'mostly true' stories have received comments like this than my far more fictional stuff. It's sort of sadly hysterical to read a comment challenging the veracity of something you actually did. Even worse are harsh, almost insulting criticisms of 'characters' that are based on people I care about. So writing from experience has a downside for sure.

Now to your point about how it's easier today for making fantasies come true than in the past? I would agree, and yet? I think you'd be surprised at how few people live the lifestyle. I get the impression from chatting with others elsewhere that there are a LOT of people who would like a spanking lifestyle of some kind and yet don't have one. The result is the popular success of 50 Shades, and the promotion of very specific criteria for what makes a 'good, believable spanking story' curated by people who have never engaged in the activity itself.

I also question how those who say experience is not necessary would feel about the same issue in a different literary arena. A wine critic who never drinks? A translation of a novel by a person who doesn't speak the language and is just using a dictionary word by word? A travel guide written by a person who has never visited the area? A news story written without any investigative reporting? ......oh wait, forget that one. That's kind of what we do have.

And very convincing many of them have been- some of the culprits have got away with it for years and fooled those with first hand experience!

But you could also have added the murder mystery writer who has never killed, the author of historical fiction whose never been back in time, the sci-fi author who's never been to Mars ... the list goes on and on and includes Jules Verne, Walter Scott, H G Wells - dammit I'll even wager that Dante never even went to Hell!!

The first two can at least be extensively researched (but tell me you don't think an actual murderer wouldn't write about the topic with more insight as well as the historical account from someone who was there.) Still these two examples and the sci-fi example are moot since few readers HAVE actually murdered anyone and no one has gone back in time or been to Mars. And to my point, a murderer in prison reading a nice murder mystery might well read the author's description of the act and say, "WTF!? NO, no, no. It's not like that at all." And I'm sure more than one historical figure has rolled over in their grave over a supposed factual account of their lives.

The fantasy writer analogy has been brought up countless times and it would be appropriate if it related to this particular topic. Unfortunately there is a huge difference: a writer can tell me anything they want about Gor, or Oz, or Wonderland, and I could not argue and say, "no I've been there and it's not like that at all." But I can do that with a spanking story.

And to be even more honest, I have never been to many real places, and if someone wrote falsely about them, I would not know. I would be ignorant of the reality ......but if I ever did get the chance to visit, the writer's ignorance of the place would then become glaring. But maybe a spanking story written with no experience for an audience with no experience is kind of the same thing. It'll work for as long as the reader remains ignorant of the topic. But once that person knows otherwise, a naive account s going to sound hollow.