"Words To First SPANK" & "Ratio of Action to Context"

Ditto, I'm afraid, Brosse, who'll give you 3,000 words of set-up and then dispose of the spanking in four lines. As he once told me "I find the stories with long drawn out descriptions of spankings tend to be tedious and repetitive. Also I try and tune the spanking to suit the situation and in domestic situations they are not long drawn out affairs with numerous implements."

Well, takes all sorts...

Now, now Phil!

If I recall correctly the two stories you commented on only had 2k words not 3k and one was a Part 2.

The spanking descriptions in mainstream fiction are short and succinct also, but they are often far more powerful IMHO than the over-egged 'action' in spanking fiction, largely because by the time they occur you are well in tune with the protagonists and the plot, and your imagination does the rest.

Would that be a gulp?

Now, now, I happen to enjoy Saturninus.

I think these measures can be interesting ways to describe stories as long as we don't turn them in to norms that stories ought to follow. Personally, I think I have enjoyed (and written) stories with indices spread all over the spectrum. There are also things I enjoy a lot that these measures are too coarse to capture, and that is the slow and gradual realization that a spanking is on its way - the word is never spoken, but you can tell from the characters' feelings and behavior that it is going to happen. (These stories may actually work even better on non-spanking sites where the setting itself is a give-away.)

Yes - although I'm in the TATTYNBFS (Take All The Time You Need Before First Spanking) camp, we know from the start with an LSF story that, if nothing else, there's going to be a spanking in it, so why not cut to the chase? And I'm surely not alone in receiving crystal clear instructions from esteemed editrix F. Bunny of LSF Publications to get to the first spanking smartish in my books, or else.

But not all stories are commercially driven, and this Glorious Kilahara Library allows us to luxuriate in whatever narrative longueurs we choose. It can be entertaining following a plot and wondering how and why the inevitable will occur, and the simple enjoyment of escaping into the world of the characters created is the same as in any fiction.

Finally, judging by the number of members who manage to 'read' ten stories in eight minutes, there's a simple and obvious remedy for the tedium of excessive WordsToFirstSpank - scroll and skim till you find the whack shot.

depends what you're after, doesn't it? And commercial books are different to the library. It's been a long time since I bought a spanking book (dunno if they're still found in airport bookstalls and on the top shelf in the railway station newsagent?). Back then, they were bought by businessmen away from home, who needed a bit of titillation for the hotel. The story had to be something where you could get your titillation the same evening, so even if the book was 120 pages, you didn't want something where the excitement was on page 97 and you wouldn't have reached it before you were safe back in the bosom of your family, explaining why you had "Carol Kane's Knickers" hidden in your suitcase.
The library no doubt serves people looking for a quick bit of fun (me, sometimes) and also people looking for a genuinely good story that includes a spanking. Sometimes not knowing how, or when it will happen makes the whole thing like a treasure hunt, with a surprise, an exciting surprise. Sometimes the spanking aspect isn't really the most touching, lasting aspect. Some of my favourite experiences with the library have been when I've set off for a quick bit of fun, but bumped into something long, with really engaging, human characters, an intriguing plot, locations that I can see in my mind, where I wish I could go and smell the air, and where I'm truly sad at the end that I can't get to know the people, and will never meet them again. Sometimes, by the end, I've forgotten why I came here, but know I will remember and think about the story. Those are the moving ones. But it takes all sorts.

Oftentimes, I appreciate a story where there is little if no spanking, only the thoughts of the excited victim. Yeah, especially if the spankee goes into great detail about the emotions and sensations involved. Other times, I appreciate full extended detail concerning the spanking if it is truly thorough and difficult to even imagine. All of this mostly depends upon the author and his ability to arouse. So ... I suppose my take on this has no viable answer to your question. I just normally stumble into a story I really really like, regardless of the authors attempts whether accidental or not and that becomes a favorite that I want to see again and again. Damn, I miss Austin Carr. Sorry if many of you never caught his stories before he left. But there are others here equally adept so I'm sticking around.

I don't see a perfect formula for this and I can appreciate both types. It all comes down to the plot for me. I like long build-ups that get you into the mood, but it has to be entertaining and catching. If it's a long build-up, the actual spanking tend to be very important to me, the release has to match the build-up. A short spanking at the end of a monumental build-up and I feel robbed. In general I like a story that involves a spanking, rather than a spanking with some limited fluff around it, supposed to form the setting. Getting the characters and the emotions through to the reader makes all the difference to me, but having said that, it doesn't have to be long. Some masterpieces get it all through in a few lines and make it equally entertaining. And having said that, I have realized that I subconciously tend to shy away from stories longer than 10,000 words, as I rarely have the time to give them the attention they deserve. Hopefully I'll get the chance to read better and more thorough when I retire. And finally, I fear that the word count to the first spank often is rather high in my stories.