A question for fellow authors.

Don't get hung up about being a threadkiller, Steven. I actually thought that was my jam, anyway this post will do it anyway.

This is turning into an interesting discussion on many levels, including who is the number one thread killer. Like everybody else, I thought it was me.

Back to the main topic, it seems that everybody prefers stories that have as much focus on the character development and the scene setting as on the spanking itself. But character development can mean more than one thing; it can emphasize the characteristics of one particular character, or it can dissect what is typical of a group of people in a given situation. The starting point of this discussion, Hotspur’s "Caught with his pants on", is an example of the latter - the story doesn’t really try to give a deep individual characterization of the protagonists (it’s too short for that), but still manages to give a deeply troubling picture of a collective human phenomenon.

I have tried something of the same myself. Some stories emphasize the individual (and I must admit that these are quite often based on people I have met and been fascinated by), while others are more focused on the typical, e.g., on what it feels like to be facing a spanking.

Is there a third category? What about a story whose theme centers on an issue unique to a spanko, hence making "spanking" the main theme of the story, and yet, the fact that it is an issue rather than an action, the story progresses as a "story" so that the issue can be fleshed out? I would say that a majority of my stories follow this pattern. Assume one is a spanko of some kind, take a particular issue, or question, or aspect of spanking fantasy OR reality, and then explore that aspect through realistic characters and plot.

In such a story the spanking act is not driving the story in the was a "spanking story" does, nor can it exist without the spanking theme the way a "story with a spanking" does. It needs the spanking theme to exist since it is about spanking, just not driven by the ACT of spanking.

For recent example, my latest here, (Rabbit Hole) is about spanking/spanker obsession. The story is rooted in what it is to be an obsessed spanko, and therefore cannot be relevant without spanking in it. And yet it is as far from a "spanking story" as you can get. Yet while there are spanking acts in it, I could probably remove the acts and still have the story......but the story would still very much focus on spanking.

I agree with kdpierre that there is a third category where the spanko kink is the main character - stories that first and foremost explore how the kink works and how spankos typically behave and react. I like to call them "stories about spanking", and although many of them may also be considered "spanking stories" or "stories with a spanking", the author's motivation is different.

I'm not sure if I should try to contribute to this thread, or accept the challenge, and try to kill it.

Some of the writers, who have commented, approach writing as a craft. Writing for me is an outlet. - An emotional release. It is a blunt instrument. Everytime I try to change a story to make it more intelligible for others, it seems to lose it's personal meaning.

I started "journaling" late in life. It kept me from lashing out in the real world. Spanking, or issues related to spanking, were causing conflict. I started to fictionalize the setting and the characters. I wanted to explain and resolve grievances. For me, it's therapy.

All of my stories on this site, save one, share this genesis. I'm just starting to think of writing as a craft. I also write non spanking stories for my own enjoyment. I've noticed that in some of those stories I think, that this would be great point to insert a spanking.

I don't know how to categorize spanking stories. The previous classifications are obviously not mutually exclusive. What a writer writes and what a reader reads can be different. I read a lot. In my opinion, there is some great writing on this site. Writing that doesn't need spanking. However, I appreciate writers, no matter what their motivations, who can include vivid descriptions of the physical, emotional and psychological aspects of spanking. That's why I'm here.

Much of this sounds familiar. I wrote my first spanking story as an attempt at self-therapy more than fifteen years ago. I assumed at the time that it would remain the only one, but then I had an idea for another and quite different one, and thought it might be interesting to try it out. Then I went back to the first story and wrote a sequel, and then I was hooked.

Over the years, I think I have been through three or four phases. The first phase was all about letting out pent-up thoughts and feelings about spanking. The second was more explorative; I tried to imagine what a consensual spanking relationship between adults could look like (I never really had one). In the third phase, I started to approach "writing as a craft", as Noah calls it. I found this an intriguing challenge, but I also discovered that it could easily lead to letting the baby out with the bathwater - as my literary ambitions grew, I did at times lose sight of what to me should be the center of gravity of a spanking story: the excitement produced by imagining a proper spanking.

So what about the possible fourth phase? It might be where I am now: Apathy.

For years I have been wanting to write non-spanking stories, but I just can't come up with any plots. I did try to write a straight novel (well not entirely straight as it was built around polygamy as a lifestyle choice in a straight society) but I gave up half-way through.

Spanking plots are just so easy and can be so dramatic. I do worry however, when my spanking scenes sit within what could be a story in itself as I suspect that spanko readers will think there is too much non-spanking content and non spanko readers will be put off by the spankings!

Geoffrey Stirling.

Alef, I've noticed your presence on the forums. It seems that when someone asks a question about how LSF works or asks for advice, you're one of the people who responds. You need to work harder on your apathy skills.

Most of the authors, and the participants on the forums, are not apathetic. Maybe that's in the nature of our kink. Maybe writing stories is a way of validating our kink? At least for beginning writers. Maybe that aspect changes when we start to think of writing itself as a skill. A craft.

I enjoy reading "about spanking", "stories with spanking in it", stories with well described characters, stories with interesting plots, etc.

Geoffrey wrote, "spanking plots are just so easy…" But when, as Kdpierre puts it, spanking is an "issue", the plot thickens. At this point I'm hung up on issues.

A writer on another spanking site described his stories as "aspirational fiction." It's not the type of "category" being discussed. But it would be my preferred category

I like the description of spanking stories as aspirational fiction--what you would like to be doing IRL but aren't doing or aren't doing enough of. Of course many stories describe things that we really wouldn't like to be doing--too abusive, too cruel, but we are able to enjoy them because they aren't real. Consensual spanking between consenting adults is what we do, if we can, but even then we often fantasise, and play, that it is the real thing--the wife pretends to be a schoolgirl, shepherdess or whatever. There is little point in playing that the scene is between "Mr Brown" down the road and his wife (however pert her bottom) because that is what we are actually doing with our own partner and anyway, she would be upset that you were imagining that it was Mrs Brown over your lap. Also, consensual spanking fantasies are so much less dramatic.

Aspirational spanking, is probably never as much fun as real, consensual spanking but it does have one advantage--you can get it right every time. If you think that you could have done it better--severity, position, roleplay, dialogue, then you can just go back and edit/improve. Not something you can do with an actual spanking. And of course, you or your spanker can be whoever you want and can spank her as often as you want and wherever you want--bikini bottoms down on a tropical beach anyone? Back of a taxi? New appointment as the discipline master at an elite girls' school?

Such writing is probably as much for the pleasure of the writer as for their readers and nothing wrong with that.

Geoffrey Stirling

I like the notion "aspirational fiction" if that means writing about things we aspire to do or experience (at least to a certain degree). Thinking back on what inspired them, I believe that many of my stories may fit into that category, regardless of whether I consider them "spanking stories" or "stories with a spanking". A less flattering term would be "literary daydreams", but I think they are more than that; just turning a private fantasy or a daydream into a story, does something to the material - you have to open up and "deprivatize" your dreams, and you have to turn all your mental images into language. Occasionally, I come across stories that are rather obviously based on favorite fantasies, and they almost never work - they are too private and too hellbent on getting to an orgasm as smoothly as possible.