Maybe It Will Be Over Right Away--Author comments

Hi all,

I have hoped to write more for this site but I've only posted two stories. One of them, "Maybe It Will Be Over Right Away," seemed to generate some controversy. It is written from the point of view of a young woman and is essentially an interior monologue, contemplating a situation she finds herself in, and a potential spanking. The story does not contain any actual spanking.

I know that authors are generally discouraged from commenting on their own stories, but I felt like in this case my thoughts might be of interest, so I posted them. If they do happen to be of interest to you then I would be very interested in any thoughts you may have in response.

I wanted to "plug" this story not because I think it is a good story but rather because I was surprised at the responses it received, which made me think a lot about what kind of spanking story I am comfortable writing.

I have concluded that I am not comfortable with this story and I will ask to have it taken down soon, but in the meantime, as I said, I would be very interested in others' thoughts.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful comments. As I said, they really made me think.

Again, I hope this is interesting to some of you, and please excuse my comments and plug if it is not.

I tried to provide a link to the story but I was unable to figure out how to do so. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Regards,
Miserationum

I read through the comments and thought they were very positive although there was a lot of discussion about the content. Quite amazing really for a very short story.

Stories that generate a lot of comments are usually worth reading as people have been inspired to respond. I think it would be a shame to take the story down but I can appreciate if an author is dissatisfied in hindsight.

I particularly like internal monologues and there is an enjoyable tension created when no actual spanking takes place. I also like stories where the outcome is uncertain as this feeds the imagination beyond the story.

I did find the story unsettling though as I am a father of a daughter in her early 20s but many stories have some psychological impact on me and it is not a negative in itself. I need to be unsettled at times and this has resulted in my relationship to spanking going through periodic reappraisal over the years.

Above all I would say the wide diversity within the gene of spanking stories is one of its strengths and I think there is room for most types of story (I am excluding the truly perverted) .

I did not take the opening post as a plug and I thank Miserationem for a chance to stop and reflect.

You're way over-thinking things if you're considering removing a story posted 3 years ago simply because a few people (in 3-year old comments) offered some thoughts from varying perspectives. I read the commentary and really didn't see all the "controversy" you mentioned. There must be a dozen or so of my stories that I'm "not comfortable with," for various reasons, quite a few others that generated "negative" comments, and dozens more that I wouldn't write today (if I were writing anything at all), but I would never have any of them removed from the Library. Whatever are you thinking? Instead of wasting time writing such a long forum post, write another story!

I had forgotten the story, but when I looked it up, I saw I had commented very positively and even made it a "favorite", something I very rarely do. I have read it again, and I agree with myself - it's a very fine story! It's also a very realistic story, but not of the world as it objectively is, but as it occasionally looks through the eyes of a budding spanko. I can remember having similar ideas myself - that a spanking would set things straight and give me a new start in just a few minutes (like your protagonist I never got one).

I can understand that you are a bit worried about the last paragraph, but at long as everything is happening inside the girl's mind, I can't see anything wrong with it. Keep the story here and write another good one for us!

Miserationem, When I read your initial entry, I went immediately to your story. I had not read it before so anything I write here is based on too little thought. Certainly, you should take it down if it troubles you so much, but think about why you want it gone! I don't buy your argument that you are uncomfortable writing from the point of view of a young woman – authors do that kind of thing all the time. You have written and 'published' something and I hope you can live with it staying where it is. So far as the piece itself is concerned, it is dense. It raises questions that it doesn't answer and that is not always bad. Good luck to you.

Hi all, thanks for your thoughts and, in many cases, complimentary remarks; I appreciate them a lot.

The story was, indeed, taken down at my request.

I did not have it taken down due to reviewers' comments. However, some of the reviewers' comments helped me to conclude that it was not a story I am comfortable with.

curioserto, your comment "Stories that generate a lot of comments are usually worth reading as people have been inspired to respond" is well-taken. I thought that the response was remarkable, especially given that it was so short, and contains no spanking. I hope I will write additional stories that are compelling for readers and which I am comfortable with.

njrick, again, I am not taking it down because of the comments. I very much welcome all of the comments; they will be helpful to me in writing future stories. I am, indeed, prone to overthinking. Kudos for you for being willing to leave stories up that you are no longer comfortable with; I lack, I suppose, that kind of comfort with discomfort. Oh, and I waste a lot of time.

Alef, I am very flattered by your remarks, and that you found it, and find it, to be a worthwhile story. Indeed, the last paragraph, where she contemplates acting in a sexually inappropriate manner in order to bring about the spanking she thinks she wants is especially troubling. Maybe this is just idle fantasy on her part, but maybe she is genuinely considering it, which would indicate that she has some serious issues with boundaries, and that she is, perhaps, not altogether psychologically healthy¹, and part of my unease about the story is that it invites the reader to eroticize the musings of someone who is unhealthy, and I don't like that.

Perry, it is not that I am uncomfortable writing from a female POV per se. I certainly see nothing wrong with writing from the perspective of someone quite different from the author; a POV from a different sex, a different sexual orientation, a different form of kink (e.g., a top writing from the POV of a bottom), a different age (e.g., someone middle-aged writing from the point of view of someone much older, as I did in my single-part attempt at a series of stories set in a boarding house), a different race, a different socioeconomic status (a member of the Royal Family, or a serf, for example), someone living in a different historical (or fictional) context, etc., all pose challenges for a writer, but not insurmountable ones; anyone who hopes to write well needs to work through how to get into their characters' heads, even if not writing from a given character's POV.

Having the story taken down is in a way artistic cowardice and/or narcissism; being unwilling to leave a creative work available to others because of one's own misgivings is selfish. At the extreme end, consider Claude Monet's destruction of his own paintings, paintings which the world would otherwise treasure.

The piece is indeed dense and raises questions it does not answer. In general I'd prefer to write in a manner which is straightforward and easily comprehensible, but perhaps the story was well-served by its density. Raising questions it does not answer is, I hope, a Good Thing. If your book club can't find unanswered questions to discuss, or you leave the movie theater without unanswered questions to discuss, then that would generally be an indicator that the book or film will be quickly forgotten, and that it won't help our souls grow in the ways that Good Art does.

Thank you for your good wishes.

Again, I appreciate all of your remarks and I hope I've addressed them, even if you'd prefer that I had made a different decision.

Also, sorry for the delay; I was having trouble logging onto the site for some reason.

¹ Obvious rejoinder: Well, who is altogether psychologically healthy? But still.

I have had mixed comments as well. A few stories have prompted people to assume that I must have an inner darkness to write them.

Those comments are among my most treasured, because they shows that sometimes I get out of my own skin enough to allow a narrative voice that is not my own to ring through.

That is fascinating, Goodgulf. I know I've read some of your stories, but if you could point me to some examples of the sort of stories you are thinking of I would be very interested.

Reading the exchange here, I would've likely read the story had it not been taken down. It strikes me as rather shortsighted to write a long response to comments and then remove the story, making the whole matter entirely irrelevant to those such as muself who hadn't yet seen it.

The comment about darkness was in a popup, but if you check the comments of Cinderella & The Slave Girls you'll find "This is a fascinating story, although as usual with your work,it has enough of a dark side to leave me with mixed feelings. You did a great job imagining a unique world."

Also from A Private College For Girls... the comments include :
Bit disturbing this - I'm prepared to be an advocate for appropriate school CP but this is just wilfully dumping your kids into the hands of abusers - there again, you wonder whether, particularly for boys in my youth, this was happily accepted. Good writing, just worrying!

Sorry, Goodgulf, this one was not for me. I had to force myself to read it to the end.

Sorry, no - far too strong and nasty for my tastes ...


The Cinderella one - well it does say "Slave Girls" in the title (spoiler - wicked stepsisters rarely have happy endings) and the College one was, well I've done several stories about institutions where grown girls are strapped, caned, etc and this story was written to explain what kind of person would send her daughter to one of those places. Yes, both stories have ugly characters, but the Private college on has more comments than most of my stories, many of them ambivalent about if they liked it.

In my mind all feedback is good feedback.