Author Neil Gaiman explains how to write a spanking story

After receiving the question "I have been trying to write for a while now. I have all these amazing ideas, but its really hard getting my thoughts onto paper. Thus, my ideas never really come to fruition. Do you have any advice?" Gaiman actually gives away the secret of writing a spanking story...

Okay, he didn't actually say it was about writing a spanking story, just a story, but since spanking stories are a subset of stories, the advice applies.

http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/107713982316/i-have-been-trying-to-write-for-a-whi le-now-i

There is a big difference in writing 'just a story' and a spanking story. For one, the spanking gets in the way, and you can not work around it. It has to be there. No matter how many words it takes an author to get to that spanking, it still has to be dedicated to the naughty act itself that brought the spankee to that juncture in the story. It also has to be some kind of viable reason. It becomes the whole point of the story in the LSF.

There are stories in the library with over 10,000 words. People read those stories. They comment highly on those stories. And why? Because somewhere between 1,000 words and 9,950 words there is the actual story itself. The story that shows a reader where a person is, what they're doing, how they live, who not only they are, but their families. 'Just A Story' is the same thing. There just isn't any spanking in it.

Although the article is good, I doubt that it will help any of the really good authors on the site. They write that way already.

Here's what I learned in past. I believe this is even more helpful. Not my ideas in the past, but publishers and lit agents and what they look for:

Exposition

The introductory. This gives the setting and creates the tone. It introduces the characters, and give the readers facts that are truly necessary to understanding the story.

Foreshadowing

This gives clues and little hints in the story that gives the reader an idea of what may happen at a later time in the story.

Inciting Force

This is your protagonist and antagonist, which gives a series of events that sets or triggers the conflict, (which is another element) in the story.

Conflict

This is the true essence of fiction that creates the character(s) conflicts that are encountered can often be identified as Man/Woman versus - Man or Woman, Nature Self, or Society in general.

Rising Action

This is the series of events building up from the character(s) conflict. It begins with the inciting force and ends with the climax.

Crisis

This is where the character(s) conflicts reach a turning point in the story. Those the character(s) are up against meet and the conflict becomes more and more intense. There are times when the crisis takes place before or right at the climax.

Climax

The climax is the result of the crisis. This is purely the high point of the story. For the readers, it is probably the highest point of interest and biggest part of the readers emotion. This is where the outcome of the conflict can often be predicted.

Falling Action

All events after the climax that simply close the story.

Resolution or Denouement

This simply clumps it all together and concludes all the action.

Gaiman has basically given the standard advice that all writers give to people who ask them about writing. He must get asked this question on a regular basis, so he's decided to use his usual mocking style to answer someone who has asked him this in all seriousness. He's quite a talented writer, but I get the strong impression he's not really that nice a bloke.

Yes it is advice I have seen before and I do indeed follow it. I write what I want to read. I would like to add that I have found the tvtropes website to be very good for helping me with some of my ideas

Sometimes realising you allready know the advice or hear other people frame it can be helpful to actualise knowledge. Which you then can apply consciously.

Stephen King also has a good book out called "ON WRITING" (the craft). He wrote while in convalescence after being hit while jogging in Maine. It's a good resource. I like the part about his grandfather and the toolbox. He describes it as the same tools one needs in writing.

Another piece of advice and this applies to writing in general, is to read and read a lot. To add to that you should try to read critically. I tend to read these days and my inner editor kicks in.

BTW, Neil Gaiman wrote a spanking scene in The Graveyard Book. It is a story about a small boy who makes his way to a graveyard after his parents are murdered. There he is raised by the ghosts who inhabit the graveyard. A couple of ghosts who were married in life, but never had children of their own adopt him. When the boy is older, he does something which endangers his life. His adopted father, in the words of Gaiman, beats him. It is explained that the couple were from a much earlier time, and had no notion that beating a child would leave any psychological scars on him.

I have bought and read so many writing books that I think all that advice is a big part of my current block, just feeling overwhelmed by it all. The funny thing is that I was already doing lots of that stuff by instinct, based, I suppose, upon being a reader. I know I have lots of room for improvement, as do we all, but I think that putting so much stock in 'experts' isn't always the best way. The last thing I want is for my writing to be reduced to a formula.

Or to write on the coattails of the experts as do many children of famous actors climb to stardom. I write the way people actually live and speak. That's when reality comes to play in fiction. Our spanking scenes in our stories are sometimes over the top 'as some say, including me,' but it's no different than watching Wild E Coyote fall off a cliff or get slammed by a boulder and live. It's fiction and anything (in the rules of the LSF of course) goes.