Suspension of disbelief

I find that one thing that helps with the suspension of disbelief is internal consistency. Especially if you are inventing a world in which to spank.

One you establish something, don't go back on it. If in chapter one Kate has been thinking how she had always wanted to be spanked but never had been, chapter 2 shouldn't have Kate remembering how she had been spanked. If Friday night is punishment night at the woman's reformatory, and the inmates have been looking forward all week with dread to what would happen on Friday, then don't include a spankings on other days of the week. If Steve is a life long anti spanker, then he shouldn't change his mind at the drop of a hat. If everyone in the men's reformatory is 21 or over, then a 15 year old boy shouldn't be getting his bottom strapped there.

Seeing a character change suddenly, or world shift for no real, that ruins the flow of the story.

That doesn't mean that the characters can never change, but you have to work up to it via a plot device like Checkov's Gun. To quote one version of it:
"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there."

Better yet, follow the rule in the reverse - if you want a shooting in act 2 then include a load gun in act 1.

In other words, foreshadow. For example, if anti spanker Steve is about to change his views on spankings, give him reasons and hints that he's likely to change. Make Steve a slave to fashion, always having the in phone, even if he isn't a techie. Have him adopt his boss' politics, even if he holds the opposite views. Have him drop an old friend after that friend makes a faux pas. Show that he had no moral rudder, that he goes with whichever way the winds blows, then when he finds that everyone else in the neighbourhood spanks then we almost expect Steve to start swatting tail.

If Kate yearns to be spanked then suddenly remembers being spanked, then include something about how she blocked out some memories, had been given shock treatment, had had a head injury, was getting over a drug addiction - whatever you use you have to foreshadow her recovering memories.

The fewer abrupt shocks, the easier it is to maintain that suspension of disbelief.

I have always attempted to construct storylines into which readers can imagine themselves easily, but I think that the point was well made that there are times when credulity can afford to be stretched (sci-fi, for instance). One of my main aspirations in writing is to create a scene in which readers would like to be able to imagine themselves. It is very rewarding to hear when that aim has been achieved for some readers.

Interesting thread! For me, I find there has to be some element of credibility to a story - meaning that if you've accepted the initial premise, the rest of the story follows quite naturally. It's important to make the characterisation fit the actions that are going to happen later on. Again, for me, the spanking has to be for a very good reason (assuming the premise has been accepted, obv) and be of a reasonable severity - not ridiculous in either direction, but of course that's a very subjective consideration.

Suspension of disbelief is required in some of my stories. I don't write fantasy/sci-fi type tales, but sometimes the punishments the spankees get would never be agreed to and/or imposed in real life.

Suspension of disbelief is a funny thing. I like my stories to at least have some credence, even if not entirely likely, so I wouldn't, for example, have a girl in a "real" school being flogged naked with a birch by her headmaster and then telling her mates about in on Facebook. A UK school story involving spanked girls would have to be set at least 30 years ago and then proportionate to the times. Similarly I would never write a story where someone receives 200+ strokes of the cane in one sitting because it just wouldn't happen ... except I saw it happening for real a couple of months ago! So I now have to modify that to "wouldn't happen except to an adult with some previous experience".

On the other hand, if real-life spanking takes people to their limits of endurance it seems reasonable that this should be a feature of many stories to allow readers to enjoy the limit-pushing by proxy. So miscreants will be severely caned, spanked till they cry, unable to sit comfortably for days, etc in many stories. And you have to back that up with some internal consistency about WHY all this has happened to the poor victim.

Some very thoughtful comments here and I find Goodgulf's particularly helpful and on the ball.

Much of my advice comes from fantasy writers - including one that always told people to shoot for "plausibility". You aren't writing about the real world so you can't make it realistic, but if you start with "magic works this way, those fantasy races live that way, etc" build on those, trying to make everything else plausible given the other worldly setting.

That's not to say people don't occasionally break those rules. The Harry Potter series fails the plausibility test when the healing magic of the early books is compared to the later ones. In the early books, healing magic could make almost anything "all better". Fall off your broomstick? Have your bones liquified? Don't worry, the nurse will make it all better. Later books called out for character death, so lasting injuries started to appear about the same time the action visited a real hospital. Those acts were far enough apart in the series that few noticed them, but the laws of magic were seriously changed as that series went on.

But it is still a good rule to follow. Get a setting in your mind, you could start with "A world where CP never fell out of style" and have 50s style spankings in the modern setting. You could easily include school spankings, judicial spankings, and various domestic spankings... But hey, what about the sexual revolution? If people are having sex before marriage and women are in the workplace in non traditional roles you'll have to adjust things a bit, have various women as spankers. Then there's various legal bits to look at. Say someone is caned (strapped, paddled, whatever) at school and sends off an after photo of their backside - is that socially acceptable or is it considered sexting?

World building can be fun, or daunting. You can do it before you start your story or have it flow as you write - but if you pick the latter then you may have to go back and make changes so everything is now consistent. You can even skip most of the world building and just have a consistent story, but sometimes those are the hardest to make plausible. Take the sexting example from above: if you have a modern setting with 50s style CP then you might want to explain why someone didn't send off that after photo - because most teens today send off photos of everything.

I have read some stories that were unbelievable and from what I believe was very unrealistic. I commented this in my comments and some didn't like what I said indicating that others didn't seem to mind. Well, I minded and said so.

I agree stories should be based on realistic scenarios. Judicial cp stories have a particular appeal as do stories which are based on experiences in a school setting. The appeal of school cp stories probably arise from my own experiences at secondary school which I attended in the early 60s where both the cane and slipper were used regularly applied to the backsides of miscreants.
Anyway keep up the good work!

This is an interesting topic. I have written many different stories and I find that I tend to strive for some realism, sometimes even for deconstruction. But then I go and write a spanking story that doubles as a creation myth or a story about uprising of spanking machines.

However, the one thing that should always be there is self-consistency. Goodgulf is right -- you are allowed to set any rules you want in your fantasy universe, but once you have those rules, you can't break them without a good reason.

In addition, my advice is this: don't fret about it. I have some stories here that are probably not that good because I like to experiment and try new avenues, and it sometimes works out and sometimes not. If you write some bad stories before you get the realism just right -- not too little, not too much -- that's okay as well.