Writers' Views and Story Characters Views

I believe one who creates characters is basing that character on facts about themselves. Perhaps in some situations the character does what we the writer thinks we might have, could have or should have acted at that time or particular experience. We all know some characteristics are wrong, but nothing wrong with having fun with a make believe person acting in a manner that we as an individual would know was wrong but could lead to an interesting scene..

For example some of my characters react to situations the way I wish I had reacted back in my younger years. Now most of those scenes are about spankings etc, but in some cases my character may step out of themselves and squish someone's head. Perhaps that is the way I wish I personally could have reacted in a particular situation, and so my character does it for me. I could never do what my character does, but that does not stop me from thinking about it or having my character do it.

In a strange sense we live through our story characters. I think that is vital or else our writing would be without a basic understanding of life and how things work. Our story book characters are based on what each individual writer thinks should be the feeling or thought in a situation.

Maybe I am dead wrong, but in a large sense just as the saying goes 'we are what we eat' so to I believe 'we are what we write'.

Surely fiction writers most of the time, only put into text that which they believe will make for a well received and applauded fiction story, and Redskinluver i am sure you are no exception.

'Sanitising' words used by the characters, turns adult fiction into non adult fiction, and takes so much away from the realism within a story.

Yes, that does seem to happen with me on occasion--I tend to blame it on that whip-cracking (when she's awake anyway) femdom muse of mine, but actually I probably developed subconscious 'second thoughts' about the character, thus perhaps also the story's planned plotline.

Both characters and stories don't always turn out as initially expected... --C.K.

I've had someone comment that I must have a core of darkness inside me - otherwise how could I write about a character who did X?

Just for the record, I don't, and because of that I was flattered by that comment. That there was so little of me in that story the reader could see something like that.

I like Agatha Christie detective stories, but I have never thought for a minute that the author actually desired to murder various people in subtle ways, likewise that Stephen King wishes to become responsible for gruesome paranormal activity or (perhaps more controversially) that Nabokov was a paedophile simply because he could write persuasively about one. The skill of a writer is to go beyond autobiography and paint a convincing picture of the workings of a character who is NOT like you. If readers then attribute the character's moral failings to your own, well so be it, you've done a good job.

I think often a writers character is revealed when he writes and by the subjects he chooses to write about. Nabokov might well be a case in point.

Redskinluver, I've been in the same position.

One of the "trademarks" of my stories is that the spankings are completely over-the-top ridiculous in their length and severity (well, maybe not so ridiculous if the recipient is a consenting adult - I've seen more than enough similar spankings in videos; but the recipients in my stories are mostly young teenaged girls). That right there should be a sign to the reader that, "HEY, THIS IS FICTION AND NOT REAL AND NO I WOULDN'T DO THIS IN REAL LIFE!" Yet, I've had to deal with people responding to my stories with, "OMG, I hope you don't have kids, you freak!"

The spankers/Tops/Dom(me)s in many of my stories also happen to be downright evil bastards. At least from the perspective of the spankees ... and that is what a lot of readers don't get. I may be a Top/Dom, or whatever, but if you view my full body of work, you'd discover that most of my stories empathize with the bottom/sub (or victim, in the case of the grossly NC stories).

The thing that a lot of people don't understand about us "creative types" is that we're not always talking about ourselves, or even what we believe (hell, one of the best portrayals of a Christian character I ever read was in a story written by an atheist). We're just telling a story, and sometimes telling a story means expressing things that we ourselves don't believe.

I started writing spanking/BDSM/sex stories when I was a 14-year-old virgin, and at that time, my only real-life experience with spanking was the childhood spankings I received. Despite the fact that I was never spanked bare-bottom, and never received more than 3-5 swats, my then-childlike experience resulted in me writing spankers who were "really mean". Because that's how I felt about it as a child. From there, my portrayals just evolved naturally along with my writing style and, eventually, with my own real-life, adult experiences.

Naturally, being now an adult myself (into middle-age at this point), I feel like I can write more realistic adult characters who spank their kids. And I still write many "really mean" adult spankers, because I have by this point in my life met enough people to know that those people are out there. One of my most long-running serials (which I cannot publish here, for various reasons), stars two teenaged girls who are best friends. They are both subject to frequent and unrealistically severe spankings at home, mostly from their fathers. Each of them has witnessed the other being spanked at home, and the level of severity for each of them is roughly equal. Yet one of the girls accepts her spankings (because she knows she has actually earned them, and despite the severity, her father administers them in a reasoned way), and she feels sorry for her friend because, "her dad is just so MEAN about it!"

In real life, I'm one of the nicest, most polite, most considerate guys you'd ever want to meet. I just want to spank a naughty girl's bottom. I can't imagine myself even roleplaying a "mean bastard" (though I could probably pull off "dispassionate disciplinarian"). Yet I happily dream up and write mean bastards. I just make a point of not making them seem sympathetic.

Well, I'd assume that many writers of spanking-oriented literature, and indeed many general fiction authors also, may do this at some times with some characters, notably their protagonists, but I'm figuring that it hardly applies as an overall rule or even tendency.

Personal qualities may be important independent factors for a writer's protagonist, and/or another major character or two, yet some characters have to behave in less-than-wonderful ways that will create conflict to advance a story's plotline, thus they have to be portrayed as having characteristics which would lead to the actions they take. Classic villains such as Ming the Merciless, Darth Vader and Lex Luthor obviously have to possess negative qualities, but that hardly means that they necessarily share attitudes and behaviors with their creators.

It seems rather strange to me that a person writing about nonconsensual spanking (whether of children or adults) is often considered by the outside world to personally approve of it, yet that same type of approval RE subject matter isn't assumed concerning authors who write about murder, warfare, abusive relationships, horror, etc. --C.K.

I've already mentioned, in the past, that the two main characters in my "Pamela & Richard" serial are actually representing two different aspects of myself. They're both "me"./

I think most writers do at least subconsciously put part of themselves in all their characters, darkness is part of our collective subconscious and I think all people technically have it in them to be good or evil depending on the circumstances of their lives which is why many people who are the nicest people in the world can write about such sordid characters and subjects.

I think it is usually obviously where the sympathy of the writer lies in fiction and when the writer doesn't actually believe in the philosophy of his characters or setting. A lot of what I have read and written has been set in vaguely right-wing, even fascistic, setting while in reality I am one of the biggest communists you can meet. Not on here, but I have written stories that follow such a protagonist but I think in all my writings as much as I have written from the viewpoint of such appalling characters and within quite appalling fictional settings, that I do not hold such views in reality and tend to emphasis with the victim or "under-dog". It is a thin line and I think it is generally okay to write from a horrible viewpoint and it is equally okay to let it slip, I suppose even in a Brechtian way, that this is fantasy and not your real views.

On the other hand there are times when people do agree with a viewpoint that is represented and use their story, well I suppose for either some sort of moral affirmation or propaganda. I think the only time I have actually given a critical review, and may have came of as harsh, was when it seemed to me the author was doing such a thing. This of course was in his rights, although "Free Speech" is of course quite a liquid concept where we can say anything we like, as long as we obey the rules and not say anything that society, morality or the government deem to be unsayable (or unwritable). But I am blathering on. I suppose my point is that writers can if they wish add any agenda they like but, of course, they have to accept any criticism if it s a viewpoint that isn't generally agreed upon. Likewise they can add any viewpoints to any characters they wish, say they have a Klansman with racist viewpoints*, but it is best to make it fairly obvious that they do not hold said views in reality. And usually it is obvious.

*I'm not actually sure how far you'd be able to go with said depiction though. I'd have to check the rules.