Ex pupils and mothers seeing the Headmaster for the cane

The idea of ex pupils feeling that they need a short sharp shock reminder caning from their old Headmaster to put them back on the right road is a powerful idea. Although touched on in a recent topic, and similarly powerful is mothers feeling they have been a bad parent asking the Headmaster of their daughters school to give them a caning to teach them a deserved lesson, obviously with their knickers removed

I've come across a couple of stories on that theme in back numbers of Janus, including one where a mother agreed to take half the caning her daughter had been sentenced to, as she felt the girl's bad behaviour had been partly due to her neglectful parenting!

I find those themes to be a tad overused. I have read quite a few down the years. I agree that there are variations upon a theme, but in the main, it is a theme that's hackneyed. For me, such a storyline simply does not sit comfortably. But, equally, I know that the beauty of fiction is it can be anything the writer wants it to be.

I don't write that regularly, but there are always ideas swirling about in my head that I eventually jot down on paper. I spend the next few days, or weeks, trying extremely hard to think of an original idea as a backdrop to that story and then I develop it.

I like to tell a story and I tend to write a longer story than most. I full respect and understand that my style of strong, sometimes complex characters, coupled with a plotty storyline, is something that many readers here don't like. A few do, most don't and that is fine. I do understand some may think, 'Crikey! When does this writer get to the spanking action?' But that's me. But I'd certainly hope I'd come up with something more original than a mother going to the headmaster and sharing the rasp of the cane with her daughter.

Cheers, people! Just my thoughts.

spurs1
What's your author handle in the Library?

It's true that coming up with a truly original idea for a spanking story is difficult (though I like to think that the stories I, Sir Cambornek, write at least have an original twist or two to them), but there are always new readers coming along, who may never have read a story in which a schoolgirl gets sent to the Headmaster for 'six of the best', and for who that plot, however cliched to most of us, is still new and fresh!

Almost all spanking stories involving adults are fantasies. I won't comment on domestic discipline of children as in most cases I find them extremely distasteful. Misogynistic domestic discipline stories are a big turn off for me. However I find the idea of a mother submitting semi consensually to be caned for her daughter's behaviour enjoyable.
As the French say "shake a son's gout" -chaque'un a son gout . (each to their own taste)
I never criticise another author's stories publicly , I keep these thoughts to myself but try to praise anything original or that I like.

I'm not sure that, after writing here for many a year, I have got a handle on what readers like. Quite naturally, one can't please everybody. My thinking is that I'm not pleasing too many, albeit for a few. Lack of comments or encouragement support that. Perhaps it's too much emphasis on depth of detail and length of story that makes my work less appealing? Any thoughts?

Patron
Spurs 1 = Paul Jackson, renowned for his depth of place, plot, and character development. I compared his writing once to the difference between a Big Mac and a five-course dinner. The Mac’s tasty, yes, but it’s gone in a moment. Paul’s stories give a more prolonged pleasurable reading experience.

Pembridge06
Thanks.

spurs1
Based on your opinions and your work, I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of why people like stories and the spectrum of structure that spanking stories fall into.

Spanking stories are like comedies in a sense. There's a spectrum between a comedy sketch and a comedy TV series. In both, the win condition is the laugh. If the audience didn't laugh, you probably didn't land. However, the secondary conditions vary greatly and for this reason so does the appeal.

Sticking with comedy, the appeal of the sketch is in the premise. Take for example, Dave Chappelle's "Black White Supremacist" sketch. A blind man is a dedicated racist but because he's blind, he doesn't realize he's black. The tension of the sketch is built into when his KKK hood comes off. You know it's coming off. You could write the sketch yourself if you were as funny as Dave.

A TV series can often be a character study. It's very hard to watch a show over multiple seasons if there isn't some progression, some change. So while a TV's show chief goal is to be funny, the secondary goals are going to be in the appeal of drama or possibly even set pieces in an action comedy.

Spanking stories, like action and horror follow the same model. In a short or "sketch" spanking story, the premise sets up the appeal. The archetypes are just different. Take Schoolgirl/Teacher. In and of itself, not a strong premise. Comparing to comedy, we could say "this sketch is about a klutz." Okay, yes, pratfalls are funny but that's not interesting. If the fall is funny enough, it didn't have to be interesting. Now if we say, this sketch is about a clumsy drill sergeant and the troops aren't allowed to laugh, it's still the tried and true klutz premise but with tension built into the premise.

Going back to the OP, the desire to see the mother take the spanking from the headmaster has a similar built in tension. The story itself is going to rest mostly on whether or not the spanking is satisfying to fans of spanking, but resolving that tension in the premise introduces a question. Whether or not the premise is "hackneyed" is irrelevant, because originality isn't the goal. Satisfaction is the goal. The klutz fell, ha-ha, good job.

Spanking stories can also be long form but even in this, they can branch. There are spanking stories, and stories with spanking in them. A slasher movie is a movie with a whole lot of stabbings. A crime movie might have one stabbing. This heavily affects the requirements of plot and character. In a world of spanking, just like a world of gruesome murders or a world of explosions and car chases, the suspension of disbelief is signed at the door. We know that real life doesn't work this way so we'll allow some ridiculousness so we can see more of what we like.

In a story where there is ONE spanking(or a few, relative to the length of the story), the characters and plot have to carry our interest all the way to the spanking. We're still here to see butts get slapped but you have to make us care about the character attached to the butt, the one attached to the hand, the reason they got there and what happens after. Even in this case, it's still a spanking story.

Now a story with spanking in it can be about something else entirely. Most TV shows from the 60s-80s fall into this category. They're usually in a world where spanking is expected under the appropriate circumstances but the show isn't about that. If it's a cowboy show, it's about cowboy stuff, but in cowboy times, kids and women got spanked so that might happen too. The condition of success rests upon giving us good characters in satisfying cowboy situations.

It's fair to judge things, but without an understanding of context, we can fail to judge things on their own terms. I hope this was taken in the proper spirit because you asked an honest question and I wanted to give you an honest answer.