Cara Bristol came up with this topic and I thought it was interesting. How have your spanking stories evolved since you began writing?
The funny thing is I don't even think I would have been able to answer this question a few months ago. I am still sort of a newbie at writing. My one year publishing anniversary was this past April, but I have been writing spanking stories in my head since... well, forever.
There was one distinct difference when I sat down and thought about it. In my head my stories run wild. They just happen. When I sit down and write, especially something I know will be published, I feel like I need to justify it. I need to have good reasons. I need to make the reader convinced that this should be happening. I want to be liked!!!
That is until recently...
I remember writing my first spanking story. I had read a lot of them, but really, I had no idea what I was doing. It turned out novel length. I wrote it with passion and heart. I also had no idea what the hell I was talking about. I really hadn't even been spanked at that point. I was talking to one of my other author friends about how you can tell in someone's writing if they have never really been spanked because the spankings seem kind of wimpy. And I am sure that is what all the spankings seem like in this first book I wrote, I am a little embarrassed by it (I am not even mentioning the name of it, as if this thing called the internet and google do not exist).
The spankings weren't even the hardest things to write. Oh God, the sex scenes. I sat in a darkened room with my laptop blushing furiously as I tried to think of racier words for penis and vagina.
Today? I wrote an enema punishment scene while my husband watched sports highlights on the television four feet behind me. Yep, this is my life now.
I never thought I would write anything like that. How dirty! How inappropriate! People will surely be outraged!
Chances are they won't be, but that is how I used to think.
Even up until a few months ago I felt like I needed to justify every spanking. I needed to explain to my dear readers why these characters were engaging in this. I needed them to know that my heroines were still strong women with brains and feminist values, even while submitting to the men they loved.
I would almost drive myself crazy with the back and forth. And then I just decided to write. Not justify. Hey, you're already reading it, you can justify it to yourself.
In fact, I had two author friends- whom I love- both tell me that the hero in my most recent book is kind of mean at one point. He redeems himself mind you, but he is sort of mean in the beginning. Something like that would have torn me up and I would have rewritten it before, but this time I just let him be mean. Because you know what? Not everyone is nice 100% of the time in real life.
Sometimes a girl likes to get kinky. Sometimes she wants to be spanked and put in her place. Sometimes she wants her will bent by the alpha male she's involved with. I don't think anyone should justify that. It just is.
This is how I believe I have changed in the last year and couple months. I have stopped apologizing for what I find hot. If I find it hot someone else will too, and they won't need a justification.
Cara posed a lot of awesome questions and I think I answered most of them above.
I have a question for you readers, and authors (because you all read too): What do you like in a spanking romance, do you need a little justification for the spankings going on? A clarification on the relationship dynamic, or is it okay if it just happens?
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I think we have had a very similar road and the blushing furiously, OMG, tell me about it. There was a point once when we were talking with friends (who are spankos and we didn't know then) when he mentioned something about a blow job. A blow job - that is all- and I turned bright red and couldn't even look at any of them! You should hear me now...well, you do hear me now...
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the enema scene ;)
Things still make me blush in real life. Sometimes Mr. McKay will mention something (like a blow job or something) and I will get all embarrassed! He's usually like, really?? LOL
DeleteI forgot to say something. As a reader, I am absolutely willing to suspend my disbelief. Spankings in fiction in my opinion can and should be harder than maybe what you'd want in real life (jury is still out though), but the situation has to be realistic enough for me to buy into it. There are just too many awesome authors and amazing stories out there and I want quality as well as kinky so give me both and I'll buy buy buy!!!
ReplyDeleteI can identity with the embarrassment. For the first couple of years, I wouldn't tell anybody in RL what my pen name or book titles. I wrote my first book completely on the sly--my husband didn't know I was writing it. I had to let him read it before I sent it off to a publisher, and that was the hardest thing I've ever done.
ReplyDeleteI am one of those who objects to harsh, brutal spankings--BUT it depends on the context. It depends on the subgenre of spanking romance, on the heroine's misdeed, on the relationship, and the overall story. It is usually a glitch with the story that makes a spanking seem too harsh or unwarranted--and that pulls me out of moment and makes me dislike the hero. I dislike when the heroine is spanked or threatened with a spanking for every single infraction (bully!), and I dislike really brutal spankings where she is hand spanked, then whipped with a belt, then caned and she's screaming at the end of it --or would be in RL. Bullying and brutality are not erotic to me. So to answer your question, yes, I need justification for what is going on.
Spanking is like sex in the sense that what occurs is heightened in fiction. It is "more" than what occurs in RL. And to an extent, readers want that. They want a very tender or extremely hot sex scene --they don't want to read about a couple that has a quickie after the 11 p.m. news and rolls over and goes to sleep. But there comes a point in fiction where the sexual act becomes so over-the-top that the readers rolls her eyes. The same essentially occurs with spanking. In a good romance, the couple doesn't hump each other just for gratuitous sex--they do it for a reason. It shows something about the relationship, furthers the plot, demonstrates character. And the same should be for spanking. In a spanking romance, it should move the story.
Of course I always think a spanking should be warranted in a story and not too over the top, because the same with me, it will take me out of the story. I think what I meant by justifying was before when I would be leading up to a spanking I almost felt like I had to over explain in the story of why it was happening. Why the heroine felt okay giving in to the hero, why this spanking was okay in their world. I just don't think that needs to be explained every single time. Once in a while clarifying a relationship is fine, but I would sometimes feel like I was jumping in really quick to reassure the readers that my heroine was still a strong woman even though this guy was spanking her.
DeleteI wrote secretly for ages, to embarrassed to admit that was what I had up on my screen. Now, I happily type away sex scenes while husband watches some car chase on the TV. They've not necessarily got easier to write, but I'm no longer shy about what I'm doing.
ReplyDeleteI agree, sometimes I still have a hard time, but I'm not shielding my laptop screen from my husband anymore!
DeleteI totally agree that the sex was the hardest to write at first and also that you can tell when someone's never been spanked. I get so annoyed when the heroine is too sore to ride a horse after 10 slaps with a hand, I mean please!! LOL
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're not apologizing --if you think it's hot, guaranteed someone else will, too.
You can't make everyone happy, right? It's exhausting to try.
DeleteI enjoyed reading your thoughts, Casey. I still giggle though at the idea of being embarrassed to write sex scenes, not to be mean to you, just that's where I come from. I was already so far outside the "norm" before I started writing erotica that the idea of being embarrassed just never came to me. I do like how you've come to a place of not feeling the need to justify spankings so much. I think for me, I want to know the whys of how things work in a relationship and in a nuanced way. I find the rule against swearing to be underdeveloped too often- sure, a HoH might not like swearing, but I want to know why and "because it isn't ladylike" always comes off ridiculous to me.
ReplyDeleteHi Joelle, yes, sometimes the futility of some rules in a spanking romance annoy me too. I'd almost rather they point at how ridiculous they are. It also doesn't really seem like real life to me when its like that.
DeleteAh yes, the justification for the spanking scene. I'm a big believer in this by the way. There is nothing more off-putting than a spanking scene that pops up out of the blue for no rhyme or reason. On my blog are two essays about it. I won't repeat all that here, only to say that while you don't have to apologize for the actions of your principals, what they do has to make sense in the context of the times, the plot, and who they are. Otherwise the reader is left scratching her head saying "what brought that on?" or worse, "are you kidding me?" It's all about creating enough plausibility for the reader to suspend disbelief.
ReplyDeleteNo, I definitely think there should be a justification for a spanking, it shouldn't just come up out of the blue. I meant, sometimes I have a tendency to get really explain-y about the spanking relationship in general. Which I don't know if you necessarily need that in every spanking romance. Sometimes it fits the story and other times I think its okay just to enter this world where that is the norm and it isn't explained to death.
DeleteI'm with Cara and Rollin on this. I don't think you need to go overboard with explaining the reason for every spanking, since the plot will undoubtedly make those reasons clear, but I think each spanking needs to be justified, commensurate to the infraction, and change the relationship in some way (sometimes for the better, sometimes not), and I think all the writers participating in this discussion have done that (at least in all the books I've read so far). I do understand the point about wimpy spankings, though. Ten swats of the hand, unless he's Superman and then OUCH, should not cause anything more than a slightly red butt, and for some, not even that. Uncomfortable for a bit, yes (at least for me it would be). Excruciating, no. However, I maybe one of the few who doesn't care to read about spankings that would be harsher than those given in real life. If I think it would be unbearable, then I am squirming in my seat, and not in a pleasurable way. That said, other readers not only don't mind harsher spankings, even those that are only slightly harsher, they enjoy them. I can't. I'm suffering too much along with the heroine. I tend to identify with them.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I don't enjoy when a spanking ends up being unjustifiably too harsh. I know I am only reading it, but it crosses the line from sexy to overboard for me and takes me out of the story.
DeleteThanks for sharing Casey. I don't think the spankings need to be justified, but they need to not be unreasonable. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteYour comment about writing about an enema while your husband watched sports made me laugh. It is funny, isn't it, to see how we've changed? Sometimes I look at the email conversations I have and it cracks me up what we in this genre talk about as casually as other people discuss the weather. "What do you think of a string of pearls as anal beads?" "Do you think there's enough anal in my book?" "What kind of nipples should she have? Big? Little?"
I love the random texts I get from my author friends and it makes me wonder what the heck I talked about all day before this! I love how we can be having a normal conversation "I need an idea for dinner, any good chicken recipes?" to "Hey, what would make a good make shift butt plug?"
DeleteI never get tired of it!