Rollin,

Great job indeed. As a writer in the horror genre I do agree with the reveal. It's so true. I hate the ones where you don't see anything until the end. The same with this genre. I like to have a build up with 'the who and the why'. In the middle I let the audience have it. Wham. It keeps going until they're exhausted and lean back in their chair.

Then like most horror movies, It has it's ending. Or does it?

:)

Great Great job. Enjoyed this article a lot.

B

Have you considered teaching a creative writing course? Your explanations and analysis of writing skills are excellent. I always learn something from your articles.

A very fine and balanced description. There are lots of stories where your recipe does not apply, but for the majority of spanking stories I think this is sound advice. Spanking scenes are terribly hard to write, at least if you're striving for something new and different, but there are so many ways to vary what happens before one gets to the spanking itself.

An interesting article. There is much in what you say and to my mind figures as the conventional approach. To try and break the pattern I’ve had two stories begin with an actual spanking (or the sound of one!) in the belief that the reader knows perfectly well that one is bound to happen in the course of events so why not have it over and done with? Surprisingly, having set out one’s stall so to speak, I found it possible to dwell, to linger on events from a psychological point of view rather than having to rush on to the juicy bit hoping to hold the reader’s attention. There is also the advantage that the ground has been prepared, the scene well set for a more serious chastisement, the first one acting merely as an appetiser. I hope this makes sense!

Good points, Rollin, about the parallels between spanking stories and horror stories. If anything, writing the 'climax' to the former is more difficult - the players, setting, and circumstances may change, but it still and always comes down to hand or implement applied to backside.

If I go back and read how I described a spanking in stories that I wrote a year or two ago, I see whole phrases that I also used verbatim in my latest story without realizing it (poets like Eliot complained of the same problem). What we writers really need is tips on fresh, innovative ways to describe a bottom getting tanned. Or do you suppose the reader is satisfied with an interesting lead-up and perhaps coda, and only asks that the spanking itself be satisfactorily graphic and plausible?

catmama--I know next to nothing about creative writing. Never took a course or class--hell, never wrote fiction until 12 years ago. These ideas are just my ramblings.
bendover---the thing that got me thinking this way was a director's annotated version of the film "Jeepers Creepers". Try it then tell me what you think.
Alef and Patxi and Cal---Not every story works this way and it depends on your plot line. But I find that in a lot of my stories it helps build tension to first introduce the characters and basic story line and then slowly ratchet toward the action. But that is because I use a lot of external plots that have nothing to do with spanking per se.

Rollin (under the name Rollin Hand) came to my attention more than ten years ago on a site long ago forgotten with his stories "Island Justice," "Certificate of Correction," and "Atonement" (all re-published here at LSF). Ever since he has remained near the top (their being no actual top, ) of my favorite spanking authors.

As one who loves reading his work I decided to comment on a small part of his very interesting article.

"I don't like to immediately give away the fact that someone
is going to get a spanking... It's not the "if", rather, it's the
when and how, and often the "who" or the "why", that forms
the interesting part of the story."

For me at least (and I admit, he more or less admits it in his article) when I start a read by "Rollin" the author's name "immediately" gives "away the fact that someone is going to get a spanking." For me, what he as an author likes or dislikes is not relevant to the thesis of his article.

The remainder of the the quotation (after the ellipse) is what I find Rollin to have mastered... the who, when, where and why... is the reveal in his stories. Before this article I did not realize that was the "why" he is on the top of my spanking author list.

The more important discovery for me was that authors who "withhold" (try to create the tension of the reveal around the "if") are not on the top of my author list. That attempt at "tension" does not work for me as a reader. I get a sense this author is deliberately withholding from me (what we both know is true...someone is going to get a spanking).

Elsewhere, Rollin tells me that he likes to make the "if" subtle. Perhaps a good suggestion to me as an author. It definitely deserves my careful thought. (Up until now, I have opted for letting my reader know very early, that we both know a spanking is coming, and creating the tension around the who, when, where and why.)

A great thought provoking article. My thanks to one of my favorite authors.

You deliver fabulous writing lessons! You do everything right, explain the principle, offer examples not only in text but also films. My personal favorite is your subtle reveal- I like your example too, like you are the attorney leading their witness. And you even offer a few nonstarters-anticlimatic nonreveals.
Great as always,
IC

You are so right Rollin.

The essence of building tension in a spanking story must surely be the same as that employed by good disciplinarians - whilst the subject knows a punishment is immanent, the scolding, the being forced to wait, the disrobing, the time spent with the bottom prepared for no other purpose all serve to heighten the fear and, by analogy, the enjoyemt for us as spanking story readers.

it is this sort of thing which Rollin is reccommending us to employ in our work, and I for one find it most satisfying when an author does it successfully

Well I love horror films and the build up is one of the best things. Knowing something will happen but not when or how. I can see how this can relate to spanking stories also. Great article, thank you.

Thanks, Rollin.

There is also an analogy with a murder mystery. We know this author writes murder detection stories, and anyway the cover shows a pool of blood, so someone is going to get murdered. Normally the tension is around whodunnit and subsidiary questions like "Is the nice young detective's deputy who's just getting married going to get killed too?". However, in some stories the actual murder comes quite late and while you an sense tension rising, it isn't obvious who will be the victim (and if it is obvious, maybe you're wrong), This is harder to write well than the conventional sort but can be fascinating.

Similarly with a spanking story, occasionally while you know a spanking will occur (because it's on the Spanking Library) it isn't clear who will get it and this contributes to the suspense.

Excellent article. I never thought of comparing spanking story to horror or suspense or whodunit. Of course there are stories with occasional spanking in them where the story can be anything from horror to romance and what the readers wonder is how the spanking will be interwoven into the actual plot. In other stories, like Grace’s – as an example – we know that the heroine will be spanked, the suspense is how she will manage to get her cute bum over her chosen spanker’s lap.

Looking at Rollin’s stories and those of other writers who like to develop their characters and take them through a well thought out plot follow the idea in this article, giving the why and how and the “reveal” increasing the reader’s enjoyment.

A very useful treatise on the subject. I have passed this on to Sir Arnold in the hope that he can be a little more sensitive in future!

Thanks for the reveal! Great article.

I'm not sure I totally understand how the 'reveal' works yet, or how I might have used it, though I guess I must have (and that's not a criticism of this article, which is clarity itself - I just haven't thought in those terms).

Like you I suspect, I tend to write instinctively, semi-consciously replicating plot-structures I've come across, rather than using any recommended plot-methods as taught on courses. Keeping readers guessing, hence building tension, is key I think to keeping our spanking fiction at least a little bit fresh and original, given the limited scenarios there are, and the inevitability of the 'action scene'.

Yes, this is a really good analysis. It might be an argument for playing with the reveal even further, eg taking as your model Blair Witch rather than Jeepers Creepers & seeing how little you can get away with describing while keeping the erotic tension piled on. I can think of several 'queuing' stories that do this for instance.
Also I think there are similarities between some spanking stories and horror stories in content as well as in form, because of the importance of feelings of dread & anxiety. This is particularly the case with judicial stories.