Over the weekend I sat at a lecture by a well-respected Russian writer of fantasy. He said many useful and wonderful things about writing: nothing I didn’t know, exactly, but plenty I could do with hearing again. About fantasy and SF he said that if it’s good, it needs to be constantly surprising. Bad fantasy is based on recognition (ooh look, another elf!), good fantasy keeps you amazed.
Many people may disagree, but if he’s right, I may have just figured out why it’s so bloody hard to write good spanking fiction (or any erotica) set in a fantasy world.
I’m convinced that a good spanking story, if it is to appeal to your id, mustn’t be surprising. We have our kinky buttons. We like them pushed in a particular way, just so. There’s only so much room for maneuvre before a piece of erotica becomes too surprising, too creative, too vaguely connected with your particular brand of kink.
This isn’t to say spanking stories have to be boring: just that there shouldn’t be so much extraneous stuff that you get distracted from having a finger jabbed at your buttons.
Where good fantasy fiction must surprise and amaze, erotica must provide enough familiarity to still get you off.
When you try to mix them in together, well… Chances are, one side will suffer: either the fantasy element will be weak and cliche, or you’ll get so excited by the magicky gadgets that the spanking side of the story will limp along, as though it was put there as an afterthought.
One or the other will sound jarring. One or the other will seem extraneous. “Why did you put all this spanking into a good space opera, huh?” “Why did you mix in all this complicated geekery and spoil my spanking story?” Well, see, I really tried to make it work, but…
I’m still convinced you can do fantasy erotica well. I am, in fact, convinced that some of my own fantasy erotica is pretty good, you know? But it’s hard work. I’ve noticed before how hard it was to keep the balance. I guess, now I know why.
Dear Haron,
I find this post interesting. I do write a lot but mostly I write the things I want to read myself and had not really thought about pleasing an audience. Forgive me if that sounds arrogant, I am new to this and most things I have put up on my blog was written for myself. It is, intriguing, however, to think about how to present a theme so it becomes interesting for the reader and I think I agree that too much surprising things in a spanking story detracts from the important triggers. But there should be some suspense, I believe, to make it interesting but that is, perhaps, not the surprises you were talking about. However, I found it very interesting to read.
yours
Janice
Granted, I don’t read a lot of sci-fi or fantasy to compare, but John Benson seems like a good example of erotica that can push the buttons but remain surprising (well, most of the time at least).
I agree that it is a precarious balance at times, even with conventional spanking fiction. I’ve found myself reading and writing less spanking fiction because, well, I’m kind of bored with it. It’s hard to hit the buttons in a way that’s original.
The ground between fantasy and fiction is a really interesting place, and the comments show how hard it can be to create and surprise in writing. Things either work or do not in writing, and the elements described from the lecture highlight that!
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There has to be a balance between Order and Chaos in all good fiction. If you don’t believe spanking and sci fi mix it’s simply because you’re a sexual neurotic terrified of being accused of intent to commit criminal behavior for having impure thoughts. We need to be liberated from this Orwellian mindset. We like to have our buttons pushed yes no matter what genre but for logical reasons you need to understand human psychology so you don’t get stuck pushing the wrong buttons to get what you really want. Russian writers generally suck because they let themselves get pidgeonholed into extremes to be politically correct which is why Anglo-American writers left them light years behind in box office. Creative writing doesn’t require loss of all contact with repetitive formulas. Erotic writing doesn’t require restricting yourself to Tijuana Bibles for intellectually challenged phallic fetishists. Find your own niche in the market and write whatever you want. People made fortunes from films about supernatural Freddy Kruger serial killers. No buttons in a spanking story could possibly be anywhere as offensive to a rational person as the ones in horror stories on tv and its as neurotic as Victorians putting lace covers on piano legs to pretend otherwise whatever some victim of Stalinism may think.
Let me congradualate you on your not becoming obsessed with pleasing an audience which is intellectually crippling and may not be the best strategy in the end even for the best writers, for example Ron Moore’s disastrous attempt to broaden his Battlestar Galactica fanbase in his Caprica series. There’s seven billion people on Earth. They aren’t all going to have the same buttons and attracting some may alienate others. If you want to be like Shakespeare, try to be fair to everybody and honestly understand their reasoning instead of steriotyping. For some people Shakespeare doesn’t connect. Write for your own self-expression because that might connect to some people that Shakespeare can’t reach. Sharon Green totally broadened my view of women by writing books that didn’t outsell Tolkien. I have gained a lot of valuable insights on all sorts of things from individuals who just wrote one or two stories in cyberspace some of which aren’t even available online anymore. We aren’t required by law to be universally popular to have an influence on people or there would be no Gay actors in Hollywood.