Alright, so here’s the second part of that question I wanted to answer in a metawriting entry, concerning worldbuilding:

[W]hat are your thoughts on erotic artists and writers who attempt fantasy or science fiction worldbuilding in their works?

Well, first of all, I’m going to speak to worldbuilding in general in this entry, because regardless of your genre, worldbuilding is an act that can take place in any story, and I want to spend a moment talking about what worldbuilding is, or rather, how worldbuilding is different from simple setting.

Setting, of course, is where your story takes place. That said, setting isn’t necessarily elaborate. Settings don’t need to be developed, they don’t need explanation. I can have a story take place in “a room”–I don’t need anything beyond that for a story to work. Sure, I can be more elaborate in my description (what kind of room? What kind of furniture does the room have? Does the room lead anywhere else?) but adding details doesn’t constitute worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is the act of ascribing rules to how your broader world functions and behaves beyond the scope of the reader’s lens.

In my simple setting–that room can exist in a universe outside of everything else. It might have no windows or doors, it might be a physically impossible space, it might have no builder. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter–there is a room, and a story occurs inside of it. That’s all a setting entails at the most basic level. However, if I decide to worldbuild, that entails constructing an entire world which exists outside of that room regardless of whether the story ever leaves that room or not. This is the fundamental difference between a setting and a world–a setting only exists so long as the story describes it, but a world exists whether or not the story ever describes it–the author has created it outside of the story itself, and the story then, must subvert itself to that world.

Now, what exactly constitutes a world? Good worlds, built properly, are consistent with themselves. They should possess rules, and the things which exist in the world must abide by those rules, and those rules ought to possess no exceptions without very good reasons for those exceptions. So, in a fantasy world, if you are going to construct a system of magic (which would be only part of a larger world, of course), it ought to possess “rules of magic” (who can spellcast, what spells can and can’t do, how spells are cast, etc.) and in a science fiction world, if you want space travel, space travel must have rules as well (whether spaceships can surpass the speed of light, do they possess artificial gravity, how do they account for special relativity, how common alien species and habitable planets are, etc.) and all of those rules need to be consistent with each other and need to possess no exceptions without reason. What I mean by “without reason,” is that, if some spaceships can go faster than light, but others can’t–there needs to be a good reason for that rule to apply only in some cases; put another way, there needs to be a meta-rule governing the first rule’s exceptions.

Now, back to the question at hand–what do I think about erotic authors who worldbuild in their stories? Let me start off by saying that I think worldbuilding, if done well, can be very effective. I would say that two of the better examples that come to mind are the works of Onix, and “Cigar Monitor” by E. S. Morwood. Both of these stories possess worlds which have systems that the authors use to enhance erotic tension and propel their stories forward (although as a caveat, Onix does have a habit of getting bogged down in exposition) and the determining factors of whether an author has world-built well are considerations of momentum.  

A well built world ought to be one which does work for you. It ought to be intuitive for a reader to understand, provide complications which you can exploit for your plot, and fill in setting, letting you focus on character and action. However, most of the worlds I see do the opposite–they bog down the story in exposition which is irrelevant to plot and character, and serve only to drag a story down until it moves so slowly that I stop reading it. And ninety-nine percent of the time, there are two reasons the exposition is being given, and both of them are really bad reasons.

First, the writer is providing exposition because the world they’re creating is too complex for a reader to be able to intuitively understand it from context; small, well placed details; and limited exposition. If this is your problem, you need to rethink and simplify your world, or give your reader a bit more credit. Chances are they can put more together on their own than you think, especially if your world is relying on fairly standard tropes of the genre you’re writing in. However, if the problem is that your rules possess too many exceptions, then you really need to rethink and redesign your world, or find better ways to incorporate your exposition so you don’t go too long without progressing your plot, or giving your reader a sex scene.

That problem, however, is the rarer of the two. Far more often, the reason the exposition exists is because the author is so proud of this world they’ve created that they just have to tell you every minute detail about it. Here’s what I think about that.

Shut the fuck up.

I read a story because I want a story–not so I can read about a system of rules you’ve devised for a world that I have no reason to care about because you haven’t bothered to craft an interesting plot, well rounded characters, compelling MacGuffins, or titillating sex scenes. Your bullshit world doesn’t blow my cock; if you get off on systems of rules constructing worlds, go read fucking Spinoza you freak.

Don’t do this. Don’t make me hate you. Don’t do it.

Worlds are there to help stories get off the ground, by implementing systems for readers to rely on, freeing up the author to spend time on the story, and not on the setting. However, if you spend the whole piece describing the system, you’re using worlds wrong. Go DM a game of Dungeons and Dragons, and bore someone who isn’t me, please.

Alright, this is part one of two in response to the ask I got a few weeks ago about some aspects of writing erotica. Here was the pertinent part of the question again:

When writing erotic stories, do you think it’s more important to put the story or the erotic part first, or to try for both?

To start off, lets clarify what we’re talking about, and define our terms. The two aspects of writing we’re discussing here are “story”, which I will be calling “narrative”, and “eroticism”. Eroticism is the easier term to define–it’s the smut. The sexual passages that get you off in a given piece of writing. Put simply, “narrative” is everything else–plot development, character development, setting, theme, etc. Of course, there are many different types of narrative that an author might choose to employ, be it more Literary or more genre, lowbrow or highbrow–we’re going to leave those to the side for a moment, and discuss something more basic: balance. How can an author strike the right amount of sexy against the right amount of narrative?

The question above, to be honest, isn’t a very good question–or to be more precise–it’s the wrong question. In erotica, either eroticism or narrative can be important–it depends on what the author is trying to do. However, I firmly believe that good erotica manages to strike a healthy balance between them. That said, and to bring in an engineering term, part of what matters is where you want to put the fulcrum. Strong stories can be written which lean heavily on eroticism, or heavily on narrative–but understanding the specific challenges of these different kinds of balance is crucial to putting out a good story which will interest your audience–because lets be honest. Contrary to expectations, too much eroticism, no matter how well it’s written, can be boring as fuck. And even worse than that, a narrative which claims to be “erotic” and yet contains no sex is even worse. So lets start with the extremes, and work towards the center.

– The Eroticism Heavy Story –

Let’s say that, for your story, what you really want is a fuck–you don’t necessarily want to focus on a grand story or strong characters, you want a series of tight, well written sexual encounters to get readers off. That’s fine–you want to write a story which is eroticism heavy. However, you are, at the end of the day, still writing a story–you need to find some way to tie these sexual encounters together so that they make sense as a unit. Here are two techniques you might use to keep the story balanced.

• The Flash: The best way to get narrative out of the way so you can get to the sex is the flash. After the sex ends, cut off the scene and pick up at the beginning of the next sexual encounter. The challenge here is to make sure that the progression between the scenes is clear enough that the reader can know what happened in the interim, without you having to rely on heavy exposition and narration which will only weigh down your story. I can’t tell you how many horrible flashes I have seen–writers who want to cut to the sex only to find themselves having one character fill in paragraphs of exposition in the least interesting way possible because their plot was too complex to allow for a flash. Here’s the thing–if you want to go eroticism heavy, you can’t support a deep plot. Don’t try it, it won’t work out.
• The double duty: Alright, alright, you want to try to have your cake and eat it too. This is a difficult technique, but the double duty can be great if you pull it off. If you do it well, your sex scenes can do double duty, by allowing for exposition while your characters are in a sexual situation. The challenge here is to keep from bogging down the sex with long, overwrought exposition. Again, if your plot is too complex, this isn’t going to work. But for a slightly more complex plot that a flash will obfuscate, the double duty might be something to try. AgainstMyWill is great at the double duty by the way, go read his stuff.

Between the flash and the double duty, if well executed, you can craft a story with minimal downtime between sex scenes which still makes sense, without requiring heavy exposition to fill the gaps. Still, the key here is to craft a simple plot, use a universal, easily understood MacGuffin, and focus on using strong original triggers. These are the keys to success on this side of the lever.

– The Narrative Heavy Story –

So, what if you don’t have a simple plot? What if you want well developed characters, and you have a complex plot full of sexy twists and turns that you want to tell, while keeping the whole thing sensual and sexy throughout? Well, that’s the other side of the lever, and a whole lot harder than the eroticism heavy story. The main issue here is pacing–people are coming for erotic content. No matter how great your story is, if you can’t get them off, and keep them sexually engaged, they won’t read the whole thing. So how do you manage pacing?

• The Scheduled Sex Acts: I don’t recall where I read it, but it was a quote that, when abridged, went something like this, “You can get started writing anything in romance and erotica. Just write what you usually write, and make sure you put sex in every chapter.” This really isn’t that fucking hard people, oh my god. How many times have I read a story only to be thwarted for the first couple of chapters, with no sexual payoff? It’s awful. Sex. In every. Chapter. If you’ve written a section, and there’s no sex, go back and put some sex in it or you aren’t doing your job, and people are going to get bored, and stop reading. And for the love of all that is holy, don’t leave us at the end of a chapter with a sexual cliffhanger–and even worse–don’t then go the entire next chapter trying to maintain the sexual cliffhanger! Gah!
• The Slow Burn: Alright, alright, I get it. You don’t want the story to be about the sex. You want it to be about the characters–about the plot. Or maybe the drive of the story is to build to a huge sexual climax a few chapters in, but you don’t want to spoil the energy. That’s fine, but you still need to give your reader something. This is where you need the slow burn. Erotica doesn’t have to be sex–a well written, well executed tease is often enough to drive up the sexual energy of a story without giving away the pay off of your character’s orgasming. Still, this is a hard kind of “sex” to write. Not impossible mind you–just not easy. That said, the payoff can be pretty spectacular, if you can edge your audience to a huge climax. That said, two things to keep in mind. NO CLIFFHANGERS. They don’t work, they just frustrate. No one wants to be teased and then denied. Make sure your teasing has a full arc of tension and some sort of release, without just cutting off. Second, this is a great place to also apply the double duty–making your narrative do some sexy work will help with the slow burn more than anything else.

Alright, so if you want plot, make sure you actually remember to put sex in there. What helps here as well is to not publish your story in five thousand tiny, 1000 word sections, because those are your chapters, and readers will expect something sexy in every one of them. Write enough to keep your reader engaged, and publish in larger segments–it gives your readers something more meaty to suck down.

Now, to the original question–which is more important? It depends on what you want to do with your story, and every story is going to strike it’s own balance. Using these four techniques will do wonders to assist with the flow, but only if you apply them correctly in the situations that call for them. At the heart of it, you have to understand your story, and what kind of balance it needs to strike, and then use the techniques above to mitigate the problem sections where there is too much or too little sex or narrative.

So far in these metawriting entries, I’ve discussed story structure and plot development in fair detail, however, one thing I haven’t addressed nearly as much is how we make a story erotic at all. Certainly having a story with strong MacGuffins and character motivations is going to go far to making a strong story, but if it doesn’t actually arouse anyone, then what’s the point? Arousal is more than just packing a story with fetishes–or rather, it’s how a fetish is integrated into the story that counts. The way I think about integrating a fetish is through specific triggers. A trigger is any part of a scene (it can be in many forms–description, dialogue or action) which cues into a particular fetish. A trigger does not necessarily include the arousal of a character–it is simply a scene which arouses the reader. So, a description of a person gaining weight is going to be a trigger for a weight gain fetish, a daddy character calling someone his “son” in dialogue is going to trigger an incest fetish, or someone pissing themselves is going to trigger a watersports fetish.

Some points to keep in mind. Triggers are always related to fetishes, and some triggers can be related to more than one. For example, someone being tied down and force fed is going to trigger both bondage and weight gain at the same time. If a reader is “into” both of those fetishes, this can be more powerful for them as they read it, but if any reader dislikes one or the other, the effect can be ruined altogether. Second, MacGuffins can, at times, be triggers–but not always. For example, a pair of filthy underwear that transforms someone into a slob is both a trigger for a slob fetish and a MacGuffin. The more general a MacGuffin, however, the less likely it is to make a good trigger.

Triggers are relatively easy to write, however, so a concern here isn’t that someone is going to leave triggers out of a story entirely (although I have read some “erotic” stories which somehow manage to do just that) rather, the concern is that the triggers that are included are not going to be as effective for a reader as the author expects them to be. The question that needs to be asked is what makes a particular trigger effective for readers. This question is deceptively difficult to answer for a couple of reasons.

First, triggers are susceptible to the law of diminishing returns, a psychological law which states that the more someone is subjected to something which elicits an emotional response, the intensity of that response is going to diminish the more they are subjected to it. So, which someone being force-fed might be very erotic  the first time I see it, but by the hundredth time, it’s bound to be a bit less arousing. So, part of making a trigger work is ensuring a certain amount of originality which can surprise readers in a genre which seeks to jade them all the time.

However, there’s a second force which works against this one, which is that the things which tend to arouse people the most are things which they are familiar and comfortable with. If something breaches that comfort zone, any arousal they might have felt is going to evaporate instantly. Even if the amount of arousal they feel towards a certain trigger diminishes over time, a reader is going to favor that old trope in the favor of something entirely new which they haven’t ever encountered before. So a writer is caught in a catch-22–in order to arouse anyone, the triggers an author employs need to be original and surprising, but anything too surprising will backfire and fail to trigger arousal at all. In a second entry I’ll address some techniques that I’ve found useful to circumvent this challenge, but I’m in the middle of trying to move out of an apartment, so it’s going to have to wait for another day.

Alright, so, this is a topic which has come up before in these entries, but I haven’t really delved into what they are in detail, and there’s a few reasons why I think they need an entry all their own. First, they’re kind of hard to wrap your head around, both because they’re kind of a slippery topic in and of themselves, and because I use the word in a slightly different way than it is used conventionally. Second of all, I’ve been reading some stories by writers who are relatively new to writing these sorts of stories, and they’ve been struggling with it in each one I’ve read, and once fixed, it’s something which makes their works immediately better.

So, what, again, is a MacGuffin? A MacGuffin, in conventional usage, is an object which is introduced to the plot which goes mostly unexplained, but which allows the whole rest of the plot to function. The quintessential example is the briefcase from Pulp Fiction, but we also have the Tesseract from Captain America and The Avengers, and the Death Star plans in Star Wars Episode IV. In each of these movies, these objects move the plot forward, by giving the characters motivations and goals, usually in pursuit of the object in question, but they largely go unexplained, and the story unfolds around them. So, a well placed and well thought out MacGuffin is crucial to driving any plot.

Like I said, though, I use the word a bit differently. In the context of the MC/TF genre, MacGuffins are those objects, powers or attributes used by characters to control and manipulate the minds and bodies of other characters. They are the amulets, watches and rings; the musk, the gaze, the touch; the books, the clothing, and the spells. Every story has one, and most every story’s MacGuffin has some problems, but we’ll get to that in a second. Let’s focus first on what kinds of MacGuffins MC/TF stories can have. We can break them down into a few different distinctions.

• Limited / Unlimited: Some MacGuffins can only do so much, while some can alter every aspect of reality they so choose. The Chronivac 4.0 on CYOC is a fine example of an unlimited MacGuffin. Limited MacGuffins are simply anything for which there is something which it cannot do. So, the watch that can only hypnotize a subject is limited. The curse which can only strike a certain person and affect them a certain way is limited. Both are good, but unlimited MacGuffins tend to be problematic plot-wise,  because by giving the characters who wield them unlimited power, they tend to eliminate conflict, which can make a story boring. In the end, best to go with limited–they’re more interesting, but in a big story with lots of TF’s, sometimes a universal MacGuffin is best.
• Character-Specific / Transferable: A MacGuffin is character-specific if no one else can use it, or if it is a part of their physical or mental being. A  MacGuffin is transferable if another character can use it. Examples of the former are a hypnotic gaze, or musk, or a family amulet that only the proper owner can use. Examples of the latter are rings, ray guns, books, etc.–anything that more than one person can operate. Never use a character-specific unlimited MacGuffin. Just don’t–it’s boring as fuck. Transferable MacGuffins on the other hand open up lots of interesting plot twists, with characters stealing MacGuffins and changing each other back and forth.
• Mental / Physical / Hybrid: Some MacGuffins can only change minds, some can only change bodies, and some can do both. All are fine, what’s important to be clear, from the beginning, which is which.
• Controlled / Wild: Some MacGuffins always do what the user wants–some have…a mind of their own. The quintessential wild MacGuffin is the Genie who just can’t get his wishes right. A measure of chaos in a story is always good, but having a MacGuffin go too wild just makes a story a muddle.

I’m sure there are more types and distinctions, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. As you can see, a MacGuffin can be designed to fit any story, but therein lies the big question:

How do we pair the right MacGuffin with the right story?

Every story is different, and I can’t begin to sort out how to answer this question in every case, but here’s a few points that should guide you as you write:

1. The MacGuffin should fit the tone of the story: Are you writing a slob TF with smokers? Use a cigar or musk MacGuffin. A nerd to jock TF? A computer program or a football uniform. This is the easy part.
2. Don’t be afraid to use multiple MacGuffins: Try not to make “swiss army knife” MacGuffins, which have a bunch of disparate effects. It can work in some cases (such as a spell book with multiple spells) but even then they ought to fit some common theme. Don’t be afraid to split powers apart and embody them in separate MacGuffins–often this is the best way to go.
3. Occam’s Razor ought to rule the day: That said, if you can get everything in the story to change with one MacGuffin, don’t add a second one. If a MacGuffin doesn’t need a power for the story, then get rid of it. The MacGuffin ought to fit within the confines of the story–suited for the purpose, without overextending itself. If you don’t do this, you risk leaving out an unfired Chekov’s Gun.
4. If you use two MacGuffins, make sure their respective effects are clear: If you use cigars and musk, both should have a distinct effect. Maybe the cigars are a physical MacGuffin, while the musk is mental. Maybe the musk is character-specific, but the intended victim gets their hands on a transferable cigar and tries to turn the tables in a battle of smoke. Just keep them separate. If they end up muddled, you probably need to go back to number three.
5. If a MacGuffin has a rule, follow it in every case: If your using a curse with a specific trigger, say, whenever someone tells a lie, make sure it happens every time the trigger occurs. Don’t be inconsistent, especially not “to make the story work,” because your readers will notice, and it will just seem like bad writing, which it is.
6. If you write yourself into a corner, don’t make up a MacGuffin to rescue you: No Deus Ex Machina please, it’s just sloppy. Go back and rework the story–don’t throw something in just to get you out of a tight spot.

Those are a few points at least. I’m sure you can break them all if you wanted to, but if you break one, make sure you break it for a good reason. A badly handled MacGuffin can ruin an otherwise nice story, so don’t fuck them up.

So, here’s the question I received last week that I wanted to answer:

“Why do you think it’s so important for your characters to suffer?”

Now, to start off with, I don’t think this is ‘really’ the question they wanted to ask. Still, I’ll answer it as it is first, and then try and parse out the more interesting question it implies. So, why is suffering important? The first answer I could give is simply that characters have to suffer. It’s true for all fiction—stories require conflict, and that conflict begets suffering—it’s the fundamental ingredient of stories. Suffering is the vehicle through which characters grow and change, if we tried to remove it from our stories, then there would be nothing holding our interest or driving the story along. Suffering is what makes characters sympathetic and relatable; it’s the glue that holds characters together over time, linking their first entrance to their final conclusion through their change and growth.

Still, that’s a pretty boring answer, isn’t it? Besides, the way we just talked about suffering was rather broad, and I don’t think the questioner meant it broadly, so here’s a second, (but equally unsatisfactory answer, I think) if we focus in a little more. I often tell people that I write horror stories, which simply tend to have lots of (very, very gay) sex in them. Indeed, much of the inspiration for my stories came from horror and thriller writers like Stephen King and Robin Cook. The suffering in my stories is a particular kind of suffering—it’s suffering-unto-death (Now, not death per se, but radically changing an individual’s personality/memories/minds is philosophically identical to death; go read Part Three of Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons if you want a good argument for why). But again, this form of suffering is intrinsic to the genre we’re discussing. Part of what makes horror stories horrible is the threat of death and suffering, so again, there is no real interesting ground to be broken here.

So, the question, as written, appears fruitless. Stories have suffering because that is what makes stories compelling; horror stories like mine have physical suffering and death because that is what makes then horrible. Now, here’s the question I think Anonymous really would like me to answer, which is not about the importance of suffering, but about the eroticism of suffering. After all, suffering in general, and suffering-unto-death are hardly new or strange ideas to writing, but when we eroticize it, some might have the intuition that there is something immoral about that act. How do we reconcile the fact that suffering is wrong, with the fact that we find suffering erotic and pleasurable, either at a immediately or at a distance?

Well, there are three justifications most stories use. The first is revenge, the second is sadism, and the third is masochism. In the first, the victim deserves it, and because they deserve it, we are free to enjoy it as contrapasso. In the second, the victim does not deserve it, but the perpetrator is evil, and we are free to enjoy the eroticism of his evil act at a pornographic distance. In the third, we experience the suffering as the victim, allowing the perpetrator to commit the suffering upon us, thereby releasing him from the moral burden of inflicting suffering upon someone unwilling.

Still, this dodges the question. The justifications we use are merely a second order concern—the first order question is simply, “Why is suffering erotic?” The justifications might make us feel better about these stories, but don’t answer the underlying question, which I honestly can’t answer well. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t have an answer. Why do we find anything erotic, really? Who could even begin to parse out the psychological and historical drives which compel us towards one sexual proclivity or another? The justifications above are in place protect us from the realization that what we desire and sexually enjoy comes at the (albeit hypothetical) cost of others’ autonomy and self-determination. Every story where characters suffer unwillingly and the reader receives erotic pleasure from it is a rape story—there’s no other way to parse it. I understand that. I embrace that, reluctantly. I’m not comfortable with it in every way, and I have some problems with it reaching out beyond the virtual or fictional and into the real, which is why I write stories, and have some personal issues with RP and acting out some of these drives in real life. Of course, that’s just me, other’s are free to do what twiddles their fancy provided it only comes at the cost of their own autonomy and no one else’s (ala John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty).

As a writer, though, understanding and employing these justifications do more to determine how a story will take shape than most anything else. When I consult someone on a commission, the first thing I usually try and figure out is what sort of justification he uses, himself. Does he want a revenge tale? Does he want some master to kidnap him and inflict the change on him personally? Does he want a more traditional, sadistic horror story, with an unknowable, unstoppable villain pursuing the innocent? These three forms help comprise the backbones of the genre—ignore them at your peril.

Alright, it’s been a little while since I wrote one of these entries, so if you want a refresher, here are some links to the previous four episodes in the series.

#1 – The Point of Intersection

#2 – Me Versus Them

#3 – Dominance and Submission

#4 – A Question of Fetish

***

If someone were to ask me what I think the most common flaw in MC/TF stories is, I would probably say that would be character motivations, that is, a good story will give us some sort of reason why the characters are doing the things they are doing–but more often than not, most stories skip over this entirely, or provide us with one of several well worn tropes as a superficial motivation to drive a plot. I, certainly, am plenty guilty of this in some of my stories, especially in my shorter/earlier works. Furthermore, it’s also worth noting that stories can still be enjoyable without solid motivations for its characters, but motivation is what separates a decent story from a great one–and so still is something worth striving for.

So, why is motivation important? Certainly this is a question relevant to all fiction, and it generally arises in more mainstream discussions concerning the difference between plot-driven and character-driven stories, with the latter generally regarded as superior to the former. In plot-driven stories, characters are generally reactionary–things happen, and the characters leap in response to the various events at hand. Motivations here are generally painted in broad strokes, and can often be reduced to “I need to survive these events,” or “I need to protect some X from these events.” There’s little room for characters to grow or become more than dolls being manipulated by the author. On the other hand, character-driven stories contain events which are set in motion by the characters in order to bring about some sort of targeted desire. This desire, i.e. their motivation, can be far more varied and precise if the character is actively pursuing something, rather than reacting to events beyond their control. It allows for deeper, more sympathetic characters, and can accommodate a wider variety of themes and genres than plot driven stories.

Now, depending on the type of MC/TF story one is writing, different problems arise concerning motivations. Typically, I would say that “sub” stories face one problem, while “dom” stories face a different one. Starting with “sub” stories, their issue is that the focus character, who is being dominated by another, is often inherently passive and reactionary, and as such, often impossibly flat and boring, eventually becoming little more than a stand-in for the reader to fill on their own, with themselves or someone else. While not necessarily bad, this kind of story tends to be forgettable. The easiest way to correct this is to give the character a chance to react and resist the change, generally through some sort of redemptive test, or weaknesses in the dom character’s powers–however, this does little to change the underlying problem, which is that the character’s motivation is still nothing more than mere survival. The best sub stories manage to instill some sort of motivation in their victim beyond this, but this is far from easy.

“Dom” stories don’t have this problem, because the primary character is actively changing another. Their motivations are already more interesting by simple virtue of story focus. However, their problem is one of trope–that is, three or four motivations are recycled so often as to render this entire side of the genre monotonous. The worst offenders include:

• Revenge – Oh dear god, how many times do I have to read a story about some guy taking revenge against some bully who wronged them in the past? I admit to relying on this crutch in much of my early writing, but have tried to wean myself from it bit by bit. Still, a strong majority of the stories on the NCMC, CYOC and MCstories are revenge motivated. Is there no other human drive that we as authors might be able to tap into?

• Make me perfect – The first instinct of the character is to use their new found powers to give themselves the perfect body, the perfect life, and usually the perfect lover. While these stories often attempt to inject conflict with some sort of karmic or ironic twist, generally they are thinly veiled wish fulfillment, and not all that interesting to read. 

• Megalomania – Why is the dom character transforming people? Because he can. These characters have no depth, other than a sheer dislike for other people’s original minds and bodies. Flat, boring–these stories tend to be little more than vehicles for various fetishes, and only become worse when coupled with revenge fantasies, as they often are.

These tropes are easy, I understand that. They are also fairly universal. However, they have become so overused that I find myself growing exhausted as I read stories which rely on them. The occasional story which utilizes some other motivation is generally a refreshing burst amidst the monotony, whether it be well written or not. And don’t get me wrong, I have used all of these tropes myself in the past, and they generally are my least favorite of what I’ve put out, and which also ought to demonstrate that I have no easy answer to this problem. There is no magic bullet, no solution other than not being lazy.

So then, what would be “better” motivations? Or, at least, motivations which haven’t been used so much as to be rendered entirely stale? Moving beyond these tropes requires going back to the heart of what this genre is about, and seeing what other sorts of motivations we might derive from it’s basic function. MC/TF is, at it’s core, about looking at the world, looking at ourselves, and looking at others, and fundamentally rejecting what we see. In reality, of course, it stops there, but in fantasy, characters can then be given the power to remake the world as they might see fit. In fact, each of those tropes above can be derived from this drive–when we change others because they disgust us we beget revenge, when we render ourselves perfect we harbor something unhappy regarding ourselves, and when we control the world we obviously tend towards megalomania. In fact, it could be the case that these tropes simply “are” these desires distilled alone. So how might we go about refreshing them? I’ll discuss one way in the next essay.

There is something I have left rather untouched in these discussions thus far, which is the question of fetish. One reason I have neglected it is because, in many ways, it doesn’t really matter, as far as the genre is concerned. The MC/TF genre is that it can adapt itself to so many different fetishes, that part of what needs to be done, to understand it, is to dig past these rather superficial aspects to the core of what these stories do. However, this is, perhaps, not fair. While the genre itself is so adaptable to various fetishes, this is, I think, part of its appeal to readers. In addition, writers want to include fetishes in their stories, and I’m a firm believer that there are ‘good’ ways to do so. So, here, I want to address a few things regarding the addition of fetish to stories.

One of the first points to address is what I mean by fetish. After all, ‘mind control’ and ‘transformation,’ taken broadly, are both fetishes, but not in the way I’m using the term narrowly, here. Rather, I’m referring to the obsessions and sexual interests of the characters in these stories. To name a few of a very long list, we might include entries like ‘muscle worship’, ‘smoking’, ‘fetish gear’, ‘bondage’, raunch’, etc. However, rather than try and list out all of these fetishes and discuss each individually, it would be more helpful to understand the various ways one might incorporate these fetishes with the genre we’re discussing, so here are the primary ways, I believe, fetishes can be incorporated into MC/TF stories.

1. The MacGuffin – Discussed in the last chapter, the MacGuffin is some object, often unexplained, which allows the plot of a story to advance. It is often the thing sought by the protagonists and antagonists, and the vehicle of change (like Tristan’s pendant, in City of Bears). More often than not, writers telegraph the fetish focus of their story in the nature of the MacGuffin. Is it a piece of clothing? The story is going to be oriented towards some sort of gear fetish. Is it something one might derive erotic pleasure from, like a tobacco product or a dildo? If so, we probably know what the changee will be doing for the rest of the story. That said, not all MacGuffins are obvious–see the numerous stories with the ubiquitous magic amulet/ring/watch (though if it is a watch, there will be at least one instance of stopped time somewhere in the story). These generally signal a fetish neutral story, or point to some fetish not easily represented by a MacGuffin (incest, for example). I fear I sound like I’m ridiculing this device–I’m not, really. Goodness, I use it often enough in my own stories. Rather, it can be a useful trigger to let the reader know what they’re in for, and can also be used as a ‘bait and switch’ tactic in a farcical story. Regardless, this technique is so ubiquitous that more often than not, writers rely on it too much. It can do little more than set the stage–something still has to happen beyond this to make the story interesting.

1. Fetish as a Means of Domination – Similar to the MacGuffin, this fetish again helps move the story along by being a vehicle of change and domination, however, the MacGuffin is Dom/Sub neutral–in this second case, it is wielded by a particular individual against another to render them into a submissive, changeable state. One of the more common fetishes I use for this purpose is ‘Musk’, which I admit, is a bit of a crutch. (I really should stop having guys overwhelm each other with their stink in every story I write, but eh, I like it too much to quit now.) Bondage is another common fetish used for this purpose, as is smoking.
2. Fetish as a Means of Submission – The flip side of the second, we might think that these would mirror each other. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. In fact, what might set this apart from (2) is that submission, in this context, can be open ended, rather than directed towards a specific dominator. In many ‘top to bottom’ stories, for example, many victims experiment with toys at first, fucking or sucking variously sized dildos for a few pages, before hunting down their master. This fetish for toys helps condition their submission without a dominator being actively involved. Again, this can also overlap with the MacGuffin, but does not always do so.
3. Fetish as a Means of Humiliation/Dehumanization – This might appear, at first, to overlap with (3) but not every submissive is humiliated, and not every individual humiliated and dehumanized is necessarily rendered submissive. These fetishes, instead, are often meant as punishments for the characters that they are inflicted upon.  Watersports and scat are two I use for this purpose, primarily, but there are many others, especially quite a few AR fetishes.

Now, I’m sure there are a few categories I may have missed, but these are the ones which leap to mind. What’s important here is that while some fetishes fit better in some categories than others (for example, it’s hard to have a fetish MacGuffin when one’s fetish doesn’t have a tangible physical manifestation) most every fetish can be employed in any of these categories, but here’s the thing–it only works well if that fetish is being employed to further the underlying MC/TF plot, instead of that fetish just being thrown in there for fun. This is a distinction I’ve made, called “kink-for-plot” and “kink-for-kink” with the first being infinitely more useful than the second.

Here’s the main reason this is important–most people who read MC/TF stories don’t come for the fetish, they come for the underlying themes I’ve outlined in the last two entries, that two by two grid of me/them and dom/sub. The fetishes we use as writers reinforce those and make them original. On the other hand, you can throw in as much fetish as you want, but if it doesn’t play into the underlying plot structure, it’s only going to bloat your story and turn people off who don’t enjoy that fetish. Here’s my test: can someone who isn’t into this particular fetish I’m using still enjoy this story? I like to think, that for most of my stories, it’s a yes. While I’m sure there are plenty of people who can’t get past the nastier parts of my stories, I’ve gotten any number of comments from people who thought they would be turned off by them, but who instead found it intriguing when I wrote it. Does this mean I’m just really good at making guys smearing shit on themselves sound nice? Probably not–but if I deemphasize the ‘nasty’ and instead use it to motivate the themes of humiliation and dehumanization running through my story, the universality of the fetish category generally overcomes people’s reluctance to interact with it. 

This then, explains why I consider fetish to be a relatively minor concern–good fetish writing comes from correctly employing the underlying aspects of MC/TF plots–not from writing the fetish stuff ‘well’. This isn’t to say that there isn’t good and bad ‘pure’ fetish writing–there certainly is. But without the fundamentals, it doesn’t matter how well it’s written in and of itself.

The “Me” versus “Them” pattern set up in the last installment is understandably simplistic. While it might be true that most readers and writers fall into one camp or the other, it by no means defines the extent of a story’s appeal, nor would we want it to, because that would yield a genre quite boring and incapable of much variation. So what other variables are there which might play a role in what makes a MC/TF story “good?” Or put in a better way, what other sorts of expectations are readers bringing to the table that we can manipulate in a story, which will make them respond positively?

One sizable issue which I haven’t broached yet is the question of dominant and submissive attitudes in MC/TF stories, in part, because the issue can be approached from many different directions. For the moment, I want to argue against what I think to be a prevalent assumption about this genre, and one I run into fairly often. One common question people ask when they message or write me about my stories is whether I see myself as the transformer or the transformee in my work. The assumption at work here is that, depending on whether we prefer a dominant or submissive role in our fantasies, this then determines who we identify with in a story. I’m never entirely sure how to answer this question, mostly because I think it’s the wrong question. Here’s why.

When we read a story, who do we usually identify with? Let’s take a common, well known tale like “The Wizard of Oz.” The easy answer, and the right answer, would be to say Dorothy and her companions. Now, why do we identify with those characters? Well, there are lots of possible reasons, like, “because they’re the protagonist,” or what have you. Now, take a different story, “Wicked” (Note: I have neither seen the musical nor read the book, but I don’t think I need to for the sake of this commentary) and the question is the same: which character do we identify with? I believe the answer would be the Wicked Witch of the West, but then why? If she too is a protagonist, why not also root for her in “The Wizard of Oz?” The issue here, is that often, who we identify with isn’t determined by the character’s qualities, but by the author, and how the author tells the story. So tying character identification to qualities of the reader seems fundamentally misguided, because the same character has to potential to be presented in a wide variety of ways depending on how the story is written.

Here’s another problem, sticking with the same examples. Now, let’s assume that readers do identify with the characters who are in the roles most like them in a story. Then, if we take a survey of everyone who’s seen The Wizard of Oz, then the only characters people should identify with are those who share their qualities or flaws. While this notion might be understandable, in practice, I think it undervalues people’s capacity for empathy. Part of what stories do is make us identify with and understand people who aren’t like us. While it might be, in a sense, easier for us to identify with the characters we most resemble, that doesn’t mean that the goal of a story has to be to fit readers into those particular roles they feel most comfortable in.

Alright, it might be apparent I have an axe to grind here, so I’ll leave my issues there. As a caveat, I do think there are lots of stories where the focus is ambiguous, where either the dominant or the submissive characters can be fully identified with. The larger point I want to make is that writers have the power to determine who our readers identify with and why they identify with them. Bringing this back around to a discussion about dominance and submission, choosing as our protagonist a dominant or submissive character can create very different kinds of stories suited for different reader experiences. (Some authors manage to play with this by telling the same story from both dominant and submissive perspectives, like the first two parts of this story from Peircedskin or this three part tale from Schrijver). If I choose a dominant character as my protagonist, most often the result is going to be a power fantasy of some sort. I’m not a huge fan of writing these kinds of stories, but they are popular with many people. On the other hand, choosing a submissive character as a protagonist will usually generate something more akin to a horror or suspense tale (I often tell people I write horror porn–they think I’m joking but I’m not.)

Now, if we put this second duality in the context of “Me” or “Them” stories, we end up with a 2×2 grid:

|1. Dominant/“Me”   |2. Submissive/“Me”    |

|3. Dominant/“Them |4. Submissive/"Them”|

Stories in (1) are personal power fantasies. A character is given a MacGuffin which they use to change themselves into their ideal image, hopefully with some potentially funny/tragic consequences. Stories in (2) are self-torture fantasies. A character is taken by another and forcefully manipulated into being whatever that dominant antagonist wants them to be. Stories in (3) are those of vengeful retribution. A weak character is given a MacGuffin which allows them to take revenge and manipulate others for the sake of their own pleasure. Stories in (4) are tales of vengeance as well, but focus on the various changes made to the victims, rather than the pleasure derived by the changer at their expense, indeed, the changer need not even be present at all.

Of course, plenty of stories drift between categories or sit on the boundaries. This isn’t to say either that a particular reader will only like stories from one category. The point, rather, is to be aware of what kind of story you’re writing, so as to better anticipate how a reader will respond to it, and to keep in mind how to structure and develop your main character to make him welcoming to a wide variety of readers even if your story is targeting a specific section of the audience.

So we have a point of intersection. That’s all fine and good, but it doesn’t do much to explain why MC/TF fiction is so appealing–and I think it does have wide appeal, to be honest, not that you could get many people to admit it in polite company. However, considering the multitude of sites out there supporting the fetish, both old and new, I don’t think it’s too far fetched of a claim. But where does the appeal come from? This is important to grasp, because without an understanding of what people are wanting from this genre, you won’t be able to deliver a satisfying story.

At the risk of oversimplifying a complex genre, there are two camps of people who are drawn to MC/TF fiction–those who fantasize about changing themselves, and those who fantasize about changing others, or what I’ll term the “Me” readers and the “Them” readers. While both of these camps are drawn to the same genre, I think both are drawn here for entirely different reasons–and this can lead to some curious interactions as far as communities go here on the interwebs.

First, the “Me” readers. This camp is drawn to MC/TF because they want to change themselves–either bodily or mentally–generally a bit of both. What kind of transformation they want could be anything: fatter, muscular, twink, bear, animal, inanimate, TG, etc. However, this reflects, at it’s core, a strong disconnect between who a person is, and who that person wants to be. At some level, we all have this insecurity–no one is perfectly happy with their persona and body. The opportunity of this genre to let individuals become someone else–someone they want to be more–is a powerful force, and one which is easily eroticized. This isn’t to say that “Me” readers are morose self-loathers–many simply like the fantasy of being someone radically different from themselves. There’s a sense of freedom from one’s past and destiny inherent in this which appeals to many caught up in the wheels of societal pressure.

On the other hand are the “Them” readers, who desire to see others change. Much of the motive here (and again I oversimplify) is revenge and Contrapasso. The individuals being changed are generally those who have done the main character wrong–and he is altering them to suit his ideas of who they ought to be, either for that individual’s own pleasure, or because it’s who the perpetrator “deserves” to become. My writing generally falls into this camp, though I tend to push the drive in a different direction, towards broad societal transformations which leave behind new social structures in their wake (see my City of Bears, especially the second series), but the revenge fantasy is a powerful impetus in many other stories, both mine and others. Again, this isn’t to call people vindictive and resentful, but who doesn’t have a list of people in their head they’d like to punish? And coming from a repressed minority, the fantasy of coming into great power and forcing bullies to become what they hate most is probably common enough in gay men.

Now, why does any of this matter? First, it means that, no matter what story you write, someone is going to hate it, and for good reason, but especially if you write “Them” stories. Here’s why: “Them” stories require making transformations into something negative, because it’s a punishment. However, people who like “Me” stories don’t see that transformation as negative–and often feel a bit put off by the story’s tone. On the other hand, if you write a “Me” story, “Them” readers are probably going to find it simplistic, unsatisfying, and just too gosh-darn positive in it’s outlook. Can you please everyone? Probably not–I’ve given up trying.

Second, what kind of story you’re writing tends to determine in small ways how that story will be written. Writing a “Me” story? It’ll feel most natural, and get better reviews, if it’s in the first person, and sex isn’t generally required (though often enjoyed), but there had better be a detailed transformation. Writing a “Them” story? Most are in third person, the TF will be skimpy, but there will be plenty of sex, most of it forceful, humiliating and rarely enjoyed willfully. Knowing how these camps respond to stories let’s you write them in ways which are tailored to their expectations, and can better satisfy their desires, without them really noticing what you’re doing.

Now, some caveats. There are people who float in the space between camps–the most common being those who want to be TF’d into something generally seen as negative. In some ways, these people are the easiest to please, because they generally identify with the villains of “Them” stories. In the same way, some stories can attempt to, and in some cases succeed at, satisfying both camps, though it’s a lot harder than it seems. The obvious and common trope is the omnipotent narrator who transforms himself into his ideal before punishing those who wronged him–this is all fine and good, but good luck pulling it off without alienating either, or both, camp in the end. Personally, I’m more interested in pulling the two camps together in a different way–“Them” transformations which, in the end, reveal to the TF’d character a form which they can be happier in than the one they started with. This isn’t easier by any means, but more interesting in terms of story and character development. In the end, every writer has to negotiate these camps on their own–but ignore them at your own peril.

Alright, so I know I’ve been a bit light on the stories this week and last. The truth is that I’m suffering through a bout of writer’s block mostly attributable to exhaustion, stress and lack of time. As such, I don’t really feel like writing a story today, so I’m going to write about writing. Metawriting, if you will.

First, just so you all are aware of my background, I graduated a few years ago from college with a bachelors degree in Philosophy. Now what might philosophy have to do with writing mind control and transformation porn? A lot, surprisingly enough. When you spend your classes talking about what it means to be human, what it means to be the same individual over time, what it means to have a mind, and various other topics, you pick up some theories here and there which have a tendency to burrow their way into your writing. When I write stuff like this, it tends to be a bit dry and academic (but hopefully still interesting to a few of you!) so I’ll try not to use too much technical language, but as a warning, it might be there. If you’re confused about something, just ask.

Next, in college and out, I am a fairly common member of writing groups, and have lead quite a few of them. As such, I’ve spent quite a lot of time critiquing works written by others, both good and bad. Reading other works with a critical eye is the second best thing you can do to improve your writing, (the first being to write as much as you can) so on occasion, I might reference a story written by me or someone else to make a point.

Alright, now that that’s out of the way, I want to start off with a general discussion of MC and TF stories, and in particular, look at why these two always seem to end up working together in stories, when they aren’t necessarily related on the surface. Let me get some definitions out of the way first.

Transformation, obviously, involves one character taking on or losing physical or mental traits over the course of a story. These trait-shifts can be minor and trivial (the growth of a beard) or massive (a jock becoming a basketball). The means of transformation can be highly varied as well, but tend to fall into two camps, conventional (meaning they could occur in real life, such as lifting weights to gain muscle) and non-conventional (meaning they can occur only in fantasy, like casting a spell to become invisible). I’ll talk more about this later, in other entries.

Mind control, as I define it, is solely the act of having one character make another character do something the second doesn’t want to do themselves. There are any number of McGuffins to accomplish this: hypnosis, magic, telepathy, nanobots, computer programs, etc. What matters though, is that there is no necessarily transformative element in an MC story. There are, in fact, many stories which are straight MC with no transformative element. Similarly, a transformation need not involve mind control, if the subject of the transformation wants to transform. So, why then, do so many stories contain both?

One way of linking these up, is to think about why we use MC or TF themes in the first place. If I want to control a character’s mind, the usual reasons are either a) to make them do things they wouldn’t normally do, or b) make them become someone they wouldn’t usually be. In the first case we have stories which are straight MC, and in the second, we can see that TF themes naturally emerge in MC stories from the desire to make characters become something else against their will. Working in the other direction, we write TF stories to make some character become someone or something else, but often we want to them to “think” differently as well, or the character may not want to transform, bringing in MC themes from the other direction.

Now, why does any of this matter? Isn’t this just thinking a bit too hard about porn? Yeah, it probably is, but I think that this point of intersection is a central feature of writing good MC/TF fiction. These two themes don’t exist in entirely separate spheres, they inform and cause one another within good stories. It is the interaction of these themes which builds conflict and develops characters, and so understanding this interplay is crucial for writing these sorts of stories. To put it another way, when we work these themes together we don’t mind control for the sake of mind controlling, and we don’t transform for the sake of transforming. Instead, we control someone’s mind in order to transform them, and in turn, we transform them in order to change and control their minds. See? Doesn’t that sound hotter already? Now, the challenge is to figure out how to balance these themes and work them into plots, characters and all the other trappings of storycraft. Still, it all starts from this point of intersection–that’s the core of every story I write, at least.