Writing Journal: Finished a draft of The Adjusters #27. It's clocking at more than 14000 words. Way too much. But the episode is the episode, and splitting it in two wouldn't work so well. Sigh. So much for trying to stick to the 6000–8000 words range per episode. Now, to finish revising #23, which goes out tomorrow (possibly late in the evening, be warned). Then, I can fight with #28, the DIK-Bash.
I've got two long stories that I came across and read over the last few weeks and which may be of interest to the lot of you.
The first is a great and still ongoing tale. Started in 2006 by expatdad, it's called An African Seduction: “A modern career minded, churchgoing mother, attracts the interest of a rich African rakehell in Zimbabwe.” Somewhat cuckold-ish, but it's mostly a story about a beautiful woman willing to demean herself to please the man she falls in love with, including giving up her own daughter's virginity. It starts slow—I didn't get into the story into the fourth chapter or so—but there are some amazingly hot scenes in there. At least one character's a minor though, so be warned.
The other long story to which I gave a try is a time-travel story, which I had to look at for completeness since it's more or less along the lines of what I want to do with my next project, Leapers. It's by Phil Brown, and it's called Second Time Through: “‘On top of that, I now find myself tied to a wealthy, hypersexual, 16 year old Empath, with a heretofore, unheard of skill set, and an unknown enemy that could strike at any time.’ Anna exclaimed. ‘Welcome to my new life!’ I thought.” This story starts out like your classic time-travel story—old man dies and gets reincarnated in a younger body several years in the past (not his own body), and wakes up as in many other such stories in a hospital with pretty nurses all around him. But after that, it gets real odd. The guy turns out to be an empath, and there is a bit of sex and lots of characters in the first dozen chapters. I will not finish this story. That's because while I do find some of the underlying plot points intriguing, the story itself hasn't grabbed me, and I stopped reading when everyone absconds to a nudist colony, because if there's something that really does not do it for me, it's nudism. It just ain't sexy to me. (That's one of the many reasons I never got into the Naked In School universe on Storiesonline.). However, since your mileage may vary, and it is actually well written, you should have a look and decide for yourself.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Adult Interactive Fiction
Writing Journal: Feeling gloomy these past few days (probably a Turkey overload!), so of course everything I write feels bleh. Actually, everything I do feels bleh. Writing's just a small part of it. Which means that I'm finding it hard to get into the Serena sex scene I'm writing now for The Adjusters #27. Ah well. That's why we have rewriting. And because some of you like that sort of thing, here's a little preview, a teaser of sorts, fresh off the presses, part of what I wrote this morning. Warning: This is entirely unedited prose.
In my last post I talked about some of the story ideas that went through my head earlier this week, some of which I do intend to pursue in the medium term. But there was another bunch of ideas that came calling back from the depth where I thought I had buried them. And that's the old dreams I had of creating a piece of Adult Interactive Fiction (AIF).
A couple of years ago, I posted something about AIF. Here's what I said then:
I promised I would say something about AIF. Let's start with IF, or Interactive Fiction. Some of you might know those as text adventure games, in which you are basically thrown into a virtual world, where the description of the world is given as text descriptions. Your role is to supply instructions to the player character using short verb/noun sentences, and your actions can impact the world. The result of your actions, once again is given as text descriptions. A good starting point for discovering the world of interactive fiction is probably Brass Lantern, especially its Beginners section. Now, modern pieces of interactive fiction focus maybe a bit less on the "adventuring" part, and more on stories and interactions, with an attempt at narrative. Because this narrative is interactive, in the sense that the player can affect it, the result can be dubbed interactive fiction. There is a lot that has been said about the notion of narrative that arises in such a context, and if you're curious (and have a head for theoretical analyses of new media), go and check out the work of Nick Montfort.
Adult interactive fiction is basically the smut side of interactive fiction. It should not be surprising that this came about. The original pieces of AIF were, strangely enough, very Star-Trek-centric. (Don't ask. Please don't ask. Imagine a ten-year-old creating porn. Then make it worse.) Not so much anymore. Basically, AIF has the player interact with computer-controlled characters in sexual ways. Depending on the skill of the designer, and the extent to which the sex can be connected to a narrative that has some independent interest, the result can lead to a highly arousing experience. I suspect very much that there is some underlying theory of arousal and sexual release that could be brought to bear to the study of AIF and its effectiveness as, well, smut.
I strongly urge you to have look at the kind of things that are out there. Start with the IF Wiki page for AIF, and work from there. It's a little bit difficult to get started, simply because there are few centralized places were to get games and information how to run them. On the plus side, games tend to run on all platforms, partly because the game itself is just a data file, and to run the game you need an interpreter that can run the data file. There are a few systems out there that can produce games (TADS and Inform being the two big ones), and each of those systems come with interpreters for essentially all known computer platforms. Head over to Brass Lantern and start poking around. If you're looking at good adult games to start, you may want to look up Moist, one of my all time favorites and a good starting point.
Now, I haven't kept up with the AIF community, and there doesn't seem to have an actual central meeting place. Two sites seem to maintain games and walkthrough information: AIFGames (which seems to require registration) and Matrix Mole's AIF Archival Area. A lot of the action seems to happen on the Yahoo group aifarchive, which you may want to check out.
Now, over the years, as I said, I have had this dream of creating an AIF game. I've had ideas galore:
The problem is that the furthest I've gone writing any of those has been programming at most one room, with maybe a sketch of the characters. The problem is not the programming, that I can do okay. No, the problem is simply process. See, I've got the process for writing the kind of smut I write more or less down pat. I'm not saying it's easy, or there aren't points where I wonder what the hell I'm doing, but overall, for standard fiction, I can more or less outline, and once a piece has been outlined, I pretty much know how to start writing it: start at the beginning, and write from that point on, and do much of the work of making it pretty at rewrite time. The initial pass is to work out the structure, the skeleton. It can be near unreadable or near the final product (I've experienced both) but the point is to remove the pressure to come up with something perfect or even good the first time around.
For AIF, it's rather clear I have no clue how to approach a project. I don't know how to construct the skeleton and then find the starting point. A piece of AIF is essentially a graph where situations are connected via actions that the player takes. If you let me go technical for a second, do I go depth-first by going down branches until I either join a new branch or hit the end of the current branch, and then backtrack up to a split that contains a branch I have not fleshed out yet? Or do I go breath-first, doing all the scenes that a branching point leads to, and then go down to each such scene and develop its own subsequent scenes, and so on? Point is: I don't know. And even if I knew how others did it, I still wouldn't know what works for me.
So one thing I've thought about this wee is to maybe ease my way into developing AIF. Rather than jumping into command-based adult interactive fiction, I may start with a more hypertext-based form of interactive fiction, much more akin to those old "choose-your-own-adventure" sort of books we used to have when I was a kid. (There I go, dating myself again...) A nice system that has come out recently is Undum, a Javascript-based framework that lets you publish a piece of hypertext-based interactive fiction on the web in a particularly aesthetic way. I've been playing with it a bit in my free time, and I think I can work with it. The process is closer to writing standard fiction, so presumably I can make some progress on an actual project there. I just need a project where the choices that the player has to make carry some emotional payoff bigger than ”which girl do I screw next?” I'm thinking that an interactive story from the perspective of a girl being blackmailed may lend itself well to this kind of setting. We'll see.
“Fuck, look at that,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m begging like a heroine addict craving her next hit.” She turned back to look at Radhu contemplatively. “You like that? Hearing me beg like that? Beg to be used and abused, offering my body in exchange? Does that get you all hot? You little perv,” and again she said that with a smile on her face. “You want to see me beg now? Is that what you fantasize about? ‘Please, Rad, please stuff your big cock in my tight cunt and fuck me hard, you Indian stud?’ Is that what you want?”
She straddled his lap, holding on to his shoulders for balance, and without hesitation she sank down upon his shaft, which slipped inside her drenched pussy in one go, without any difficulty. Serena gasped and her eyes rolled up before she closed her eyes. Radhu’s breath caught, the feelings unlike anything he had ever experienced before, completely different than what he had been expecting, than what he had dreamed of those long nights where his fist was his only sexual companion. He had imagined intercourse to feel just like that, like masturbation, like a fist jacking up and down, fingers clasped tight, but no, it was entirely different. It was as if his penis had sunk into a thick gooey liquid, perfectly warm, and alive, with waves coming and going and caressing and pressing and squeezing in all sorts of different places over his length. He abandoned himself to the experience, submerged by his senses.
“Fuck you feel good,” Serena groaned, unmoving on his lap, his shaft fully inside her, her mouth against his neck, her hair tickling the side of his face. Radhu did not know what to do. His hands wanted to run up her back and pull her close to him. His hips wanted to thrust upwards and seek more warmth and more tightness. His mouth wanted to kiss and nibble and bite on the fragrant skin all around him. He settled for pressing his hands against her sides, teasingly near the bottom of her breasts, savoring the feel of her skin.
Serena moaned into his neck. “Your hands feel good, Rad. Not as good as your cock in my pussy, but good nonetheless.” With another moan she pushed herself up, then sank back down, making him jump under the renewed strength of the sensations, and then she started fucking him with long regular strides, pushing with her legs and letting herself fall back onto his shaft harder and harder.
In my last post I talked about some of the story ideas that went through my head earlier this week, some of which I do intend to pursue in the medium term. But there was another bunch of ideas that came calling back from the depth where I thought I had buried them. And that's the old dreams I had of creating a piece of Adult Interactive Fiction (AIF).
A couple of years ago, I posted something about AIF. Here's what I said then:
I promised I would say something about AIF. Let's start with IF, or Interactive Fiction. Some of you might know those as text adventure games, in which you are basically thrown into a virtual world, where the description of the world is given as text descriptions. Your role is to supply instructions to the player character using short verb/noun sentences, and your actions can impact the world. The result of your actions, once again is given as text descriptions. A good starting point for discovering the world of interactive fiction is probably Brass Lantern, especially its Beginners section. Now, modern pieces of interactive fiction focus maybe a bit less on the "adventuring" part, and more on stories and interactions, with an attempt at narrative. Because this narrative is interactive, in the sense that the player can affect it, the result can be dubbed interactive fiction. There is a lot that has been said about the notion of narrative that arises in such a context, and if you're curious (and have a head for theoretical analyses of new media), go and check out the work of Nick Montfort.
Adult interactive fiction is basically the smut side of interactive fiction. It should not be surprising that this came about. The original pieces of AIF were, strangely enough, very Star-Trek-centric. (Don't ask. Please don't ask. Imagine a ten-year-old creating porn. Then make it worse.) Not so much anymore. Basically, AIF has the player interact with computer-controlled characters in sexual ways. Depending on the skill of the designer, and the extent to which the sex can be connected to a narrative that has some independent interest, the result can lead to a highly arousing experience. I suspect very much that there is some underlying theory of arousal and sexual release that could be brought to bear to the study of AIF and its effectiveness as, well, smut.
I strongly urge you to have look at the kind of things that are out there. Start with the IF Wiki page for AIF, and work from there. It's a little bit difficult to get started, simply because there are few centralized places were to get games and information how to run them. On the plus side, games tend to run on all platforms, partly because the game itself is just a data file, and to run the game you need an interpreter that can run the data file. There are a few systems out there that can produce games (TADS and Inform being the two big ones), and each of those systems come with interpreters for essentially all known computer platforms. Head over to Brass Lantern and start poking around. If you're looking at good adult games to start, you may want to look up Moist, one of my all time favorites and a good starting point.
Now, I haven't kept up with the AIF community, and there doesn't seem to have an actual central meeting place. Two sites seem to maintain games and walkthrough information: AIFGames (which seems to require registration) and Matrix Mole's AIF Archival Area. A lot of the action seems to happen on the Yahoo group aifarchive, which you may want to check out.
Now, over the years, as I said, I have had this dream of creating an AIF game. I've had ideas galore:
- a scifi-ish scenario in which you play a junior technician at a company specialized in virtual reality simulations, and who is asked to perform a rather urgent repair job on a virtual reality card brought in by a wealthy customer, where the card encodes a scenario with which the customer indulges the anger produced by a failed marriage.
- a scenario in which you play a guy that discovers that some of the girls around you have been equipped with posthypnotic triggers that you can take advantage of, and end up being pursued by the people installing those triggers that want to make sure you don't talk.
- a scenario in which you play a girl being blackmailed by a ruthless gangster and have to play along as the girl while trying to get out of under the bastard's thumb.
The problem is that the furthest I've gone writing any of those has been programming at most one room, with maybe a sketch of the characters. The problem is not the programming, that I can do okay. No, the problem is simply process. See, I've got the process for writing the kind of smut I write more or less down pat. I'm not saying it's easy, or there aren't points where I wonder what the hell I'm doing, but overall, for standard fiction, I can more or less outline, and once a piece has been outlined, I pretty much know how to start writing it: start at the beginning, and write from that point on, and do much of the work of making it pretty at rewrite time. The initial pass is to work out the structure, the skeleton. It can be near unreadable or near the final product (I've experienced both) but the point is to remove the pressure to come up with something perfect or even good the first time around.
For AIF, it's rather clear I have no clue how to approach a project. I don't know how to construct the skeleton and then find the starting point. A piece of AIF is essentially a graph where situations are connected via actions that the player takes. If you let me go technical for a second, do I go depth-first by going down branches until I either join a new branch or hit the end of the current branch, and then backtrack up to a split that contains a branch I have not fleshed out yet? Or do I go breath-first, doing all the scenes that a branching point leads to, and then go down to each such scene and develop its own subsequent scenes, and so on? Point is: I don't know. And even if I knew how others did it, I still wouldn't know what works for me.
So one thing I've thought about this wee is to maybe ease my way into developing AIF. Rather than jumping into command-based adult interactive fiction, I may start with a more hypertext-based form of interactive fiction, much more akin to those old "choose-your-own-adventure" sort of books we used to have when I was a kid. (There I go, dating myself again...) A nice system that has come out recently is Undum, a Javascript-based framework that lets you publish a piece of hypertext-based interactive fiction on the web in a particularly aesthetic way. I've been playing with it a bit in my free time, and I think I can work with it. The process is closer to writing standard fiction, so presumably I can make some progress on an actual project there. I just need a project where the choices that the player has to make carry some emotional payoff bigger than ”which girl do I screw next?” I'm thinking that an interactive story from the perspective of a girl being blackmailed may lend itself well to this kind of setting. We'll see.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Story Ideas
Writer's Journal: Nothing to report. Still hacking away on The Adjusters #27. I'm sorely tempted to slow down my writing pace because I'm not entirely sure how to structure #28, in which the big Delta Iota Kappa party, DIKBash, is supposed to take place.
Yesterday was an odd day, during most of which I had the attention span of a hyperactive gnat. When that happens, my mind usually spends half the day in a frenzy, where random ideas sprout and then pop like soap bubbles in a wild chorus of mixed metaphors. And I'm on a vaguely stream-of-consciousness mood right now, so allow me to offload some of them.
It started with a semi-dreamy state in the morning where for some weird reason my mind was on superheroes. Well, maybe not so weird: I had re-read Identity Crisis late the night before after following a bunch of random links online that brought me to a review of the 2004 Brad Meltzer penned lead-in to Infinite Crisis, a review that I had never read before and that made some good points about the story. (I can't retrace the review right now, I'm sorry.)
Anyways, for several reasons, I had superheroes on my mind, and was reminded that at some point in the past I wanted to write a smut story set in the DC universe, with Batman as the protagonist. I pondered that yesterday morning, trying to figure out which characters I'd want, and the general plot, and I knew it had to involve Zatanna and her magical powers to give the story a good old MC twist, undoubtedly prompted by the mind-wiping showcased in the aforementioned Identity Crisis. There's a dearth of good smut about DC superheroes, sadly. The only good stuff I know of is by Dimitri, which you should check out.
But I'm not going to write that story, at least not now. I made a bunch of notes, and if I'm still feeling the love when I have some free time, I'll see what I can do. Too much on my plate, and that's without even taking Real Life into account. Besides, there is that other story that I want to write first. I asked whether you'd all be interested in seeing how I develop that story, and a few of you chimed in and said “yeah, sure,” which is good enough for me. I've set up a blog, Project Leapers: Development Blog, where I will be detailing the development of that project, as well as post in-progress drafts. It's empty right now, but I'm hoping to start filling it come early 2012.
This churning on new story ideas made me think about other things I want to write. For instance, I would love to revisit Doctor MacKenzie's therapy group, the one that I introduced in Pride Cometh Before A Fall, but I have no actual story to go with that just yet. Perhaps once a suitable MCForum contest arises, I'll produce a short for it in that universe.
In early 2009, I wrote two chapters of a story I tentatively called Love Got Me In Here and Love Got Me Out (bonus points if you catch the reference without googling it), the story of a woman that goes to see a hypnotherapist to help save her marriage, and gets more than she bargained for in the process. I wanted it to be a love story at heart, and it looked like it was gearing up to be a dozen chapters long, so about a hundred thousand words. I think I found a way to merge this story with The Adjusters story line, down the pipe, so I'll get back to it soon.
And then there was this crazy idea I had last year after a marathon session watching Caprica with a bunch of friends. This is what I wrote at the time:
And then after dreaming up new story ideas and remembering old story ideas, I started thinking about interactive fiction again, and there went much of the rest of the morning. This post is already getting too long for me to get into that and start ranting about IF, so I'll postpone that particular bunch of ideas for next time.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with a story on Storiesonline that I dismissed the first time I came across it but after an email exchange with a reader gave it a second chance, with a much better result this time. It's Taking Olivia, by Mr Hyde: “As revenge for cheating him out of his livelihood, Richard Hunter kidnaps the seventeen year old daughter of his ex-business partner. Nothing could prepare him for the events that followed.” It starts slowly, but picks up by the fourth or fifth chapters, and develops into a nicely crafted well-rounded story with quite a few hot moments. Worth a read.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the U.S. If not, just raise a glass to your favorite harvest god/goddess.
Yesterday was an odd day, during most of which I had the attention span of a hyperactive gnat. When that happens, my mind usually spends half the day in a frenzy, where random ideas sprout and then pop like soap bubbles in a wild chorus of mixed metaphors. And I'm on a vaguely stream-of-consciousness mood right now, so allow me to offload some of them.
It started with a semi-dreamy state in the morning where for some weird reason my mind was on superheroes. Well, maybe not so weird: I had re-read Identity Crisis late the night before after following a bunch of random links online that brought me to a review of the 2004 Brad Meltzer penned lead-in to Infinite Crisis, a review that I had never read before and that made some good points about the story. (I can't retrace the review right now, I'm sorry.)
Anyways, for several reasons, I had superheroes on my mind, and was reminded that at some point in the past I wanted to write a smut story set in the DC universe, with Batman as the protagonist. I pondered that yesterday morning, trying to figure out which characters I'd want, and the general plot, and I knew it had to involve Zatanna and her magical powers to give the story a good old MC twist, undoubtedly prompted by the mind-wiping showcased in the aforementioned Identity Crisis. There's a dearth of good smut about DC superheroes, sadly. The only good stuff I know of is by Dimitri, which you should check out.
But I'm not going to write that story, at least not now. I made a bunch of notes, and if I'm still feeling the love when I have some free time, I'll see what I can do. Too much on my plate, and that's without even taking Real Life into account. Besides, there is that other story that I want to write first. I asked whether you'd all be interested in seeing how I develop that story, and a few of you chimed in and said “yeah, sure,” which is good enough for me. I've set up a blog, Project Leapers: Development Blog, where I will be detailing the development of that project, as well as post in-progress drafts. It's empty right now, but I'm hoping to start filling it come early 2012.
This churning on new story ideas made me think about other things I want to write. For instance, I would love to revisit Doctor MacKenzie's therapy group, the one that I introduced in Pride Cometh Before A Fall, but I have no actual story to go with that just yet. Perhaps once a suitable MCForum contest arises, I'll produce a short for it in that universe.
In early 2009, I wrote two chapters of a story I tentatively called Love Got Me In Here and Love Got Me Out (bonus points if you catch the reference without googling it), the story of a woman that goes to see a hypnotherapist to help save her marriage, and gets more than she bargained for in the process. I wanted it to be a love story at heart, and it looked like it was gearing up to be a dozen chapters long, so about a hundred thousand words. I think I found a way to merge this story with The Adjusters story line, down the pipe, so I'll get back to it soon.
And then there was this crazy idea I had last year after a marathon session watching Caprica with a bunch of friends. This is what I wrote at the time:
I really like the holo that they have in the show, and it has managed to foment a twisted story idea. Let's see if I can give the step sheet for the few scenes in my head that flashed during the show:Again, not sure if this goes anywhere, but it's there, maybe usable, maybe not. (Feel free to steal any part of the above if you so wish.)
(1) A scientist rediscovers Zoe's technique for recreating a personality inside the holo.
(2) He creates a copycat personality of his wife (or girlfriend or significant other or person he desires).
(3) Taking full advantage of the non-reality of the created avatar (we're not talking emotional AI here, or are we?), he lavishes upon her all his pent-up sexual desires. (Say the avatar's original is either not in a relationship with him, or the relationship is troubled).
(4) Over time, he comes to “love” the avatar more than the original, if only because he can control her fully.
(5) He figures out a way to swap out “personalities” when a person is in the holo, and an evil plan hatches.
(6) He lures the original into the holo, switches her personality with that of the avatar, and proceeds to live with her, leaving the original in the holo world, trapped, or at least, unable to reintegrate the real world.
And then after dreaming up new story ideas and remembering old story ideas, I started thinking about interactive fiction again, and there went much of the rest of the morning. This post is already getting too long for me to get into that and start ranting about IF, so I'll postpone that particular bunch of ideas for next time.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with a story on Storiesonline that I dismissed the first time I came across it but after an email exchange with a reader gave it a second chance, with a much better result this time. It's Taking Olivia, by Mr Hyde: “As revenge for cheating him out of his livelihood, Richard Hunter kidnaps the seventeen year old daughter of his ex-business partner. Nothing could prepare him for the events that followed.” It starts slowly, but picks up by the fourth or fifth chapters, and develops into a nicely crafted well-rounded story with quite a few hot moments. Worth a read.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the U.S. If not, just raise a glass to your favorite harvest god/goddess.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Weekend Random Links
Writer's Journal: Still hacking the sex scene in The Adjusters #27. Serena's being Serena, and will keep me busy until the end of the week at least.
Kayden Kross has some interesting things to say about degradation.
Somewhat related, but from the other end of the scale, here's an oldish post asking some relevant questions about extreme porn. Honestly, I do not quite know how to feel about this topic. On the one hand, I am the first one to recognize the make-believe aspect of porn, and that it is fantasy and not real. On the other hand, it is rather silly to deny the cultural and sociological impact of more and more extreme forms of pornography. The discussion becomes even more interesting once we turn to written smut.
It's been a while I haven't talked about Spider-Man. And then there's a page like this one that reminds me why MJ is one of my favorite comics book characters, despite the weathervane characterizations (and the 80s hairdo).
I found this dating advice for men funny with its (I sincerely hope) tongue-in-cheek bipolar classification of dating material: Good Girls versus Bad Girls. If every woman fit nicely into one of these categories, life would be so much simpler! I think the motto is: boys, don't turn to men mags for dating advice. Mutadis mutandis for girls, of course. The question of where to go for actually useful advice shall be left for the reader to answer.
Alan Moore is of course right about sex scenes (I have to say that, the man is frightening, as well as an incredible writer), but I fear that sometimes titillation gets a rather short shrift.
Speaking of writing, this exhaustive compendium of common errors in English is exceedingly useful. Have a look if you write at all.
I came across the following picture on a Tumblr site a couple of months ago, and thought it was fascinating. Turns out it's A Roman Slave Market by Jean-Léon Gérôme, a 19th-century French painter, allegedly held at the Baltimore Walters Art Museum. The man has done some nice work. And some of the themes seem recurring, if the following painting is any indication. I love talented painters with a naughty streak.
I'll leave you with a new ongoing blackmail story on Storiesonline, by Engineer5, called Nicole: “Nicole is young, beautiful, intelligent and confident. She has a scholarship and a bright future. When her sister gets sick and she needs money to pay for her bills, Nicole gets help from a rich geek kid. But soon she is at his mercy and she has to do things she hates...” Both quick and slow moving (you'll see what I mean when you read it), but a promising premise, and some nice scenes to wet our collective appetite.
Kayden Kross has some interesting things to say about degradation.
Somewhat related, but from the other end of the scale, here's an oldish post asking some relevant questions about extreme porn. Honestly, I do not quite know how to feel about this topic. On the one hand, I am the first one to recognize the make-believe aspect of porn, and that it is fantasy and not real. On the other hand, it is rather silly to deny the cultural and sociological impact of more and more extreme forms of pornography. The discussion becomes even more interesting once we turn to written smut.
It's been a while I haven't talked about Spider-Man. And then there's a page like this one that reminds me why MJ is one of my favorite comics book characters, despite the weathervane characterizations (and the 80s hairdo).
I found this dating advice for men funny with its (I sincerely hope) tongue-in-cheek bipolar classification of dating material: Good Girls versus Bad Girls. If every woman fit nicely into one of these categories, life would be so much simpler! I think the motto is: boys, don't turn to men mags for dating advice. Mutadis mutandis for girls, of course. The question of where to go for actually useful advice shall be left for the reader to answer.
Alan Moore is of course right about sex scenes (I have to say that, the man is frightening, as well as an incredible writer), but I fear that sometimes titillation gets a rather short shrift.
Speaking of writing, this exhaustive compendium of common errors in English is exceedingly useful. Have a look if you write at all.
I came across the following picture on a Tumblr site a couple of months ago, and thought it was fascinating. Turns out it's A Roman Slave Market by Jean-Léon Gérôme, a 19th-century French painter, allegedly held at the Baltimore Walters Art Museum. The man has done some nice work. And some of the themes seem recurring, if the following painting is any indication. I love talented painters with a naughty streak.
_-_01.jpg){kind=link}
I'll leave you with a new ongoing blackmail story on Storiesonline, by Engineer5, called Nicole: “Nicole is young, beautiful, intelligent and confident. She has a scholarship and a bright future. When her sister gets sick and she needs money to pay for her bills, Nicole gets help from a rich geek kid. But soon she is at his mercy and she has to do things she hates...” Both quick and slow moving (you'll see what I mean when you read it), but a promising premise, and some nice scenes to wet our collective appetite.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
White Slavery
Writer's Journal: I'm slowly hacking away on The Adjusters #27. I don't foresee much problems with it, as it's a pretty straightforward episode. I suspect the rest of my Journal entries for the next couple of weeks will be pretty boring because of that. Although I'm not too crazy about the first sex scene, the one I'm almost done writing, but I'll work on improving it during my second pass. Right now, I'm just trying to get the beats down.
Over the weekend I finished reading my copy of Agents in Harm's Way by Don Winslow (and no, not that one), a gift from the author of whom I've always been a big fan. The description from Amazon nails the story pretty well:
I should point out that it still does not beat my favorite Winslow story though, The Joy Toy:
While we're on the topic of white slavery (man, that sounds bad... remember kids, don't try this at home. This is fiction. FICTION!), there's a very nice series of stories you should be aware of, loosely called the Bangkok Slaver series. Roughly, it's a series of stories sharing a universe, one which mostly revolves around white slavery in Bangkok and a Mister Vopat, proprietor of a club (really, a bordello) in said Bangkok. These stories are harsh and unforgiving, but exceedingly well written. They've all been collected at Understories.
The first four stories in the series were written by Parker and Marlissa, two amazing authors that deserve their own Author Spotlight here. Subsequent stories in the series were written by Stroker Ace and Spoonbender.
I'm actually quite excited about this, as the last few stories in the series are completely new to me! So while I cannot vouch for their quality, if they are anything like the preceding ones, then I'm in for a pleasurable read in the coming days.
In totally unrelated news: Kathleen Robertson is hot!
Over the weekend I finished reading my copy of Agents in Harm's Way by Don Winslow (and no, not that one), a gift from the author of whom I've always been a big fan. The description from Amazon nails the story pretty well:
“Special Agent Mallory Channing has had to fight every inch of the way to forge a career in a male-dominated bureaucracy. Beautiful, intelligent, and well educated, Mallory is determined to prove herself by volunteering for the most dangerous assignments. But nothing in her training can prepare her for the peril she faces when she finds herself taken from civilization and deposited into the remote, barbarous world of "white slavery" which lies just beneath the surface of her modern, civilized world.”It's well written, flows nicely, and has quite a few kinks there for those that want it. The only problem with it is that it's too short! This is a world and characters I'd have loved to see explored in more detail, over a long period of time. Then again, that's pretty much my reaction to all books that I enjoy, so...
I should point out that it still does not beat my favorite Winslow story though, The Joy Toy:
“Sid tells a story about a device that can make girls do anything he wants.“This is one of my all-time favorite short stories (almost more a vignette than a story, in fact), and a bar that I like to challenge myself to reach whenever I try to write something I want to be arousing.
While we're on the topic of white slavery (man, that sounds bad... remember kids, don't try this at home. This is fiction. FICTION!), there's a very nice series of stories you should be aware of, loosely called the Bangkok Slaver series. Roughly, it's a series of stories sharing a universe, one which mostly revolves around white slavery in Bangkok and a Mister Vopat, proprietor of a club (really, a bordello) in said Bangkok. These stories are harsh and unforgiving, but exceedingly well written. They've all been collected at Understories.
The first four stories in the series were written by Parker and Marlissa, two amazing authors that deserve their own Author Spotlight here. Subsequent stories in the series were written by Stroker Ace and Spoonbender.
I'm actually quite excited about this, as the last few stories in the series are completely new to me! So while I cannot vouch for their quality, if they are anything like the preceding ones, then I'm in for a pleasurable read in the coming days.
In totally unrelated news: Kathleen Robertson is hot!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
A Couple of Recent Mind-Control Stories
Writer's Journal: Quietly hacking away. Happy that the November episode of The Adjusters was well received, in part because it sets the tone for the bunch of episodes coming down the pipe. I finished the first draft of #25 last week—the sex scene was more difficult than I expected, for no good reason I can discern—and now I'm starting on #27, which is the prelude to DIKBash, where all sort of fun stuff is bound to happen.
Hope you all you folks had a decent Halloween, wherever you happen to be.
I've got a couple of mind-control stories that came out in October for you this week, which you may already know about if you pay attention to the EMCSA.
Both are ongoing, and with luck they will be updated at reasonable intervals. (Yeah, yeah, I know: pot, kettle, black... bla bla bla.)
On first base, we have a nice tale by Greyscribbler called Business and Pleasure: “Anne, a corporate lawyer, becomes infatuated with her boss.” Three chapters are currently out, and it's a very promising story. Nice slow pace, compelling characters, and some rather deliciously twisted scenes. The sex is pretty tame, but the build-up is surprisingly hot.
On second base, we have a slightly less polished but I have to believe much more tongue-in-cheek story by The Berk and Shadebalan called Re-Momdified: “Jake Evans accepts a deal from a stranger. He becomes a player in a perverted game which promises to change his mother, and life as he knows it.” It's actually a re-write of a story by Shadebalan called Momdified: Jake's Tale. The premise is somewhat ludicrous, but hey, I used something along the same lines in an early story of mine, and the idea of a mind controller who likes to play games is kind of amusing. Not sure how far the authors can push the shtick, but I'll stay on board for as long as it remains entertaining. (This story is also hosted on Storiesonline.)
Hope you all you folks had a decent Halloween, wherever you happen to be.
I've got a couple of mind-control stories that came out in October for you this week, which you may already know about if you pay attention to the EMCSA.
Both are ongoing, and with luck they will be updated at reasonable intervals. (Yeah, yeah, I know: pot, kettle, black... bla bla bla.)
On first base, we have a nice tale by Greyscribbler called Business and Pleasure: “Anne, a corporate lawyer, becomes infatuated with her boss.” Three chapters are currently out, and it's a very promising story. Nice slow pace, compelling characters, and some rather deliciously twisted scenes. The sex is pretty tame, but the build-up is surprisingly hot.
On second base, we have a slightly less polished but I have to believe much more tongue-in-cheek story by The Berk and Shadebalan called Re-Momdified: “Jake Evans accepts a deal from a stranger. He becomes a player in a perverted game which promises to change his mother, and life as he knows it.” It's actually a re-write of a story by Shadebalan called Momdified: Jake's Tale. The premise is somewhat ludicrous, but hey, I used something along the same lines in an early story of mine, and the idea of a mind controller who likes to play games is kind of amusing. Not sure how far the authors can push the shtick, but I'll stay on board for as long as it remains entertaining. (This story is also hosted on Storiesonline.)
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
New Story: The Adjusters #22
Here is November's episode of The Adjusters, "Back in Town", wherein the repercussions of Biff and Jenn's return to North Alexandria are felt.
As usual, comments welcome.
I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)
22 - Back in Town
"Dan, are you listening?"
Daniel jerked out of his reverie. "Yes, sorry. I'm here."
Cindy looked at him cautiously, the way she had been doing on and off
for the previous two hours. "Physically, maybe. Although even that's
debatable. You've been way out of it."
You have no idea, he thought. She had been much more subdued than
usual herself, he wanted to point out, but did not. Instead, he
straightened up in his chair, shaking himself awake. They were in an
empty classroom, and it was late afternoon. The last lectures were
done, and there was a break in the day before evening lectures would
pick up. They often met at that time to work on their senior projects,
Daniel on mind-control techniques for election manipulations, and
Cindy on the economic impacts of mind-altering substances. The
projects shared much in terms of background material.
"It's because of me, isn't?" Cindy asked, almost too softly to be
heard.
Daniel looked at her without saying anything.
"We've been skirting the issue all afternoon." She sighed, put down
the chalk she was using to write on the blackboard. "Last night. I
kindda dumped on you, you know, with my baggage? I'm so sorry about
that. Sometimes I get a bit out of control when I drink. I mean, I
like you, Dan, a lot, you should know that by now, but I'm really not
one to throw myself at someone like that..." She let the rest of the
sentence trail. "I'm sorry I burst up like a water balloon, all emo
and all. I guess... I guess I've been a bit down about stuff these
days. Again, I'm sorry." She kept her eyes down.
Continue reading...
Next month, episode 23: "Agent Shawbank".
As usual, comments welcome.
I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)
22 - Back in Town
"Dan, are you listening?"
Daniel jerked out of his reverie. "Yes, sorry. I'm here."
Cindy looked at him cautiously, the way she had been doing on and off
for the previous two hours. "Physically, maybe. Although even that's
debatable. You've been way out of it."
You have no idea, he thought. She had been much more subdued than
usual herself, he wanted to point out, but did not. Instead, he
straightened up in his chair, shaking himself awake. They were in an
empty classroom, and it was late afternoon. The last lectures were
done, and there was a break in the day before evening lectures would
pick up. They often met at that time to work on their senior projects,
Daniel on mind-control techniques for election manipulations, and
Cindy on the economic impacts of mind-altering substances. The
projects shared much in terms of background material.
"It's because of me, isn't?" Cindy asked, almost too softly to be
heard.
Daniel looked at her without saying anything.
"We've been skirting the issue all afternoon." She sighed, put down
the chalk she was using to write on the blackboard. "Last night. I
kindda dumped on you, you know, with my baggage? I'm so sorry about
that. Sometimes I get a bit out of control when I drink. I mean, I
like you, Dan, a lot, you should know that by now, but I'm really not
one to throw myself at someone like that..." She let the rest of the
sentence trail. "I'm sorry I burst up like a water balloon, all emo
and all. I guess... I guess I've been a bit down about stuff these
days. Again, I'm sorry." She kept her eyes down.
Continue reading...
Next month, episode 23: "Agent Shawbank".
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