It's so much friendlier with two

‘The Perils of Penelope’, the spanking fiction serial I am writing with imreadonly2 (and starring in!), is up to part three now, so I thought I’d write a little bit about the writing process from my own point of view.

The story is the first collaborative piece I have ever worked on, and I must say I am finding the experience very enjoyable. It’s hard to describe exactly how it feels to sit down and work on such a piece, but it is definitely very different to writing solo. Certainly in order to add to the story I feel that I first have to step into my co-author’s shoes and think about his thought processes; about the decisions he has made and the effects he seeks to create in the text.

I should make clear that the primary author is without question imreadonly2: he has been doing all the heavy lifting plot-wise whilst I have added a few embellishing touches. Even so, it has been fascinating to be invited into the creation of another writer’s story and asked to add my own voice to it. Singing in harmony is a pretty good analogy, actually, as the process is certainly not just one of pasting my sections into the blanks and hoping for the best: we have discussed and played with ideas, sent the story back and forth, and each of us has edited and tweaked and polished the other’s text to make the overall piece a cohesive whole.

And I know I’m biased, but I actually think that a reader would be hard pressed to spot which bits were written by which author, as our ‘voices’ dovetail together so well. It’s perhaps a little surprising that this should be so, as I think imreadonly2 and I have quite different writing styles. Whereas he drives a story forward with suspense and psychological drama generated through action (with the effect of that action upon the protagonists generally represented from a viewpoint external to them), I tend to focus on the inner life of characters; their hidden thoughts and feelings, or how they expressly feel inside about the action taking place around them. (As the central character in this story is me, that’s a bit easier than usual!)

A couple of extracts from solo projects might help provide a sense of our respective styles. Here’s a piece of 100% Penny, from ‘Teaching the Teacher’:

It was then that a certain feeling of disbelief suddenly came over me; it was as if I was dreaming, or watching someone else spank the bottom that lay before me. But the feeling only lasted a moment for, as I gazed down upon Harriet’s rear I saw, where I had smacked her, the faintest impression of my hand, and I was brought utterly, irresistibly, hurtling back into the moment. The realisation hit me like a wave: I was actually giving my wife a spanking!

And here’s some pure imreadonly2, from ‘The Mississippi Masqueraders’:

Julia left her sister shackled to the bumper as she confidently walked up the steps and entered thru the front door of the establishment. Honey kept her eyes down, partially at Julia’s command, but partially to ignore the stares and rude comments from the passerby’s who strolled past the lovely fair skinned wench so chained to the carriage like a dog awaiting its master.

Very different! But then I guess when we write together it’s a matter of our styles complementing each other, rather than clashing. And I think that that is possible because we each enjoy the other’s writing and understand where the other is coming from as an author and a kinky person; factors that make the ‘putting oneself in the other’s shoes’ thing I mentioned in opening much easier. I certainly think that the chemistry we have, or the combination of our different strengths, gives our co-written story real energy and depth.

The story is still being written, by the way, so I don’t actually know what will happen to Penny in the end. If I’m lucky I will get to contribute some more, as it’s fun! (And if I do I might have to sneakily edit any parts where sweet, innocent Penny is bent over and thrashed silly... maybe change it so she gets to scoff cookies whilst watching other girls get their just desserts...)

If you haven’t yet read this gripping tale of the back-to-school humiliation of a naughty adult schoolgirl, please do! It sits proudly on imreadonly2’s shelf in the Library of Spanking Fiction. Oh, and don’t pay any attention to the ‘Penny luvs COCK 4eva’ crudely scratched into the shelf... I have absolutely no idea how that got there.