How do you craft your stories?

[KittyUmbrass]

It varies for me.

When writing a rape story, there's a number of ways I can start planning what I want to do. Some can be about experiments in form (for instance, 2nd person perspective, or folk tale/origin story/teaching story, or gender combinations less commonly written in rape stories). Some can be about a concept for what the significance of the rape (and the aftermath) is going to be for the protagonist and/or antagonist. Some are just "here's a prompt/set of themes. Can I do something different with them?"

But the emotional significance is always what gives my stories their structure, and shapes both the actual rape scene(s) and the narrative building up to them. The setting can often be a part of the significance, which is why I spend a lot of words and attention on the world-building side of things - it's not just happening to a person, it's happening in a world that has shaped that person (or other people's attitudes to that person). That means that the protagonist is usually one of the first things I create, then the antagonist is structured around how the emotional charge requires them to relate to one another.

After that, the storyline and plot are filling in the blanks. And the kinks are whatever feels right. I tend not to include anything I'm uncomfortable with imagining but there are exceptions, when it seems like the story logic requires it.

[Claire]

@HistBuff It sounds like you enjoy fleshing-out or enriching real scenarios. To me, I think I prefer to take certain ideas and then create a scenario around that to explore that idea.

@KittyUmbrass That sounds similar to what I do myself. Maybe that's why I liked reading Pussy Fortuna so much.

[HistBuff]

@HistBuff It sounds like you enjoy fleshing-out or enriching real scenarios. To me, I think I prefer to take certain ideas and then create a scenario around that to explore that idea.

@Claire Sometimes I have both -- fleshing out and exploring an idea. In "Mutiny In Léopoldville", I developed the scenario from one historical incident, AND I'm also exploring the difference between having rape fantasies vs. getting gang-raped for real. In the first few chapters, you see Caterina masturbating to an interracial rape fantasy, you even see her dating a black man (Archie Moore, a legend in boxing). But when the mutinied troops storm the place and she gets it, she is NOT having fun. The rapists and the guy writing the story are the ones who are having fun; not her. This is what makes writing this story so much fun. It's fun because it's fiction!

I also have a variety of personal dispositions toward those fantasies. Caterina goes wet on scene when she sees black men in her audience, but she still hates it when she gets raped. Katyusha has no such rape fantasies, but she does have incestuous fantasies that lead to intimacy with her uncle/tutor. Tatiana would absolutely hate being raped and finds the notion repulsive, and both Tatiana and Katyusha are very racist indeed. When they see Caterina with a black man, no matter who that man is, they are positively disgusted. You can imagine from here their horror when those Congolese troops get their hands on them!

Those lines were already established before my story began. I think they open the door to interesting depth in my characters. I've had experiences with great writers and I decided to give myself a go at this.