Record Chaser

[Claire]

Just out of curiosity, how many words did Record Chaser end up at? You mentioned passing 50k, so you've got a novel here.

47,412. If chapter 9 wasn't so short, it would have been 50,000.

My first two thoughts that jumped out, which I can react to now, were both math related. The first was learning Claire was a math major in chapter three (but mentioned in the chapter one response) and then the chapter two breakdown of Claire's strength on the normal distribution. Actually, it's the same response. I knew she was a math person long before chapter three. And whenever it was established she was a student, that's when I suspected she was a math student or a closely related major.

It's mentioned early on in chapter 1 that she's in college and moved out of her parent's home 3 years ago. But her major isn't mentioned until chapter 3. It's cool that you suspected it so early.

Some of this was meta on my part. It may be your first story, but it's not the first of your stories I read. I don't pretend to know you that well, but story Claire strikes me as a bit of a self-insert for author Claire. The matching names are a clue there, and I think they share similar body types too. And, well, the voice comes off the same. Now this might be my reading too much into it, but I often decline to even try separating the art from the artist. So even if you're actually a 185 cm redheaded Teutonic shield maiden, the two Claires match their public image.

I said this before, but I actually chose Claire as my username because I needed a name on RavishU and had no idea what to call me. So I went with the protagonist's name of the story I wanted to post there.

If I think about the characters I wrote, then Amelia from Venus' Touch is probably the closest to a self-insert. Many characters are informed by my own experiences to a degree. Claire from Record Chaser mirrors some of my experience as a woman in a predominantly male field, but I don't share her deep love for math for example. Amelia is probably closest to me in terms of personality and body, but I don't have her religious and academic background. Eleanor from Late Satisfaction is very different from me in terms of her physicality, but her relationships with friends and family might reflect me the closest of all my characters. Elena from Sweet, Sweet Mess is who I wish I could be sometimes while her male counterpart in that story, Julian, is actually closer to me in terms of personality.

[Writers_Bloque]

How do I say this without kissing ass? I think this story is one of the quiet, shy roses in a beautiful garden. The seeming brutality of her ordeals was not offputting, nor uncomfortable. correct me if I am wrong but this kind of points to the morals of De Sade's works, but not domineering. One comes to mind, "You will surely find what you are seeking with vigor, for the good and bad." I cannot see any reason why this story should just end as it did. I wanted to see more of Claire being debased, but not just raped but dragged deeper into Depravity. Not that I would wish it on anyone, but the way you written her, makes her both easy to abuse, but not really feel bad about it. Yes she is human, but sometimes the bad things can turn into a benefit.

It also reminds me of a story I read in High School, in a box of books I was paid with after helping clean out a storage unit by the owner.

Miriam at 35.

More like "The destruction of any virtue tying you down." The sex in that book was well written, though your story was soo much better. I kind of get the same vibes as from that book. A woman thrust into situations beyond her control, but not losing herself while enduring it. this was a great read!!!

(I rated and reviewed this one because I could not find the other one you mentioned.)

9/10 wanting more.

[Claire]

How do I say this without kissing ass?

There is nothing wrong with a nice ass kissing under the right circumstances.

The seeming brutality of her ordeals was not offputting, nor uncomfortable.

To me, it was uncomfortable and that was the point. I know that there are far more brutal stories out there in terms of what a victim is put through phyically. But the brutality and horror of rape lies not in the physical violence, at least not primarily. And I find a story that captures the psychological brutality much more compelling and uncomfortable to read through than one that revels in physical violence.

but the way you written her, makes her both easy to abuse, but not really feel bad about it

That one I don't understand. Easy to abuse maybe in the sense that she's a small woman. But what about her makes you think it's easy not to feel bad for her? I think she avoids the trope of the bitch who kind of deserves it easily.

[Writers_Bloque]

How do I say this without kissing ass?

There is nothing wrong with a nice ass kissing under the right circumstances.

The seeming brutality of her ordeals was not offputting, nor uncomfortable.

To me, it was uncomfortable and that was the point. I know that there are far more brutal stories out there in terms of what a victim is put through phyically. But the brutality and horror of rape lies not in the physical violence, at least not primarily. And I find a story that captures the psychological brutality much more compelling and uncomfortable to read through than one that revels in physical violence.

but the way you written her, makes her both easy to abuse, but not really feel bad about it

That one I don't understand. Easy to abuse maybe in the sense that she's a small woman. But what about her makes you think it's easy not to feel bad for her? I think she avoids the trope of the bitch who kind of deserves it easily.

First off let me make it clear, I believe deeply that no one deserves any of it. But from my perspective I sensed that vibe from her. Not that i would want her to suffer, as sex in itself is to suffer, there is that "little death" thing but she was a well written character but i cant help but think that way for it, something just clicked in place there.

In high school, while I was dating my future wife, her most hated rival, a girl who just was the living embodiment of all the bad girl tropes, walked up to me and my gf, kissed me on the lips then promptly drove her steel toe boot right into my testicles. then she smiled gave my gf the finger and walked off. I never had even interacted with her before, no more than passing papers to her in History class. Would I wish what your heroine in the story suffered through on her, no, at the time I wanted to put her in the dumpster.

Also might also be a tiny bit of Schadenfreude mixed in too. Still a wonderful story.

[Lucius]

Author Commentary
Chapter 8

Chapter 8 is Claire’s absolute low point. It’s a mini story in and of itself.

So it is, although it's obviously linked with the story ending.

And the following spanking scene is almost a fight scene in disguise. We know the stakes and both characters have a clear win condition. Mark is bound by his rules. He needs Claire to submit without breaking his rules, so he chooses humiliation and psychology as his weapons of choice since physical violence is unavailable to him. Claire knows this, she understands his self-imposed rules and just has to endure long enough.

I suppose spanking is physical...

Here is what was important to me: Even Claire’s lowest moment has an element of agency to it. She loses the fight over the kiss, but she does so to protect something that’s more important to her.

Does breaking a girl totally and utterly make a story less interesting for you? I'd say that a character arc ending in a catastrophe is an arc too. Who doesn't like a good air crash video?

To me, chapter 8 is the most cruel and sadistic chapter. It’s weakest point is probably the depiction of Claire’s emotions in this. She doesn’t want to give Mark a reaction and her defeat in the end is one of quiet desperation, not dramatic crying or explosive anger. The outcome for her is numb disbelief. But that is by its very nature emotionally subdued. If I ever write something like that again, I might have to think more about how to make that emotionally resonant for the reader.

She's exhausted, perhaps dwelling a little more on how it feels might work. Oh, and the 'It was the choreography of tender sex...' paragraph seems a bit jarring for me.

Apropos of nothing: 'He gave the sole in front of his face a playful kiss. Claire tried to wriggle her legs free from his hold but he kept her firmly in place.'
Mark could've given the sole some more attention...

Chapter 9

Originally, my plan for chapter 9 was to be the shower rape. It only makes sense that Mark would at some point let Claire go to the bathroom. And on the surface, this would have introduced some new elements into the abuse again. Different location and position, you’d have water involved, Mark could watch her pee. But it would all just be violation and humiliation of a slighly different flavor. After chapter 8, Claire had reached the absolute low point already. Claire would have been even less responsive than before and there would have been no point to showing any of this in detail. So when I couldn’t find a reason to include this in the story, I simply didn’t. And I think that was the right decision.

Showers are hot :D, but sexual violence there is fraught with certain physical risks. Did you consider the option of Claire actively trying to make Mark slip and fall?

I really like the resolution of the central conflict of the second half of the story we see here. I knew that throwing Claire just deeper and deeper into despair would just get depressing.

Nothing wrong with that, I'd say.

I also knew that having the story end with Mark killing Claire and betraying his rules and persona his way would make the narrative too much about him in the end. So I needed to get Claire out of this, alive and with her personhood intact, but damaged of course.

Surely snuff stories are a different kettle of fish, plot-wise and mood-wise. Writing them feel somehow different.

She also had a vague idea of how this day would accompany her from now on: a lasting trauma she would have to learn how to live with, one that would never fully go away. She had no idea how long it would take her to recover.

That's very in-character, thinking ahead in a calm manner.

Apropos of nothing: '“So don’t… Ah… put me into the same line with… Ungh… fucking Stalin… or Hitler!”' Never ever, Mark!

Chapter 10

With chapter 10, writing the story got a lot easier again. The difficult part, making the repeated rapes somehow feel meaningful from a narrative perspective, was over now. With Claire regaining her freedom, I had so much more options available to me. When I began writing the scene where she gets dressed, I realized that this is the first time in the story that she’s not naked. I had to stop for a moment and wonder what kind of outfit she would have picked before she got abducted. Her getting dressed, that was a literal glimpse at who she was before all this. I really had to wonder for the first time how to reflect her personality in her clothes.
The purse with Maxwell’s equations underlines her nerdiness and her connection to Emily. The bralette made sense to me because given her small boobs, she wouldn’t need a bra that offered a lot of support. As an introverted virgin, it made sense to me that she would prioritize comfort over sex appeal in her choice of clothes even when she’s going out.

It works well.

But the heart of the chapter is of course the latter half when she is finally home alone and can’t sleep. That was rough to write. Seeing her get up over and over again and writing these uninhibited messages she never sends instead of sleeping made me feel anxious. I tried to go here for a trauma depiction that went beyond the stereotypical “She showers and curls up into fetal position”. Seeing this traumatized girl being unable to sleep after being awake for 40+ hours because her nervous system won’t let her believe that she’s safe was heartbreaking to me.

It works even better, and the Pi-plushie bit is particularly good. I'm almost sad about it triggering Claire!

And how does this chapter and Claire’s POV in the story end? It ends with agency, with her making the choice to ask Jason for help. That was important to me. Writing Claire as a protagonist who makes meaningful choices that drive the plot forward was the most difficult challenge of the entire story. And so it was important to me to stay true to that to the end and have her part as the narrator end with her making a meaningful choice that has consequences and that shows us that she still has the strength to reach out for help on her own. I didn’t want the story to end with her just being alone, or Emily, Jason or her parents finding her because they didn’t hear anything from her for days. I wanted somebody to come to her because she had the strength to ask for it.

The Ch. 11 notes explain why it is there, but did you consider ending the story here?

Chapter 11

Making Jason, a character who was only a memory in Claire’s thoughts up to this point, the pov character and protagonist for the final chapter might be a controversial choice. But here is why I did it.

Reading Ch. 11 for the first time, it struck me as unnecessary, as in 'What's this bit of hurt/comfort?' Says something about my personal preferences, I suppose, but tastes be damned, I've warmed to it even before reading the Author's Notes.

First, getting the perspective of a third person allowed me to show Claire and what happened to her in a different light. We see how much she’s hurting, how much what Mark did affected her. The shock of seeing her like this we get from Jason’s view tells us how broken she truly is. This is something we rarely write in noncon stories and I really wanted to depict that.

Understood, I guess one encounters this perspective in fan fiction more often that in pure ravishment.

Second, why Jason? I could have also chosen Emily as the pov character for the final chapter. When you write a noncon story like this, the male character usually is not a positive depiction of masculinity. With Jason, I wanted to have a positive male presence in the story. And not as some savior who makes everything alright, but as just a boy who genuinely cares and earnestly tries to be there. And of course it was important that he doesn’t objectify and/or sexualize Claire. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t find her attractive on some level, but that whatever attraction there might be is simply overwritten by pure shock over what he sees when she opens that door for him.

I presume Mark just had to be balanced with someone.

Why begin with his fight with Nora? It roots us in what we already know about Jason from Claire’s earlier narration in the story. He has a new girlfriend, he’s childhood friends with Claire, and his girlfriend is jealous of Claire. We know all of that already.

Then, I didn’t have a lot of time to introduce Jason as a character. And I needed the reader to like him quickly. So I throw him directly into a conflict and have him make a choice that is costly for him and that tells the reader who he is. Assuming that the reader likes Claire at this point, they want Jason to be on her side. And we see Jason here not just being a friend who sacrifices a few hours of sleep for Claire, but his first deeper romantic relationship. There is immediate conflict, there are stakes, and he makes a choice that informs us about his character: he is deeply loyal to his friends. Having that opening scene then end with him writing that reply we already know from the end of chapter 10 tells us exactly where we are.

I suppose the bit above is the best explanation as to why I've changed my mind regarding Ch. 11. I'm not very big on it still, but I guess I agree with the rationale for it and I like the narrative device of a new POV thrown in unexpectedly in the end.

The middle section where he walks to Claire’s place gives us a moment to breathe. We get to know him and what he thinks about Claire a bit more. And we see that he’s not perfect, that he distanced himself of her to appease his girlfriend’s jealousy. Coming to terms with that gives him a moment of growth as a character. It also gives us our first view of Claire from the outside of her mind that isn’t Mark’s obsession.

When he finally arrives at her door, we get to see the full horror of what happened to Claire from his eyes. He fumbles, he’s scared, he isn’t perfect, but he tries his best.

I considered briefly to end the story on Claire falling asleep. But I found the “Now what?”-energy of him just sitting there holding her too interesting. I had to explore that. Up to this point, he was in panic mode desperately trying not to make it worse. But now he was going to sit there for hours alone with his thoughts. And I just wondered what a person would realistically think about in these moments. He’d try to make sense of what happened, he’d think logistics. And at what point would you ask yourself “What if I have to pee?” It might feel absurd at first, but the body doesn’t stop to do its usual things just because you think sitting there still for hours is the most important thing in the world right now.

I decided to end it on his fear that he might lose her and him pleading with the universe that the girl he knew comes back to him. I think it was a nice emotional beat to end the story on. It’s tender, it’s heartfelt, it’s ambiguous as to what will happen, but it shows that she is loved and not alone. I think that was as optimistic as the ending could possibly be.

Would ending with Jason thinking about running back to Nora away from all that trouble have been too evil a story finale?

[Claire]

Quite a few people rated the story without leaving a comment recently. Since I can not respond to ratings directly, I want to say thank you to all who rated the story! If you ever decide to leave a comment here, telling me what you thought of the story, then I would love to rate your feedback post back and help you gain some reputation points yourself.


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So it is, although it's obviously linked with the story ending.

That's true. And I like how the ending chapters reference many small moments from earlier chapters. Makes me wonder to which degree readers notice that.

I suppose spanking is physical...

Sure, but it is not meant to cause severe physical harm but to humiliate.

Does breaking a girl totally and utterly make a story less interesting for you? I'd say that a character arc ending in a catastrophe is an arc too. Who doesn't like a good air crash video?

I don't know if I could write that. Once I'm invested in a character like Claire and really like her, I think I would have a hard time completely obliterating her. Reading a story like that I could enjoy a lot if that descend feels meaningful to me, but writing it would be rough.

Did you consider the option of Claire actively trying to make Mark slip and fall?

Not really, no. I didn't see what that would do for the story. Maybe including such a moment early on could have made sensse to underline how hopeless her situation is.

Apropos of nothing: '“So don’t… Ah… put me into the same line with… Ungh… fucking Stalin… or Hitler!”' Never ever, Mark!

Nice of you to honor his wishes. Personally, I'm more fond of his geneva convention line earlier.

It works even better, and the Pi-plushie bit is particularly good. I'm almost sad about it triggering Claire!

Why only almost? I cried writing that moment.

I presume Mark just had to be balanced with someone.

He doesn't have to be. I just wanted to.

Would ending with Jason thinking about running back to Nora away from all that trouble have been too evil a story finale?

That would feel pointlessly cruel to me.

[Lucius]

Why only almost? I cried writing that moment.

It's such a tiny detail!

That would feel pointlessly cruel to me.

On the other hand, it's only too human for Jason to choose getting away from all that trouble.

[Shocker]

Congrats for making it to the community favorites

[RapeU]

First community favorite yahooooooooo

[Lucius]

Congratulations! I'm happy to see the new forum structure, envisioned by the Ravishment Academy founders. 'Record Chaser''s rating grew alongside the board -- until it happened.