Record Chaser

[AdmiralPiet]

@Claire

I reached the end of Chapter 5.

I am a bit uncertain about the actual rape. It was much longer as is usual on here, and longer than I would have expected.

Most rape stories are unrealistic in how easy they portray the actual penetration to be. It is a suspension of disbelief for the fantasy, but interesting change of pace to have Mark work so hard and long for his goal here.
The writing is good. Even though this scene is not really what I look for in a story, and to me it is not "wank material", it kept me hooked and kept me reading.

Some weaknesses:
Conflicted about Claires brain kinda short circuiting and hyperfokussing on the ceiling collapse. I guess that might happen in such a situation, but it took me a bit out of it.

I feel with the repetitions of "She felt him thrusting", and sentences like "His cock spurt forth that first wave of cum with such pressure, that he imagined it splashing against her insides with the force of a head getting splattered against a wall by a shotgun shot" you overdid it a bit.

Also with him increasing the speed. Might be a me problem, but as I read there is a mental movie running in mind. You used "increased once more" three times, and after the first he was already pounding like a jackhammer. Two more increases after that and the attempted fourth made this scene drift a bit too far into the comical for me.

[Claire]

@AdmiralPiet Congratulations! You made it through the first five chapters of essentially the first piece of fiction I ever wrote! And you read the unedited versions. I'm glad that, overall, the text seems to hold up decently. Especially that you seem to enjoy the writing despite its clunkiness at times makes me happy.

I am a bit uncertain about the actual rape. It was much longer as is usual on here, and longer than I would have expected.

I guess you mean longer in the sense that there are a lot of words dedicated to it? Because within the story itself, not a lot of time passes. The first five chapters, but especially everything that happens after the countdown is announced at the end of chapter 2, happens roughly in real time. When Mark announces the countdown, there are 27 minutes left until midnight. The first rape ends after 34 minutes. So chapters 3 to 5 cover only 61 minutes. The three chapters together are 15884 words long (probably a little less after I edited chapters 4 and 5). If you assume that the average reading speed of a reader is 250 words per minute, then they'd be able to read 15250 words in 61 minutes. So overall, reading time aligns almost 1 to 1 with story time.

But that aside, yes I completely agree with you that this is an unusually long scene. This is exactly why I started writing stories. When I read stories on RavishU, I always thought that a story that depicts a rape like this was missing: you zoom in, stay with the events, depict the psychological impact on the victim realistically, and drag the reader through it one agonizing minute at a time. Nothing gets romanticised, you just live in the emotional intensity of the moment.

That is most certainly not for everyone, but I think there is a reason why this story became the first Popular Story without contest support and became the first Community Favorite. And I doubt it's because of the sometimes clunky prose of the original first five chapters. I wrote these as a total beginner and in very quick succession in October 2024. As I'm currently going through the chapters again, I can definitely see how inexperienced I was and how quickly I wrote this. But despite those obvious weaknesses, I think the story delivers an experience that you just don't get from 99.9% of stories. And I would love it so much if more writers tried their hand at writing something like this.

You said that for you this isn't "wank material", but to me a scene like this is the most arousing thing you can write.

Some weaknesses:
Conflicted about Claires brain kinda short circuiting and hyperfokussing on the ceiling collapse. I guess that might happen in such a situation, but it took me a bit out of it.

Here I'd push back a little, and not to defend the story, but to educate a little about trauma responses.

What I'm trying to depict here is a trauma response called dissociation without labeling it that explicitly or explaining it. And after everything I read, I think I've done a decent job portraying that. It's stylized of course. If you read these short paragraphs as one to one depictions of what goes through Claire's mind in that moment, then it is probably too coherent and a bit too orderly for what a heavily traumatized mind would actually go through. But the core idea, her fixating on the ceiling and her perception being detached from reality in a way that she misinterprets the movement of her own body due to his thrusts for a movement of the ceiling, is very real I think.

One of my goals or this story was to give a more realistic depiction of trauma than what our stories usually do. And that kind of trauma response is sadly very real from everything I understand. So if you want to add a bit of flavor to your own stories, look a bit more into trauma responses like dissociation. Implementing something like that in a creative manner is a good way in my opinion to turn a fairly generic rape scene into a moment that the reader actually remembers.

Also with him increasing the speed. Might be a me problem, but as I read there is a mental movie running in mind. You used "increased once more" three times, and after the first he was already pounding like a jackhammer. Two more increases after that and the attempted fourth made this scene drift a bit too far into the comical for me.

I'll have to look into it when I edit the chapter. I might remove it once, especially if it feels repetitive to me.

But in general, narration doesn't serve the purpose for me to accurately describe what's going on. If I wanted to do that, I would choose an omniscient narrator. Instead, it's always perception filtered through a specific pov. Those povs are all inherently unreliable and the more emotional the person is whose pov you currently inhabit, the less would I recommend to take it literally.

I think the text even acknowledges that one of those speed increases might not work because he is already at his limit. So the point is not to give you an accurate description of speed, but to depict Mark's obsession and how his self-perception in this moment turns almost mythic while from Claire's pov he becomes more and more monstrous. What you get is two interpretations of the same event, one from a frenzied mind driving his body to its physical limits, and the other from a heavily traumatized mind trying everything to endure this moment somehow. And all of that is of course meant to contrast with the polite, civil demeanor and the restraint Mark has shown earlier.

[AdmiralPiet]

Congratulations! You made it through the first five chapters of essentially the first piece of fiction I ever wrote! And you read the unedited versions. I'm glad that, overall, the text seems to hold up decently. Especially that you seem to enjoy the writing despite its clunkiness at times makes me happy.

I feel like you don't give yourself enough credit.
Yes, it was the first work you did, and yes one can see that you have improved since then.
But you obviously got more talent than most people in regards to writing. It holds up pretty well.

I guess you mean longer in the sense that there are a lot of words dedicated to it?

Yes. Even scenes that are said in the narrative to go on for some time usually use less words.

But that aside, yes I completely agree with you that this is an unusually long scene. This is exactly why I started writing stories. When I read stories on RavishU, I always thought that a story that depicts a rape like this was missing: you zoom in, stay with the events, depict the psychological impact on the victim realistically, and drag the reader through it one agonizing minute at a time. Nothing gets romanticised, you just live in the emotional intensity of the moment.

Perhaps for fear of falling into repetition I guess many authors will either be a bit less detailed or a detailed start ends with "and then more of the same for X time".

Depending on personal taste and the intended audience the options vary quite a bit from the start.
People like me who dabble less in the emotional are somewhat limited when the rape drags on and what does actually happen is: "he thrust into her like a jackhammer".

That is most certainly not for everyone, but I think there is a reason why this story became the first Popular Story without contest support and became the first Community Favorite. And I doubt it's because of the sometimes clunky prose of the original first five chapters. I wrote these as a total beginner and in very quick succession in October 2024. As I'm currently going through the chapters again, I can definitely see how inexperienced I was and how quickly I wrote this. But despite those obvious weaknesses, I think the story delivers an experience that you just don't get from 99.9% of stories. And I would love it so much if more writers tried their hand at writing something like this.

I can only speak for myself but I think there are many layers to any story.
Some might push all the right buttons when it comes to themes/setting/fetishes but excecution might be horrible.
I might adore the writing style, but be appalled by the worldbuilding.

I don't think that you are wrong in the assumption that it works because you do things differently.
But what also helps is you writing style I feel.
Like I said above, even for a "newborn" writer you have quite a good grasp of it.
When I say that you (and others) are easy to read, I don't intend to say that is simple or dumbed down.
A better description would be "pleasant to read".

You said that for you this isn't "wank material", but to me a scene like this is the most arousing thing you can write.

Sometimes I feel like we stand on opposing sides of a great chasm.
In contact, but forever divided.

Here I'd push back a little, and not to defend the story, but to educate a little about trauma responses.

What I'm trying to depict here is a trauma response called dissociation without labeling it that explicitly or explaining it. And after everything I read, I think I've done a decent job portraying that. It's stylized of course. If you read these short paragraphs as one to one depictions of what goes through Claire's mind in that moment, then it is probably too coherent and a bit too orderly for what a heavily traumatized mind would actually go through. But the core idea, her fixating on the ceiling and her perception being detached from reality in a way that she misinterprets the movement of her own body due to his thrusts for a movement of the ceiling, is very real I think.

One of my goals or this story was to give a more realistic depiction of trauma than what our stories usually do. And that kind of trauma response is sadly very real from everything I understand. So if you want to add a bit of flavor to your own stories, look a bit more into trauma responses like dissociation. Implementing something like that in a creative manner is a good way in my opinion to turn a fairly generic rape scene into a moment that the reader actually remembers.

Oh, I understood what you where doing here. That is why I wrote " I guess that might happen in such a situation"
You will also most likely be right in that a real life trauma victims thoughts will be a lot more chaotic.

My problem was more that this reaction was so unexpected and jarring.
I could not tell you how to do this better. It is kinda neccessary to have any accurate description of dissociation taking the reader out of the flow, else it could not be a accurate description.
Normaly I would expect this description afterward: The rape is done, the victim just lays there and starts drifting away and hyperfocussing on something like the ticking of a clock or a drop of water running down a window.
In the act itself it was... odd? Don't really know how I would even attempt that

Other readers might experience this quite differently to me.
And I guess once you get to editing this one you might smooth it out a bit as well.

I'll have to look into it when I edit the chapter. I might remove it once, especially if it feels repetitive to me.

But in general, narration doesn't serve the purpose for me to accurately describe what's going on. If I wanted to do that, I would choose an omniscient narrator. Instead, it's always perception filtered through a specific pov. Those povs are all inherently unreliable and the more emotional the person is whose pov you currently inhabit, the less would I recommend to take it literally.

I think the text even acknowledges that one of those speed increases might not work because he is already at his limit. So the point is not to give you an accurate description of speed, but to depict Mark's obsession and how his self-perception in this moment turns almost mythic while from Claire's pov he becomes more and more monstrous. What you get is two interpretations of the same event, one from a frenzied mind driving his body to its physical limits, and the other from a heavily traumatized mind trying everything to endure this moment somehow. And all of that is of course meant to contrast with the polite, civil demeanor and the restraint Mark has shown earlier.

I can get that approach.
But even so I would advise to not use such similar wording.

I have always been bad at reading between the lines, even back in school.
Question was something like: "The door being red, what does that mean?"
Teacher had quite a lot of possible meanings of this.
And I was like: "It means the door is red. Not blue. Not green. Red"

[Vela Nanashi]

I often intentionally slow down to a crawl and repeat, to truly make my readers be there with my characters, and sometimes intentionall use the same words, over and over again wit very few variations as what I want to do is have you be with the character, experience what they do. I think that is done well where it needs to be in this story. I see the intent and use of this style it is perhaps not for every writer though, but it gets the marathon nature and horror across like it needs to. For me at least also for an early story of an author it is brilliant probably beats my own quality out of the water

[Claire]

I feel like you don't give yourself enough credit.
Yes, it was the first work you did, and yes one can see that you have improved since then.
But you obviously got more talent than most people in regards to writing. It holds up pretty well.

Thank you! That's very sweet. And yeah, while I'm going through the story chapter by chapter again, I think a lot of it holds up fine. It's only chapter 1 that I would say that suffered quite a lot from beginner mistakes like wall of text paragraphs. So I'm not too harsh on past Claire.

I'm not sure about my talent as a writer. I never really wrote any piece of fiction before October 2024, unless you count homework assignments back in school. I did some writing about a past relationship when I went through a bad breakup a few years ago. But that was... I don't know... therapeutic, autobiographical writing? No idea what you would call that. I wonder how much that influenced my writing style today that focuses so much on introspective narration.

Perhaps for fear of falling into repetition I guess many authors will either be a bit less detailed or a detailed start ends with "and then more of the same for X time".

I totally get that fear. That is why this scene is structured into distinct phases where very different things happen. I feel that even more across different rape scenes in a longer story. That's the main reason why there are only two rape scenes in Late Satisfaction for example. I couldn't find a way to include a third one that would do anything that the other two didn't already do. It's actually one of my main criticism of some longer stories that turn just into a sequence of: "She was raped this way. And then this way. And then this way. And then..." where you can cut out most of the scenes and nothing really changes.

and what does actually happen is

I would say what actually happens is always the emotional/psychological/meaning layer, and not just in sex or rape scenes but in any event of a story. That is what differentiates in an action movie "henchman number 57 got shot" from "the protagonist's girlfriend got shot".

I might adore the writing style, but be appalled by the worldbuilding.

World building is clearly something you care about a lot. Your writing basically screams that. To me, world building is something I can appreciate when it's done well. But it only becomes a distraction for me if a story clearly communicates to me that it cares a lot about its world building, but then doesn't stick to it when it becomes inconvenient. And especially in stories set in our current world, I don't expect any intricate world building and can just roll with it. Something that can take me out of a story very easily is bad dialogue. Maybe that's similar to how you feel about world building.

When I say that you (and others) are easy to read, I don't intend to say that is simple or dumbed down.
A better description would be "pleasant to read".

Don't worry, I never took it like that. On the contrary, that is actually something I might think a lot about while writing so I'm taking that as a compliment. I wonder a lot how to bring across an idea when I write a story. Figuring out how to structure a scene and then phrase things in a way that I get across what I want to convey is usually what I struggle the most with and what I put the most effort into.

And I guess once you get to editing this one you might smooth it out a bit as well.

Hmm, I doubt it. I deliberately don't do any full rewrites during my edits. So the events that happen and the pacing of the scene is largely unaffected by my edits. I only rephrase and polish what's there. If you want to see an example of what the before and after might look like, take a look at the spoilers that show an excerpt from chapter 1:

Old:

► Show Spoiler

Despite her growing nervousness, her body, for whatever reason, chose this moment of impending panic to send her the signal that… her nose was itching. She paid the sensation little mind and, left handed as she was, she intuitively moved her left hand to her face to scratch her nose. She never would have become conscious of this trivial everyday motion if it didn’t turn out to be impossible. She was barely able to move her left hand, or the right for that matter, before her wrists struggled against the cuffs that held her arms in place. The unease she had started to feel after realizing that the man was wearing a bath robe and not a white doctor’s coat now turned into a full blown panic. She mustered all her strength to fight against the cuffs chaining down her wrists. Soon she realized that her ankles were bound in a similar fashion, essentially forcing her to lie down on the bed with her legs spread without being able to move any of her limbs. The cuffs allowed her to sit upright on the bed and as she started to desperately move around the blanket, that had covered most of her body, now slipped down to her waist revealing her bare breasts. She was indeed naked underneath the blanket, at least the upper half of her body. She was in shock. Rapidly moving her gaze back and forth from her naked body, the cuffs chaining her to the bed and the man calmly observing her outburst.

New:

► Show Spoiler

Despite her growing nervousness, her body, for whatever reason, chose this moment of impending panic to send her the signal that… her nose was itching. She paid the sensation little mind and intuitively moved her left hand to her face to scratch her nose. She never would have become conscious of this trivial, everyday motion if it didn’t turn out to be impossible.

She had barely moved her left hand, or the right for that matter, when her wrists began to strain against the cuffs that held her arms in place. The unease she had started to feel after realizing that the man wasn’t wearing a white doctor’s coat finally turned into a full-blown panic. She mustered all her strength to fight against the cuffs restraining her wrists. Soon she noticed that her ankles were bound in a similar fashion, forcing her to lie down on the bed with her legs spread.

The cuffs allowed her to sit upright on the bed. As she started to desperately move around, the blanket that had covered most of her body now slipped down to her waist, revealing her bare breasts. She was indeed naked, at least from the waist up. She was in shock. Her eyes were rapidly moving back and forth between her naked body, the cuffs chaining her to the bed, and the man calmly observing her frantic struggle.

That's the kind of change I'm usually making during the editing. And since the dissociation sequence consists already mostly of short paragraphs and simple sentences, it will probably not be affected much.

I have always been bad at reading between the lines, even back in school.
Question was something like: "The door being red, what does that mean?"
Teacher had quite a lot of possible meanings of this.
And I was like: "It means the door is red. Not blue. Not green. Red"

That's actually a different issue. You're talking more about interpreting meaning or deciphering authorial intent. What I was talking about is the reliability of the narrator. You have moments of the narration being wrong in many places throughout the story. For example, early on you see Claire thinking Mark might be a doctor because he is dressed in white. but it turns out he's just a guy wearing a bathrobe. Or you get Mark's interpretation of a phone call he overheard while stalking Claire, thinking she talked to a girl who just lost her virginity, when Claire was in fact talking to a boy, her friend Jason. That is what I mean by saying the information provided by the narration is always filtered and interpreted through the perception by of a specific character. That is not the same as your teacher asking you "What does this passage mean? Is there a deeper meaning to Mark's bathrobe being white?"

[AdmiralPiet]

World building is clearly something you care about a lot. Your writing basically screams that. To me, world building is something I can appreciate when it's done well. But it only becomes a distraction for me if a story clearly communicates to me that it cares a lot about its world building, but then doesn't stick to it when it becomes inconvenient

To me worldbuilding is only complete if you stick to it.
If an author creates a whole intricate magic system and ignores that every time it gets in the way: What even was the point?
First stage is to create a world/system that can work according to its rules
Second stage is incorporating a story into it.
Third stage is having the story feed back into the world and change it.

That is something I adore David Weber for.
In his Honor Harrington Sci-Fi Series he introduced a faster than light communication system. At first that put me off, because he established that FTL comms are not possible. But: They have artifical gravity, and they have grav-sensors. So the com system works on artificial gravity pulses and fit into the confines of the world.

At another point the protagonist was not commanding a warship, but an armed merchant ship to hunt pirates. As the freighter had massive cargo holds they filled them with missile-launch-pods. Throwing them overboard and then launch huge missile swarms was very effective and I as a reader thought: "Boy, they need to put this concept to work with a true warship. That would kick ass"
A few books later the newly introduced Podlayer-Superdreadnought did just that.

And especially in stories set in our current world, I don't expect any intricate world building and can just roll with it. Something that can take me out of a story very easily is bad dialogue. Maybe that's similar to how you feel about world building.

If the setting is our current world that is not as important, but I consider establishing the setting and relationships as part of worldbuilding.
It would be very offputting for example if the story establishes that the antagonist is in a position of power over the protagonist, has the resolve, means and motivation to act and just doesn't because it would be inconvenient to the story.
I think you are right that what bad dialogue is to you, is inconsistent worldbuilding to me.

That's actually a different issue. You're talking more about interpreting meaning or deciphering authorial intent. What I was talking about is the reliability of the narrator. You have moments of the narration being wrong in many places throughout the story. For example, early on you see Claire thinking Mark might be a doctor because he is dressed in white. but it turns out he's just a guy wearing a bathrobe. Or you get Mark's interpretation of a phone call he overheard while stalking Claire, thinking she talked to a girl who just lost her virginity, when Claire was in fact talking to a boy, her friend Jason. That is what I mean by saying the information provided by the narration is always filtered and interpreted through the perception by of a specific character. That is not the same as your teacher asking you "What does this passage mean? Is there a deeper meaning to Mark's bathrobe being white?"

Yes and no.

It is a different issue, but expression of the same problem.
What I wanted to say was: If the text does not make it clear to me that there is more to it, I tend to take it at face value.
With Harold Miller in "Hostile work environment" I kinda overdid it to make clear that his POV was not what really happened.

If a text does not convey to me quite clearly that it is an unreliable narrator I don't read it that way.
You write "he increased the pace", and without a qualifier of some sort I read that as what was really happening.
Just the same as with the red door example. Without a relatively strong hint, or pointer that there is more to the red colour that is all there is to it: The door is red.

I don't think I need everything spelled out, but subtlety is more often than not lost on me.

[Claire]

@AdmiralPiet Before our conversation drifts too far away from the story into more general topics: Let's say we might need a discussion topic dedicated to world building. Now that I think about it, weird that we didn't create that for Project Relaunch.

[AdmiralPiet]

@AdmiralPiet Before our conversation drifts too far away from the story into more general topics: Let's say we might need a discussion topic dedicated to world building. Now that I think about it, weird that we didn't create that for Project Relaunch.

Yes, you are right.
I could open a topic for that if you give me some time.
Should be able to get to it on the weekend.

[BlueRaven]

I like that chapter . The way Claire gets in his head and how she tries to reclaim her body is very interesting.

Wanted to comment on Chapter 6, still don't know how that works

[Claire]

@BlueRaven You actually can't reply to a specific post. This is an oldschool forum where all posts are added to the end of a thread. It doesn't work like on reddit.

Thanks for the comment on chapter 6! Following up the intensity of chapter 5 was a real challenge. And with little sex in this chapter, it often gets overlooked. But I like that chapter a lot too.