Ever Flipped A Story On Its Head?

[RetroFan]

I imagine that most authors on this site have been in this situation. You think up a story that sounds great in your head, but when you go to write it down it simply doesn't work out like you hoped? Have you ever then completely changed things 180 degrees while keeping to the broad premise, and then found it worked?

I had that with an aunt/nephew story I had in my head for months and even had the title, 'My Nephew Got Into My Knickers'. The aunt narrator in the story was initially supposed to be a plain, mousy sort of woman in her mid 40s who when growing up had lived in the shadow of her pretty sister, who was a child/teenage actress/performer, this sister now a stage mother to her performing daughter and doesn't get along with her son, the nephew going to stay with the aunt after a fight with his parents and he and the aunt becoming lovers.

Yet try as I might I could not get this premise to work, so I flipped it and made the pretty and talented aunt the narrator and a nice person, and the other untalented sister a dowdy and bitter SJW, who acts like a stage mother with her equally talentless daughter and promotes her woke attention seeking online. This causes friction with the son, who then stays with the pretty aunt after a family argument and they become secret lovers due to sharing many of the same beliefs and values.

 

[AlinaX]

I often have stories that stall, and then I change the POV or make the narrative non-linear and it starts to work. I love when that happens.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

When that happens I just kill the main characters. One for the shock value and second so the reader won't asked for a sequel. Although I have a few ask anyway.

Right now I have a list of about 100 that I'm stalled on, can't seem to sit still long enough to finish any of them. Although, I can sit here and comment on post on the board. Go figure.

 

[SimonDoom]

I tend to plot out a lot of the story before I write much, so this happens to me during the plotting stage. I usually resolve it by asking, Whose story do I want to tell? Who has the most interesting perspective and the most interesting story arc? What's the most erotic perspective. I may shift the POV from one character to another, or shift to third person if I think I need more than one point of view. That usually does it, for me.

 

[ChasPHX]

Whoa, both of those versions of your aunt/nephew story sound awesome! I'm going to dig it up.

But I'm curious about what you couldn't get to work in the original structure? Maybe it's too hard to explain in a post, but at a glance it feels entirely doable, w/out of course knowing what direction you were taking the characters.

I see decidedly different, uh, "messages"? - in each version. I love in V1 how the dowdy, downtrodded (but wild underneath the mousy hair) aunt gets vengeance on her pretty, superficial sister by fucking the sister's son under her own roof. Hot!

But I also love how in V2, the dowdy, downtrodden aunt is actually a jerk and the hits just keep coming when her pretty sister, who turns out to be even more beautiful on the inside, fucks her son under her own roof. And the dowdy jerk sister is jealous as hell because she never gets any because she's such a dowdy jerk! Hot!

Guess I better read it to find out whether any of that's on the mark ; )

 

[gunhilltrain]

Yes, I mentioned this elsewhere. I will be starting a series based on, of all things, the advice in a critical comment on a stand-alone story. He might not have fully realized it, but what he suggested allows the story to continue instead of just ending. Once in a while, these people are right.

 

[HappySpouse]

Sort of. I have a story that I have been editing for what seems like forever. Someone was kind enough to read it for me and pointed out many consent issues. So, I changed the person driving the story from a co-worker to the main character. Reading that vague description, it doesn't sound like a big change, but that involved flipping almost every scene and conversation. It is better erotica (for me), but I'm still trying to get the writing as good as the original version.

 

[MelissaBaby]

My Summer Loving entry, Drive In Double Feature started out as a rather melancholy story about a couple of sweethearts who were parted when he went away to college and were confronting whether or not they could reignite their romance when he came home.

It just didn't seem like a good fit for the summer contest, so I reimagined it as a fun story about going to the drive in.

It hasn't gotten much traction in the contest, but I had fun writing it.

 

[lovecraft68]

Every time I start a story that's supposed to be pretty much a quick dirty story, it morphs into a dramatic back story, sometimes with darker overtones and ends up being a damn novella.

My mantra when it comes to original idea to the finishes story is the line in Proud Mary's intro where it says "But Ike and Tina never do anything nice and easy"

 

[RetroFan]

Whoa, both of those versions of your aunt/nephew story sound awesome! I'm going to dig it up.

But I'm curious about what you couldn't get to work in the original structure? Maybe it's too hard to explain in a post, but at a glance it feels entirely doable, w/out of course knowing what direction you were taking the characters.

I see decidedly different, uh, "messages"? - in each version. I love in V1 how the dowdy, downtrodded (but wild underneath the mousy hair) aunt gets vengeance on her pretty, superficial sister by fucking the sister's son under her own roof. Hot!

But I also love how in V2, the dowdy, downtrodden aunt is actually a jerk and the hits just keep coming when her pretty sister, who turns out to be even more beautiful on the inside, fucks her son under her own roof. And the dowdy jerk sister is jealous as hell because she never gets any because she's such a dowdy jerk! Hot!

Guess I better read it to find out whether any of that's on the mark ; )

I'd previously written an uncle/niece story where the niece - a crazy and over-sexed 18-year-old gamer girl - seduces her 44-year-old virgin uncle, a shy nerdy middle aged man and thought a similar premise might work with a shy aunt in her mid 40s and a confident handsome stud 18-year-old nephew. But it just didn't seem to flow.

Making the aunt pretty and vivacious and talented - and also sexually experienced as she was previously married and is a mother of two teenage kids herself - just seemed to work better. Maybe the other scenario was just too cliche? I also wanted to write a story that made fun of SJW's and this happens in abundance in this story.

Anyway, I've kind of recycled the stage mother idea into a new story about a stepfather and his stepdaughter I'm working on now.

 

[sirhugs]

My story Happily Humping Hortense began life as a total rewrite from scratch of a story that began with the back story now included in The World's Best Blowjob? . my goal in both stories was to celebrate the sexuality of "plain jane" women, but on my first go around, the back story kept steering me off into incest, which took away from that goal. After I finished "Hortense", I was able to see a fresh angle to rescue the prior opening section, but by focusing on the blowjob, the cousin stayed away from the action.

Both stories have been well received, and pleased me. I like both versions of the female character.

Another trick I use is to literally "flip the story" by taking part of the action and putting it before the back story. That hen allows me to add more action after the middle section of background and plot.