Songs to write Loving Wives stories to

[EmilyMiller]

I don't think I have it in me to write a story that angry and mean...

The only way I could imagine myself writing in that category would be if it were something weird and funny, and I'm not sure that audience would enjoy it

You don’t have to be angry and mean. Jacob’s Progress did well and received positive comments. It’s definitely my own take on the category. And with 2,100 votes it’s probably safe to post a link here.

 

[Erozetta]

Oh, that'll go over really well in LW, I'm sure. ; )

Good thing I'm not afraid of bad scores, lol.

 

[MillieDynamite]

What I've been writing to!

 

[Lifestyle66]

I don't think I have it in me to write a story that angry and mean...

The only way I could imagine myself writing in that category would be if it were something weird and funny, and I'm not sure that audience would enjoy it

I've posted weird and funny stories to LW just to poke at them.

"A Gathering of Trolls" is exactly that, my vision of a funny story about four LW trolls.

"Chasing Her in the Wild" is about a "cock-tease" being chased through the woods.

Both of those stories are within my usual range for that category (3.11 for Trolls, and 3.68 for Chasing.)

So, most of them have a sense of humor.

 

[PennyThompson]

What even is this song! Why is the "vaguely Asian" love interest played by a white woman? Why is he rapping about playing chess? Why is it so catchy? Cocaine is a hell of a drug

 

[AwkwardMD]

Not sure if this ones been mentioned yet but

 

[NoTalentHack]

This could be a lot of things, but it definitely has the vibes of a "moving on" LW story.

 

[gunhilltrain]

What even is this song! Why is the "vaguely Asian" love interest played by a white woman? Why is he rapping about playing chess? Why is it so catchy? Cocaine is a hell of a drug

It's a weird song indeed. The narrator makes a living as a chess master and travels around the world for matches. By the time of the song, he's completely jaded with every place he has to go to and finds Bangkok particularly annoying because it's so foreign to him. He's also seems to have given up any idea for a personal life and lives only for the cerebral challenges of chess. I think he admits that there is something wrong with his own personality. He is a savant in this talent for the game, but he has failed at any other way of finding satisfaction.

It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity
To be looking at the board, not looking at the city
Whaddya mean? Ya seen one crowded, polluted, stinking town . . .

Not really LW, but it could be the basis of a story here.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Not sure if this ones been mentioned yet but

Sort of LW, but she is totally tired of him (I can see why) and I would guess she's going to dump him right after the Carnegie Hall show at the end. She doesn't yet, it seems, have a new guy in mind.

 

[Ian_Snow]

Whenever I get ready to write cheating scenes under my Grayson Banks name, "Do It All the Time" by I Don't Know How But They Found Me is a must.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Sort of LW, but she is totally tired of him (I can see why) and I would guess she's going to dump him right after the Carnegie Hall show at the end. She doesn't yet, it seems, have a new guy in mind.

A good deal of the lyrics were rewritten, but this song was originally directed at, and about, another woman.

You can still hear it if you listen for it.

 

[Ian_Snow]

Oh, one more fun one for you - Royal and the Serpent's "Kinda Smacks."

 

[MillieDynamite]

Someplaces on the net says she was a Thai/Western mix girl or Eurasian.

What even is this song! Why is the "vaguely Asian" love interest played by a white woman? Why is he rapping about playing chess? Why is it so catchy? Cocaine is a hell of a drug

 

[Actingup]

What even is this song! Why is the "vaguely Asian" love interest played by a white woman? Why is he rapping about playing chess? Why is it so catchy? Cocaine is a hell of a drug

Chess is a great musical! But it’s had a difficult life. The original recording has a lot of the trademarks of Bjorn & Benny (ABBA composers) and Tim Rice (English lyricist best known for Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar) and some clever songs. But they made the courageous artistic choice of having an American as the arsehole (the narrator in ‘One Night In Bangkok’) and there was a lot of rewriting to try and make it work on Broadway.

Chess also has a terrific love-triangle ballad, “I know him so well”, where the Russian champion’s estranged wife and mistress sing about their frustrations with him and realisation that they have given up their lives for a man-child. It was a massive hit and the video is worth a watch for the 80s stylings alone.

“He needs his fantasy and freedom…”

 

[Gamblnluck]

Good thing I'm not afraid of bad scores, lol.

I am always amazed at the animosity people on AH show towards LW. The answer is simple, post a fetish story in that category. A bdsm story in that category. And if you do post in LW understand what the readership is looking for. It is NOT a total BTB, kill the cheating bitch/bastard and go scorched earth. As a matter fact many stories with mild consequences do very well.
The readers are NOT moralistic like another author in one thread claimed, not are they celibate assholes sitting in their Mom's basement.
In fact I'd bet the great majority no longer have mothers as they are in their upper 60's to 80's.
The best received stories have a simple premise-JUSTICE. Yeah, a well-written plot is needed to. That does not mean flamboyant prose. It means a decent plot without too many holes. Even the pickiest of the readers/commenters hate to see ridiculous story lines with irrational plot lines.
About a year ago there was a story of a kid, 18, who enlisted after barely graduating high school and by the time he finished his four year enlistment, he was setting up a mercenary security firm that contracted to the CIA for those missions the CIA could not handle. He went on to burn the bitches... and got burned in return.
The readers do not want to see a man get kicked in the balls by his wife, his dog shot, his money stolen and made to suck off her boyfriend and then say, 'Gee, my dick got hard so I must be a cuck and deserve it."
Readers there seem to be even more prone in LW to put themselves into the place of the characters. As such they feel an empathy. In the better written stories anyway. A man can be clueless for a while, but once he realizes he has been wronged, he is expected to man up and do something. At the very least, get rid of the bitch who rubbed his face in her shit. Reconciliation is possible, but MUST be justified.
And yeah, the readers there are vocal. They are gonna tell you what you think of what you wrote, how you wrote it. They are going to analyze how the characters should have responded. If it is LOGICAL to the situation, you will probably get a great score and compliments.
just take a look at some of the recent stories that got close to a 4 and compare them to those that get a 2 or less.

 

[ruddygore]

This is how to many end.

 

[PennyThompson]

Chess is a great musical! But it’s had a difficult life. The original recording has a lot of the trademarks of Bjorn & Benny (ABBA composers) and Tim Rice (English lyricist best known for Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar) and some clever songs. But they made the courageous artistic choice of having an American as the arsehole (the narrator in ‘One Night In Bangkok’) and there was a lot of rewriting to try and make it work on Broadway.

Chess also has a terrific love-triangle ballad, “I know him so well”, where the Russian champion’s estranged wife and mistress sing about their frustrations with him and realisation that they have given up their lives for a man-child. It was a massive hit and the video is worth a watch for the 80s stylings alone.

“He needs his fantasy and freedom…”

oh wow, I had no idea it was from a musical! I thought maybe it was just a very specific concept album. The choice to back-light those incredible hairdos in that ballad is... a choice

 

[PennyThompson]

It is NOT a total BTB, kill the cheating bitch/bastard and go scorched earth. As a matter fact many stories with mild consequences do very well.

At the very least, get rid of the bitch who rubbed his face in her shit.

See this feels at odds to me. And even when you're trying to dispassionately describe the category expectations, this sounds so aggressively angry and bitter that I don't want to ever touch it

 

[Gamblnluck]

See this feels at odds to me. And even when you're trying to dispassionately describe the category expectations, this sounds so aggressively angry and bitter that I don't want to ever touch it

And because it is at odds to you, leave the category alone. You need to understand it. Don't spend a lot of time writing a story, submit it there and when it gets thrashed into oblivion complain the 'incels' or the idiots who want to shove their morality down others' throats etc. did not like your story. I gave you a simple answer. Not a complete answer because therey is more to it. But you will see many who will say here, "I will submit what I want." And that is fine. Do what you want. Lay out in the sun naked on a Caribbean beach, but don't complain about getting sunburned.

 

[NoTalentHack]

See this feels at odds to me. And even when you're trying to dispassionately describe the category expectations, this sounds so aggressively angry and bitter that I don't want to ever touch it

Eh, he's laying it on a bit thick. Stories I've posted there that have gotten a 4.5+:

A love story between two people who were on the verge of divorce before one lost her memory
A dude rebuilds his life after his wife cheats on him with his best friend. No burn.
The Big Chill crossed with that nuclear bunker scene from Grease 2.
A (mostly) one-act play about the letter a wife left behind after her death.
The fiery BTB and eventual reconciliation between a young couple (over two stories)
"The Terminator as a chick flick" - a line from the (often comedic) story, which is actually about a dude who realizes he married the wrong person for the wrong reason and corrects that... only for her to refuse to let him go.
Peyton Place, but also about how traditional gender roles and Boomer culture "I hate my wife" jokes can turn into a toxic stew for an entire community
A secret X-Men AU

And at 4+:
A veteran adulteress takes a first-timer under her wing.
A polyamorous triad doing basically everything wrong and ending up in a happy place anyways.
A husband tending to his wife in a memory care facility, even though the memory she keeps returning to is of her confessing to cheating on him.
A thinly veiled diatribe about late stage capitalism and "disruptors"
A Greek tragedy
A Hall Pass story that's... like, it's about a lot of things, but it's largely about learning to forgive oneself and others for past mistakes
A divorced couple reconciles over the course of seven short conversations spread across a couple of years
My ADHD brain going nuts and stringing together papal indulgences, modern entertainment contracts, and learning how to trust again


Don't get me wrong, I've got a few straight-up hellfire and brimstone burns in there (and sad dramas, etc.), but mostly the fun (at least for me) is in finding something entertaining to do that doesn't involve that.

Mostly.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Chess is a great musical! But it’s had a difficult life.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the original Chess ran in Europe or UK and was a big hit, but when they brought it to Broadway it was heavily edited to make the American the perfect hero and it basically ruined the script?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

The best received stories have a simple premise-JUSTICE.

Which is still not a turn-on, a fetish, nor an erotic concept. There is a large chunk of the readership there who are not reading for titilation at all, but simply as you say, for justice, and while ether is nothing really wrong with that in itself, it's kinda fucked up that they come to an erotic website to find a fantasy concept that is not erotic. It's this subgroup of the readership there that brings the toxicity. Now it's one thing that this group wants to give such negative reactions to stories with zero basis on storytelling or hotness, just simply if justice was served, but it's another for so many in this group to destroy entire catalogs over it - which is itself horribly ironically unjust. So there are a great many there reading and reacting under the guise of justice, that are really only after revenge - spiteful oppressive revenge.

 

[Actingup]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the original Chess ran in Europe or UK and was a big hit, but when they brought it to Broadway it was heavily edited to make the American the perfect hero and it basically ruined the script?

That's my understanding. There are various online articles about it, which I won't quote here. Instead, I'll quote this more on-topic commentary from the Guardian on another of the Chess songs, "Nobody's Side":

Many of the songs in Chess number among Benny and Björn’s best: One Night In Bangkok is a classic for a reason, while Nobody’s Side – one of Bassingthwaite’s bigger numbers – probably would have been a classic had Abba recorded it. Abba fans will find juicy metacommentary in the content of the songs themselves; although the lyrics were written with Rice, these songs sound just as concerned with Andersson and Ulvaeus’ respective divorces as the bulk of Abba’s late-period ouvre. The intensely paranoid Nobody’s Side, in particular, feels like a piece of score-settling:

“I see my present partner
In the imperfect tense
And I don’t see how we can last
I feel I need a change of cast
Maybe I’m on nobody’s side”
(https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...-cold-war-musical-is-absurdly-complicated-fun)

 

[PennyThompson]

That's my understanding. There are various online articles about it, which I won't quote here. Instead, I'll quote this more on-topic commentary from the Guardian on another of the Chess songs, "Nobody's Side":

Many of the songs in Chess number among Benny and Björn’s best: One Night In Bangkok is a classic for a reason, while Nobody’s Side – one of Bassingthwaite’s bigger numbers – probably would have been a classic had Abba recorded it. Abba fans will find juicy metacommentary in the content of the songs themselves; although the lyrics were written with Rice, these songs sound just as concerned with Andersson and Ulvaeus’ respective divorces as the bulk of Abba’s late-period ouvre. The intensely paranoid Nobody’s Side, in particular, feels like a piece of score-settling:

“I see my present partner
In the imperfect tense
And I don’t see how we can last
I feel I need a change of cast
Maybe I’m on nobody’s side”
(https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...-cold-war-musical-is-absurdly-complicated-fun)

I am obsessed with her hair, I want to touch it but it would probably crumble like cotton candy

 

[Actingup]

I am obsessed with her hair, I want to touch it but it would probably crumble like cotton candy

For hair obsessions, there's a different musical.