Writing While Angry - The Lesson I Learned From 'Sense of Submission'

 I wrote Sense of Submission because I was pissed off. I watched someone treat submission like weakness, like it made someone disposable instead of something sacred and if I didn't take it out on a keyboard I was going to explode.

That's why I started, anyway: in fact by the time I was a few thousand words in, I was writing Sense of Submission because I'd fallen in love with Grace, with Brinkmere, with Joe's desperate, aching misery and fear of failure. 

But I started because I was pissed off, because I'd seen something that made me see absolute red. I absolutely won't name names but... the character of Miranda and her casual attitude of "This man is a submissive and so he doesn't matter" was absolutely the starting point for the book, just as Grace's response to her - all poise and calm and perfect retorts - is the half of the conversation that kept echoing through my head all the way back from the club. 

Where I ended up - apart from with what I think is the most romantic arc I've ever set down - was at the conclusion of a novel that tries to explore what submission means from the point of view of a variety of dominant women, and the nobility and sacrifices that sometimes invites from men willing to offer up that level of trust. 

Mantamer sees Harry broken by a neural implant. On Chestnut Tree Lane sees Scott broken by a totalitarian state. But Sense of Submission ultimately sees Joe broken by the need to do what he can for the woman he loves, and that's so, so much more fragile and special.

 

(Also, it's become a bit of a theme in the other book I've been writing since I got the first draft of Sense done, although that's got a very, very different literary genesis! I hope everyone still likes Ruritania?)

 

I think that's why, more than anything else I've written, Sense of Submission tries to explore different models of submission, different expectations of dominance. Which is obvious to anyone who reads it, but I wanted to give a brief skim over the main types because of one of the Dommes in particular - Nicolette. We'll come to her last...

Grace, of course, is the ambitious, driven domme, the kind of woman who spends her entire day working at a high strategic level and who just needs to come home and relax by owning someone and trusting that they'll continue to serve without asking. I loved her from the moment I started writing her.

Charlotte is a practical, slightly maternal, and utterly contented domme because she exists within a hierarchy of other dominants and knows her place precisely. She's critical to Joe's increasing self-understanding, and I honestly think she's the most dignified of the women of Brinkmere.

Justine is never physically dominant but she is... incredible. Wounded deeply, dignified by her own pain and the knowledge of what she was once honoured with. What I've discovered is that I really can't write fiction without at least once creating a scene that makes me want to cry, and Justine delivers this in buckets, in the most beautiful way. She's my proof that dominance need never be sexual; it can simply be how someone is.

 

And then of course... Nicolette; the controlling disciplinarian, the woman who knows her boy's limits better than he knows them himself, and who uses that to both break and build him - by the end, to my surprise she became my favourite character.

And that's because she taught me something.

Because Nicolette Wouldn't Let Me Finish How I Wanted.

There's a scene - no spoilers - where I had everything planned. Joe was going to be humiliated. He was going to fail. There would be consequences, harsh ones. I had outlines for his punishment, his retraining, a sequence of oral service so intense it practically wrote itself (also, so intense I'd gone through it several times in my head, enjoying it more and more every time). It was going to be insanely humiliating for Joe and then deliciously hot for everyone else.

And Nicolette wouldn’t let me do it.

I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I mean it. She was in the room, and it became impossible to finish the scene as I’d planned. I tried to write her out of the scene, but that didn't make sense. I tried to distract her, make her talk to someone else - but she notices things, so that didn't work.

Because the only way that scene could go ahead and end with Joe in tears of shame was if Nicolette saw what was coming, knew Joe was about to break, and chose to do nothing.

And she wouldn’t. I tried to write it, and it just wouldn't work. 

That's never happened to me before, and the feeling was just bizarre. 

The best way I can describe it is this:

You've lost your phone. You know it’s gone. You’ve searched every pocket, every room. You're increasingly sure you last saw it on the table in the coffee shop. And still, still, you throw yourself into a chair, look at the table and think: “It won’t be there. But maybe...” And even before you look, you know. It’s not going to be there. And it isn't. But you look all the same.

Writing that scene was like that. I knew it was broken. But I kept looking anyway.

Trying to write that scene and making Nicolette allow Joe to be broken by it was like that. I knew it wasn't working, and I tried and tried, and it never worked. 

It took most of a week before I finally admitted it:

Nicolette Vernier is a better domme than I am.

And that should be humiliating but honestly I am just... impressed. And a tiny bit humbled.

Because she saved Joe in that scene, and I think it' quite possibly one of the best scenes I’ve ever written. And later - after the climax of the novel, when Joe needs care - I found Nicolette there again, effortlessly fixing things, and reminding both Joe and me that she had his back before, and he could trust her.

I started writing Sense of Submission because I was angry about the way someone treated a submissive. What I learned, in the process, is how dangerously easy it is to get carried away. To chase intensity and forget the duty that comes with dominance.

I should have known better. Mantamer is about that exact risk.

But in Sense of Submission, I had help.

I had Grace. And Charlotte. And Nicolette.

And I'd be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I didn't admit it: they knew what Joe needed better than I did.