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Just a quick note to say Ch7 has been submitted and should appear in due course, once the moderators in North America have had a chance to wake up and have a look at it.
This particular chapter marks the point where things start to heat up a bit.
I was casting about for an idea for a blog post and fortunately, a question from a reader provided the answer. The comment from the reader in question referred to ATWB as a 'harem' story.
The short, straightforward answer is that ATWB is not a harem story. Having said that, it does share many similarities with those.
Let me start off by saying that “harem” stories don’t appeal to me very much. I’m not completely put off by them if they are otherwise well-written, but they aren’t the type of story I seek out.
To my way of thinking, what makes or breaks long-form erotica (smut, adult fiction, whatever you wish to call it) are the female characters. Over time, I've come across numerous discussions revolving around male main characters (MCs), but I don’t believe they are as vital as they seem. Unless the character is (or becomes) utterly, intolerably annoying (eg. “Summer Camp”), as readers, we tend to largely overlook them. What happens is that (to a large extent) we replace them with ourselves. It's what's referred to as "self-insertion.”
The thing that really keeps (male) readers interested, I think, are the female characters. They are the ones we fall in love with. We want their romance with the MC to work out. We want revenge on those who have wronged them (sometimes, including the MC). Think of all the long-form adult stories where the MC starts with one girl and then ends up breaking up with her for whatever reason, and how difficult it is for authors to establish a second character to take her place.
My understanding of the term ‘harem fiction’ is a story where the MC ends up with multiple women who are devoted exclusively to him - unless it is girl-on-girl stuff. After all, we all know that when it comes to smut, all female characters are enthusiastically bisexual. There may be stories that deviate from that particular trope, but let me assure you that mine isn't one of them.
While the MC is allowed to sleep with a bunch of women, the women must remain sexually exclusive to him. To my mind, the concept of harem stories necessitates portraying the female characters in a somewhat pathetic manner. It's difficult to develop a likeable character when they're depicted as being pitiful and lacking self-worth.
So what does all this have to do with ATWB and the way it both is and isn’t harem fiction?
The reason behind this has to do with the scope of the story. ATWB's timeline spans only a few months, from when the protagonist Fayard returns from boarding school (in the last weeks of winter, within the story's timeframe) to his departure for university in early autumn. During this time, he will develop relationships with various female characters that implicitly exclude other male partners.
However, these relationships are understood to be transitory by all parties involved. The female characters are not Fayard’s women. Everyone understands that in some way or another, they will eventually move on.
Of course, I recognise the immense popularity of harem stories. It's hard to ignore the abundance of comments both here and elsewhere, where readers insist that no other male character should touch the MC's girls. If this is a narrative element that gets you riled up, perhaps you should give ATWB a miss. Although something like that doesn’t actually occur in the story, as an author, I am not massively sympatric to the attitude and ATWB isn’t building up to that kind of resolution.
The “other place” might give me more views (and they vote better too, haha) but good old SoL just works better. You can actually maintain a regular posting schedule here.
Looking back at it, chapter 4 is probably the weirdest chapter of ATWB. I suppose that’s not really a good way of putting it - there is nothing all that weird about ATWB. It’s probably better to say the chapter is the one which leans most into the idea that the story is taking place in a different world - almost a “high concept” kind of thing… hahah.
By setting the story in a different world, I was able to play around with some of the common tropes and conventions of smut fiction. For example, the ability of the MC to rail multiple women, several times a night. Well, as it happens, in the world of ATWB, there is a pill for that.
As I’ve said previously, I didn’t want to make a “big deal” out of this, in the same way as I didn’t want other elements about the setting to come to the foreground, the way they do in Fantasy (with a big F) fiction. Ultimately, the story is meant to be a romantic boy/girl* story - it isn’t “about” the setting.
* Well, boy/girl and all the other girls the girl likes having sex with because, after all, it's smut.
Firstly, many thanks to the people who have sent kind messages. They are all much appreciated.
They have also raised a couple of points and I want to try and address them in the next few blog posts.
One question which has come up is the theme of the ATWB. I think this is a fair question - ‘Woodchopper’ is a little different from most adult fiction and with only two chapters posted, readers may still be wondering what it is supposed to be.
I think once you get past the setting and language, the central theme of ATWB isn’t that different from a lot of other well-known long-form erotic stories. I call these ‘youthful sexual exploration’ - I think ‘Summer Camp’* by Nick Scipio is probably the most well-known example, but there are many others like it.
*At least the first couple of books before the MC went to college.
The scenario that most appeals to me is one where a young protagonist is either introduced to or stumbles on sexual shenanigans they didn’t know were going on around them. But I also want there to be a romantic relationship at the heart of the whole thing and not just a free for all sex-fest — not that there is anything wrong with having a good few of those also.
I don’t particularly like the term “coming of age” for this kind of story. It brings to mind something like a ‘bildungsroman’ where the author tries to examine the psychological growth of the character through to adulthood. It also implies that the narrative has to follow the protagonist through a long enough period for this growth and development to occur.
The description, ‘youthful sexual exploration’ doesn’t burden you with this and leaves the author free to concentrate on a shorter period. I think that perhaps many long-form adult authors have come unstuck because they (and readers who encouraged them) didn’t know when to stop.
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