Sadly, I don't remember my old stories, so I was skimming a story of mine from 2009, looking for something. I don't typically re-read my old stories, but this one caught my interest so I stopped skimming and read "Teacher's Nightmare" in its entirety. I enjoyed it immensely, but that's not the reason for this blog.
Back then, I included a note before Chapter 1 discussing the difficulty an author has choosing the correct story tags. After re-reading the story, I ended up removing some tags and adding another. That only cements my belief that choosing the correct story tags is not easy and probably not always correct. If there is even a "correct."
While changing the story's tags, I also changed it from "some sex" to "much sex." That's another subjective decision an author has to make. I've read stories on SOL listed as "some sex" that, in my opinion, were at best "minimal sex." But people might think my "some sex" stories should be "much sex." I did for "Teacher's Nightmare" after re-reading it. I'm always hesitant to list a story as "much sex" because some people might think of it as "stroke," but just because it has a lot of sex doesn't mean it doesn't have a plot and/or character development. For example, I hope anyone who reads "Teacher's Nightmare" experiences the emotional turmoil the teacher goes through — fear, anger, frustration, fear again, humiliation, helplessness, desperation, despair.
I really enjoyed reading "Teacher's Nightmare." It's not one of my higher rated stories, but maybe that's because of the story tags I had listed that I just removed. With them listed, someone could have been misled into believing the story was what it isn't (based on the tags). That could influence a reader when it came to scoring the story. That's what I mean by an author's dilemma with story tags? Or maybe the score was affected by some people not liking it because it's rather dark. It has a happy ending, but even that was somewhat dark. But I'm not adverse to writing dark stories if it makes a good story. For example, my Lincoln Steele novels. In them, like in "Teacher's Nightmare," the bad guys are really bad, so it's a dark story. It has to be to really hate the bad guys and get satisfaction when they "get theirs."
I found some errors in "Teacher's Nightmare" and, although I'm a perfectionist and they're killing me, I'm not going to fix them. Back in 2009, SOL's submission process was different than it is today so all I have are.txt files for the story. It wouldn't be worth the effort to convert them to.docx and make the changes. I'm currently writing the 4th Lincoln Steele novel and don't want to stop yet again. I already put writing that novel on hold several times to write "The Nymphomaniac," several short stories, and SOL contest entries. So if you read the story, forgive the few errors.
While I was changing the story tags, I took advantage of SOL's new feature to have a book cover so I created one. I want to give credit to Meta AI for drawing the picture based on my input. She's a cutie and could easily be the teacher in "Teacher's Nightmare."
Well, I meant to talk about story tags here but seemed to get off on a tangent or two. So I guess I'll stop.