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Dbonarz - Men Clothes Fantasy - Tumblr Blog
Bacchus, as named by the Romans (Also sometimes known as Dionysus) is the Greek the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, food and consumption, fertility, theatre, and ecstasy and is the protector of those who do not belong in conventional society. His wine, music and dance free his followers from inhibitions, self-conscious fears, and worries to allow them to break from oppressive restraints. Legend has that he is the son of Zeus. It is the time of his return and he’s claimed a small New England town to build his flock.
New chapter posted on Nifty here.
Bearing a mikoshi (portable shrine) at a matsuri (festival). Fundoshi, the traditional men’s undergarment, is often worn by participants.
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WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
I don't have access to desk-top-publishing software - I use Microsoft Word - there are many settings to control placement so images don't impact on the flow of the text!
In a final version I may put an image on the cover page, or on a page before the chapter; or a small image at the beginning of the chapter before the text, or at the end of the chapter after the text; or multiple small images in the outside margin ...
That leads to a separate conversation about page layout design ...
using microsoft word
*moves an image a mm to the left*
all text and images shift. four new pages appear. paragraph breaks form a union. a swarm of commas buzzes at the window. in the distance, sirens.
Un-wrap please
Breeding Party
A Randy Man Adventure
“I want to breed your ass hard.”
That was the one phrase Randy Man remembered from the Grindr chat with the 25-year-old Chinese guy.
And now he was face down on the clean white sheets of a double bed in a hotel room booked by the hour, with a big dick moving steadily in his ass, with two other guys waiting their turn in the dark room.
***
It all seemed easy enough. A couple of hours ago, he had gone on Grindr, looking for some fun. He was horny (no surprise, considering that his parents had given him a name that meant “Horny Fellow” thanks to the combination of a Western name and a Cantonese surname) and he was good-looking enough to manage a pick up quite easily.
Turning the app on led to the usual flood of chats, and Randy filtered through them quickly, eliminating the photo hunters and the catfish as best as he could, sending facepics and bodypics and asspics and dickpics out to the people he was interested in. One guy, whose profile read “Breed You Gd” was a particularly hot prospect: his photo depicted him bending over the camera in a t-shirt and white underwear which seemed to hold a sizeable bulge.
Randy sent his nudes, front and back, across.
“Got cock pic?”
The photo that came back was impressive, a dauntingly large uncut cock with a thick shaft and a flat head that was only a little broader.
“What are you looking for?”
“I want to breed your ass hard.”
“Can, but I got no place.”
“I get a hotel.”
A little negotiation about logistics, including an exchange of phone numbers (the guy introduced himself as Chan) and Randy spent some time cleaning out his ass before having a shower and heading to meet him.
***
“Up,” Chan said, his voice low and commanding, and Randy felt his ass emptying as Chan pulled out.
Randy got to his knees, clenching and unclenching his hole to tighten it up. He barely had time to get used to his new position before Chan pushed back inside, his thick dick stretching Randy open, making Randy groan. Chan went back to his steady pump from before, going further in this time.
Randy’s new position let him turn his head to look at the other guys in the room, one on either side of the bed, watching him get bred. Both of them were playing with their dicks, a mirror image of each other, getting hard to take their turns.
***
While he was travelling, Randy’s phone buzzed, and he saw a message from Chan.
“I got two more friends want to join. Can?”
Randy was horny enough to say yes. Then he thought about it and asked for photos of the two guys. He didn’t change his mind.
Getting out of the cab, Randy got another message with the room number - he headed in and went directly upstairs. The staff at reception didn’t seem to notice.
The door to the hotel room swung open when he approached it, the room inside dark even though it was only afternoon. The drapes had been drawn shut, and Randy stepped in and took a moment to get his eyes used to the dim interior. The guy who had opened the door was naked except for a towel, and Randy recognised him as Chan.
Chan shut the door, and ushered Randy in, where two other men were sitting in armchairs on either side of a round table by the window. They were also wearing only towels, and judging from the fresh smell in the air, all three had showered while Randy was making his way over. He wondered if he’d been set up - whether there was always a plan for all three to get a willing bottom - but it didn’t make a difference. Even thinking about it got his dick twitching.
All three guys were similar: Chinese, gym-fit, about the same age, short hair and clean cut. Randy assumed they were friends from school or something, and they did all seem to be about 25, the age on Chan’s profile.
But they were different, too. They introduced themselves with their surnames only (at least Randy assumed those were their surnames - perhaps they had met in National Service instead).
Chan was the guy from Grindr, an intense-looking guy with a strange light in his eye. He was the leanest of the three, and the fairest. Since he was clad only in a towel, Randy could see how much his broad shoulders tapered down to a small waist. He had broad, flat pecs topped with tiny nipples, and very defined abs.
Wong had a boyish face and a black plug in one earlobe, and looked like the most mischievous of the three, the kind of party boy who would make sure that everyone had one too many drinks and then had adventures. He was well-proportioned, and even though he had a fair bit of bulk, he carried it well - he was tall, and fairly muscular.
Between his broad body and t-shirt tan lines, it was easy to believe that Lim was a rugby player. He also had a face for rugby: fierce, with a square jaw and a little imperfect, like maybe he’d broken his nose in the past. He also looked military - the crew cut that he sported and the way he held himself stiffly upright. Randy immediately noticed his huge square pecs, and the big nipples towards the outward edges of them.
At some signal that he didn’t notice, the two guys sitting down stood up, and all three unwrapped their towels. Three uncut semi-hard cocks on display: even half-hard, Chan’s was the biggest with wispy pubic hair at the base over low-dangling big balls, Wong’s hung down long and thin with a long foreskin, although his balls were smaller, his bushy nest and hairy legs and thighs looking natural and untrimmed, and Lim’s dark sausage, soft, thick and blunt, with neatly trimmed pubes that matched his haircut, and a dark sack.
Randy had been instructed to clean up before coming, so that action could proceed as soon as he got there, and he was told there wasn’t going to be much foreplay.
“Strip,” said Chan, obviously the leader.
***
Wong was the first to climb onto the bed, offering his dick to Randy from the side. He hadn’t gotten much bigger, but he was, as advertised, thin and long. Randy turned his head and opened his mouth, and Wong slipped his dick between Randy’s lips. The angle made it a little difficult to move his head while getting pumped from behind, but he did his best. Wong helped, pumping his hips back and forth, moaning slightly, until finally he held Randy’s face still and fucked his face. Randy tried to take it as best as he could, but Wong got over-enthusiastic and pushed too far too fast, and Randy gagged. Wong pulled out, and patted Randy on the cheek, not unkindly, before climbing off the bed.
Lim was next up. He stood in front of Randy, his legs bent so that his cock was in front of Randy’s face, standing firm and completely upright. It had grown quite a bit, thicker (to Randy’s eye) than Chan’s, and the tip of his foreskin glistened with precum. Lim pushed it down, and Randy gamely took it into his mouth, tasting a little tanginess from the precum. Lim was kinder, staying still so that Randy could use the momentum of Chan’s fucking to suck him. He grunted as Randy slurped on him, lubricating his mouth with saliva to give Lim a nice slobbery blowjob.
He only stopped when Chan slapped his ass, and pulled out suddenly.
***
Randy took off his clothes, put them aside and let Chan lead him to the bed. Chan cleared the pillows, took a pump bottle of lube from the side table, and guided Randy to lie face down. Randy was attracted by the club that poked up from between Chan’s legs, too big to stick straight up. It was a fine specimen - not the thickest cock he’d ever seen, but thick at the base, tapering up the shaft, with a bulbuous head barely contained by Chan’s foreskin. Randy was tempted to suck it, but he had been told to only do as he was instructed.
Chan climbed on behind Randy, and Randy heard a few pumps, and then felt some cool lube on his hole. He heard some more slurping noises, and figured that Chan was slicking up his dick. Chan didn’t waste time - he pushed into Randy so hard that Randy yelped, and rested his weight on Randy as he pumped in and out of Randy’s suddenly sore ass. The pain subsided, and Randy wondered if he’d made the right decision to come here.
He remembered being turned on by Chan’s desire to breed him hard, and that helped - Randy felt himself getting harder.
***
“Did you cum?” Randy said, taking his mouth off Lim and turning to look at Chan.
Wong lubed up his cock before taking up Chan’s position, not kneeling behind Randy but squatting over Randy’s presented ass. He was even less gentle than Chan, shoving in quickly and starting up a hard fuck, driving deep into Randy with each stroke.
Randy struggled to take it, and barely noticed Chan’s reply.
“No. I come last.”
He climbed on the bed, presenting his dick to Randy, wet with lube and the juices from Randy’s asshole. Randy sucked his cock, and was surprised to find that Lim had bent over to join him, and the two of them serviced Chan from either side as Wong ploughed Randy hard.
At the pace Wong was going, it wasn’t long before he started groaning and then slammed hard into Randy’s ass, unloading inside. He pulled out, and Randy felt a little dribble down the back of his balls, which had drawn up tight as he had gotten hard.
Lim moved behind Randy, and stroked Randy’s balls.
“On your back,” said Chan, and Randy obeyed, lying on the bed with his butt at the edge, lifting his legs and spreading them open. He got an additional thrill from seeing Lim lubricating his cock with the bit of Wong’s load that had dribbled out. Lim pumped some lube on his hand, and fingered Randy roughly, shoving three, then four fingers in to stretch him out. Randy was grateful for that when Lim shoved in, and even then he could feel Lim’s thick meat forcing him open.
Lim was a little more gentle than the others, but he only took a couple of slow strokes before thrusting urgently into and out of Randy. Randy heard some low animal noises, and realised that he was making them himself, the sensation of having his prostate pummelled driving the sounds out of him. He was fully turned on, his cock lying hard against his flat stomach, dribbling a thin lot of precum. Randy put one hand on his dick, stroking himself slowly as Lim continued to pound him, and Randy turned to the side where he could make out Wong on his knees sucking on Chan’s cock.
He wondered about the relationship between the three guys, but only for a moment, because Lim was slamming into him hard and strong, as he filled Randy’s ass, a motion that sent sensations deep inside Randy and forced an orgasm out of him, as Randy’s cock pulsed and shot out a load across his body, almost up to his nipples.
As Lim pulled out, Chan moved over, scooping up a fingerful of Randy’s cum and feeding it to him (Randy sucked greedily on Chan’s finger) before scraping up the rest and depositing it over his own cock. Chan didn’t add any more lube, just lifted Randy’s legs onto his shoulders and just shoved himself in. Randy reevaluated his earlier guess - Chan’s cock felt thicker and longer than Lim’s, perhaps because of the big head - and Chan was soon fucking Randy roughly, lubricated with Randy’s own cum, forcing Randy to bend almost double as he pumped into him.
Randy could only imagine Chan’s big head churning the two loads that he already had inside him, and Chan lived up to his promise, breathing loudly and fucking Randy hard before finishing by thrusting roughly into Randy, unloading at the same time. Randy had already gone soft from his earlier ejaculation, and he could only take it like a man as Chan continued thrusting even after he came.
Randy heard the sound of the shower, and looked around and saw that Wong and Lim were gone, presumably to clean up together. The sounds stopped, and Chan kept going, a fierce light in his eyes as he continued to wreck Randy’s ass. He pulled out quickly, and moved over to Randy’s head - Randy put his legs down and opened his mouth just in time to get a mouthful of Chan’s second cum shot, and then cleaned the cum and lube off Chan’s cock at first, and then Chan’s balls.
Chan looked satisfied as he picked up his towel and went into the bathroom, where the shower sounds started up again. Randy wondered, again, what the deal was with the three guys. He clenched his ass, trying to hold the liquid in until he could go and clean up.
After a while, the three of them came out of the bathroom, their towels over their shoulders, and judging from their half-swollen cocks, something had happened in the bathroom. Randy sat up to take his turn in the shower and was surprised when Wong and Lim sat on either side of him and started stroking his chest.
“Another round?” Chan said, and Randy shrugged and felt himself growing hard again. He didn’t get to shower until much later, after Wong and Lim had both had another chance to fuck him, and after he and Wong got on the bed on all fours as Chan fucked him while Lim fucked Wong (and then the two tops exchanged places) and then Chan fucked all three of them. Six loads in his ass, all up, although he did get to squirt most of the first three out before round two: Chan rubbed it on Randy’s cock, balls, abs and chest before lubing Randy up and forcing himself in.
Even cleanup was fun and a little dirty, as all three guys pissed on Randy’s body as he sat in the bathtub, before making him suck them clean, and then all four of them rinsed off in the shower before drying off, dressing, and going home.
Curious Poses: A Randy Man Adventure
Randy Man was, as usual, horny. (His parents had named him well, a strange combination of a Western name and a Cantonese surname.)
Seeing the hot bods in the gym had turned him on, and made it really difficult to for him to focus on his workout. His bad luck, the changing room was empty when he finished, so he had no audience when he soaped up his hard on in the shower.
He didn’t really want to jack off by himself, so he reluctantly tucked it away, and left. He saw one of the cuter guys head into the changing room after he left, and thought about going back in again for a peek, but decided against it.
A nearby coffee shop was where he chose to have dinner. It was pretty crowded, so he wasn’t surprised to hear someone ask to share his table. He was surprised when he looked up, because it was the guy from the gym. Randy glanced up from his bak chor mee and tried to surreptitiously inspect him.
He was young-ish, maybe in his late 20s, kinda nerdy face with glasses that had thick black plastic frames. A slim line of hair ran along the bottom of his chin, adding definition to his boyish face. That face didn’t at all match his manly body, which was lightly tanned, and definitely firm and in shape, without being bulky or overly muscular.
“Hey, I saw you in the gym.”
Randy tried to hide how startled he was. No one who had shared his table in a coffee shop had ever talked to him before. The guy had a rumbly low voice, a real mismatch with his face. Randy looked up, properly, this time.
“Yeah, I was there just now,” Randy said, deciding that it was worth a try.
The man-boy’s name was Jin, and he was a new member, having joined 24Hour Fitness only the previous week. Jin preferred to go in the middle of the night when it was empty (which is why Randy had never seen him before) but had decided to go at a more sociable hour because he was on the way home from work.
He was dressed in more casual clothes - a clean tank top, shorts and slippers - but his bulging bag probably held his work clothes and gym shoes. Randy could barely keep his eyes off Jin’s pecs, hopeful that a little nip slip would happen.
They made small talk, discussing the merits of 24Hour Fitness, the convenience of being able to access it anytime, and then got started talking about the various people that they had met there. Jin only seemed to notice the men, which Randy took to be a good sign.
Jin was preparing for a competition, which made sense because he had the perfect build for a fitness model, the category he was planning to compete in.
“I’ve been cutting, but I’m not getting the kind of definition on my glutes that I want,” he said.
“I can help you with that,” said Randy, “It’s about the pose - can show off the lines of the muscle.”
“Ok! We go back to the gym and you show me?”
They headed back to the gym. The place was empty, but both of them swiped their keycards and went in. Jin stripped down in the changing room, down to his underwear (a fairly fitting pair of grey boxer briefs) and showed Randy his posing routine, standing in front of the full-length mirror.
“I can’t really see your glutes very well,” Randy said, and took the opportunity to pull up Jin’s boxer briefs to reveal his perky ass. He felt Jin up a bit, squeezing his glutes, feeling them flex under his hands as Jin moved his legs.
“Yeah, I don’t think they look as good as they should,” Jin said.
Randy stripped off his own clothes, leaving on only the white pair of Calvins that he had changed into after his workout. He stood next to Jin, and showed him how to extend his leg and angle it, turning from the ankle, to tighten and loosen his glutes.
“See how it gives you visible definition?” Randy said, putting Jin’s hand on his butt cheek and flexing. Jin still couldn’t see it, so Randy pulled up his briefs, into a sort of thong configuration, exposing his butt cheeks. Jin got an eyeful, and a handful, as Randy flexed again.
That was when Randy noticed that the bulge in Jin’s undies had grown, substantially. Obviously this boy was a grower, not a shower. Jin caught Randy looking.
“Uh, sorry, sorry,” he said, obviously embarassed.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Randy said, rubbing his palm against Jin’s sizeable bulge. Jin didn’t move away, so Randy took the opportunity to grab it through his boxer briefs and jack it a little.
His other hand moved up to touch Jin’s nipple - a large brown circle, completely flat, topped by a small nub that moved gently under Randy’s gentle ministrations. Still no protest, so Randy moved his head down to the other nipple, smelling the fresh floral scent left behind from Jin’s last shower as he licked in time to the flicking he was doing with his other hand.
He stopped and looked up, and that’s when Jin leaned over to kiss him. Playing with the guy’s body hadn’t had too much of an effect, but the kiss was electric, and Randy could feel his body responding, low down. Randy pressed his body against Jin’s, their now-hard dicks rubbing together through their underwear.
“Want to me to fuck you?” Randy said, guessing that Jin was a bottom.
“What? How? Wait people see?” said Jin, “Anyway I top only.”
Randy was hoping that he’d say that. He moved their bags to the far end of the room, to the benches in front of the showers. He dug into his bag, and pulled out a sachet of lube and a condom. The shower furthest from the entrance was where he went, and Jin followed.
Randy shut the shower curtain, and knelt on the wet floor in front of Jin. He pulled down the front of Jin’s boxer briefs, releasing the beast within. This young guy had a nice cock that curved upwards, thick at the base and tapering up to the slightly smaller head, over a pair of smooth pinkish-red balls with a well-trimmed thatch of pubes. Randy got his mouth nice and slick with saliva, and then gave Jin a wet suck, taking his cock all the way into his mouth before withdrawing it completely. He spent a little time sucking hard on it, moving his head up and down until Jin let out a little moan.
When he took his mouth off Jin’s hard dick, he saw that the stud had been fingering his own nipples.
“We have to be quiet,” Randy said, “So we can hear if someone else comes in.”
He tore open the condom foil and deftly rolled it over Jin’s slick cock, and then tore open the pack of lube and lubed him up, reserving a little of the lube for his own ass. Randy turned around to face the wall with the shower mounting, pulled down his briefs and presented his ass to Jin for some mounting of his own.
Jin didn’t have to be told what to do, positioning his cock at Randy’s opening before pushing it slowly in. There was a bit of resistance as he hit Randy’s sphincter, but he persisted and Randy let out a gasp when Jin pushed all the way in, stimulating Randy’s prostate and forcing him open.
The guys tried to be quiet. It was difficult, for Randy. Jin was a good top, so even though they were only in one position, Randy was really enjoying the feeling of Jin’s hard cock moving in and out of his ass, at different speeds and different depths, first slow and deep and then fast and shallow strokes. Every so often, Jin would slow down and go back to ploughing him deep, pushing all the way in and then slowly withdrawing. Randy figured he was trying to prolong the action.
Randy himself was pretty hard, and he resisted the urge to stroke his own manhood too much. He settled for playing with his nipples, flicking them with his thumbs as Jin continued to plunder his hole. He was panting from the exertion of taking the constant pumping, and felt himself beginning to perspire - and from the smell in the small shower cubicle, Jin was sweating, too.
They weren’t entirely silent, though. Jin whispered “can finish already?” in Randy’s ear, and Randy managed to choke out an affirmative grunt. Jin got rougher, grabbed Randy’s pecs with his hands hard, and started to ram him, hard and rough, giving Randy the benefit of the full length of Jin’s cock as it drove into him. As Randy was very close to cumming, Jin moved his hands to Randy’s shoulders and switched his rhythm, withdrawing slow and slamming into Randy hard and fast before pulling out again. Randy moved his hand to his cock, and started to beat his meat, feeling the sensations pulse through his body as Jin rode him. Jim switched back to his hard pumping, and Randy could hear the guy grunting, animal-like, as he wrecked Randy’s hole.
It felt so good, though, that Randy unloaded almost without noticing it, his cumshot spurting freely from his cock as he stroked it rapidly in time to Jin’s thrusts.
Now that he’d shot, Randy could feel the full effect of Jin’s dick in his hole, stretching him open each time Jin pushed all the way to the thick base of his cock. Randy pressed both his hands against the wall and flexed his hips to push back against Jin’s hard fucking. Jin stopped moving, letting Randy impale himself on his rod, and then switched his hands to Randy’s waist before starting to fuck Randy again, this time a shallow rabbit fuck that rapidly built up to the rough pump he was doing before.
Randy stopped moving and let Jin continue, and it wasn’t long before Jin forced out his own ejaculation, grunting loudly, slamming hard into Randy’s butt as he finished.
He leaned forward, and whispered into Randy’s ear.
“Thanks, man, that was hot,” and then Jin withdrew leaving Randy empty. Randy heard the shower curtain, and when he turned around, he saw Jin, glistening with sweat, putting his clothes back on. Randy thought of leaving with him, but he enjoyed the view as Jin grabbed his things and left.
Randy went back to his own bag to get his shower things to get cleaned up, and saw that Jin had left him a present: his used condom, with an impressive amount of cum still inside it.
Randy chucked it into the wastepaper basket and went back to the cubicle, before heading home one hot shower later.
END
On Windows I have Comic Sans MS and several other script or hand-printing style fonts that have a ‘true’ a - that is with a circle and stick
Some of these read easily at a ‘normal’ size say 11 pt while some need to be increased to 14 or 16 or 18 or 22 pt to be readable and even then questionable clarity
I recently downloaded Caveat (Regular, Bold, Brush) to test for entries from a journal
use comic sans to write
i hate this so much but this knowledge is too powerful to keep from you all.
last night @phaltu discovered that setting your font to comic sans in google docs improves writing speed and creativity by an insane amount. “no” i said and “die” but then i tried it and god. i wish it wasn’t this way. i wish it wasn’t true. i wish i could protect you all from this but it’s real.
something about this font is so disarming. something about this font lets you look past the shape of the words and into their soul. i’ve never written so much as i did last night, on my phone, at 2am, in comic sans.
if you have writer’s block. if you lack inspiration. if you need this. don’t be afraid to use it. sometimes the things we find most horrifying are also the things we need the most. trust me. let comic sans into your life.
Candy
SILVERBACKS Excerpt
I look back and forth at the two brothers, and I think this has to be the hardest decision of my life. Brian is achingly handsome, like a golden sun god, but Evan is darker, a smoldering bad boy. Evan is built as rock solid as a bunker, but Brian has that amazing shoulder to waist ratio, and I don’t know which of them – if either – is telling the truth about any of this.
“Well I don’t know,” I say. “I could toss a coin…”
But the brothers look at each other and seem to transmit an agreement wordlessly. They both nod, and I say:
“What? What now?”
Brian yanks his tie through his shirt collar and says: “Now I kick Evan’s ass.”
“Pfft, hardly” replies Evan, “a skinny beanpole like you, bro?”
They start clearing a space between themselves, and I hear one of the other Silverbacks shout out “WE GOT A FIGHT! HOO HOO HOO!!”
Evan pulls his thin t-shirt off in the most jock way possible, grabbing it with both hands and plying it off his skin to reveal his thick solid pecs and a brick wall of abs. Brian sneers and rips apart his button down shirt, buttons flying.
I gasp.
Brian’s more substantial shirt had hid his physique somewhat, but revealed it was majestic. Broad shoulders capped with cantaloupe sized delts, a thick strong neck and long powerful arms that look like they belong on the football team’s namesake gorilla. While I had been thinking Evan has the edge here, now I’m not so sure.
Kelsey runs to my side to ask what is going on.
“They’re going to fight,” I explain giddily, “over me!”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“What? WHY? Why are they fighting over you??”
“Kels, because I am the choicest gay booty at this lame ass party.”
“You have to stop them! My mom will flip if there’s a fight.”
I could see Brian and Evan posturing to intimidate each other. Brian does that bodybuilder thing where you flare out your back muscles, and I swear I almost hit my nut right there as he grows half again as wide. Evan folds his arms behind his neck and crunches his abs down into a carved eight pack that look like my Mom’s Thanksgiving dinner rolls, only even more mouthwatering.
“Kelsey,” I say, “you are my best friend. But I have wasted my whole high school life hearing about straight girls’ boyfriends and all your drama. This is the last night of our last summer, and if those two douchebag jocks want to fight over who gets to hook up with me you will stop them over my dead body.”
Brian starts to wind his tie around his right fist, but stops to take off his garish state champion ring. He tosses it to me and it arcs like a comet. Despite my lifelong dread of catching anything in public I manage to snag it from the night air.
“Hold onto that for me,” he says, his green penetrating stare dead serious. “This won’t take long.”
I feel my hardened art fag mask crack and let out a little sigh. Glancing over at Kels, I see she looks like she’s about to barf.
“Oh relax,” I say, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
***
Sign up to read SILVERBACKS on Instafreebies, via the May giveaway Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
5 Moral Dilemmas That Make Characters and Stories Even Better
Readers can’t resist turning pages when characters are facing tough choices. Use these 5 keys to weave moral dilemmas into your stories–and watch your fiction climb to new heights.
#1: Give Your Character Dueling Desires
Before our characters can face difficult moral decisions, we need to give them beliefs that matter: The assassin has his own moral code not to harm women or children, the missionary would rather die than renounce his faith, the father would sacrifice everything to pay the ransom to save his daughter.
A character without an attitude, without a spine, without convictions, is one who will be hard for readers to cheer for and easy for them to forget.
So, to create an intriguing character facing meaningful and difficult choices, give her two equally strong convictions that can be placed in opposition to each other.
For example: A woman wants (1) peace in her home and (2) openness between her and her husband. So, when she begins to suspect that he’s cheating on her, she’ll struggle with trying to decide whether or not to confront him about it. If she only wanted peace she could ignore the problem; if she only wanted openness she would bring it up regardless of the results. But her dueling desires won’t allow her such a simple solution.
That creates tension.
And tension drives a story forward.
So, find two things that your character is dedicated to and then make him choose between them. Look for ways to use his two desires to force him into doing something he doesn’t want to do.
For instance, a Mennonite pastor’s daughter is killed by a drunk driver. When the man is released on a technicality, does the minister forgive him (and what would that even look like?) or does he take justice into his own hands? In this case, his (1) pacifist beliefs are in conflict with his (2) desire for justice. What does he do?
Good question.
Good tension.
Good drama.
Another example: Your protagonist believes (1) that cultures should be allowed to define their own subjective moralities, but also (2) that women should be treated with the same dignity and respect as men. She can’t stand the thought of women being oppressed by the cultures of certain countries, but she also feels it’s wrong to impose her values on someone else. When she is transplanted to one of those countries, then, what does she do?
Construct situations in which your character’s equally strong convictions are in opposition to each other, and you will create occasions for thorny moral choices.
#2: Put Your Character’s Convictions to the Test
We don’t usually think of it this way, but in a very real sense, to bribe someone is to pay him to go against his beliefs; to extort someone is to threaten him unless he goes against them.
For example:
How much would you have to pay the vegan animal rights activist to eat a steak (bribery)? Or, how would you need to threaten her in order to coerce her into doing it (extortion)?
What would it cost to get the loving, dedicated couple to agree never to see each other again (bribery)? Or, how would you need to threaten them to get them to do so (extortion)?
What would you need to pay the pregnant teenage Catholic girl to convince her to have an abortion (bribery)? What threat could you use to get her to do it (extortion)?
Look for ways to bribe and extort your characters. Don’t be easy on them. As writers we sometimes care about our characters so much that we don’t want them to suffer. As a result we might shy away from putting them into difficult situations.
Guess what?
That’s the exact opposite of what needs to happen in order for our fiction to be compelling.
What’s the worst thing you can think of happening to your character, contextually, within this story? Now, challenge yourself—try to think of something else just as bad, and force your character to decide between the two.
Plumb the depths of your character’s convictions by asking, “How far will s/he go to … ?” and “What would it take for … ?”
(1) How far will Frank go to protect the one he loves?
(2) What would it take for him to stand by and watch the one he loves die when he has the power to save her?
(1) How far will Angie go to find freedom?
(2) What would it take for her to choose to be buried alive?
(1) How far will Detective Rodriguez go to pursue justice?
(2) What would it take for him to commit perjury and send an innocent person to death row?
Ask yourself: What does my character believe in? What priorities does she have? What prejudices does she need to overcome? Then, put her convictions to the ultimate test to make her truest desires and priorities come to the surface.
#3: Force Your Character into a Corner
Don’t give him an easy out. Don’t give him any wiggle room. Force him to make a choice, to act. He cannot abstain. Take him through the process of dilemma, choice, action and consequence:
(1) Something that matters must be at stake.
(2) There’s no easy solution, no easy way out.
(3) Your character must make a choice. He must act.
(4) That choice deepens the tension and propels the story forward.
(5) The character must live with the consequences of his decisions and actions.
If there’s an easy solution there’s no true moral dilemma. Don’t make one of the choices “the lesser of two evils”; after all, if one is lesser, it makes the decision easier.
For example, say you’ve taken the suggestion in the first key above and forced your character to choose between honoring equal obligations. He could be caught between loyalty to two parties, or perhaps be torn between his family obligations and his job responsibilities. Now, raise the stakes—his marriage is at risk and so is his job, but he can’t save them both. What does he do?
The more imminent you make the choice and the higher the stakes that decision carries, the sharper the dramatic tension and the greater your readers’ emotional engagement. To achieve this, ask “What if?” and the questions that naturally follow:
What if she knows that being with the man she loves will cause him to lose his career? How much of her lover’s happiness would she be willing to sacrifice to be with him?
What if an attorney finds herself defending someone she knows is guilty? What does she do? What if that person is her best friend?
What if your character has to choose between killing himself or being forced to watch a friend die?
Again, make your character reevaluate his beliefs, question his assumptions and justify his choices. Ask yourself: How is he going to get out of this? What will he have to give up (something precious) or take upon himself (something painful) in the process?
Explore those slippery slopes. Delve into those gray areas. Avoid questions that elicit a yes or no answer, such as: “Is killing the innocent ever justified?” Instead, frame the question in a way that forces you to take things deeper: “When is killing the innocent justified?” Rather than, “Does the end justify the means?” ask, “When does the end justify the means?”
#4: Let the Dilemmas Grow From the Genre
Examine your genre and allow it to influence the choices your character must face. For instance, crime stories naturally lend themselves to exploring issues of justice and injustice: At what point do revenge and justice converge? What does that require of this character? When is preemptive justice really injustice?
Love, romance and relationship stories often deal with themes of faithfulness and betrayal: When is it better to hide the truth than to share it? How far can you shade the truth before it becomes a lie? When do you tell someone a secret that would hurt him? For example, your protagonist, a young bride-to-be, has a one-night stand. She feels terrible because she loves her fiancé, but should she tell him what happened and shatter him—and perhaps lose him—or keep the truth hidden?
Fantasy, myth and science fiction are good venues for exploring issues of consciousness, humanity and morality: How self-aware does something need to be (an animal, a computer, an unborn baby) before it should be afforded the same rights as fully developed humans? At what point does destroying an AI computer become murder? Do we really have free will or are our choices determined by our genetic makeup and environmental cues?
#5: Look the Third Way
You want your readers to be thinking, I have no idea how this is going to play out. And then, when they see where things go, you want them to be satisfied.
There’s a story in the Bible about a time religious leaders caught a woman committing adultery and brought her to Jesus. In those days, in that culture, adultery was an offense that was punishable by death. The men asked Jesus what they should do with this woman. Now, if Jesus had told them to simply let her go free he would have been contravening the law; if, however, he told them to put her to death, he would have undermined his message of “forgiveness and mercy.”
It seemed like a pretty good trap, until he said, “Whoever is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.”
Nicely done.
I call this finding the Third Way. It’s a solution that’s consistent with the character’s attitude, beliefs and priorities, while also being logical and surprising.
We want the solutions that our heroes come up with to be unexpected and inevitable.
Present yours with a seemingly impossible conundrum.
And then help him find the Third Way out.
I hope this helped! I’ve been really busy today, seeing how my mom had surgery and I’ve been trying to continue writing my novel today as well. I thought I’d squeeze in some more stuff for you guys!
If you have any questions or just want to talk, feel free to visit my ask box!