The Wanderings of Amy

Introduction - Author's notes about "The Wanderings of Amy" and other erotic discipline fiction

The "Wanderings of Amy" was my first effort to write fiction of any sort. I had prior experience writing works of non-fiction, journalism, and academic research. However, I had always wanted to write fiction and have had ideas for a couple of political novels for many years. During the summer of 2002, for reasons I myself do not understand, I started to write a story in which I sought to explore a variety of erotic punishment scenarios. Originally I intended to write a story of about 10 chapters, but as my imagination took off, I ended up with a novel of 28 chapters instead.

"The Wanderings of Amy" began its existence as a series of connected short stories posted to several Yahoo spanking forums. I did not write the novel from beginning to end. The chapters that most heavily concentrate on scenes of discipline were written first. As I became more interested in developing the characters I subsequently wrote the chapters that do not have discipline scenes. I sought to explore their issues and thought patterns, and how their personalities make them interact with each other. I needed to develop a plot to justify the characters' punishments, and then develop the characters to make the plot flow. As time went on I began to like my characters more and more, and increasingly sought to explore their lives, as well as their thoughts and personalities.

Because "The Wanderings of Amy" was my first novel, I experimented to find a style of storytelling that worked for what I was trying to accomplish. My work on the project did not end with the concluding chapter, because I did two major revisions of the chapters to make them more consistent and to further develop the characters after completing the original draft. I later came to like my characters so much that I later wrote a non-fetish version of the story that continues the characters' lives three years past the ending of the fetish version.

The characters from "The Wanderings of Amy" remained largely forgotten during 2004 while I wrote my second novel "Maragana Girl". However, as I started working with Poser and creating images for both novels, the characters from the first novel re-entered my mind as I selected models to represent them in my art and began making illustrations. The models I used for Amy Debbs and Suzanne Foster were downloaded character sets, but I decided to create my own characters to represent Robert Johnson, Ruth Burnside, and Paul Glisan from original base models I purchased from DAZ.

As "Maragana Girl" neared its conclusion, the desire to further develop a couple of the characters from "The Wanderings of Amy" returned to my thoughts. My original idea was to write a novel that featured the earlier years of my fictional dominatrix Ruth Burnside. However I felt that I did not have enough material to dedicate an entire novel to Dr. Burnside. I solved the problem by making her a secondary character in my third novel "The Freshman". Another character from "The Wanderings of Amy", the photographer Suzanne Foster, also makes brief appearance in "The Freshman".

Originally there was no connection between the plots or characters of my first two novels "The Wanderings of Amy" and "Maragana Girl". However, because one of the goals I had for writing "The Freshman" was to further develop the lives of several characters from earlier projects, my third novel bridges the first two.

The story of "The Wanderings of Amy" begins about three years after the conclusion of "The Freshman". Suzanne Foster, who was a college sophomore when she met Cecilia Sanchez, now is about to graduate. Dr. Ruth Burnside's life is somewhat less changed; instead of 38 she now is 42, but her career and her sex life remain the same.

If you read "The Wanderings of Amy" in its entirety, you will notice that the punishment scenes throughout the novel vary tremendously. Scenarios can be M/F, F/F, or F/M, and characters that were submissive in one chapter can become dominant in another. That is because I wanted to keep the novel from becoming monotonous, and also because over the course of the story my characters grow and become more confident in themselves. The changes within my characters continued to be a pattern in my later novels "Maragana Girl" and "The Freshman".

"The Wanderings of Amy" is a work of erotic fantasy. All characters and situations are purely figments of my imagination. The story is not intended to represent real people or events, nor how I feel people should behave in real life. There are a few autobiographical elements in certain events, descriptions, and characters in this story, but for the most part everything that takes place is purely a product of my head. I tried to keep the story's settings and elements as realistic as possible, but took the liberty to diverge from reality when I felt it was necessary to make the story flow better.

The Setting for "The Wanderings of Amy"

I have only been to Chicago once, so I know what the city looks like, and that is about it. I deliberately picked a city where I have not spent much time. The choice of Chicago was arbitrary, as were all other places mentioned in the story. I just needed some place names and chose some out of the Mid-West. The university is not supposed to be any in particular. The reader may assume that Amy and the other characters attend a major university, but it is a fictitious one, located in a western suburb away from the downtown area.

My characters' names also are arbitrary. I was sparing with giving names to my characters on purpose. I chose common first names for everyone. In the cases where I felt I had to provide a last name, I simply used street names from the area where I currently live.

My thoughts on erotic discipline fiction in general and influences on "The Wanderings of Amy"

I became interested in erotic discipline fiction when I was about 15 years old. At that time some of the censorship laws in the bookstores were somewhat looser than they are today, so I had no trouble buying several Victorian-era erotic discipline novels. The two earliest novels I read were "A Man with a Maid" series and "Frank and I". I greatly enjoyed those novels and their generally upbeat mood and positive endings. Those two novels greatly influenced my how I viewed other erotic discipline fiction I read later.

I believe that the single character that has most influenced erotic discipline literature is the fictitious dominatrix Harriet Marwood from "The Governess". I have seen elements of Harriet Marwood in many different erotic discipline stories that feature a dominant female character. Undoubtedly Harriet Marwood heavily influenced my character Ruth Burnside. However, Burnside also contains a lot of myself and shares many of my own thoughts and values.

I presume that the most famous and influential novel in the genre of erotic discipline fiction has been "The Story of O". I read it, and found the psychological setting of the novel fascinating. However, I was repulsed by the novel's violence and scenes of mutilation. In spite of my overall dislike of "The Story of O", some of its influence has worked its way into "The Wanderings of Amy". Wendy Lee's submission to Ruth Burnside is as complete as O's submission was to Sir Stephen. However, in my story Ruth Burnside cares about Wendy and ultimately hopes to help her. Burnside subjects Wendy to intense suffering to satisfy Wendy's needs, not so much her own desires. In contrast with O, Wendy leaves her internment in Burnside's house a stronger person and is able to move on with her life.