Thank you AlfonsoAnon! (Also my favorite view of women, lol)
I appreciate your ideas and suggestions - much to think about here, and I suspect I will use several of them.
- I commented on your ideas below with some of my own incorporating some of yours as well.
Source of the blackmail, it should be 'real' -as in she actually did the thing (a false accusation doesn't make for very good leverage)
- I have been playing around with the idea of her being accused of ______ and which has her written all over it, but her only alibi could blow up her marriage due to an accidental drunken one-night stand with a co-worker on a business trip
- Another idea is: She is an accountant, and a co-worker or a boss is cooking the books, and/or embezzling funds from their employer, with all the evidence appearing to come from her account, including cash deposits into her bank account in a way that she can't deny.
Second, I do not think that it should be anything illegal. If all she fears is jail time, she could easily confess to the cops once the price of the blackmail gets too high.
- Thanks - I understand. Hmmm, 'still thinking on this one…
It also makes for a self-feeding downward spiral. As she degrades herself, the blackmailer gets more ammo to threaten her with. Which also means that it ought to be something sexual in nature (rather than, say, a 15,000 word screed extolling the terribleness of Icelanders)
- I like it! He or she makes the wife do seemingly minor things but that she wouldn't want to get back to her husband, children or ****** overall, with each act worse, filthier, or more degrading than the last…
What is the piece of blackmail then?
- I do like your idea of the video of her from college, found on the web and the age you suggested works for what I have in mind (now in her late 20s to early 30s)
If she was a camgirl years ago (but now no-longer technologically savvy) , she might think she is insulated from the past, and ******* of the potential exposure of the sex tape, again could cost her everything!
Who is behind all this? A neighbor works well, though a bit hard to keep secret over longer time periods -unless you can come up with an excuse for why she keeps visiting him (teaching him how to cook?).
- Excellent idea, and so close to home that the risk to her is even higher! Possibly a co-worker too. Have you seen the Netflix dramedy series called "Love and Anarchy"? The main character initially gets blackmailed by a coworker who saw a bit too much.
Someone from work has decent cover for a drawn out series (she can offer a new excuse for why she's out every week for a couple months without too much hassle), but on the flip side the woman in the centre of things could easily get this sort of blackmailer fired if shes pushed too hard. Personal preference would be for the neighbour but it all sorta depends on what direction you want the story to go.
Someone closely associated with the church would be a) kinda hard to believe if you're going for a realistic scenario b) wouldn't be great for 'added ammo' as the blackmailer would implicate themselves.
- I grew up in a pastor's home and then married into a different faith but equally devout ****** and often learned about church leaders from both communities who used their position to seduce women in their AOR or congregations. I could see using one of these characters as well in the Big Bad Wolf role, so to speak. I suspect between 1 to 5% of the religious leadership did this, using something similar to "color of authority". Apparently they would tell these women that God told them that they needed extra "spiritual" help, lol. These women were otherwise happily married (husbands were deployed or traveled a lot, etc.) but were lonely or in actual need of some kind of counseling, etc. but these wolves had no conscience when taking advantage of them, go figure. One certain figure had multiple wives from young to normal age for him. He also had several spiritual wives, wives he married after he sent their husbands off on long missions... His "reasoning" was that he could help keep them "spiritually" pure while the young husband was off on his mission. 'Pretty sure there was more involved but no one in that community wants to discuss it. (Imagine that, lol)
How far will she go to end it? Without knowing the antagonist, or his leverage, or what he's put her through, there isn't anything to even speculate on or suggest here.
- I am severely tempted to attempt to write a cross between erotic blackmail and an actual thriller, but I don't really know how to write the thriller part yet.
With erotica in general, I prefer the main character to start losing, keep losing, and win only when it can give them a slight bit of hope -purely so that that hope may later get crushed as they lose yet again. However, I like humiliated cuck stories & that style doesn't necessarily translate well into other genres.
- I too enjoy the humiliated cuck stories some, but begin to get depressed if there is no hope of the main character ultimately pulling it out in the end (no pun intended, lol), so as you pointed out, I will probably try to make the scenario have a happy ending.
BTW, are you a fan of Manus Dare, KT Morrison or David McManus? These are some of my favorites - and there is a lot of cuck humiliation in their stories, sometimes without a happy ending.
So your story should probably conclude on a more positive note. The main character outmaneuvering the blackmailer is a bit overdone. More interesting would be overcoming the shame that got them into the whole mess. Less plausible would be everyone being less judgmental that expected (also means that she went through the whole ordeal for nothing).
- Good point! I recently read and listened to a book called "Tell me everything" where the main character's life gets blown up and she has to suffer huge notoreity and public humiliation because of it, but her and her ****** are eventually able to come to terms with it and then move past it.
- I'll comment back here when I have made some progress.
Thanks again for your ideas and suggestions.
'Very helpful!
