InvidiaRed

I’d have to say this would have to be a must if you got two parties going. From what I’m seeing the smaller hidden party is playing hard for the endgame. 
The cusp of victory is that sweet spot where everyone isn’t at their best guard after all. Victory is in your grasp the goal is practically touching. Focusing too much on the impending victory.
Main party should have some distrust. As in why are certain things happening that only the party planned together unfolding? I think the hardest part would be the hints that the smaller party isn’t as dead as everyone thinks. I mean did people actually see the bodies? The smaller party would be going off the plans the party made before they got separated.
 

In my opinion, “classic rape” is a uniquely odious assault that one person may inflict upon another.  Like anything else, it can be used by “lazy” writers as well as “hard-working” ones, as you’ve written.  The same holds true for dealing with the aftermath of the assault.
I tend to try reading stories that are well-written.  Rape, like any other form of violence may have its place in the narrative of a story.  Like any other form of violence one may inflict on another, I believe that it shouldn’t be portrayed in a light where the perpetrator is “glorified” for committing it.  I also find the act “anti-erotic,” and I will usually avoid stories where the author seriously attempts to portray it otherwise.
Stories that portray “Forced consent” favorably also tend to be a turn-off, as do stories where one of the participants in the act is genuinely unable to provide any form of consent.
 

I totally fucking love you.

That’s why death by hand blender is so surprising. 

So content yourself with the humilation of making him wearing clothes and not chained to the bed Hahaha.

So content yourself with the humilation of making him wearing clothes and not chained to the bed Hahaha.

I’d go with with either sudden fatal aging, collapse into dust route. Or a slow decline as friends and family notice. Or A kiss of death. Or sucking the soul out of them.

Well I usually use a pillow.
I’m usually rather forward with it.  Made them fall down a flight of stairs. Falling off a building onto exposed rebar. Drowning by concrete. Hurled from a vehicle straight into a wood chipper(no seatbelt) Kissed by death, devoured by a pack of feral cats,  Entombed with a mummy, Mummified by natural exposure, Having their heart summoned directly from their chest in front of their family.  Having their clothes inverted into their insides. Curses aging them into dust and last but not least
having that bitch thrown out an airlock and then blasted by the ship’s primary weapon.
Some characters are just meant to die. Others may not have intentionally been marked for death but the story just goes that direction.  If I do like the character they should get a proper send off. Lots of foreshadowing. I’m not that much of a monster to heartlessly not give the character advance notice.
Sometimes you start off liking a character but then they evolve in ways you don’t forsee and then you hate them with a passion that no star could match. These characters are bound for final destination deaths with as much spite as possible with all speed. Authors like it or not can pretty much be naught but spiteful deities.
It depends on the character and the situation. There’s only been a handful of characters i’ve written who did what they set out to do. They knew they weren’t coming back… But they went anyway. Those ones I have the most trouble trying to keep them alive short of divine intervention. It would be rude to ignore that inherent nobility. Even if they have gruesome ends Valhalla awaits.
 

Well I usually use a pillow.
I’m usually rather forward with it.  Made them fall down a flight of stairs. Falling off a building onto exposed rebar. Drowning by concrete. Hurled from a vehicle straight into a wood chipper(no seatbelt) Kissed by death, devoured by a pack of feral cats,  Entombed with a mummy, Mummified by natural exposure, Having their heart summoned directly from their chest in front of their family.  Having their clothes inverted into their insides. Curses aging them into dust and last but not least
having that bitch thrown out an airlock and then blasted by the ship’s primary weapon.
Some characters are just meant to die. Others may not have intentionally been marked for death but the story just goes that direction.  If I do like the character they should get a proper send off. Lots of foreshadowing. I’m not that much of a monster to heartlessly not give the character advance notice.
Sometimes you start off liking a character but then they evolve in ways you don’t forsee and then you hate them with a passion that no star could match. These characters are bound for final destination deaths with as much spite as possible with all speed. Authors like it or not can pretty much be naught but spiteful deities.
It depends on the character and the situation. There’s only been a handful of characters i’ve written who did what they set out to do. They knew they weren’t coming back… But they went anyway. Those ones I have the most trouble trying to keep them alive short of divine intervention. It would be rude to ignore that inherent nobility. Even if they have gruesome ends Valhalla awaits.
 

Well I usually use a pillow.
I’m usually rather forward with it.  Made them fall down a flight of stairs. Falling off a building onto exposed rebar. Drowning by concrete. Hurled from a vehicle straight into a wood chipper(no seatbelt) Kissed by death, devoured by a pack of feral cats,  Entombed with a mummy, Mummified by natural exposure, Having their heart summoned directly from their chest in front of their family.  Having their clothes inverted into their insides. Curses aging them into dust and last but not least
having that bitch thrown out an airlock and then blasted by the ship’s primary weapon.
Some characters are just meant to die. Others may not have intentionally been marked for death but the story just goes that direction.  If I do like the character they should get a proper send off. Lots of foreshadowing. I’m not that much of a monster to heartlessly not give the character advance notice.
Sometimes you start off liking a character but then they evolve in ways you don’t forsee and then you hate them with a passion that no star could match. These characters are bound for final destination deaths with as much spite as possible with all speed. Authors like it or not can pretty much be naught but spiteful deities.
It depends on the character and the situation. There’s only been a handful of characters i’ve written who did what they set out to do. They knew they weren’t coming back… But they went anyway. Those ones I have the most trouble trying to keep them alive short of divine intervention. It would be rude to ignore that inherent nobility. Even if they have gruesome ends Valhalla awaits.
 

Well I usually use a pillow.
I’m usually rather forward with it.  Made them fall down a flight of stairs. Falling off a building onto exposed rebar. Drowning by concrete. Hurled from a vehicle straight into a wood chipper(no seatbelt) Kissed by death, devoured by a pack of feral cats,  Entombed with a mummy, Mummified by natural exposure, Having their heart summoned directly from their chest in front of their family.  Having their clothes inverted into their insides. Curses aging them into dust and last but not least
having that bitch thrown out an airlock and then blasted by the ship’s primary weapon.
Some characters are just meant to die. Others may not have intentionally been marked for death but the story just goes that direction.  If I do like the character they should get a proper send off. Lots of foreshadowing. I’m not that much of a monster to heartlessly not give the character advance notice.
Sometimes you start off liking a character but then they evolve in ways you don’t forsee and then you hate them with a passion that no star could match. These characters are bound for final destination deaths with as much spite as possible with all speed. Authors like it or not can pretty much be naught but spiteful deities.
It depends on the character and the situation. There’s only been a handful of characters i’ve written who did what they set out to do. They knew they weren’t coming back… But they went anyway. Those ones I have the most trouble trying to keep them alive short of divine intervention. It would be rude to ignore that inherent nobility. Even if they have gruesome ends Valhalla awaits.
 

Yep. Some people just jump right off that slippery slope rather than slide off.
 

spite and malice have their place to be sure.
But its much more satisfying when one of the biggest problems for the protagonists is just normal people going about their lives 

Antagonists are in many ways the easier to create than protagonists. They laugh,cry and generally do everything the protagonists do. 
The who what when and why generally take care of the rest.
 
 

What is the antagonist for? What genre is the story in? How complex is the main protagonist? What are the interactions between protagonist and antagonist? Are they friendly and jovial? Or are they die hard someone is going to die the moment one of them sees each other?
Sometimes the story just needs a complete monster. And sometimes the whys are much more interesting than the antagonist themselves.
The most interesting questions come to mind if the main character is the villain of the story.

Yep. Some people just jump right off that slippery slope rather than slide off.
 

And still a favorite of mine

@Desiderius Price I know you tag as conservatively as I do. I figured it never hurts to point out the logical fallacy in the “But I’ll scare off readers!” argument for not using the Rape tag.

@InvidiaRed True! I’ve since adopted a policy of ‘write it if it feels right’ which I think is working well. I’ll write it with the momentum of the story and just let it go as long or as short as it needs to be. 
Mal, OF COURSE THAT HELPS! My chapters are a bit shorter, trying to keep them around 5k, and I think I have a similar approach. Along with what I mention just above, I do try to make sure there are two scenes in each chapter so one longer ‘main’ scene and then a shorter one. I think I’m still working really hard on the ‘making sure the smut advances the plot’, but also learning at the same time. And if it doesn’t directly advance the plot, I want it to tell us something new about the characters at the very least. I’ve been doing better since I started the rewrite.
I had this one chapter which didn’t have a speck of sex in it – which I somehow only realized a week after posting it because it was so ingrained in the plot and I literally freaked out lol. Luckily it was kind of short so it didn’t kill the story or anything.

KassX, my current chapters tend to range  around 10k, and I average 1-2 scenes per. Having said that though, I think it also greatly depends on how many characters you’re working with and the circumstances that are going on. A lot of times my main character, Alex will feature in both scenes. But sometimes he’s only in one. There was also a point in the story where he was gone for like 5-6 chapters and none of the sex scenes featured him. To me, the plot should ALWAYS dictate the smut. But, having said that, I AM writing smut so I always try to include at least one scene in every chapter. I also think that its more important for the smut to make sense and further the plot than to just be something gratuitous and tacted on because you needed smut. 
I don’t know if that helped, lol I just wanted to chime in!

Well I’d argue it depends on the sex drive and circumstance much like real life.
Somepeople fuck like bunnies and some people enjoy turning it into an eventful hour-long event with sensual precision

Well I’d argue it depends on the sex drive and circumstance much like real life.
Somepeople fuck like bunnies and some people enjoy turning it into an eventful hour-long event with sensual precision

I snorted. You sound like my kind of erotica writer.

Ooh I learned something new today! I agree on pessimism; I’ve written pretty dark circumstances, but hope and humor have always been central themes in my writing. 
@Mal That’s actually a really compelling setup so good on you! I would posit something maybe controversial: if she and Alex are happy together in the end, maybeeee… It doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks? Maybe in the story, that’s just between them and they don’t need outsiders passing judgement on what transpired.
Obviously, the relationship can never be completely morally clean and conscionable and I’m pretty sure Alex would burst into flames if he walked into a church, BUT I don't think anyone would complain if you went the romance route. I mean, I haven't even read your story and I'm kind of shipping Alex and the crazy chick   I’ll have people on my own (very rapey) fic commenting on the two lines of snuggling I wrote after an entire chapter of rape and wondering which of his victims the MC is going to hook up with in the end and I’m just here like, wow, that wouldn’t be healthy at all. But we’re writing dark fantasies which are completely fictitious anyway; so that’s just part of the territory. And I’m sure you’ve already tagged out the wazoo so it is what it is, eh? 

Dont forget Lima Syndrome. Where the captor falls for their captive. Or dependency or other sycophantic behavior. Which further muddies the swamp water.