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Date Posted: 18:31:30 06/02/24 Sun
Author: Curious
Author Host/IP: 49.196.255.60
Subject: What did ET intend for The Smoking Sorority? - An Essay

Note: Of necessity this essay contains spoilers for the story covered. Readers are advised to read the story before reading this essay.

What did ET intend for The Smoking Sorority? - An Essay

Introduction

This essay was inspired by a comment by Mark that they "...never start writing something until I know exactly where it's going so I can avoid the traps of either running out of gas or wanting to rush through the ending and then later realize a different ending would have been vastly superior."

Picking an unfinished story that this writer thinks is worthy of being finished.(1) I thought I would attempt an analysis of just what I think the author was attempting to do with the story and why it ended up unfinished. Readers should be aware that in the course of this I will have to resort to spoilers during this analysis.

Part One: Background

Prior to being republished in Vol. 43 of the Noble Leaf Library, the story was published in three parts to the old Dark Side Board in on three consecutive days in 2012.(2) Contemporary commentary, which included remarks from the authors Blackbladder and Mark were positive. One commentor using the nym 'b' went so far as to make suggestions to the author at least one of which was definitely acted on in the published story.(3)(4)(5) The first part of the story also appears to have been the authors first post to the Old Dark Side Board, though I have not done an exhaustive search of the archived boards posts to confirm this. There are no subsequent posts by the author to the Old Dark Side Board prior to it's transition to the now lost Dark Side Forum and it appears that no one asked about either the author or the story while the board remained in existance.


Part Two: The Idea Behind The Story

The basic 'idea' behind this story is that there is a female sorority that requires the members to smoke. This is not a common concept in smoking fetish fiction. The only other known appearance is the incomplete 'The Women of IGS' by author LFC91011.(6) The story 'The Smokin' Babes' by author Heather St. Claire features a high school social club where all the members have to be female smokers of the legal age(7), which while not involving a college soroity is making use of a closely related concept.(8)


Part Three: The Structure of the Story as published.

While published in three separate parts, the story is actually structured into two parts(9), the 'Introduction', which gives the backstory to Jenny and why she ended up joining Sigma Mu, even though she herself did not smoke. The second part is the 'First Day', which covers Jenny's first day as a probationary member of Sigma Mu and ends with her falling asleep at the end of the first day. The 'Introduction' is entirely contained within the first part of the story, while the 'First Day' is spread out over all three parts published. This results in something that feels like the first chapter in a book and also mitigates to some extent the fact that the story is unfinished, with endpoint of what was written falling at a natural break in the storyline.(10)


Part Four: The Characters and their Cigarettes

The majority of the named characters in the story are female. The only named male character in the story is Matt, a smoker with the smoking fetish at the 'turns me on' level. His role is interesting. The title character, Jenny, after observing her roomate Allison attract a boy with sexy smoking decides to experiment herself. Matt is the boy she attracts, but whereas most writers of the period would have had this lead to a full sexual encounter, ET chose to have Jenny decide things are going too far and asks Matt to leave which he turns out to be mature enough to accept, although not without obtaining her phone number.

Part Four - Section One: Jenny

Jenny is the protagonist of the story, the non-smoker who is to be introduced to the habit and be transformed by it. In the 'Introduction' she comes off as socially conservative, somewhat naive and willing to do anything to fit in. This changes during the 'First Day', as noted in the introduction to this section the protagonist in trying out Allison's moves manages to attract the attention of a male student, Matt.

Matt initiates a sexual encounter which Jenny says 'no' to after they've started.

This timing is important, saying 'no' to a sexual encounter before it starts establishes that the protagonist has the force of personality to get the other party to stop. By having the protagonist say 'no' during heavy foreplay, as is done in this story, the author is not only establishing force of personality, but that the character has the strength of will to end a sexual act while in the throes of passion.

While the authors probable intent was simply to establish that the protagonist is not 'free and easy'(11) at this point in the story by doing it in the way they did they also said something about the character that overshadows the characters actions in the remainder of the story and could not simply have been left lying, it would have to have had further consequences later in the storyline as it developed.

Part Four - Section Two: Torri

The first of the named female characters in the story after the protagonist is Torri, she smokes Camel Crush cigarettes and is the only character in the story where her consumption is quantified, with the numbers given implying a two to two and a half pack-a-day habit. Her role in the story as far as it was written, aside from being the girl who invites the protagonist to a party that cements the protagonists decision to join Sigma Mu, is to provide a contrast with the protagonist as she is at the start of the story and indicate to the reader what she may become by stories end. She does not appear outside the 'Introduction'.

Part Four - Section Three: Stacy

The second named female character is Stacy, she appears in all three parts of the story as published, just what she smokes and how much is not clearly specified. She is the President of Sigma Mu and comes across as a competent administrator, but not much more can be said based on what's written.

Part Four - Section Four: Allison

Allison, Jenny's roommate is the third of the named female characters, while it's clear she's a Marlboro girl, her consumption is not clarified beyond a statement that she sent off 500 empty cigarette packets to enter the competiton where she won her bikini. This statement lacks any timescale which would permit consumption to be determined. As I stated in my review the scene where she appears was a real missed opportunity by the author to expand on both the background of the protagonist and Allison herself.(1) Personality wise, she comes across as a perky, well adjusted smoker as well as being 'free and easy'. In addition there's a distinct feel in her scene that she, rather than Torri would have been the characters smoking/social mentor had the story been continued beyond the part it reached.


Part Five: What was probably originally planned

As I speculated in the original review, the authors probable intent was to write a story covering Jenny's first week. It was also probably intended to be a sex heavy piece of 'stroke fiction', going both on the description of Torri's party clothes(12), Allison's actions towards the end of her scene and the events that lead to Jenny's 'refusal scene'. The storyline would have covered Jenny's seduction by the habit and her path to becoming 'free and easy', culminating in a sexual encounter with Matt.


Part Six: Why was it abandoned?

What follows is purely speculative, but I think that the answer partly lies in the second of the suggestions made by 'b'(3). This addition, combined with the information that Jenny does not think it a good idea, but is not comfortable at bringing it up at that moment, along with the request put not only to the stories characters, but the reader and the author that they come up with three ways to bring it about(13) changes the nature of the story from pure 'stroke fiction' to something that has a degree of 'smoking politics'. Combined with the evolution of the protagonist started by the 'refusal scene' the author was probably confronted with something they could not easily write their way out of.


Part Seven: Conclusions

What happened to this story is a perfect example of the kind of mistake that Mark described in the quote in the introduction. The author started off with a simple, straight forward plotline, but it rapidly became complicated because the author didn't think through the consequences of one plot element and because they acted on an outside suggestion too quickly. While the author reached a natural break point in the story, they probably found themselves unable to come up with a way to resolve the tensions between the new idea they'd added to the plotline and what they'd revealed about the characters personality earlier in the story. While this is essentially restating the reasons for abandonment covered in the previous section it is important to do so, as it makes clear the importance of prior planning.

For example BlackLungLovers 'North and South'(14) is a story where the evolution of the characters changed the storyline. What starts as a sex heavy love triangle, becomes a tale of someone breaking free of parental domination, the author in this case having sufficient understanding of the plot to accomodate the changes into the finished product. This is also what hapened when Dark Side author Marcus started writing 'Pam'(15) what had been conceived as a quasi-sequel to their previous story 'Vicki'(16). As the author started writing the story, the characters as they evolved changed the story in such a way that the link with 'Vicki' was dropped before it even appeared. Again having part of the plot drafted out before hand aided the author in making the changes.

In conclusion, this story ended up incomplete because the author failed to plan the story they were writing adequately, resulting in them finding themselves trapped in a literary cul-de-sac. It is however a story that I do think is worthy of bringing to a conclusion because the situation the author created at the point they ended the story is one that calls for a resolution.


Notes:

1. See also my review in Vol. 20 of the consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Reviews.
2. The original version of the story can be found in the 1st Quarter 2012 part of the archive between 2012-01-01 and 2012-01-03.
3. "thoughts: . . . as they are hottest sorority on campus, i'm sure the Sigma Mu girls can influence the college administration into removing classroom smoking bans. its just not fair that all these beautiful girls can only smoke before and after class. cigarettes during class are essential for a heavy smoking sorority girl's focus."
4. The other suggestion was this: "... jenny quickly falls in love with smoking and fits right in at SM. the older sorority girls (stacy, torri) notice how this cute new freshman smokes so sexily and incessantly despite just having started. refusing to be outdone by a freshman, stacy and torri smoke more and more, forcing themselves to keep up with jenny's relentless new passion for smoke."
5. See part 3 of the story in Vol. 43 of the Noble Leaf Library.
6. The story appears in Vol. 1 of the Litany of the Unfinished. A review can be found in Vol. 21 of the consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Reviews.
7. At the time the story was written this was 18 years of age.
8. The story appears in the Vol. 29 of the Noble Leaf Library. A review can be found in the Vol. 20 of the consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Reviews.
9. The terms used are of my own invention and not used by the author.
10. At the start of the third portion of the story on the Old Dark Side Board, the author wrote: "Again, thank you for all of the nice comments! It will likely be a little while before I write part 4..."
11. Sexually promiscuous
12. She's described as looking like she's "...about to enter a whore-off..." during the frat party scene in the 'Introduction'.
13. I throw the challenge open to readers of this essay provided they've read the story.
14. The story can be read in the Treasury of Black Lung Lover and Vol. 75 of the Noble Leaf Library, my review can be found in Vol. 11 of the consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Reviews.
15. The story can be read in Vol. 23 of the Noble Leaf Original series, my review can be found in Vol. 11 of the consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Reviews.
16. The story can be read in Vol. 75 of the Noble Leaf Library, my review can be found in Vol. 17 of the consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Reviews.

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