LW Notes: The Martian Slut Ray

The opposite of the reconciliation wife-to-separation story is the MSR-to-reconciliation story--one of the most unsatisfying combinations to be found on Loving Wives. An egregious example of this--"February Sucks"--is, ironically, one of the most read stories on the site. I'm not going to warn about spoilers on this because if you haven't read it by now, you probably aren't going to.

February Sucks begins with a VERY loving family that is drawn even closer by a particularly cruel winter. By highlighting Jim and Linda's devotion to each other and to their family in a very stressful situation, GeorgeAnderson brilliantly sets up the depth of the betrayal that follows.

When the betrayal occurs, it comes completely out of nowhere, and leaves Jim incredibly exposed. Humiliated in a public place, betrayed by his friends, distanced from his family, he is completely alone and completely blindsided. As the story goes on, the onslaught continues, with Linda refusing to acknowledge the depth of her betrayal, repeatedly exposing Jim to the dress she wore the night in question, and writing a very explicit letter that makes it clear that he will spend the rest of their married life living in the shadow of her once-in-a-lifetime fuck. If this wasn't enough, LW (a family friend and lawyer) sets up a humiliating turnabout: Jim gets a bit of ego back when he is picked up by a beautiful woman, only to have it stripped away when LW tells him and Linda that the woman was an escort.

(As I was writing this, I read "February Sucks" again. Jim's martyrdom is just as brutal as I remembered. You just want to tell the poor bastard to run away and join the French Foreign Legion--sure, the sex life won't be as good, but chances are that the local camel the unit uses for "recreation" won't ditch you for Mark fucking LaValliere.)

(Another side note: My story, "February Sucks and Jim Is Going to End Up Fucking a Camel," is in production. Please don't steal the idea.)

"February Sucks" opens like a classic MSR/BTB story in which the main character is confronted with the vulnerability of the life he's constructed. He takes mortal hits to his sense of self, his sense of his marriage, and his hopes for the future. In a standard MSR/BTB story, he would then go on a short alcoholic bender, after which he would develop a plan to recover from this problem. He would get into shape, divorce his wife, avenge himself upon the cheating couple, and find a better spouse. Along the way, he'd (hopefully) also build a stronger relationship with his kids.

In Jim's case, the path to self-development is hindered by his repeated apologies and--as NoTalentHack's take on the story highlights--constant gaslighting from everyone in his circle. It effectively ends when he decides to reconcile with Linda, even though the story makes it clear that her infidelity has all but broken him.

Needless to say, readers were outraged, scoring the story with a 3.96 and pelting it with brutal comments. It's not hard to see why they felt betrayed: The MSR setup for Linda's infidelity, coupled with what felt like an insufficient punishment and an insufficient ego-rebuilding on Jim's part, made the story incredibly imbalanced. Jim never really recovers from Linda's infidelity, and his decision to reconcile feels an awful lot like the result of martyrdom, coupled with low self-esteem.

Finding a Balance

I would argue that, as readers, we crave balance. We want a punishment that is commensurate with the crime. That can take a lot of forms, although it usually centers around the main character getting extramarital sex to balance his wife's, revenge on the boyfriend to balance the pain he caused, punishment/contrition for the wife to balance her crime, or some combination of the above. Regardless, that balance must be returned, or the ending will feel unresolved.

(By the way, this isn't to say that all imbalanced stories are bad. Some of the best stories on the site don't have a satisfying resolution. You can usually tell which ones they are, as they tend to have lots of comments that say things like "Finish the damn story!")

This, I'd argue, is why so many writers have written alternate versions of "February Sucks." Put simply, they're looking to find a way to balance the equation. Either Linda needs to suffer more in the aftermath of her cheating (which would turn the story into a familiar MSR/BTB setup), or she needs more justification for her affair (which would set the story up for a satisfying reconciliation). The vast majority of rewrites have followed one of these two paths.

The most common approach is to make Linda suffer. Literally dozens of writers have created some version of a BTB, in which Linda and Jim divorce, Mark LaValliere gets killed or maimed, Linda ends up in a mental institution, Jim ends up with Ellen, LaValliere ends up in prison, etc. Put simply, there's a litany of tortures out there. The common thread that, in all of these stories, Jim gets his pound of flesh to balance out the cruelty of Linda's adultery.

On the flip side, a lot of writers have tried to balance the story in the opposite direction by retconning a justification or precedent for Linda's actions. These have included a conspiracy on the part of all the wives, an underlying dissatisfaction with her marriage, a kidnapping plot, etc. In other words, they've tried to reconcile a MSR story by demolishing the Martian Slut Ray. While generally not as popular as the BTB revisions, these also leave the reader with a satisfying conclusion.

SPOILER WARNING: There are spoilers in the two paragraphs below. To avoid them, skip ahead to the "Conclusion" heading below

(Another side note: An interesting rewrite is the collaboration between KitDeLuca164 and AimsAtSkies. In her version, DeLuca tacks hard into the unforgiveable humiliation factor, then tries to go with a reconciliation ending. Needless to say, readers rebelled...rather intensely. AimsAtSkies set himself the daunting task of pulling a satisfying reconciliation out of KDL's humiliation-plus ending. In two stories, totaling over 34,000 words [by comparison, the original "February Sucks" was around 28,200 words], he loads on a ton of soul-searching for Linda, sex for Jim, and misery for Marc to balance the scale.)

One last point: It's possible to pull a VERY satisfying reconciliation out of a story that begins with a BTB opener. If you haven't read NoTalentHack's At the End of the Tour and Funeral Dirge for a Fairytale, I strongly suggest that you give them a peek. With thoughtful character construction, the slow revelation of key details, and a very nice use of unreliable narrators, he builds a pair of stories that are successful and satisfying from both sides of the BTB/reconciliation divide.

Conclusion (Or Epilogue, if you prefer)

I've been accused in the past of dismissing BTB stories (and, by extension, Martian Slut Rays) in favor of those that feature personal-growth and redemption. To be honest, there is some truth to that accusation--I think that the latter are harder to write, demand more effort and skill on the part of the writer, and tend to be better stories overall. That said, I also read a lot of BTB stories, and I often score them highly. The point, I think, is to recognize what a story is supposed to do, and judge it on those merits.

BTB stories are about healing, catharsis, and balance. In the real world, most crimes go unpunished, most injustices are ignored, and imbalances are rarely fixed. Put simply, our world just isn't fair. BTB stories fix that: With simple plots and exciting devices, they give the reader what life doesn't--a world where things work out, where justice is served, and where scales are balanced. Is it simple? Yes. Is it satisfying? HELL YES!

The point isn't saying that this story is better or that story is worse. The point is figuring out the stories we want to tell, giving ourselves the tools to tell them, and recognizing what our stories have to do if we want them to feel satisfying.

And, of course, deciding if we REALLY want to satisfy the reader...