Thread: Thoughts on this controversial storyline

I wouldn't say this topic is super controversial. The book Notes on a Scandal is far more extreme, where the female teacher is in her forties and sleeps with a fifteen-year-old student. No topic is above exploring in my opinion. I would only worry about making it believable/real/authentic, and writing it well. Make sure the reader believes it would happen. That your character's motives ring true. That we're with them as they go through it. It will be pretty easy to make them likeable if they're rounded and real people who are simply flawed, and make a mistake.

I don't see much contraversy in the story as outlined.

I think the way I would twist this story into something more contraversial would be to take out the true love part for both characters. Have the realtionship be a teaching realtionship that is fun but known to both that it will end. True love is defensible even with that age difference (not that I live in a place where we marry our cousin, at least not first cousin) lust not so much. But that's me I'm a liberal.

Have fun, Jan

Someone mentioned the blackmailing part of the storyline. This was just to pile on the pressure on the teacher. I envision the blackmailer to be the student’s ex-girlfriend. She discovers the affair and blackmails the teacher.

I do want the relationship to appear legit, so her job will be an obstacle. But I do like the angle that she is bored with her job and is on some level is trying to sabotage her job.

Thanks for those bit of advice shadowwalker, morkonan, loulou

I originally wrote it where it started off a lust, but I wasn’t sure if the reader would feel sympathetic towards the teacher if it was pure lust. I want to make it so that the audience like her and understand she sees him as an adult.

The ending I am working on is that the teacher wants to flee town because she cannot pay the blackmailer thus she wants to get out before everyone finds out. However, she cannot afford to get away. So she asks the student (who is in love with her) to leave with her. So the reader is left questioning whether she really loves him or is just using him. They will be a bit where she has a chance to take money from him.

Thanks for everyone’ s advice! It great to hear feedback!

Originally Posted by Loulou

No topic is above exploring in my opinion.

My thoughts exactly.

It would be more controversial if the kid was underage. 17/18 will not raise any eyebrows, the teacher will just be having a toyboy, the kid is having a crush. Those are my thoughts. If you want to push things then make the kid 15/16 and the teacher in her 30's, or make them the same sex, or give them both a syndrome like aspergers, or ADHD or something. Add another dimension, don't just make it about the perils of an age gap in a relationship.

I guess the main point here is why do people
fall in love? It doesn’t depend much on age, race or gender. Sometimes the very
fact this student is so much younger than the teacher gives her the chance to
relive her youth. Regarding the blackmailing, nothing could be worse than prank
her, I mean, having pretended to love her but in fact just having been really
mean and fooled her. I don’t know, maybe you could go towards this evil
direction of kids plotting this game against her, using this student to seduce
her and then she finds out she was cheated. It would hurt her pretty bad.