WIWAW - Mrs. Mandalucci

Author's Note: This short essay contains spoilers for my three-part series "Mrs. Mandalucci." You may wish to go back and read the series before going any further. Most of what I wrote below is primarily of interest to fellow Literotica authors, but non-authors may also enjoy it.

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WHAT I WROTE AND WHY -

MRS. MANDALUCCI

By Eosphorus

Background

"Mrs. Mandalucci" is a three-part series which was published in April of 2025 in the "Mature" category on Literotica. It's the story of a romantic and sexual connection between a lonely, divorced woman in her forties and a young man half her age. Complicating the issue is he is former friends with her son and she knows his mom.

Nearly every story I've ever written goes places I never planned. Often, my characters take on a life of their own and alter the course of the tale. It's like I'm discovering the story as I write it.

Such was the case with "Mrs. Mandalucci." I'd like to examine this process, as well as delve into my unique and (as always) ADHD-driven editing approach.

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My Editing Process, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my ADHD

Ernest Hemingway said "all first drafts are shitty first drafts." Mine are abominations. Hideous train wrecks. Crimes against language. This is because, when I'm writing fiction, I'm going full-blast. No concern for grammar or word choice let alone sentence structure or logic. I'm just getting the story out of my head. As I wrote in an earlier WIWAW, that's a function of my ADHD.

I spend orders of magnitude more time editing and revising these catastrophes than writing new content. It might take me two or three days to write a 10,000 word story but it takes weeks to edit and revise.

Here's how I go about it.

Step One: Abandonment.

I generally finish a rough draft and put it aside for a while. The first chapter of "Mrs. Mandalucci" was completed in February 2024. I took a look at it four months later. It was supposed to be a stand-alone story, but I liked the characters so much I wrote a second and third chapter (more on that below).

Step Two: Fresh Eyes

I'll do a close read and edit. It's often a revelation, as I've forgotten so many details of what I wrote. After so much time, however, I'm looking at it with fresh eyes. It's what led to "Mrs. Mandalucci" being a trilogy. That first revision is rough. Hours fixing errors both grammatical and logical. Cutting out long sections and making giant plot changes.

Step Three: The Slog

Repeated revisions follow. I'm usually at this stage with multiple works at once. I keep a section of notes in the document tracking where I am in the process as well as marking the spot in the document I'm at. I'd be lost without this.

Step Four: The Backwards Edit

When I'm close to publication, I do a backwards edit. Here's how it works: Suppose I have a story that's twenty google docs pages long. I go to the top of page twenty and edit it. Then the top of page nineteen, and so one. It's amazing what I'll see using this method. Maybe it's the change of perspective.

Step Four: Final Readthrough

After the backwards edit, I'll usually work on something else for a few days. Then I'll do a final close read before publishing. Only it isn't. I'll do the reading, then set it aside for a week. Then I'll do a final final readthrough.

One of my hobbies is making homemade pizza. When I'm kneading the dough, something in the feel and the texture changes. I know it's ready. Same with my writing. Time to hit the submit button and move on.

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"Yes, Mistress Jessica!"

When I decided to expand "Mrs. Mandalucci" into a trilogy, many new elements were added. Chloe, for example. Justin and Jessica falling in love. Even the Stoic philosophy elements. Structurally, the story worked. But the sex scenes didn't stand out. They needed something to take them to the next level.

Enter Mistress Jessica.

The idea of being dominated by a woman, of submitting myself to her will, has always held a strong appeal for me. Who knows why? There's something about yielding to the greater power of the feminine. To quote the Tao Te Ching, "the soft overcomes the hard / the gentle overcomes the rigid."

But there's more to it than that. Putting myself in the hands of a partner, trusting them enough to give them such control. That's connecting on a deep level and, given that I'm depressingly heterosexual, that partner must be female.

I've also been doing a lot more reading about dom-sub play here on Literotica. I thought, why not introduce this dynamic into Justin and Jessica's relationship? What if she has a dominant streak and he, like myself, wants to submit to a strong female?

How to incorporate that dynamic into their relationship, though? Since they're both novices, they dip their toes into the waters gently. They also keep it playful, breaking character. Laughing as they enjoy the dynamic. Having fun learning about themselves together.

Serious devotees of BDSM may scoff, declaring what they're doing "not really BDSM" or that they're bad at it. Maybe, maybe not. But so what? It's all about establishing connections and having fun.

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How It All Came Together

With that new element in place (requiring a ton of rewriting and revising), the story started to feel like it worked. It also improved as Jessica evolved into this multi-dimension, mischievous creature.

She's the star of the story, the title character for a reason. But who is she? What motivates her?

She's painfully lonely at the beginning. In a rut. Working the second shift and coming home to an empty, dark house. Wondering what she should do for the rest of her life. She's also sexually frustrated, a terrible thing for someone as constantly horny as she.

Jessica has a vague yearning to be in love again. Mostly, she'd like a little adventure in her life. That dominant side she'd like to indulge, too. Is it any wonder that when Justin shows up, she's going to go for it?

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Three Last Things

● The Irish pub in Chapter Three, Glencolmcille, is named after a village in County Donegal, Ireland. The coastal area of Donegal is the most beautiful place I've ever been (and I've been to a lot of beautiful places). What better name for an Irish pub? Also, the sculpture in the pub is based on a real-life one of Ireland at Glencolmcille.

● Some readers may have noticed Justin's sister Holly is the title character from my story "The Happiness That is Holly." I included her for fun and because I really like that character. It also connects "Mrs. Mandalucci" to my wider erotic universe (the Belladonnaverse).

● The million-dollar question: Where does Justin go to college, and who drafts him? I had a specific Division I school in mind all along. It's also where Holly and Jessica went. It's not my alma mater, though I have taken classes there. The logic of place and plot made it the only choice. I included a single clue to the school's identity, but long-term readers who know where most of my stories take place may be able to deduce it. Let's just say the school has a long-established football program. Which NFL team drafted Justin? That, too, is left unsaid. However, based on what the college is, there are three possibilities. I'll leave at that.

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End note: Thanks for reading. I don't expect many people to read this, but these WIWAWs are fun to write. They also wind up giving me insight into myself. They're so short, they're easy to edit and publish in a more timely manner than my usual works.

Comments are always appreciated.