Craft & Commentary Podcast — A Soft Place to Land, Episode 9: "On the Other Side of the Wall"
This week we're pulling apart the most psychologically revealing chapter in the Winter Act — and yes, it's the one where Theo Matthews is alone in the guest room with his hand on his dick. We talk about why romance has a male masturbation scene problem, how a solo fantasy can function as a character X-ray, and why every specific detail Theo's imagination produces maps directly to the Dominant identity he's spent decades suppressing. Plus: writing text exchanges as their own narrative form, why the friendship has to survive every sexual escalation in a friends-to-lovers arc, and the three-word spoken line that changes everything.
What We Cover:
The POV Flip: Why This Chapter Had to Be Theo's Episode 8 gave us Jade's fear. Episode 9 gives us Theo's certainty forming underneath the chaos. How to write companion POV chapters that add dimension instead of redundancy — each lens should reveal what the other couldn't access.
The Solo Scene as Character X-Ray Breaking down Theo's fantasy beat by beat and what each detail reveals about his unclaimed Dominant wiring: orchestration over spontaneity, edging as psychological control, the punishment fantasy that pivots from physical to psychological, and the cataloguing instinct that proves his intensity isn't ego — it's devotion.
The Physical as Emotional: Writing the Male Body With Interiority Why romance defaults to simple when it comes to male sexuality — and how Episode 9 pushes against every one of those defaults. Theo frightened by his own arousal. His body refusing to cooperate with his brain. An orgasm that resolves nothing and leaves him more desperate than before.
The Text Exchange: A Masterclass in Tension Through Format Contact names as relationship shorthand ("Bestie" doing overtime). The typing indicator as micro-cliffhanger. Escalation through admission — mapping the pattern from humor to vulnerability to declaration. The wall between them as the liminal space where honesty becomes possible.
The Bestie Paradox Why the emotional climax of this chapter isn't the orgasm — it's Jade hearing Theo come with her name on his lips and responding by asking if he needed a snack. How the friendship absorbing sexual truth without shattering is the proof of concept that makes a forty-episode slow burn sustainable.
"Ain't Nobody Playin'" Three words spoken aloud through a floor. The first time Theo's Dominant voice shows up in direct communication with Jade. Command and consent in the same sentence — D/s before either of them has the language for it.
The Closing Image: Sex as Truth-Telling Unpacking the chapter's final line — the emerald dress on the floor, his hands in her hair, burying every lie deep inside her — and why closing images in serialized fiction carry disproportionate weight. Making one sentence operate on the erotic, emotional, and thematic level simultaneously.
Seeds for Later What Episode 9 plants that doesn't pay off until much later: the cataloguing instinct that becomes worship, the possessiveness that evolves into claiming, the orchestration fantasy that reframes "a production" as devotion, and the question driving the rest of the season — What if the thing everyone told me was wrong with me is actually the thing she needs?
Craft Takeaways
A character's fantasy life is the most honest space in your narrative. Don't waste a solo scene on generic heat — use it to tell the reader something they couldn't learn any other way.
Write male characters' bodies with interiority, contradiction, vulnerability, and surprise. A man confused by his own arousal is a man your reader will believe. A man whose orgasm leaves him more undone is a man your reader will remember.
Text exchanges are their own narrative form with native tools: contact names carry relationship identity, typing indicators create micro-cliffhangers, and the pause between messages is the text equivalent of a held breath.
In friends-to-lovers romance, the friendship has to visibly survive every escalation or the reader loses faith. Show them being funny when things get heavy. The friendship surviving desire — that's the story.
When writing characters who will eventually enter a power exchange dynamic, let their natural communication patterns foreshadow it. Dominance shows up in declarative statements and calm certainty. You don't need terminology. You need a character whose voice shifts when they stop performing.
Final images carry disproportionate weight in serialized fiction. Push your closing line until it operates on at least two levels — plot, emotion, or theme. The best closing images are miniature thesis statements for the entire chapter.
Discussion Questions
For Writers: How do you approach writing male interiority during sexual scenes? What are the pitfalls of defaulting to external description — what the body looks like, what the woman does — instead of internal experience? What does the male character lose when we skip his emotional processing?
For Readers: Think about a character you've written or are developing. What would their solo fantasy reveal about them that no conversation or interaction could? What would their imagination produce if no one were watching? Would you be brave enough to put it on the page?
Mentioned in This Episode
A Soft Place to Land, Episode 8: "That Was Something Else" (Jade's POV — the couch scene)
A Soft Place to Land, Episode 9: "On the Other Side of the Wall" (Theo's POV — this episode's focus)
The "Before We Fell" prequel novella series
Announcement: Little Boxes — Available Now
Little Boxes drops you into New Year's Eve 2021, New Orleans. Jade and Theo have been doing this for six years — spending every NYE together, a tradition that started the night they found out their partners were sleeping with each other. Four days in the French Quarter, too much bourbon, not enough sleep, and the kind of 3 AM honesty that happens when you're too tired to keep performing. They don't cross the line. But they drag their fingers right along the edge of it, and the almost is going to sit in your chest for days.
The first of three novellas in the Before We Fell prequel series. Paid Substack subscribers get the ebook free.
Where to Find Everything
Read A Soft Place to Land from Episode 1: https://filthyficwithfeelingspod.substack.com/s/a-soft-place-to-land?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=menu
Subscribe on Substack:
Little Boxes — COMING MARCH 20, 2026, and FREE to active Substack subscribers on VALENTINE'S DAY. (must be a subscriber prior to release) https://www.tashalharrisonbooks.com/book-shop/p/little-boxes-a-before-we-fell-prequel-novella
New craft & commentary episodes drop weekly alongside each chapter of A Soft Place to Land. Subscribe so you don't miss the Winter Act finale arc — Episodes 11, 12, and 13 are coming, and you're going to want to be caught up.
