WNed
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How Far Is Too Far?
I'm writing a story with an antagonist who is as horrible a character as I ever hope to conceive. Hey, I ordered horrible from the
character factory, and oh, how they delivered. Now, this guy does really, really bad things, which I'm capable of describing in crisp, anatomical
detail. I have already decided, however, to go with the old-school technique of obscuring the action behind a screen, to use a film metaphor, and let
readers imagine, to whatever degree of detail they choose, what sort of bad things are being done. I'll give hints, of course.
I'm curious, though, what you all think about this issue when writing or reading.
This character is really not fun to think about, but I'll get back to it now.
Ned
I tried mature, rational, adult. Read the end of Don Quixote to see how that worked out.
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sharkbytes
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I like leaving the details to the imagination. I think a book can slide over into just being graphic instead of a story. Just MHO
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Anita M Shaw
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I agree. And that's how I do it too. I also have a nasty villain in a story I'm working on. He's so bad, one of my writing buddies told me I'd better
be planning to kill him off.
In my case, most of the rotten things he's done happen before the story opens. But they get alluded to. But whatever things he will do now will not
get graphically described.
I always appreciate it when the author spares me the details, but gives just enough for me to image. Of course, if one has gone through some similar
experience, imagination is all it takes.
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Melanie
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I think too much smoothing over might make it lose impact, but I also think that wallowing in the gore hides the plot, like Shark said. I'd personally
go for one or two vivid details and leave the rest up to the imagination. Microcosmic description to allude to the macrocosm of what is really going
on. You have to write SOME visceral description though, to get the reader feeling uncomfortable.
I think it also has a lot to do with who the POV character is and what tone the story is being told in. A low-brow narrator will probably be quite a
bit more blunt about the reality of blood and guts. A psychopathic (psychotic?) narrator may either wallow in the description with glee, or perhaps
have some sort of clinical detachment. "...with fava beans and a nice chianti."
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WNed
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I'm going to try to limit my own comments, since I'm more interested in "listening" to this discussion, however...
"...with fava beans and a nice chianti."
How about, "Christ! All that blood... He had to make sure they all stayed alive long enough to try another time. Maybe a week from
now they'd be recovered enough to really feel pain again."
I really effing hate this guy...
[Edited on 2/20/2010 by WNed]
Ned
I tried mature, rational, adult. Read the end of Don Quixote to see how that worked out.
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Michy
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I had a character once I hated, and I enjoyed killing him when I was done with him.
I don't think that's really going too far, provided it's important to the story. The part that's hard for you, I think, is letting this guy live in
your head while you're writing him. You question your own sanity at the ability to write it so effectively?
It's just a story. He's not real, and he's not you.
So you go just as far as you need to go to make the impact your story needs to make... only you can decide how far that really is.
Love and stuff,
Michy
~~Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations~~
Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again." James R. Cook
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WNed
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Thanks, Michy. No question that you're right. I am slowly coming around to accepting that he's no more a part of me than any
computer program I've ever written; he's the solution to a question I put to myself. (I still hate 'im)
How much, do you suppose, consideration for your possible audience should factor in. I thought it an easy excuse for not dwelling on
the hideous stuff when I thought about eventually posting the story in the critiques section. 
[Edited on 2/20/2010 by WNed]
Ned
I tried mature, rational, adult. Read the end of Don Quixote to see how that worked out.
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Michy
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You can't write for your audience, Ned. We try, but we can't do it. We never know what the audience does or doesn't want. Some things we think will
fly fall flat, others we think are ho-hum will take off like a rocket. There's no real way to judge.
You have to write for the story.... let the story decide what it needs.
Let the editor who buys the story worry about whether you need to tone it down or beef it up.... write for the story.
Love and stuff,
Michy
~~Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations~~
Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again." James R. Cook
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WNed
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Awesome. Thanks... I figured there was some sorta reason they kept you around. 
Ned
I tried mature, rational, adult. Read the end of Don Quixote to see how that worked out.
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padre art
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If you want the advice of one of the great writers then read how Dickens handles the character 'Quilp' in "The Old
Curiosity Shop".
He is one of the most bizarrely evil characters you will ever read. Dickens used a mix of techniques that were designed to grab the reader and hold
interest as well since it was released as a serial in a magazine before compiled into book form.
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sharkbytes
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That mixture part is good advice... I should have qualified my earlier answer. Enough of the "awful" has to be given so that we really FEEL why we
hate this guy. But we can stop short of the full gore and still understand how bad the rest is.
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WNed
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Being far more squeamish than I would have expected, I'm not really making myself clear.
I'll start by clarifying that the excerpt I gave earlier isn't the "bad stuff"... it occurs after the bad.
I'm interested in reading as many perspectives as possible, but for my own part, I'm not talking about gore. These days vats of
blood have all the shock value of a pinata.
I'm talking about someone inflicting agony, and just how much detailed play-by-play needs to be presented.
For my purposes, Michy seems to have hit the nail... but I don't want the discussion to end just because an immediate question is
answered.
Also, if anybody's interested, I wouldn't mind having a little online support group of writers who have dealt with / are dealing
with... "difficult" writing. I was completely shocked at how soothing Michy's words were, when she reassured me that the character is not "me".
Having studied a lot about a lot, I can't say I was thrilled that I let this issue blind-side me. Yet, I can't allow my normal
defenses to go up, or I'll lose perspective, and the story will suffer...
Ned
I tried mature, rational, adult. Read the end of Don Quixote to see how that worked out.
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Dan_Hensley
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WNed,
Let me encourage you to be as nasty & graphic as gets, don't worry about going too far. I want to balance this out by saying that when any writer uses
a mean, nasty, violent, graphic character to be ready to do two things: make sure there is a statement in the book such as is seen in the
movies..."All characters are fictional and any resemblence to anyone living or dead is purely accidental." and so forth ad nauseum. 2. You want to
have a good attorney or other advocate on hand, as writers who write graphic stuff will sometimes have to fight off legal / moral attacks from certain
extremist groups in society.
I have a friend from long ago who got published, and 24 hours later, he found himself in a psychiatric unit and facing criminal charges (this was, you
guessed it...here in Chicago) However, his book was small scale and so this never got media attention.
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WNed
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Wow. That's an aspect I had certainly not considered. Then again, that assumes publication, which I never do. I just write stuff and
hope that some day I'll finish something, and someone will actually read and enjoy it...
Although I am taking this particular story a bit more seriously. Maybe because it's not that much fun to write in the first place.
Ned
I tried mature, rational, adult. Read the end of Don Quixote to see how that worked out.
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Melanie
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| Quote: | | I'm talking about someone inflicting agony, and just how much detailed play-by-play needs to be presented. |
When people look back on beloved events, chances are one detail of the event will stand out. You don't remember every moment of your first date, you
remember the terrified-wonderful moment your date's lips met yours, or whatever.
I would think that, for this bad man whose beloved moment is inflicting pain, he could focus on one bit... one telling detail about what he enjoys
about it: the eye-glaze of terror, the screams, the desperate struggle...
I think you need to include the general mechanics of what is going on, or the reader may be confused. And you need to have the bad man react
emotionally to what he's doing.
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andisaid
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When I created my character, the Man in the Panama Hat, I struggled with the rape scene but I decided to leave it in so as to capture the awfulness of
the man... I didn't identify with him, he was definitely "Other"
I hope you resolve this so it enhances your story.
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Theresa
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Um, my current novel is the first time I write from the POV of a mean person, too, so I can't say much about it yet. However, I try to write him as
much in-depth as the other characters.
When I read books, I'm always glad when violent and really ugly scenes are not described fully but often, my imagination is just as bad. I'd say write
as much as is necessary for your readers to graps the full horror of it but don't dwell on details too much.
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Michy
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Quote: Originally posted by WNed  | Being far more squeamish than I would have expected, I'm not really making myself clear.
I'll start by clarifying that the excerpt I gave earlier isn't the "bad stuff"... it occurs after the bad.
I'm interested in reading as many perspectives as possible, but for my own part, I'm not talking about gore. These days vats of
blood have all the shock value of a pinata.
I'm talking about someone inflicting agony, and just how much detailed play-by-play needs to be presented.
For my purposes, Michy seems to have hit the nail... but I don't want the discussion to end just because an immediate question is
answered.
Also, if anybody's interested, I wouldn't mind having a little online support group of writers who have dealt with / are dealing
with... "difficult" writing. I was completely shocked at how soothing Michy's words were, when she reassured me that the character is not "me".
Having studied a lot about a lot, I can't say I was thrilled that I let this issue blind-side me. Yet, I can't allow my normal
defenses to go up, or I'll lose perspective, and the story will suffer... |
Ned, when I was writing What Brothers Do, I had the support of Lynn, because she was the only person I was letting read the manuscript at that time. I
wouldn't even let Ryan read it until I was finished.
I got to a tough spot. I had trouble moving forward with the story. I would sit and write stupid, boring, mundane stuff, just to say I was writing in
that novel. I went into lavish detail about cooking a sandwich. I went into great detail about standing on the front porch watching something. I even
added a couple of great sex scenes.... that I later had to cut out all of it, because it wasn't part of the story. It was my way to stall doing what I
knew i had to do.
I had to kill my lead female character.
And I identified with her so much, it was like killing myself and watching me die, and then sticking around to see and feel the repercussions of
that.
I literally grieved for several days after she died, more than I actually cried when my grandfather died. More than I grieved internally than when my
last boyfriend cheated on me and left me.
I mean, I GRIEVED over this. I lay on the couch and cried for now reason, for three days solid!
Then, just when I thought it was getting better and I was able to come back to the story again, I had to break another character, a character so like
my husband that I couldn't imagine him that way. This was at a time when I had been really sick and the possibility of my death had been imminent. To
write a man falling apart after a women he loved died... when the reality of that had been so close to us just months prior... it was a tough scene to
write.
Yet, when I give the manuscript to people to read now....
The two scenes that are the ones they most certainly remember and talk to me about being moving and real and emotional.... it's those two scenes.
So I've learned that the best writing comes when we are mired in the thick of the plot. When we truly feel what we are writing. When we are living the
scene, the emotion, the 'reality' of it.
And while this makes for exceptional reading - it's a damned hard way to live your life.
And that's the lot of writer.
I will experience more as a writer in way of emotion than anyone who just lives life. I will experience killing a man and taking pleasure in it. I
will experience being a virgin and having sex for the first time more times than anyone else. I will experience death and devastation and live through
it and the horror of it.
But I will also make love to in the most beautiful surroundings, and eat the most sumptuous meals and have the most wonderful friends and see the most
amazing things through the eyes of those people I hold inside my head for the time I am writing them.
"You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have...."
The fact of the life of a writer.
Pardon the trademark and copyright infringement (if anyone even remember that came from.)
My point is this: Some writer have gone insane being writers. Other writers have quit writing to prevent going insane.
The ones that are really, really good.... I think they write because they are already insane, and the only way to function as normally as possible in
society is to take the voices, lives and universes in their head and put them down in manuscript story form.
But what do I know. I'm just a writer.
Love and stuff,
Michy
~~Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations~~
Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again." James R. Cook
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Dan_Hensley
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"it was like killing myself and watching me die, and then sticking around to see and feel the repercussions of that."
Michy,
You know what its like then, to have a nightmare like that. I had a nightmare a bit over 20 years ago in which I was standing in the bathroom, looking
in the mirror. I looked down when I felt a burning sensation in my stomach. I saw a knife stuck almost all the way in, blood everywhere. I saw myself
curl on the floor and die.
It never left me, I always have been squeamish about even being near a knife since then.
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Michy
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Wow, Dan! that would linger with me too! :: shudders ::
Love and stuff,
Michy
~~Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations~~
Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again." James R. Cook
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WNed
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Being awake and hurling the knife across the room to get it away from you also leaves an impression...
It's better not to take one's life too seriously... or for that matter, to take one's life.
My latest "Joy and Gratitude" poem, Over the Edge is about the wonders that await writers.
Fortunately, I have plenty of legitimate mundane writing to do for this story, so I really just visit sicko-ville briefly and occasionally. The really
bizarre part is that a contract killer character, who used to be the most disturbing creature in my menagerie, is the protagonist of this story. He's
the antagonist in my horror novel. It's an interesting mental flip.
Ned
I tried mature, rational, adult. Read the end of Don Quixote to see how that worked out.
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