Torture scenes

[Amanita]

What are your feelings about torture scenes in fantasy books? They're quite common, that much I know but different works deal with them in very different ways.
Do you like if they're more or less explicit, do you prefer a fade to black or some kind of "magical means of torture".
Most explicit torture scenes I've stumbled over have been in fanfiction and most of the time, I didn't really see how they added to the plot. As weird as it may sound, detailed descriptions of bleeding wounds, breaking bones and sexual violence aren't very interesting to me.
I care more about the aftermath of it all, and found in other works that this is more powerful if the reader only finds out a few bits of what's happend and the rest is left to their imagination.

In my work, two such cases are turning up and they have the additional problem that both the torturerer and the prisoner are view-point characters.
In one situation an agent of one country's secret service is captured by the enemy country's secret police which normally tends to resort to torture and interrogated by an officer who is actually after the same threat the agent from the other country is working against.
In the second case one character doesn't really intend to torture his prisoner but "only" wants to keep her from getting enough oxygen to use some of it for magical purposes. For her, the difference isn't obvious however.

How would you go on about this? And if you did describe the scenes would you do it from the point of view of the victim of the one of the perpetrator?

 

[Chilari]

Issues of torture are very difficult. I guess the first thing you want to ask yourself is who your target audience are? If you intend the book to be read by anyone under 18, it's probably best to leave the gory details out. Even if what you're writing is intended for a more mature audience, many people don't like reading that sort of stuff, and in any case leaving the details out, and only showing the results, can have a stronger impact.

However, in the case of the oxygen deprivation one, it might be worth writing it insofar as the characters feel and act about it - rather than highlight the act of torture itself, it might be more effective to focus on what the characters are thinking - I'm guessing the one character would be feeling guilty about what he's doing, and trying to justify it to himself.

With the situation involving the spies, it might seem jarring to the reader if you don't describe it when they're both viewpoint characters. And presumably, the torturer will be asking questions relevant to the plot and you'll want to show whether or not the guy being tortured answers and how he might react. perhaps, then, the answer is to write it from the tortured guy's POV, but rather than describe the physical actions, the specific torture he is being subjected to, you could have him deliberately focus on other things - coping techniques, the way he goes about trying to ignore the pain, and the ways in which it breaks through anyway. So rather the describe what is happening, describe how he deals with it.

In general terms, though, if I was writing a scene in which torture took place, I would find it very difficult to write from the point of view of the perpetrator. I may have decided upon the motivations and justifications behind it, but writing from the perpetrator's point of view is almost like backing them, rooting for them, and I think I would struggle with that. When the issue has come up in the past, I have avoided it by not involving any viewpoint characters, or cutting away before and back afterwards, showing only the outcome, not the action.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

You know, I never seem to be amazed at how vivid, and ugly, the human mind can be. You can write the most explicit torture scene, and I would bet that without describing the scene at all, it could be made a hundred times worse. I discovered this with a couple stories, one of which was the lead up to a sex scene that I had no intention of writing. So I left it to the imagination of the reader. Due to a misstated word or two, I was stunned by the ideas some of the people got when they read it. The other was what would have been a torture scene, but this time I intentionally jumped the scene and went straight to the aftermath. Worked quite well, and the readers had no problem filling in the blanks.

I'm betting you can get more impact out of the character dealing with the pain and injuries after the torture is complete than dragging the reader through the event itself.

 

[Telcontar]

I'm with Darkstorm. I'm from the less is more camp, and I believe that the truly terrifying things are those you never get a full view of.

This is especially true of sexual violence for me, as it never fails to make me angry, even when I'm the one writing it.

 

[CicadaGrrl]

I'm with Darkstorm. I'm from the less is more camp, and I believe that the truly terrifying things are those you never get a full view of.

This is especially true of sexual violence for me, as it never fails to make me angry, even when I'm the one writing it.

First off, I don't write torture scenes. I don't mean I skip over them when they happen, I mean I don't write them at all. I take that back. In one book, several characters discuss torture that has happened long ago, but you get that in dialogue. That way it focuses on the character's reactions and I had written myself into a situation where mentioning it would be remiss, untrue, and Disney.

However, I don't like torture. Disgusting, violent fights, yes. Torture, know. I know people get hard ons over fighting, but I just want to vomit about some of the things people have said about torture or sexual torture in books.

I grew up in a memoir program, which is balls out honesty beyond belief. So my general leaning, against everyone else, is that you describe it. You do not let yourself flinch. Every awful painful psychological detail goes in there so we understand exactly what your character's went through and why they are all PTSD for the rest of the book. You can't describe it in horrific detail? The kind of shits yourself out of pain moment? The not a touch of prettifying what's going on--making your torturer an unreliable narrator if it is from his pov and he likes it? The kind of horror that freaks out the reader but makes them desperately want to find out if this character makes it through and is happy again? If you can't do it, don't. Especially sexual torture. I could vomit at the number of stroker rape scenes I've seen.

If you can't do it, even if you throw it away and don't put the actual detail in your book, don't write torture. Really don't write sexual torture. I have a special place in my heart for the horror that instills and it is so often glossed over.

Also, if you can't study PTSD and make sure your character is a mother mess afterwards for a long, long time, don't write it.

Find some other way for the information to be gained or the plot or characters to get where you need to go. You are messing with a messy issue. Do a solid to those have been there done that and don't write something that teenage boys will think is hot and horny.

 

[Kaellpae]

One example of torture well done, in my opinion, is Joe Abercrombie with Superior Glokta.

 

[Xanados]

I picked up the Orcs Trilogy by Stan Nicholls when I was about fourteen. I remember there being some sort of cruel Mistress character that liked to torture captured Orcs, or something along those lines. It was usually with bondage and bloodshed and it happened more than once. So that was interesting to read, at that age. It didn't bother me. Other than that I can’t really say I’ve read a lot of torture scenes.

 

[Codey Amprim]

I'm with Darkstorm. I'm from the less is more camp, and I believe that the truly terrifying things are those you never get a full view of.

This is especially true of sexual violence for me, as it never fails to make me angry, even when I'm the one writing it.

I completely agree, especially with the sexual violence. I cannot stand it nor even conjure thoughts about it without becoming infuriated.

From the standpoint of torture as a means to reveal things about the plot or move it forward, I say go for it, but not "all the way." - if you catch my drift.

I favor the aftermath way of going about it, although I would throw in a few parts during the actual torture, albeit not enough to disgust my readers beyond the effect that I wanted to go for. Sure, if he's going to be brutally beaten, go for it. Just don't write every single punch and what it dislodges or broken, etc.

I'm glad you posted this because I am going to come upon a scene like that eventually, and it's nice to know what others think!

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

In one of the writing books I am reading, scene and structure, it actually has a nice section that covers the idea of skipping the action and going directly for the reflection. As a writer, there are things I don't feel are necessary for my stories to be complete. Sex is one thing I only elude to, and let the reader come to their own conclusions. I've not needed to torture any of my characters....yet, but I think it will depend on the situation as to whether or not I would feel the need to include the scene, or just let the reader imagine it themselves. I think it would depend mainly on what it provided the story. If I had a non pov character that seems to be a nice person, but has been pretending all along, then it might require some proof that they are capable of torture.

I still feel that many readers when left with an lack of explination on something that happened, will fill in the details with things far more interesting than I might have put into words.

 

[Ravana]

I would only bother writing torture scenes if they were being related from the PoV of someone being subjected to it… even then, I would be more inclined to skip the details of the proceeding itself (which the character is going to haze out on and remember poorly anyway, if it's being done correctly), and get on with the plot. As others have observed, no matter how detailed you get, the mind can conjure up worse–to the point where you could have readers reaching the end of a scene and saying "What, is that all?" Which kinda defeats the purpose.…

I tend to treat violence and sex in the same way, if anyone's keeping score. Usually, I'm trying to get under a word limit… and have far too much story to tell to devote any more verbiage to these than is necessary to advance the plot.

 

[Amanita]

Thanks to everyone who has responeded.
This has been very helpful, even though, or maybe because your opinions are different.

First of all, @CicadaGrll: As I’ve already written in the thread on suicide, you don’t have to worry about me tackling such a subject without doing proper research. In the case of torture, I’ve already done quite a bit of it for a fanfiction where I didn’t get around the subject matter. (It was about Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter.) I own and have read various books on post traumatic stress disorder and consequences of torture, but you’re right that it wouldn’t be the focus of the plot and therefore might not get enough room in the story.
Therefore I’m trying to find a way to go about the scene with the two spys without torture. Maybe I can find a reasonable way for them to find out that they’re actually working against the same enemy before things get that far.

In the second case, I don’t think I can get around it though. In this case, the perpetrator doesn’t see his actions as torture, but the prisoner does. They aren’t meant to provide information however.
And they aren’t sexual which the others wouldn’t have been either. This just was something I’ve talked about because I’ve seen it in various other stories, published and fanfiction. Many published fantasies have torture after all and usually it doesn’t leave many effects. (Which doesn’t mean that I can or should do it that way as well.)
I see the problem of certain people misinterpreting the scene in question with the two spies because I see both characters as relatively attractive and there’s nothing some „fans“ don’t think of. At least, this applies to the fans of Harry Potter.

Generally, I’m not squeamish about writing nasty and possibly disgusting physical experiences because I have various very unpleasant poisoning scenes where I won’t get around that, but maybe it will be better if it’s not directly inflicted to cause such suffering.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

Just an aside to avoiding writing things that are unpleasant. If no one ever writes about torture, rape, or the other things we humans do to each other all the time...wouldn't that require most people to personally experience such things to understand them? I think I'd much rather read about the pain and anguish of torture than live through it myself. I doubt I'm the only person who learns things from books, and that includes being able to experience things I wouldn't ever think about if I had not read it.

I've seen plenty of writing threads that scream, "Write what you want." Why would this be different? If we shy away from things that are painful to some who have experienced it, then we might as well all write about butterflies and kittens and a life in the meadow where nothing painful ever happens.

Life isn't like that, and honestly, show me a good story that didn't involve conflict. How many hero's in fantasy have been tortured to some degree, or those they love tortured? I've read almost entire novels where the main character had been captured, tortured (including sexually), and I have to say, it's been a good decade or two since I read the book and still remember the impressions of pain it has. It wasn't a fun book, but it had such powerful emotions that very few other books have had.

 

[Meka]

The oxygen deprivation idea is very similar to Arya's torture in Eragon, when her food is poisoned by Durza, the poison then preventing her from using her magic. I must say though your idea works much better, in Eragon, when he is captured Eragon simply stops eating and drinking long enough to get back enough magical strength to escape. Having something in the air, however, prevents anything of that sort ever happening. I'm not entirely sure how you would reduce the amount of oxygen in the air effectively, but would it work if you made your character breathe in some kind of toxin which is undetectable, one that paralyses her magical senses or something similar?

 

[CicadaGrrl]

Okay. . . .all my writing teachers actually yelled at me: "Write what you know!!! Which is very different than what you want. See, we--at least I--am writing for entertainment. I write freaking fantasy. I have themes, etc., yes. I have my high horses I get on. But if I really wanted to write a serious memoir--oh wait. I did--I would write a memoir. The problem is, a number of people learn about and carry around their visions of things like torture and rape from places like fantasy books. That means if I chose to take a serious subject, I need to treat it seriously, despite the fact I write fantasy. If I don't, lots of ignorant people could just get yet more ignorant because of me. I don't swallow that well. I feel a responsibility to myself, to my readers, and to the people who were raped and tortured.

After I wrote my last post, I discovered I was kind of a hypocrite. Yes. I think we owe it to the pain we are using as entertainment to do it well, but that doesn't always mean being there for every blood drop. In fact, I tend to use aftermath. Being me, that mostly includes dialogue. If the pov char was the one who experienced whatever torture, she will often have flashbacks while talking--brief. Not to stop the flow.

 

[pskelding]

I second Kaellpae, Abercrombie's torture scenes are a pleasure to read in terms of how he structured them and how they do move the plot and characters forward. I think if you torture scenes are well structured (gruesome or not) they will be read and enjoyed not merely "endured".

But I also agree with less is more... I remember a certain smuggler getting some abuse at the hands of a certain dark lord which was rather effective.

Torture still happens now and probably always will. There's no reasons to leave it out of your story if it is integral to it.

Now "torture porn" I do strongly object too because it serves no purpose in moving the characters and plot forward, IMHO.

 

[SeverinR]

One of my oldest characters had a history of being tortured, so I thought I would write the events that brought it pass.

The build up worked and felt right, but then I got to the brutal stuff...
This is the meanest coldest hero MC I have, and I started writing the torture stuff and it didn't feel right.
It is apart of her past, but I don't think I would ever include the real events in any story for public viewing.
Even her escape didn't feel right.

So from my experience with these events, I take it up to the first pains, then leave the scene. Picking it up after the torture, the aftermath. Maybe the victims first attempts to ignore or concentrate on something else.


In real life people don't get mad and kill all the soldiers in the concentration camp single handedly(Rambo).
Think of the worst pain you ever endured. Now think about enduring it for hours without being able to do anything to lessen it. That kind of pain drains your energy. It also kills your spirit. Immediately post torture you have fatigued every muscle trying to fight it. There is no fight left in you.

Long term; definately PTSD but even worse. The Mc would never be the same.

 

[sashamerideth]

Some things ate better left to the imagination of our readers. Some may not be able to imagine the dark horrors our characters are put through but they will image the worst they can comprehend.

If you could get across the mortal fear of waterboarding or the pain of having a year of your life sucked away then go for it but it may fall flat. Then again the same can be said of any interaction we try to write from witty banter to sex scenes, combat and even just walking.

 

[SeverinR]

I thought of something else last night.

Torture is not very interesting an action.

How they start, the discomfort of the torture, what they feel, think, smell, etc.
Once it has been described, it gets boring.
Torture is repeditive, endless, and would get tortutrous to write/read.
You could use a thesaurus full of syn. for describing pain, but would it be interesting?

How many ways and times can you describe a shock, a drill to a tooth, a bamboo sliver under a nail?
Or even the drip...drip...drip of cool water on a forehead?

Torture is torture because it is endless and involves being helpless.

I think it is one way of showing how evil or sadsitic the villain is, but there are others too.

 

[jhahilt]

Iain M Banks in his novel Transition gives an absolutely brilliant account of the Torturer, the Tortured and the Conseqences/Motivations thereoff. Definitely worth a read if you wish to use this subject matter in a non gratuitous manner.

 

[jackitsu]

I thought of something else last night.

Torture is not very interesting an action.

How they start, the discomfort of the torture, what they feel, think, smell, etc.
Once it has been described, it gets boring.

I agree. If torture is necessary to the plot, and sometimes it is for one reason or other, I like the approach of describing the beginning, leaving out most of the details and coming back to it in retrospect or through conversations, nightmares etc. which tend to be more psychological than laundry listing the horrible things that happened.

I've never written sexual torture. I've written rape, and that's harder for me than "regular" torture, so sexual torture I can't imagine writing ever and I am remiss to think it would add to the plot to describe it in detail. It might, in some stories... but... I sorta doubt it. (Or maybe just hope not.)