How far can you go with taboo situations in published fiction? (

[BearBear]

[Trigger warning] I meant to put this in the title but the flipping topic posted before I could finish the title. I'm already triggered! Seriously though, the themes herein are intentionally hard to take.

I don't publish stuff but maybe one day. My latest novel is a grimdark dystopian super-reality (lots of visuals and intense details) that addresses or may or may not contain explicit scenes including but not limited to:

-Gore
-Domestic Violence
-Blood
-Murder
-Drug abuse
-r*pe
-child abuse
-the last two subjects together
-maiming
-torture
-psychological exploitation
-slavery
-vore
-animal abuse
-animal torture
-snuff
-psychopathic behavior
-manipulation
-all kinds of crime especially of the grimdark variety
-extreme corruption
-involuntary body modifications
-lab experiments on minors
-lab breeding of humans and other humanoids and hybrids
-fetal experimentation
-involuntary drug testing on humans and humanoids and animals
-prostitution
-horrors of skid row

All possibly in excruciating detail.

Any of that taboo stuff illegal to write fiction about or otherwise a liability to the author? Anything else to avoid?

I don't do these but they could also apply:

Racism
Bigotry
Religious intolerance and prosecution
Genocide
War crimes
Intentional or unintentional misgendering
Deadnaming
Bullying
Disrespecting someone's shoes
Other?

 

[Queshire]

Illegal? No. Publishers need to protect their brand image though and that will affect what they're okay with appearing in books they publish.

 

[Renè Williams]

I think the answer is, if you have a publisher, to ask them, otherwise, to wonder what entity would publish such a novel as a first foray into your work. Also, as someone who lived there about 15 years ago, Skid Row isn't as bad as the news make you think. Depending on which cities skid row your talking about, as at least two US cities share this colloquial nickname for the area made up of mostly homeless. Or maybe I was just lucky?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

On one hand, no, there really are no limits. But bear in mind that there is another hand...

 

[pmmg]

Well, some people are yelled at, boycotted, have their show cancelled, or get banned from an internet community because the wrong people are in charge and their free speech rights are violated.

All that stuff above, somewhere there is a audience for it, and it is not illegal. But not all publishers want to publish it, and not all readers will want to read it. You decide how you want to present and take your risks.

In direct answer to how far you can push...as far as you dare.

 

[FatCat]

Why bother with a consensus? Write it if you're able

 

[Finchbearer]

Look at Salmon Rushdie - great author but wrote some stuff that was deemed too controversial, to disastrous effect. You can deal with rape, abuse etc, just do it respectfully, like, you as an an author can’t be advocating for it. You won’t get trad published with a book that will be deemed unsafe for public viewing. And also, have you read books?

 

[Finchbearer]

I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve here, is it that you want people to read your material and put it down because it’s too offensive??

There have only been two books that I’ve started that have had to put down because the material was too disturbing to continue with. Both considered classics.

Take Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale as an example - what makes this dystopian nightmareish hellscape so disturbing is that it is all based on completely true events. Atwood has said it herself in interviews that she did not write anything in that book that has not happened in real life. What makes it readable though is that we are reading from the perspective of the main character who is going through something truly horrendous. We feel empathy for her because we know that what she is going through is really really bad. We as the reader have that moral compass because that’s how Atwood has crafted the writing.

The Handmaid’s Tale deals with:

Religious extremism
Human trafficking
Sex trafficking
Rape
Domestic abuse
Violence
Female genital mutilation
Child abuse
Totalinarianism

There are probably more themes I haven’t thought of. This is just one of many real life examples of a book that deals with disturbing material and is yet one of the most successful books of all time.

Of course, if you are advocating for all of what you’ve written in your own post then I wouldn’t bother getting it published. If you’re only looking for notoriety then that is not a good motivation for writing a book.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I think there is one exception to "it's fine to write it, just people may not like reading it", and that is writing child pornography. Now, I'm no lawyer, and laws are different in different part of the world. But I think that is the one area where you're not actually allowed to publish it. At least, I would be very, very careful and do you research before even considering it.

As for the others, they're fair game. And the thing is that it very much depends on how you write it what the reader's reaction will be. Just to take torture as an example. We all agree that torture is bad, right? However, I remember watching episodes of Hawaii Five-O, where the main characters had to stop a terrorist attack (or something like that), and they basically just beat the information out of whatever suspect they had on hand. Which is very much the definition of torture. And these were the good guys. And it was actually presented as a totally acceptable thing to do, and most viewers probably went along with that.

All that just to say that it depends how you depict it and what your point with it is.

 

[Azul-din]

I suppose that most of you are too young to remember something called 'The National Legion of Decency', a American Catholic organization devoted to banning films and books they considered objectionable or dangerous. It proved, as I recall, similar in effect to banning liquor. Or forbidding one particular kind of apple, which was, as you recall, from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Personally I think that the (largely unintentional) effect of the worst depravity you can imagine, should be set alongside the heights to which humanity is capable of rising. As a writer you ignore either at your peril.

 

[BearBear]

Illegal? No. Publishers need to protect their brand image though and that will affect what they're okay with appearing in books they publish.

I feel very comforted by this.

But bear

I want this book to be so epically tainted, that you could draw no other conclusion than I am the world's biggest asshole, magnificently cavernous!

somewhere there is a audience for it, and it is not illegal.

It will touch every dark spot among the depraved and demented.

Write it if you're able

Yes, it will push every boundry I have in me. Me, the one who refused to have any main or secondary character maimed in any way, the thickest and finest plot armor. Now they'll be thrown naked into the pit of hungry tigers.

have you read books?

I have mild tastes, but there's a dark story at my core, a lifetime of horror and terror beyond description. It needs to come out.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve here, is it that you want people to read your material and put it down because it’s too offensive??

I want them to be so completely and utterly offended that they can't bear to put it down. If I do it right, they'll be sucked down the rabbit hole with violent force, kicking and screaming as they descend into hell and at the end of it all, well, that's a surprise, but they won't be the same afterwards.

This is my answer to the mundane and predictable. Everything's been done, but not all at once! Mwahahahahaha!

Atwood has said it herself in interviews that she did not write anything in that book that has not happened in real life.

Yes, this is exactly true for me as well. Well, exept for the fantasy stuff, but you know.

Of course, if you are advocating for all of what you’ve written in your own post then I wouldn’t bother getting it published. If you’re only looking for notoriety then that is not a good motivation for writing a book.

I don't know what you mean by advocating, more like spotlighting, but I am writing this for me first and everyone else would be so lucky to see it. If I do release it, it'll be spammed all over the internet for free and anonymously.

writing child pornography.

No, even I don't want to write that. You could say, if I can only have one redeeming quality, it would be that. I mean it will have that but not in a good light, more like in a "the perp needs to be hung up and forced to listen to Mariah Carey Christmas until they voluntarily die of thirst to stop it" kind of way.

Thank you all.

 

[Finchbearer]

The books I had to put down because they were too disturbing were Lolita and American Psycho - and I don’t conceivably think you could top those.

 

[Mad Swede]

The books I had to put down because they were too disturbing were Lolita and American Psycho - and I don’t conceivably think you could top those.

BearBear this is important. Lolita is not an explicit book in any way. But the way it is written makes it disturbing and unsettling, particularly given that it deals with a very taboo subject. You do not need explicit detail to write a good story which deals with taboo subjects.

 

[Finchbearer]

I will add The Discomfort of Evening to the most disturbing books I have ever read, by Dutch author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. It was published in 2018 and is told from the perspective of a little girl going through grief. I emplor you to read the books I have mentioned Bear, see if your grimdark is really as dark and disturbing as you imagine.

 

[BearBear]

I emplor you to read the books I have mentioned Bear, see if your grimdark is really as dark and disturbing as you imagine.

I just want something unpredictable and a life changing experience.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

The books I had to put down because they were too disturbing were Lolita and American Psycho - and I don’t conceivably think you could top those.

I've only had to pitch two books across the room in my life: The Bible and Uncle Tom's Cabin. But that was a personal choice, and that's okay. To quote one of my absolutely favorite rock operas, "We all have truths. Are mine the same as yours?"

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I just want something unpredictable and a life changing experience.

Do you want to have the experience, or impart it? One helps with the other immensely.

 

[BearBear]

Do you want to have the experience, or impart it? One helps with the other immensely.

Both but mainly the former. I wrote all my other books for me so far anyway.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Do you want to have the experience, or impart it? One helps with the other immensely.

It's actually fairly simplistic. I'm autistic and can be easily triggered by stupid things, but one of the very non-stupid things that will trigger me is animal death. That's what got Uncle Tom his facial intro to the far wall.

The Bible was a little different. I was fifteen and an undiagnosed Aspergirl, and had never been raised Christian, or any other organized religion at all (except maybe physics), and that year I wanted to see what all the commotion was about. So, I set about reading.

Now, the Aspie thing and the Bible story really are codependent. Aspies can be very sensitive to injustice, and by the time I got to Lot and his daughters I was full fed up with injustice in my reading, so that was about when the Bible crossed the room. I did go back during college, when I was doing Medieval Interdisciplinary Studies, but it didn't hit the wall that time.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Both but mainly the former. I wrote all my other books for me so far anyway.

Then do it. If it doesn't hurt anyone - not including you, you get to bleed - then do it. They say write what you know, and it's partially true. Do what you can and then interpret your experiences to create worlds. Second best advice my writer mother ever gave me. The first was about getting married. I'll share that later. Go be fun. Go be dangerous. Go change the world.

And then come back and tell us all about it.