I haven't seriously written fiction since 2018 and apparently it like riding a bike. Also talking about this book.

[BearBear]

No issues, the words keep coming, it's still fun and now there's no pressure.

Anyone else take a long break and come right back afterwards?

To put it in perspective, I wrote novels from 2011-2018 as a hobby, released none of them, attempted to edit them myself but every time I do they just get longer and spawn trilogies. So that's a big obstacle to release them. I know there's way too much fluff in them and I also know that to polish one of my writings to superb levels takes many edits with actual cuts. But at least I know it just takes work and can be done.

It was also stopped because I didn't want to pay for cover art and I spent 2 years learning digital art to be able to draw my own. I succeeded in that but again it takes a lot of work.

Now that I'm back, 20k words into a wonderful book, just having fun, I'm under no illusion that I'll release it formally, nor do I intend to. This one covers themes and events that aren't likely to be accepted in modern society. Stuff everyone ignores and like it that way. Gore, depravity, other unmentionable things that occur just under the surface of this dystopia we call Earth.

My ulterior motivation is to fully develop another badass character. Starting from zero, driven to be the best and not given special bullshit lineage OP powers. Struggling to live, tortured, possibly maimed, definitely hospitalized, certainly traumatized to the point of full egoic breakdown, then forged into an antihero supervillian, and lastly repents into a full redemption arc. Such is the type of hero I love best and simply isn't done in mainstream because it's such a long and complex schlog to the finish line. (Though Anime sometimes does approach this in some ways, and it's part of my inspiration.)

This book would likely get me sued if not arrested and I honestly don't need the drama and I don't want to hide everything through editing to the point that it loses its impact.

I hope this is the kind of book that makes you want to throw up or at least become depressed. My ultimate goal for this is a book that will break you and reforge you into something stronger than you ever imagined you could be. A book that has a significant impact on the reader's life but one that any successful reader wouldn't recommend to their worst enemy. One that presents real issues with our society, especially in child treatment, trafficking, and other things you wouldn't even want to know. I've seen too much, and I'm not dumb enough to be a whistle-blower so I will present it in a thinly veiled fictional work and may some day release it for free and anonymously.

Some people just want to watch the world burn, but I want to see it rise again anew from those ashes.

What genre is this? I wish I could find other examples like this but I'm busy doing other work and am clueless to find such things.

 

[pmmg]

Sounds like Grimdark.

 

[Finchbearer]

I just googled what genre American Psycho is because that book made me want to throw up, and apparently it covers, transgressive fiction, postmodern novel, satire, black comedy and horror.

 

[BearBear]

I just googled what genre American Psycho is because that book made me want to throw up, and apparently it covers, transgressive fiction, postmodern novel, satire, black comedy and horror.

Very interested collection of genres! I think it must be something like grimdark but I definitely have dark humor and postmodern elements.

 

[pmmg]

After reading Finch, I think Transgressive sounded closest. Why does it matter? Even if it does not fit neatly into a category, its still a story you intend to write. Somethings dont fit well into boxes.

 

[Finchbearer]

Transgressive Grimdark

 

[Prince of Spires]

Genre is a marketing tool. It's the spot on the bookshelves where a bookshop should place a certain book. That's all. Nothing more nothing less. So, unless you're specifically writing to market (and you're not if you have to ask), it doesn't matter.

This book would likely get me sued if not arrested and I honestly don't need the drama and I don't want to hide everything through editing to the point that it loses its impact.

This sounds overly dramatic. Unless you're using real people in your book and making them do stuff they've never done (just don't do that), there is pretty much a zero chance of you getting sued over a book. The only other things you probably want to avoid is gloryfying Nazi's and child-pornography. Other than those, you can write pretty much whatever you want.

 

[BearBear]

Transgressive Grimdark

This sounds like a criminal act, it's perfect.

Genre is a marketing tool

I wanted something to sort by.

This sounds overly dramatic.

It must be critically dramatic! Criminally dramatic, disgustingly dramatic, cringeworthy, awful, insulting your very intelligence. I want to give you a feeling, any feeling, it's been so long since words gave me a feeling, modern writing is like dry pasta al dente, perfectly cooked but flavorless and boring. I wish to bring flavor, even if it's bitter, sour, and vomitous. A flavor you'll remember, a smell you won't forget.

Unless you're using real people in your book and making them do stuff they've never done (just don't do that),

Oh yes, but not people you'd care to or want to know.

avoid is gloryfying Nazi's and child-pornography.

Damnit, you and your puritan ways have taken away all the fun! But why would I want to glorify Nazis? They're losers, and if I did, why is that taboo but rape, murder, and slavery is fine? Neo nazis are the same, I don't personally agree with their group ideology and why would I they're villified to the point of demonizing anyone who even considered agreeing with them. Glorifying patriotism, nationalism, jingoism, rejecting minority rule, these are all interesting concepts that fly in the face of modern progressivism, and I will explore all of them if it makes sense to, there should never be anything off the table, or you're perpetuating a lie for profit, and I don't need any more money.

From neo-marxism to neo-facism, all of these ideologies are great on paper but add a splash of corruption and they become terribly delicious. That's the flavor of dystopia; a thin shell of well meaning beauty hiding rot, decay, gore, violence, torture, depravity, genocide, disease, and worse.

Ask a survivor of a North Korean labor camp, or someone who's been trafficked in China and sold to the breeding camps. Ask a prosoner of war in 1940's Japan, or a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp, there's flavor there, real gritty disgusting flavor. Flavor that would put Schindler's List to shame. The filtered and repackaged for general audiences. Just gritty enough to win awards but do nothing to show the true nature of man. The true nature of human depravity, is undeniable but unfathomable, and we all know, but it's too traumatic to even think about. I'm talking aboyt the hidden truths that no one wants to think about.

In the world today we see the despicable treatment of factory farm animals and don't think twice about that bacon on the shelf. We carelessly buy walmart clothing without any regard for sweatshops utilizing orphaned and sold or indentured child labor. We drive that new tesla plaid or 4 second to 60 10,000lbs all electric hummer thinking we're benefiting the environment when there is no bigger lie pushed today.

The truth is inconvenient to our fresh water on tap, McDonald's deal meal, blood diamond lifestyle. And it's bad for us middle-class work-a-day cogs, but only gets worse the richer you are and the poorer you are. We who have all the modern luxuries at the expense of billions suffering think we're above it all, think it'll never come back to haunt us, and its never enough. No, we need to take more, we need to take not only the lives of the least fortunate, twisting them into unrecognizable horrors of servitude, but their rights, freedoms and dignity too. We need to buy their hideous water supply, filter it, force them to bottle it, then sell it back to them at an unreasonable price all the while celebrating how virtuous we are for helping the heathen savages.

Then even that's not enough, we take advantage of not only nameless husks from unknown and unwanted lands, but our own neighbors, and even our own children. And the truth is, it's at every level, just under the surface as common as cockroaches in sewers.

So I want to take a good slice of that beautiful cake and reveal the raw sewage flavored filling.

I don't expect I'll succeed, but if I do, in reading this book, your third eye will open and you will behold a glimpse of your true nature.

Or you know, whatever, probably yet another balanced herem trope as my mind seems to love to consume and spit out over and over with a hint of activism thrown in.

 

[Finchbearer]

Is your book overtly anti-capitalist? Then I would say maybe it’s speculative fiction. Or if we’re being really silly, speculative transgressive grimdark.

 

[BearBear]

Is your book overtly anti-capitalist? Then I would say maybe it’s speculative fiction. Or if we’re being really silly, speculative transgressive grimdark.

I'd say no in that yes I am departing from reality on the surface but I am wanting to depict and present a true reality of human nature. There's always hope that human nature would surprise me in my research and experience but I've been exploring and searching for that needle in a hay stack for way too long. I'd say it's somewhat misandristic and misanthropic rather than anti-capitalistic. You see I was a feminist before radical progressive feminism took it too far and the offended became an advocate of offense. Why would I support a cause that wants supremacy over equality and in the fringes want all men dead or punished for the sins of our fathers by committing the same sins on our sons? No thanks.

I've seen behind the scenes way too often and it cracked me. I've been poor, not knowing how I'd afford next month's food let alone rent, and I've been in the bosum of the 1% of the 1% and it's damn tempting, but I avoided the pitfalls only because I saw others, my peers and family fall. What am I now? Comfortable, content, happy even, and no amount of money can buy that. But I know that puts me in the 1% of the 1% but not in terms of net worth. It puts me in a position where all my needs and wants are met because I am practical in what I need and want. So I can waste time thinking about such nonsense and afford a little compassion for my fellow humans even if they wouldn't have the same for me if the roles were reversed.

No, capatalists gave us what we have here in the states, a land of plenty, if you can afford it, and many can. I have way too much skin in the game to give everything to a seemingly benevolent government. We all know how that turns out.