What's your opinion of torture, gore and depravity in your writings?

[A. E. Lowan]

Based on what I'm thinking, I am ready. That's what I'm looking for anyway.

Then get to it. If you think you're ready to push, push with everything you've got. Writing is both exploratory and cathartic, and the only way to get to those states is to wade in. Jumping in doesn't do it. It doesn't give you time to get invested in the characters and the risk. This is one you need to feel your way through, and many of those feels won't feel good. And that's okay, too. Just as long as you feel something, you're on the right track.

 

[BearBear]

Then get to it. If you think you're ready to push, push with everything you've got. Writing is both exploratory and cathartic, and the only way to get to those states is to wade in. Jumping in doesn't do it. It doesn't give you time to get invested in the characters and the risk. This is one you need to feel your way through, and many of those feels won't feel good. And that's okay, too. Just as long as you feel something, you're on the right track.

Thanks for the kind pep-talk.

I am actually. Though my writing isn't 2-5k words a day anymore it's more like 2-5k per week but I'll get there all the same, there's no rush. What's more important for this one is making sure I understand what it is I'm going to do instead of winging it like I've done, though they're be a lot of that too.

I am currently exploring the character hurdles and I was planning out the plot but it got super complex as usual but not necessarily in a fun way, so I am rethinking that. I have about 5k words I'd say so far. Putting words down has never been an issue for me, I've written 120k in a month before and as much as 10k in 5 hours when I was really into it. My usual pace is 2k per hour. I think faster than I can type sometimes other times I savor it and think about the scene and situation for a while.

It's supposed to be fun first and foremost, or at least illiciting emotion of some kind.

This will be my 13th novel and I want it to be my magnum opus.

You'll know I'm at it when I [BearBear on this site] will dissapear again back to the shadows of obscurity. Some day you may hear of an atrocious work of dark fiction too contentious and unbelievably raw, it'll be free, it'll be unpublishable, and it will cause many to think, and that just may be this. You won't find it on Amazon though, more like a docs link on 4chan.

 

[herderofswine]

I include anything obscene in my writing, my writing is all told in the style of fable, so I consider any violence or gore to be part of delivering a larger message in the end. I include it because it occurs in reality. which my writing pertains to. I write to connect with others in a conversation about morality, as a part of life. My writing seeks to be part of a dialectic, a conversation about what it means to be good or evil, oh and my name is Rei, hi to all.

 

[pmmg]

Welcome Rei.

 

[SarahWrites]

In college I took a creative writing class. My teacher said that often times its best to write what we like instead of trying to write something we don't. If you don't like gore or any of the things listed, I think that that's perfectly fine. Your stories are better tailored to you and your readers if you write things you enjoy. Having a lot of adventure without any permanent damage isn't a bad thing.

 

[BearBear]

I did this and I want to strech a little to see how it goes. None of my characters have had even as much as a permanent scar. No gore. They've even died and were resurrected without any negative affects. It's very polyanna-ish on my part. I like it but there's something more that I feel like I need to experience to grow.

 

[Miles Lacey]

Although I have read extensively about torture in non-fiction I find the use of torture in fiction, especially fantasy, to be boring and predictable because they are modelled too much on the Inquisition or the Gestapo. Far too much of it is sadistic and serves little purpose other than to establish the evil credentials of the villain or to legitimise whatever actions are carried out by the hero(ine).

I'm much more fascinated by psychological torture and one of the best examples of this in fiction was Room 101 in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four.

In my work in progress the antagonist is a senior member of the secret police so the use of torture is part of his job description. However, his methods are modelled on those of the East German Stasi (who perfected the use of psychological torture) rather than the sadistic brutality of the Inquisition or the Gestapo.