Anyway, I really am having a serious case of PMS.... Shoot me down all feminists or people who are offended that a female should dare reveal she is hormonal in written form. I better head off before I do more offensive writing and piss everyone off.
I'm...afraid I don't know how to write a female character in a serious case of PMS. The closest I could get is that she's suddenly irritable?
For both of you on that topic, not just you: lots of people don't know what the exact content of the book is without reading it first. Of course they will buy stuff that's racist, before they know it's racist, whether they like that stuff or not. I hate the argument of 'if you don't like it don't read it' or, in this case, people who like it will buy it because they want that kind of thing. There have been books I was told were 'offensive' and they were tame, while other books were 'artistic brilliance' and they were appalling. I know a fair few people who started reading American Psycho not realizing the extremes (I thought it was juvenile and silly, btw), and not being able to finish. Sure, some books have a notoriety that draws in the reader, like Naked Lunch, or whatever book you mentioned, but many people don't know if a book contains content that may offend them (or they may like) until they actually read the damn thing.
A Clockwork Orange basically celebrates psychopathic torture as just teens being silly teens. I find it wholly disgusting, morbid, and I would never read it. Plenty of people have, and do. It all has to do with tastes. Unless you live in a police state, you're free to write whatever you want and others are free to read whatever they want. @Selbbin - So have a woman suddenly flip all the shits for no immediate reason?
Sorry for the late response. Dreaded sleeping! lol. Yeah, I wasn't saying I knew exactly what is in and not in. I mean, I am not expert. But heck being somewhat nervous is part of my process really. I like over thinking and thinking what people would think is by extension a part of my process. I got more to say but it sort of is reflected in responses to others, so gonna quote other people now. Edit: I guess this one is more directed at this first post. A good example I think is this. On here. I once wrote a short story for a contest about a girl named Ivy. And everyone loved the writing quality, but multiple people told me after the contest was over they only didn't vote for me because Ivy was a bad girl. lol. Now, I am not gonna rewrite her in that sense because that goes against my own creative process, but it does bring up the point. If you are gonna sell to a audience you may need to edit your work for their enjoyment. Right? Yes! Well sort of. More accurately I was asking how people deal with this. Surely we all censor ourselves to some degree. At the same point this was just general discussion so there really is no wrong aspect of it to discuss. But since I was asking how other people deal with it, I was wondering if you ever edited yourself in this way? Where woould you draw the line of something you would edit for the sake of auience approval and something you would not edit. Oh yeah. I agree. Just, in speculative fiction that is so hard to judge! I mean, where do you draw the line ont hat aspect? Research the culture of the entire world? To draw realistic aspects of where they would be in 200 years? I may hate researching this stuff but I am not purely against it. My own style has been more trying to capture enough knowledge to sprinkle so grains of truth in. As I get older. Maybe I will like researching more.
You are awesome. Is it bad that now I suddenly wonder if you would find my girl interesting? <Slow clap> Simply awesome! Got to admit, now I am curious what kind of things you like.
Good question. I'd be lying if I said I never once paused and asked myself if I, with my limited writing abilities, am jumping into something I've no business getting involved in? I could plausibly write about American slavery because I've written two term papers on that back in college. Even then, though, there would be this realization in my head that yes, I'm a white guy in the American Deep South writing about black slavery in America. That's why I hardly even touch that. The most I've gotten to now was in my Colonial Mystery where it basically amounts to “Uh yeah, that exists and, uh, yeah, one of the main characters is a white boy of mixed-race.” Do note that the POV is from a white French kid that knows him. And believe me when I say that I'm dreading the scene where the French boy learns the other boy's true heritage and feels the scars on the boy's back from the lashes. Absolutely dreading it. Rape? Abortion? Miscarriage? The Holocaust? 9/11? I don't feel comfortable writing about that because to me, it requires a whole level of writing that I'm nowhere even close to reaching yet. I guess it just depends on what you feel comfortable with.
I've read summaries about it. It's basically Grand Theft Auto V in book form and the entire cast of “protagonists” are clones of Trevor Phillips.
My two favorite short stories/novellas are: Breakfast at Tiffany's and Tralala. They are, to put it mildly, extremely different while having one major similarity.
Nope. It's a very complex exploration of behaviorism and violence in society 'inspired' by the Author's own experiences when his wife was brutally attacked by a gang of young US servicemen. Not saying you should read it, but it doesn't glorify anything. Edit: Here's a quote about the misinterpretation by the Author: "...it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me until I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation..."
I am now a bit curious hat these stories have in common. granted I know nothing about either. lol Oh, where do you come from? If it isn't rude to ask?
I've written a story that I worry about being very offensive, considering the child rape, brutality, bestiality, violent suicide and more. That's the main reason I looked for beta readers, who have come back with positive feedback, mostly. I have samples here in the workshop. There have been some people that were very excited to read more after the first chapter, and when they did never got back to me, so I know they considered it too offensive, while others have seen the reason behind the 'vulgarity' and consider it nothing short of essential. The point of the story is highlighting our capacity for good and evil, as a society, and our ability to ignore both, so I really can't do that without the evil.
My point is to highlight there are different expectations and sensitivity. No one person here can talk for everyone. If anything, I feel the views of this forum is a very narrow perspective of a bunch of opinionated writers, and that would include myself. Hardly the general readership. If people here had the answers, they would be filthy rich or at least best selling authors. In fact, I'd say writer's forums are often places that disparage the successful writers. I certainly would not be researching my audience in a writer's forum. I'm not having a go at you but there is nothing wrong with "don't read it if you don't like it." It's their choice to close their mind. You should never diminish the reader's right to that. I have a problem with people telling others that they will be shunned for writing a topic whatever way they choose, to stop the process of creation. I also get sick of reading people being so insecure about their own writing that they are constantly needing a stamp of approval to write what comes to their mind. There's writing with sensitivity but never at the expense of writing with honesty. If people don't like it, then maybe it's not the topic but just that the author is a bad writer and have no idea they're on about, which just leaves them with an unpleasant topic written needlessly, in possibly an offensive way. Hopefully, they get better in the next draft.
Of course there's nothing wrong with people choosing not to read something. My point is it's often hard to avoid what you don't want until it's too late. Simply because you don't know there is offensive content until you've read it, hence being unable to avoid it in the first place. Like for me when an animal gets hurt or killed in a movie. I don't like it and would avoid if possible, but sometimes it happens before I get the chance NOT to see it. People say, this is offensive, which is fine, and someone retorts with, 'then don't read it'. Well, yeah, nice advice, but a little late. On the rest I agree.
If only it was the case for me, hubby would think he married a sweet woman. More this... and usually with threats of imminent death directed at hubby. You're missing the point again. There is a reason, it's just not written out on a piece of paper and handed to you. But I do like to tell hubby that he suffers from PPMS (Poor Pathetic Man Syndrome). At least with PMS there's regularity and a biological reason. PPMS does not and can strike at any time.
I see what you mean. In addition to knowing beforehand from reading reviews/critiques, I use that argument to refer to the reader's right to STOP reading, to throw the book at the wall, to swear never again to pick up another book from the writer. And of course, people should always put the correct warnings in novels, so if there are awful triggers that it should be mentioned. When an author betrays a reader's trust, they deserve some nasty emails and shitty reviews.
I don't like censorship, but I'm a big fan of ratings. Films are rated for this exact reason, so people can choose to avoid content they may not like. Books are not rated, and I believe they should be. Those against the idea should consider it more of a list of ingredients than as censorship.
I don't know, I feel that if we went down the path of censorship with novels, it then adds another layer of complication that writers have to consider. I mean, just dealing with copyright is problematic enough. Authors struggle to figure out what genre they're writing for, I'm not sure they can handle rating on top of that... I just don't feel we need to be nannied in everything... I'd like to think people can use common sense and judgement, read reviews. The Internet lets us know way too much. I download a lot of books and occasionally I get a dud but rarely do I get a shock horror. It doesn't bother me too much if I did. And really, you can stop reading. I have occasionally stopped reading, like that awful novel above I mentioned that had eating of the female's fetuses... I kept pushing along tortured until it became too much. From memory that book was considered dark erotic. Go figure. Why anyone could read stuff like that is beyond me but there are! I'll just never touch another book by that author ever again. See @GuardianWynn? Here you are fussing about periods and there are worst topics being writtten and sold!
It's not censorship, it's rating. censorship is saying 'you can't publish this' while a rating is simply 'this is the content of the book.' It's the same reason ingredients are listed on processed food. The writer doesn't need to worry, just the distributor. There are already good systems in place for games and movies. Why not books? Things could still be published as 'unrated'.
Lot of good stuff in this thread. I only have two things more to contribute. @GuardianWynn, yes you do worry too much but you are very talented and thoughtful in spite of your insecurities. And everyone who has PMS is not a bitch when their hormones fluctuate. That is a stereotype that misses the breadth of the issue. I used to have two things with my PMS, a menstrual headache, and a sense of foreboding or worry that didn't have any basis. I came to recognize the relationship after keeping a symptom diary. After that, I just dealt with it using standard pain meds like acetaminophen (paracetamol) and riding the needless worry out.
Sorry, ignore the word of Censorship because I agree with you on that. I'm more arguing against yet another thing to consider. It comes from a place of inherent laziness but I do wonder if it doesn't then open another can of worms. More things to argue and debate about, for authors then to worry and fuss, feeling that they are pigeon holing themselves for adding certain elements. Like...no anal sex, that makes it R++++ just missionary, which would make it MA...etc. Who knows where it would all lead when authors just want to sell books.
