Using "taboo" settings as a background for the story

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by WriterDude, Jun 9, 2011.

  1. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Where I live, this sort of crime certainly wouldn't be a "nobody cares" issue - it would produce tremendous publicity, the police would be all over it, and the papers would be filled with the story about the missing children, indefinitely.

    Now, I'm sure that there are places in the world where that's not true, but I would certainly say that most of your readers won't have a "who cares" attitude about crimes against children. They may have that attitude about crimes against children in cultures and countries other than the ones in which they live, but that's a slightly different message - I don't have the impression that you plan to set your story in a place where the police and the public wouldn't care about this crime, so that the intervention of other countries might serve to help? (Edited to add: _Are_ there any places where the public really doesn't care about such crimes? Or by even considering the possibility that there are, am I slandering the populations of places that I'm not familiar with?)

    Showing them horrible things happening to a couple of children in their own world is not going to change their level of concern about children in other countries and cultures. It would, IMO, be rather like showing a murder to demonstrate that murder is a bad thing. Of course murder is a horrible thing, of course crimes against children are a horrible thing. Most people don't need to be persuaded of that fact. If your story has even a tiny mood of "Look! This is bad. See this? It's _bad_." your readers are likely to wonder, "What kind of monsters does he think we are?" and walk away.
     
  2. Unit7

    Unit7 Contributor Contributor

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    you noticed that too? I looked at the other posts he/she/it has made and it definitely doesn't seem like ad spam. Atleast not until you get to the bottom of their posts with the links and such. lol
     
  3. Pythonforger

    Pythonforger Carrier of Insanity

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    The question is, why not?

    Just because you deal with brutal stuff doesn't mean your writing sucks. Look at Stephen King. He doesn't exactly write happy stories, and yet he's more famous than sliced bread.
     

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