Well, in a short story I'm writing my main character decides its time to perform some DIY amputations, but... Should i make it a "the devil made me do it" horror Or He wanted to push the boundary's of art? What do you think? Its just I'm thinking "the devil made me do its" been done a lot before, but works as a horror, what would the second one be classed as? At the moment I'm more taken with the second idea due to it being a bit more original. Thanks, DG.
If it's to push the boundary's of art, he has a mental illness. If its "the devil" its a supernatural horror in which he looses his sanity. Either way, he was going to have a mental illness or loose his sanity, I doubt it would make a good story if he just woke up one morning and went to the tool shed to get a bow saw and chisel for no apparent reason. The thing is though, I'm a better story teller when i can play with the supernatural, but i just feel that its a bit like that scene from the Evil Dead and not very original. Thanks, DG.
Yup, definitely quicker than the NHS. I'd go for the first one - but perhaps you could trade the 'devil' for a dead relative, or a childhood imaginary friend or something of the sort.
Your idea of amputating limbs to push the boundaries of art opens up a plethora of questions. How did he get to this point? What triggers the mental illness? How does he then record the image as an art form? Why doesn't he think the human form is beautiful as a whole? You could take this character on an amazing journey albeit a very macabre one. In real life there was a man, Edward Gein, who used parts of the human body as furniture, draped himself in human skin and did lots of really weird things. He is revered by horror buffs as the the prototype of every knife, axe, and cleaver-wielding maniac who has stalked America's movie screens for the past thirty years. Yes, it's very possible to flesh out (sorry I couldn't resist) your character into something truly horrible.
ok, i'll bite... what the bleep is 'the NHS'?... only thing i know called that is the 'national honor society' that i belonged to in high school, more'n a half century ago!... and why do so many onliners seem to think everyone in the world will know what their acronyms stand for???
National Health Service, once the most revolutionary health system in the world, giving care to all the country's people, rich and poor, young and old. Now it's falling apart at the seams, super-bugs kill hundreds, waiting lists sometimes over years long and under-staffing are making people suffer without treatment and all it seems to give to people now are bedsores (yet again, due to under-staffing). Sorry, it's and English thing
I don't know if this will help or not at all, but... There was an interesting patient on an episode of Grey's Anatomy who came in with a twitching foot, and he very calmly, very rationally asked for an amputation because the foot didn't belong to him. He was denied a couple of times, and finally managed to get his hands on a chainsaw (which the main characters were used to pare down on the huge branches that had impaled another patient) and attempted to self-amputate. He got about halfway through his ankle with the chainsaw before he either passed out or the saw was taken from him (been awhile, can't remember which). He eventually got what he wanted: a surgical amputation of his foot. All because he didn't think the foot really belonged to him. Otherwise, he seemed pretty sane.
