Hi, I have some ideas for a plot I'd like to write a book about, but I need some help and opinion from people who have maybe been into fantasy and/or writing longer than I have. I'm not describing all the plot because I'm still developing it, but essentially a lot of bad things will happen to the two protagonists. They will suffer first the death of somebody just met and who was helping them, then at some point they'll be divided by the events and one of them will join somehow the villains, while the other not. I'm not sure yet what will the outcome be for the one who will join the villain, most likely he will then abandon them, but I'm not sure. The problem here is that a lot of seriously bad things will happen, and possibly also the protagonist will have to commit such despicable actions, but I'm not sure how much can I describe them. Trying to make some dots: 1) Not sure the age of the protagonists yet, but they should be quite young at the beginning, so are adults going to read the book? But if young protagonists means young readers, can I depict beheading and executions? tortures? I don't think so, but the key of my plot will be to show what people can do joining some groups of villain, so I'd like to be much descriptive on how somebody gets trained to kill etc. Somebody who loves killing will have to train my character. 2) How much "gore" is expected in a fantasy book that keeps it still mianstream? The idea is that who goes with the villains will learn to kill innocent people, and a whole inverse morality will be introduced to that character. The character not joining the villains instead will still have to go through a lot of events where he will see death and he'll have to protect himself and others. Essentially the villains will explain a lot of their culture which is highly sadistic and will expose unacceptance of the differences: As an example they will violently rape and kill a temple/monastery of priestesses, they might be cannibal or might not, they will enslave and execute people. The idea is to expose a really bad ideology, but I'd like to depict it. On the other hand other people will need to try defend themselves but will suffer big blows. So, at the end, my question in a nutshell is: How much "gore" or sadism or depiction of actual murders can be done without falling into something which can't be mainstream? especially related to the age of potential readers. I'm not really thinking to write a "slasher novel" or a really gory one, but I need to know what is acceptable and what not. Any help is really appreciated
I can't really say about mainstream, but when it comes to explicit violence and gore, you generally want to have as little as you possibly can and still get your message across. I'm not saying this because I'm against it, but too much of it, aside from potentially alienating readers, can actually have the opposite effect you intend from it. Joseph Stalin is supposed to have said, "If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics." How this relates to writing is that lots and lots of graphically depicted, violent acts get less of a response than a few carefully selected moments. The more blood and rape and pillaging you have, the more desensitized readers become to it. It becomes background noise that no longer shocks or has meaning. If that's what you want, then go nuts. Blood Meridian uses this tactic to great success. If, however, you want to shock and horrify, then one brutal act against one thoroughly fleshed out and likeable character can do that better than 100 Hiroshimas ever could.
Thanks for your answer, actually maybe I have to explain a bit better. I'm not sure I want or I have to depict billions of deaths, some I can mention only. BUt What I'm saying is: "They skinned the man in front of the village....." is it acceptable in general? Things will happen and there will be a training for the bad guy, as well as adventures for the other protagonist where he will have to defend himself. Now in the case of the priestesses for example, They might be raped, maybe only one will be, maybe I'll describe how one will be raped or not at all. But surely I'm not going to describe every single blow that kills every priestess. My intent is not to have a detailed description of every single killing, but to show how the head villain thinks, how the aspiring villain, and protagonist, reacts to that violence, etc. I didn't read the ice & fire books, just watched a bit the tv serie, but I see there's a lot of blood in there, people get beheaded, get killed in many ways. I'm just asking how much more than that I can do and not fall into a disgusting, and not wanted, gory splatter novel. I'm not sure if I want to get under 18 audience, but surely I wouldn't like to capture only attention from the sickest readers.
If you haven't already, you should read Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men, or The Road by Cormac McCarthy. They'll give you a pretty decent idea of what the top end of how much violence you can have in a novel without if being a mindless blood-fest.
Well, judging what I've found inside child of God of McCarthy I guess I can understand what do you mean. But again, what audience am I gonna get? I'm not aiming at teen-agers, but yeah I'm maybe aiming at capturing say people in their twenties. I'm just considering how to treat a temple slaughter that makes the reader to understand how this is seen by a group of villains with their weird morality and how horrifies the rest of the people. I think I'll look at mccarty for sure as example, but I would avoid, so to speak, being inspired by somebody like Sam West etc. I dont; want to go into extreme fantasy horror, actually let's more say that I might make a fantasy version of No country for old man (not literally a version of)
Sam West and Cormac McCarthy are on two completely different levels. The New York Times called Blood Meridian, "possibly the greatest American novel of the past 25 years." and it was included in Time Magazine's list of "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005."
Yeah I wasn't comparing their value as writers, and that's why I wouldn't want to copy Sam West, that's exactly what I'm trying not to do really. I was just comparing the gore level. Apologies for having mislead you to believe I was putting them at the same level.
I think this is the best way to go. Saying you skin a man infront of an audience might be just gore if that person has no further value. If the person is a completely developed character with feelings you can stand behind, it would be indeed better than 100 Hiroshimas. Coming to game of thrones, it does well because it's different than other fantasy. You can't tell who dies and doesn't, however for me it's already too much. This due to the fact that there are so many deaths in there that just want to depict gore and nothing else, which becomes boring rather quickly. I think what would be also very good if you're able to get the reader to agree with the -(false?) protagonist becoming the villain- moral ideas and reasoning. My best example comes from Manga, Deathnote, here he purifies the world and there are lots of discussion going on whether he's gone power crazy or if he actually is doing it for the greater good.
Just from the point of view of reading. Is there ANYTHING you want to see repeated too often in ANY book you read? No matter what it is, it will lose its impact if it happens on every other page or chapter. Make your scenes of violence have impact, but don't expect each one to have the same impact. The impact will wear off, the more frequently you repeat the action.
Ok so, let's say from the villain perspective, what I want to do is to show that a group of beings, orcs, warriors, whatever they are, belong to a culture where they kill everybody who thinks differently and does not accept their rules. The skinend man (there might not be any) might be developed or not, this would surely change a lot, but what I'd like to focus is on why the villains do that. They are punishing a man for something, and they are doing it following some moral or ideological ideas they have. Now I might not depict all of it, but I might want to show what the protagonist thinks and feels while he's with the villain and he has to be trained to do such things.
I could be wrong here, but I think focusing too much on the age of your anticipated readers can be a bit of a hang-up. You've mentioned that your protagonists are younger - good. Keep them that way (if that's what you as the author want for the purposes of the story), and let whoever is interested by the plot read the book. You'll get a wide age range. You've also mentioned being wary of running off younger readers (younger being teenaged, I think); trust me, violence isn't going to scare them off. I think a big mistake that some authors make when writing for a young adult audience is they think they have to shy away from things that are too graphic or too "real". I don't think that you should have to check yourself against an audience who doesn't exist yet. (As an aside, I just finished reading the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, which is a very popular YA fantasy series, and it doesn't shy away from graphic images, of both the sexual and violent nature.) It sounds like (and I could be misinterpreting the posts) you're trying to use the violent temple scene not the shock the reader, but to introduce or further explain the mindset of the villain. I think you could accomplish this several ways, although of course not all of them are going to fit the tone of your book: you could have the scene written from the commander's POV; he's been ordered to take this temple, and through his eyes we understand the orders he was given, as well as his interpretation of them. Is he conflicted? Is he fiercely loyal to the lead villain, and latches on to the villain's explanation/ideology? This way, we can see the ideology through someone's eyes, as well as a reflection of the lead villain as he/she might be seen by others in your world; it also gives the commander a chance to vocalize the orders. How does he relay the information to his men? Do they talk to the people in the temple at all (explaining why they're being killed, taunting them, etc.)? Another way you could do it is by skipping the scene entirely, and taking the villain's POV as he/she receives the report about the temple sacking. If we don't have an emotional attachment to any of the characters there, or the place itself, this would be a good way to share the villain's ideology and violent enforcement without exposing your reader to so much violence that they become desensitized. And of course, you could always just have the lead villain there, either taking part or standing back and watching as his subordinates enact his orders. You mentioned the protagonist is training with the villain - maybe that's a good viewpoint. Again, you could either have the protagonist at the temple themselves while it's being sacked, or you could have the protagonist present while the villain receives the report. Then we not only see the villain's ideology - in how he receives the news, how he praises/criticizes the messenger, how the messenger delivers the report - but the protagonist's reaction to it.
This is just me, but I like the violence in my fantasy books to be pretty brutal. Killing another person with a handheld weapon shouldn't feel clean. You should feel their bones crack, the wet smack of flesh, the spray of hot blood, the adrenaline and exhilaration of killing someone who was trying to kill you, especially if you aren't used to this kind of thing. Hand to hand combat is anything but sanitary.
I don't have answers to your questions, but I will just tell you this. Descriptions of bleeding in books seem to remind me too much of times when I have been bleeding, and they tend to make my fingertips weak, and so I tend to skip them. Likewise, with intensely gory torture scenes, I will tend to skim or skip rather than read. This kind of weakens scenes of that sort because there's a better than even chance I'll miss any plot points you've plugged into them. It's weird, but my reaction to imaginary violence and bloodletting is a lot more intense than my reaction to real violence and bloodletting--even when it's happening to me. For what it's worth, I have a similar problem with the scenes in, say, Black Hawk Down where they're trying to save the life of some unfortunate soldier.
My opinion: Don't underestimate the power of suggestion in writing, or any form of media. Sure, writing in the gory details may sound like something with impact, and this is something that Hollywood has capitalized on, but because flagrant violence and gore have become such a huge staple of media, a majority of American viewers have become desensitized to it. Spoiler I once watched a Japanese flick in a course I took back in college. It was called "Blue Spring", and was about a bunch of kids from a run down high school who lose their touch with humanity and start killing each other. (there's more to the story but it's not really important to the topic). The movie was really good at insinuating violent acts without actually throwing them in the viewer's face. The scene that stuck out to me the most was one where two of the kids were in a bathroom stall where they get into an argument. One of them ends up killing the other with a knife, but we don't actually see him sticking the knife into the other boy's chest. Instead, at the critical moment, the camera switches to the outside of the stall, and we see the knife slowly plunge through the stall door. When it's pulled back, you can see blood leaking through the fresh holes in the door, to the tune of the victims panicked gurgling on the other side. It's slow and deliberate, but the value of not showing the stabbing up close and personal is that it gives the viewer the opportunity to imagine what is happening on the other side of the stall door. They get the full brutal imagery of the kill without it even being shown. If you're going for fear factor or buildup, suggestion is a strong tool in the writer's arsenal. A lot of good horror capitalizes on what both the characters and viewers can't see or don't know. You'll definitely need to use suggestion if you're including rape though, but that much should be obvious. In my story, which is also a fantasy, there are instances of rape insinuated through dialogue, but it's not outright stated in the text "this person was raped". Rather than stating something like that, it's better to imply that it happened and instead focus on the effects it had on the character, at least in my opinion. Edit: Well, don't let me dissuade you from using flagrant violence. It really comes down to what you want to accomplish by including the violence. Do you want shock value in a certain scene? Then a sudden, brutal death of an important character can help that cause. Do you want to disturb the viewer over the length of the story? Then suggestion might be the better choice. It comes down to intent, as most aspects of writing do.
This explains why nobody wanted to read my chapter that started with a genocide on the first page to add a bit of tension. I haven't seen people avoid a story like that since the one about Syria.
