Well, my dad just saw me typing a scene out that I hope to be the climax of a future Heridon Copper story. It went like this: Suspect: But I can't walk! Heridon Copper: And I can't <f-bomb>ing hear! Yet do you see me killing my friends just because they can do things I have to struggle with on a daily basis? I don't care if you're a blind, crippled kid with lukemia! You're still expected to not murder people because you're jealous of them! I turn around and my dad had this shocked expression on his face. Although he knows I'm not troubled or anything, I felt embarassed. :> So, fellow authors, share your stories of family and friends being shocked at your writing.
You must be a really good person, Link I don't think I could shock my family/friends if I tried. They know I'm nuts. It's random people who don't know me that are shocked by how messed up I am
I think what shocked my family the most was that I wrote something with a plot solid enough to be turned into a novel.
I think my parents were surprised when I wrote a story about a marriage falling apart. They've always been happy together so they wondered where I learned it all.
Hmm...I wrote a tiny piece about a girl in a post-apocalyptic world shooting and killing a child...I think that surprised some of my friends. But really, I'm like Trish. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm not entirely sane.
I was writing a zombie apocalypse for NaNoWriMo a couple years back and my MC had a little sister about 6 or so. Everyone just called her Boo. In fact I don't even remember giving her any other name then that. I tried to make her as cute and fun character as possible only to have her bitten by her cat turned zombie cat(how it survived the town being bombed is beyond me. Then again that was a rather weak moment in the story to begin with) After my MC realizes what's happening to her, he kills her. He also proceeds to try and take his own life realizing what he had just done but had the gun jam on him or it had only one bullets. They couldn't believe that I had actually killed off this character. Though what surprises me about it is I think she was the only character of the original main group to be killed off. Never got around to finishing the actual story. So I am only sure of the MC and his love interest surviving. In fact I had a scene planned to have the MC tell her that he wants to be burned like the rest of them and not to bury him anywhere near his sister. Was supposed to be the last scene actually... I really should get to rewriting that story.
My father is a writer (not well-known by any means, but a writer nonetheless), and he recently wrote a short novel about an unspecified eastern European ex-Soviet state where a grotesquely obese woman's yeast infection takes over the world. Obviously it was written tongue-in-cheek, but I think this is a pretty good indication of the kind of household I live in. It's not easy to shock people around here.
I went through this phase when I was about fifteen where everything I wrote sounded vaguely erotic *blushes*. Anyway, I was totally unaware of this until I wrote a short story for school about a girl who ran off to join a cult with her boyfriend. My English teacher pointed it out to me. "Sarah, that's basically porn. But you'll get an Excellence anyway." (Excellence is a grade in the weird NZ school system, fyi) So... Yeah, that was an embarrassing experience. The story had no sex in it! Since my hormones no longer write my stories for me, I don't have too much of a problem with this anymore. I don't love my parents reading some of the descriptions I write about other women when I'm in my sleazy POV, but they don't really care. They know it's the character, not me!
Haha, I had a similar thing, dizzyspell. I wrote a story as part of my A Level English coursework, and it was in the style of Mills and Boon and in the words of my teacher it was 'really saucy'. He had to read it out to the whole class as well. I was blushing so much. I didn't realise it was like that! I think my teacher and the people in class were surprised 1. I could write so well 2. I could write something like that. I don't share my writing with anyone except university people when I need them to workshop it. So I have no idea whether my family would be surprised at what I write.
Any time i've shown something of mine to people i know, which is usually when i'm drunk or something, I get seriously embarrassed about it the next day It's one of them things where if someone doesn't read many books or doesn't appreciate writing, they might just think you're a dickhead!
My wife has read some of my stuff, but she gets angry with me when she developes a liking for a character and I have him die. But only once was she ever really uncomfortable with somethng I wrote. It was my very first attempt at a novel, and one of the characters was a young woman who had survived the Holocaust. It was not uncommon under such deprivations and abuse for a young woman's menstrual cycle to completely shut down, and I had a passage in which she had (rather delicately, I thought) let the man she ultimately married know that her body had returned to normal. My wife never said anything about it, but she kind of looked at me funny and then hurried on to the next chapter.
I get a kick out of it when something I've written reduces someone to tears. (When they cry from the emotion, I mean. Not when they're crying because it's so bad. lol.)
I can't say I've ever shocked anyone. I feel left out! But that's also because no one in my family is interested in reading anything I write. :/
My family often like to read what I write from over my shoulder. It can be pretty awkward, especially if I'm writing something that involves violence or sex. They even read the passage out aloud in a disbelieving tone. One even made fun when they saw that one of my characters was abandoned by his uncle. Yeah... :/
Know how you feel Link! I still remember when I showed some of my poems to my mom, and my siblings. Not having them take me seriously at first was a little disheartening.
I am very sensitive about anyone reading over my shoulder, whether I'm reading or writing. It's rude, plain and simple, unless I invite them to do so. Fortunately, my wife and son know this and so they never do it. But if I'm at the desk writing and one of them approaches, I usually minimize the screen, just in case their interest perks up. Sounds like minimizing might do the trick for you. After a few times, they'll get the point. EDIT: You know, the more I'm thinking about it, the more it's pissing me off. About the only thing that burns my biscuits more than people reading over my shoulder is having them make unsolicited comments.
I also feel violated when people read over my shoulder. When I lived with my parents and I minimized when they walked by, they determined I was hiding something and rifled through my computer history. Not cool.
Oh god, my husband reads over my shoulder all the time, and it drives me insane. I don't care if he reads what I'm writing, but just knowing that he's sitting there watching the whole time gets under my skin... It was worse when I lived with my parents, though. They're super religious, and my writing is not religiously-approved...
I can't imagine writing while someone is watching me, reading what I'm writing. I don't regard writing as a kind of spectator sport (Monty Python notwithstanding). I NEVER showed my parents my writing, nor my sister. There's no way in hell I'd want my immediate family reading my stuff. That's not because my stuff is shocking - it isn't, usually - but because my writing is PRIVATE, only to be shared between me and the general public, if I'm ever lucky enough to get any of it published.
That sucks some of your parents/friends/SOs read over your shoulder. I'd hate that. I minimise everything or block it with iTunes or something when my family come in/walk past. My family know I'm private and respect that. They would like me to share my writing with them, but they're happy with me doing my own thing.
I do the same. I have to block mine from my kids. My son is 10 and my daughter 6 and what I write is not at all age appropriate for them, lol. They know better than to try to read it, but I don't even want them catching the odd mommies-don't-say-that word out of the corner of their eye. I usually write when they're in bed, at school, or playing, but when I can't... I'm turbo-blocker Other than that though I don't care what my family reads, like I said they know I'm nuts and it's not as if I'm embarrassed by anything I write.
I know what you mean. My wife and I do a lot of advocacy work, and often I'll be writing something that we've talked talked about - a LTE or something to an elected official - and I actually want her to read it. But, when I'm finished.
