When I originally had a dream about this story, there was something very clear about the world at hand. It follows my main protagonist who is a 27 year old genius [I don't know what kind I just wrote a snippet of this and have decided to follow the story fully now]. All though living in the modern world, marketing and advertising seems to catch the eye of different races. My main character is walking through the shopping market and it becomes clear to me, that some stores only have white or Mexican woman in their advertisements. In one scene his sister says she wants to get her hair done. And they pass a few shops selling racey clothes to erm....African American woman. Then she doesn't want to go into one haircut salon because it's for African American woman. And you look through the door and you see nothing, but African American people. And they make a turn into an ugly grimy ghetto alley, and there are other hair salons dedicated to blond white woman. It was weird. But even so, it's in a modern world where people segregate racist. Should I change this? Could this be too controversial of an idea? ---------------- The next bit is just as weird. We're going to talk mental hospitals. Well the one I keep envisioning for him is not your typical mental hospital. These doctor/scientist believe Wheat grass and more green vegetable diet will help their mental patients. They don't believe in prescribed medication, but more alternative medicines and think they can change people's behavior based on diet. There are forms of humiliation also done when they talk one on one counselor with their patients. What's weirder is their rooms are small "cages". More like if you've ever been to an animal hospital, and they put those cats in those plastic see through doors. Kind of the same thing here. Each room is made with a plastic see through door, big enough for one average size human to live in them. The point of the see through door is no secrets allowed and of course again humiliation to correct behavior. Should I also drop this from the main novel? It seems weird. And yet I find it interesting at the same time. What modern world is this? [More of a joke] Thank you for those who have decided to take the time to look through this. --- On another note I realized I had a typo in the title and it says menal instead of mental. Way to go me.
Can't speak for the first bit, but reading about the mental ward I have to wonder if you're talking about some sort of dystopian SF book. If that's the case, I suppose you can put anything. If it's attempting to be 'real world', then, no, it ain't gonna fly. Possibly the diet thing, but definitely not the rest.
In this artistic generation, controversy sells. Just look at lady gaga lol. I would say write it just as you imagined. Its your dream....own it.
nothing, it seems, is too controversial to be put into print or on film... as you should know if you read and watch movies/tv...
re: the mental ward things... The controversial would be the diet treatment. What wouldn't fly in a 'real world' scenario is the rest of it - not because it's controversial but simply because people know that it's all highly illegal and would never be allowed, let alone accepted. So unless it's some future hell world, or a completely secluded enclave, or something definitely not 'real world', it would just make you look foolish.
It's fiction. - - - - - - - Re: real world comments - it could be a metaphor for the real world, in some way.
Controversial among those who don't bother to keep up with the literature. Anyways, dreams might provide arresting and provocative images but they lack coherence. There are, perhaps, a few interesting images here, but can you use them for some meaningful purpose that goes beyond their provocativeness?
I haven't, I guess, but unless there's some tangible proof that diet changes brain chemistry (other than the maybe-possibly-could be effects of chocolate ) I think it would still be controversial.
The race thing: your grammar takes a turn for the worse at times, and I can't quite tell for sure if you mean that the whole area was one shopping district or if you were rocking up into different areas in your dream. But that's an idea you can run with; the idea that a place is "multicultural", but really it's a segregated, isolated community where no races mingle. Then again, from what I hear, a lot of hair salons do only cater to certain races because of the way hair types differ. As for the mental ward thing, it's more up my alley. That sort of setting, minus some modern advancements you've got there, would fit a lot better into a more dated setting, back a bit earlier than the 50's, I think. Think about early methods of treating psychosis, when they'd whip patients into submission believing they could drive it out with pain, or keep them in total darkness or force them to wear blinkers so they could only see a certain way. The diet would need altering, given that a lot of that sort of stuff wasn't too important back then, and vegetables were a product for the rich. Now, mental hospitals have too many rules and guidelines for their operation to have the whole see-through doors and stuff, and I don't see how that would be any good. None of the patients could be paranoid or violent, for example, because those sorts of people would harbour angry vengeful thoughts against their "captors" as soon as they see them outside the door and looking at them. You've got a lot to work with on that mental hospital thing. If you've got any questions about mental hospital development, feel free to give me a yell via VM or PM or anything.
