Okay, fess up. Which scenes do you dread writing the most? A character's death? The opening, the ending, those dreadful middles. The turning point. The sex scene. A fight scene. An introspective scene, a scene heavy on dialogue. A violent scene or an emotional scene. A scene out of your element. or any others I missed. Call me curious, I want to see if there's a consensus or if it's more personal.
I find every scene a chore to write. It's already in my head, why can't they magically appear on paper? Science fails me again! Any scene that I am not intimate with... I often have bits and boops that I didn't spend days dreaming about or that the parts I've written magically gave birth to an unforseen scene! Those slow me down because I literally stop writing to think about it... Then I start going on WF.org... Then playing video games... It's the unknown that bothers me. I can make any scene good that I'm familiar with and work with it to the best I can. Might not be the hottest erotica or the most epic discourse but it works and it's enjoyable. However, the unknown patches are predominantly terrible to reread...
I've got scenes that delve into the travesty of sex slavery and trafficking and I fear not being able to portray the issues realistically.
Greetings, sorry, just for clarification; do you mean by the word dread, to feel anxious and willing to write a certain scene? or to be afraid of mentioning it, and not preferring to mention it? We just need to get the precise meaning regarding the word, according to what you mean in your sentence in order for us to reply. All respect for you.
Well, it could be either or - one person's terror of spiders could be anothers mild anxiety. I just mean the scenes that you don't look forward to writing. I love descriptive scenes I look forward to writing them but I hate introspective scenes & transitions - in fact they make me anxious having the character go over his feelings - usually I avoid it and try to just rely on show but sometimes I feel like the reader is missing something.
Thanks so much for your reply, we really appreciate it. As for us, immoral scenes are the ones which we avoid writing about. conveying the truth and justice through drama and proverbs are among the best ways; based upon the conflict between good and evil.
For the most part, I'm generally good with anything, although that may be because I've yet to venture into the more graphic stuff. There is one kind of writing I fear though - first person, male character scenes. I don't think I know how to portray guys well because, well, I'm a girl... so I procrastinate the most when I write those scenes. I can generally do okay if it's in third person though since there are less introspective parts required.
I've got a list so I'm going to write them out: - When the scene has a female perspective - Anything romantic - The ending - Anything that's supposed to emotionally move the reader - Anything that I let sit in my head for too long - Anything that hasn't sat in my head for too long - Anger/Sadness/Fear
The most difficult task for me is when I'm trying to get my character/s from point A to point B. Being in a room, or on a tract of land outside, stationary, is not a problem. But when they need to travel to a certain destination is when the travails start.
Definitely hard to balance beliefs and writing. I have a hard time writing people who are cruel to animals. I tried to write the scene, thought it would add a new dimension to my story but had to ax it - too hard. It is difficult to overcome the gender thing. Fortunately, I was raised with so many guys I feel pretty comfortable writing about them - not completely though, and sometimes I forget that guys don't notice the dreaminess of another man's eyes - lol. Romance is tough for me, too. I tend to see humor in everything so my heroine would probably find that she's playing her big romance scene with lipstick on her teeth. Ditto this.
Honestly? I don't "dread" anything about the writing process. I don't think I've actually every encountered something about writing that I don't enjoy. I love the editing, I love coming up with ideas. I love writing about anything and everything. Sometimes I have difficulties in one area, but I don't "dread" anything at all. I wouldn't be writing if I did lol
I honestly think the dread is the best part. Most of us probably didn't start out as perfect writers, so we are always learning. The dreaded scenes are the best because it makes us expand our horizons. It pushes us out of our comfort zones, and that's probably good for us.
Wish I could have this attitude. But I come from a family of artists and we usually gripe a bit about our art forms. My dad and brother usually win though as their sculpture is more physically taxing. Recently my dad had to get his eye scraped because a bit of metal got stuck in it. Ouch! But my brother is pretty understanding, even he worries about how to word his emails. I like this! Very hopeful turns the whole thing into a growing experience.
I have never written a sexy thing. It is the most dreadful thing that I hate it. Also, I don't like to write hurtful scenes and try to avoid them as far as possible.
Really? Like @GingerCoffee has probably already guessed, I love hurting my characters. I think it stems from wanting to see how they pull through a difficult situation. I'm interested in anything related to self-defense, combat, weapons, first-aid, and generally the treatment of injuries and ailments (all skills I train or want to master), so I suppose it's only natural I like the scenes where my characters are put through the meat grinder. I'm in the same predicament right now. One absolute rule that I have and will not deviate from is that whatever such "sex scenes" are in our current WIP, they have to be such that no sane person could see anything sexy in them even though they portray sexual acts. I want the reader to experience as much of the abused character's anxiety, fear, discomfort, pain etc. as is possible to convey through writing, but it's definitely a challenge to charge that much intensity into a piece of text. That's been one of my biggest hurdles ever since I realized I don't know nearly as much about girls and women as I thought I did. Previously I just thought the character's sex didn't matter at all, but the more I hung out and talked with females, the more I understood that although they, too, are human, there are tons of subtle differences that might not necessarily make or break a story, but definitely add a sense of realism to a character if you get them right. I mean, it would be just foolish to ignore the effects of social conditioning, the way girls are treated differently from boys since birth, the way society treats and sees females in comparison to males etc. Granted, there are always exceptions and there probably are many females who behave just like guys (whatever that means), but I want to at least be aware of it if I'm writing such an exception because one thing I do not want to do, is what I saw in one published sci-fi story written by a male author: his MC was a perfect example of a guy wearing a girl's body. It was so bad, I sometimes forgot the MC was supposed to be female. Luckily over the years I've gotten much better at writing females, especially young women, largely thanks to @KaTrian who's always there to provide instant feedback if I accidentally stuff my head up my ass and start writing my female character through the male gaze. The one character type I still have a lot of trouble with are 10-14yo girls. I've never had a kid sister, female friends or family of that age etc, so I haven't been around girls of that age group enough to pick up things that separate them from their younger or older counterparts. I'm just glad that I will have a 12yo girl as one of my POV characters in our next project so I'll get some desperately needed practice. I lolled at that. And yeah, many a time Kat has smacked me upside the head when I've been writing a straight female character with no bi-curious tendencies to observe how a bead of perspiration glides down between another woman's glistening, heaving breasts or some such silliness. In a way, writing is much like acting: you have to stuff your on persona away and get into character or else such slips will be just a matter of time. But I love it. I just have to be careful that I don't gloss over my straight male characters because I know the type so well, being one myself, that sometimes I get bored with them and just rush through their POV parts so I can get back into e.g. a woman's head. I guess I may even be a little obsessed about reaching what I consider the Holy Grail of writing the opposite sex: writing such a realistic portrayal of a female that not even female readers will be able to tell she was written by a guy.
I was full of dread the first time I wrote a sex scene. Took me two FULL days. Now the thing that haunts me is when I have it in my head but the words just won't come out of my fingers. They just hang above the keyboard.
Yes, but can you smash the heads of kittens? I don't like reading torture scenes, nor do I choose to read about cruelty to animals. So I can relate to not wanting to write those scenes either. [sidetrack] I agree, on both fronts. My character has already been advised to go somewhere else in her head and divorce her mind from her body. There's also physical abuse involved because she doesn't cooperate. She clings to defiance and pain over submission. Octavia Butler wrote a story that included a scene with the choice of a slave in the Antebellum South to cooperate or resist at great personal cost either way, but the author described the emotional dilemma. What would you do in that situation, would you resist or concede to the position of a slave? In her book, the protagonist's dilemma makes one have a different appreciation for the person who chooses not to resist. It's this kind of emotion I want to create. What I don't want is just some sex or cruelty that has no meaning. [/sidetrack]
I dreaded writing some boring scenes. Then, I decided that if they bored me that much, they'd bore the reader. So, they got cut.
Good point. I have a strange aversion to writing animal cruelty (although I've done it), perhaps because I see hurting animals kinda like hurting babies: they don't understand what's going on the same way more self-aware humans do, so it seems a lot crueler to hurt them. It's not so much enjoyment of the violence in and of itself, but liking the challenge of trying to portray the horror of real violence even if writing the scene makes me feel otherwise uncomfortable. I hold myself to a high standard with such scenes. I don't necessarily reach them, but I do try my best. I see torture scenes like I see scenes about sexual abuse: I want to convey the horror, pain, panic, despair, helplessness etc. that the victim experiences while being tortured. I want the reader to feel what the character feels. The same goes for all kinds of violence: I want it to be as realistic as possible and I absolutely hate fiction that glorifies violence, makes it look fun/cool etc. I never want to be associated with such... material. Oh yeah, one thing that I kinda dread writing is description of the milieu. Description has never been one of my strengths, so I often struggle when I need to let the reader know where the character is, what they see around them etc.
I didn't like writing a scene where a woman is sort of cruel to a man. It wasn't writing her that was hard (she just pretended she didn't know him). But, his reaction to it was difficult. I don't have a problem writing physical pain, it's the emotional pain.
This is going to sound dumb but it's true. I don't like writing scenes where I have an intent. Ie: I don't like knowing what I want to achieve from the scene and then trying to achieve it. I like writing scenes that just play out and I discover what it means as I go. An idiotic process but hey, that's just my way.
In my first attempt at a novel, I had my mc die, and I waited until no one else was in the house to write it because I knew I would cry, and I did. But since then, no problem pointing my finger at a character and saying, "You. Out." Well, maybe a little problem. Sometimes. ETA: Actually, the only scenes I dread writing are the ones I still haven't completely thought through but feel compelled to write anyway. Because I know I'm going to have to take several runs at it before I get it right.
Emotionally traumatic scenes are what I probably dread most, especially the ones that involve children or mothers since having kids myself. When you have the ability to not just see your character in pain but experience it with them (or rather force them to experience it with you) it can be very uncomfortable to write...stillbirth, abuse, terminal illness. Animal cruelty is off limits and I never write that...I'm one who changes the channel at those stupid Sarah McLachlan commercials.
