I've been pondering this idea for a story for about two months, it wakes me up in the middle of the night and it shows up in dreams. I find myself in the middle of class just sitting there spacing out about this idea, its eating me away. Anyway I basically think if members here shoot my idea down my mind will stop begging me to create this piece of writing. So here it is. Its about a man who participates necrophilia and because of this has come to terms that his body has been blacking out do to the sexual cravings he has because of this fetish. He has to cover the tracks of his crimes of rape and murder and he is fighting an inner battle within himself to try to get rid of his feelings for dead bodies but his cravings are overcoming him. At the same time the police are hunting and collecting proof to catch the serial murder. During the time of the inner battle of the man who is fighting his cravings he finds out he is gay. and falls in love with a detective who is working the case of the serial killer and confesses to him he has impulses. thats all I have so far but i have yet to even write the first sentence but thats whats been in my head so far. Is this to much? Am I to young to even be thinking about something this deep? im 16. I realize my spelling, grammar,and punctuation suck but could this be like something people would like to read or even find interesting? I would love to hear your thoughts and input into this odd tale of love and crime. Oh please be harsh please i need all the critism. My teachers and parents lie to me to much saying im very creative and blah blah so i need to hear the truth. Thanks and expect to hear more from me NappyAfro
You have visions of this in class...? I think murdering people is going too far. He should also try to avoid police attention so a freshly killed person wouldn't do.
It could make a really dark crime novel. There's a huge market for that. Don't ever worry that you're not allowed to write a certain type of serious topic simply because of your age.
You need to give the reader a reason to have empathy for the main character (I'm assuming the necrophiliac murderer is the main character?), or otherwise there needs to be something about the guy to make someone want to know more about him. Just because he feels guilty about the murderers doesn't mean a reader will be interested. I think you need to look at what genre you want as well. Is it a thriller, a drama, a murder mystery, a dark comedy...??
Write it - you can then make almost anything work. Keep asking yourself as you write, how, why, where, who, really, can I make this work ? I have had a serial killer dream since I was a teen on and off - did start to try and write it but it morphed lol and the story isn't about a scary serial killer anymore.
If you want the reader to like the main character at all, I think you're going to have a difficult job on your hands with this one. Of course, you don't have to make the reader like him; there may be nothing whatsoever likable about the guy, and you can still write a good story that will keep people interested. But with the love interest and what you've detailed about the inner battle, it sounds like you're hoping to reach a point where the reader has some sympathy for the main character. I'd like to see the attempt at it, just to see if you can pull it off, but I think it will be difficult if in fact the main character engages in rape, murder, and necrophilia.
Personally that doesn't sound like a character who I would "get" as the protagonist, but might make an interesting antagonist?
Another alternative might be to have two main characters or even split the main character. Do like a Sliding Doors the movie idea - one where he fights with everything in him writing in his diary what he wants to do - then he goes out for a run, really cold shower gym etc. One where he gives into it. Eww I have a new plot bunny to shoot, two room mates - one who has the urges fights them, but part of that writes them in his journal. Room mate/brother/sister etc reads his journal and becomes obsessed to the point of acting out the contents of the journal. Main character meets police officer interacts with him and confides that he authored but did not commit the murders and he doesn't understand how his dreams are coming true ... Or read Perfume by Patrick Suskind.
If it hadn't been for the bookgroup I was reading it for, the point at which the baby sniffed the clothes off was it the priest ? I'd have put it down - I actually read the first part. It was an interesting story but I have better things to do with my life than spend hours with a character I don't like. That whole sniffing clothes off image has stayed with me not helped by me imaging a greasy, smelly, unattractive frenchman underneath them. I gave him boils as well.
The plot seems very dark and interesting. I'm sure lots of people would like to read these (most of them adults of course). I think you're very mature to ask if you are on the right age to write that and it made laugh the way you claimed for harsh criticism. Okay, the story is interesting but needs something else that keeps readers wanting for more. If the chapters only focus on him killing and raping and practicing necrophilia, it will most likely seem a morbid piece. While his inner battle will get boring. In this sort of crime novels what actually entertains and catch the reader is the psychological reasoning of the criminal, which sould be something odd, and the game of "good and evil" they play with the police. That is, if he wasn't caught for his crimes from the very beginning there must be a reason. He should be smart enough to fool the cops. The way his mind works, that's what get people crazily attracted to the reading. The other point: He finding out he's gay and falls in love with the detective. I think that's a nice touch since it will show that's he's in all senses an outcast. However, play with that too. He's in love with the man who chases him but he's also a smart and rotted criminal (a sickly obssesion would fit him better). Why would he just give up to him that easily? It'd be better if instead of it he just focused the "fooling the cops-game" on him, like trying to get only his attention till the day they finally meet face to face. What happens later should be the climax which is completely up to you. I do think you're creative, however it's funny how the creativity of a sixteen boy takes such a dark path. I'd give you the recomendation of writing a large resume of the whole story first and then spend more years developing it, since it's not an easy story. You'll have to portray the features of a psycho criminal and a long years trained detective. And you'll have to make a long research about many things. In stories like this one, details are everything. Besides after some years you'll sure be more prepared to write this down and turn it into a big and succesful novel, especially because as I already mentioned your public mostly will be adults.
As far as "being too young", you can be any age and write about anything. Joao Montanaro is this famous 14-year-old brazilian kid who's famous for writing edgy political cartoons in newspapers. Just write it. It probably won't be as great as you want it to be, but re-write it a couple of times and you'll be impressed with yourself.
I never realized I needed a character that the reader would like, I thought if i made him so dynamic enough but show that he to is human and has human feelings and thoughts the reader would still enjoy the story. I have yet to start out on writing but i plan on starting to write tonight in about 30 mins but im serious about this story not to many authors have even touched on the topic maybe because its to taboo? But i'll update people on the forums on my progress. By the way does anyone have any good horror authors i can read?
If you want a character that people can like, he can be an awful, awful human being, but needs to have something people really admire. Perhaps he really loves his daughter and would do anything to keep her safe, or whatever. He just needs redeeming qualities to be liked.
What you could do is write the story from the beginning from both sides (ie the necrophilliac and the detective) - the reader would start off seeing the necrophilliac as the "bad guy" but with the revelation halfway through you might be able to play that into a twist of saying actually this "monster" is human too?
You're fine. Sympathy for a protagonist is fleeting. Empathy for a character who seems real and authentic is something that will keep a reader going even if they don't like the character. There's something powerful when a writer can let us see into the minds and hearts of people not at all like ourselves, so we can not only understand people different from us but still find those shreds of humanity that connect us all. Are you asking for good horror authors to read to essentially study up for this story? If so, I'm not sure that's the best idea. There are a lot of good writers who've been labeled as horror, of course, but I'd go looking a bit more specifically for what you might need to help you write such a piece. For instance, William Gay is a literary writer (kind of, he's more contemporary southern gothic, were there such a genre), and often deals with unsympathetic characters and is a master at bringing about the vulnerability that we all have at times. His short stories are pretty good for studying effective writing of 'dark' or unsympathetic characters, and the story "Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You" is especially good. It was published in Tinhouse and in the 2007 Best American Short Stories edited by Stephen King (which is a solid collection that can offer a lot of stories to study). Alan Heathcock's debut collection of short stories deals with some pretty heavy subjects and characters who aren't at all cliches or archetypes, and instead are just people who find themselves making mistakes, sometimes deadly, and trying to make sense of themselves and their world. It's another collection of stories that offer a lot of teaching if you're going to try to writing a flawed, even dangerous character that you want the reader to still see as human and that grey area between good and evil (either extreme just becomes a trope, typical stuff we can read in forgettable stories every day). Don't want to get in trouble with links, but there are videos of him reading from one of the stories called "Smoke" online, if you want a preview. Trying to think of other authors who manage to pull off this sort of dark and touchy subject matter, but coming up blank (or rather have a ton of bad examples in mind). I'll come back if I think of anything that might be of assistance, because while your idea is good and can work, an idea will only get you so far, unfortunately, and with that kind of subject/theme, you really have to nail it or you miss entirely.
Thanks man Ill check out those authors, and I just wrote my outline but i feel i'm going to make a lot of revisions to it. But thats common in writing so thanks for your input.
I can't really give advice, since I'm really new at writing, but I definitely think this sounds interesting. I'd read it if I were to see it in a book store or something.
Yeah...I like dark, but disturbing dark is maybe going too fay. I liked Seven, I'm glad it was made, but I never want to see it again. The Road is about as bad as I want it to get, and that only worked for me because the relationships between the characters were so strong. And that's what I feel a story like this really needs. Without strong character with bellievable motivations, and at the moment it seems like his only motivation is to not get caught. Not sure about the finding out he's gay thing. Connecting necrophilia and homosexuality just seems a bit odd, like a centurty ago when being gay was on the same level as pedophilia. It just seems like too odd yet strangely convenient way to wrap up the story. I'm just saying be careful, this kind of stufff can just devolve into a snuff movie on paper. I'm not saying don't write it, but I think it's going to be quite a challenge to pull it off well...
