I wrote a scene where my hero killed a villain by throwing him off the top of a Niagra-style waterfall. This villain was total scum - a dictator, a seriel rapist, a murderer but so slick that he continually got away with it (up to this point).

My husband read it and went "He just throws him over. That was too easy."

So I went back and rewrote. This being fantasy, magic was involved and it became an extremely hideous death. I handed it back.

My husband went pale, looked at me and said "oh, what have I married?" (He was joking, but still). And when I read it back myself I saw his point, though I didn't change anything.

Thing is, writing is about effecting people, about stirring up emotions and manipulating them with language. And not always for the better - we read horror and thrillers to be chilled or freaked or simply grossed out. If you can freak out someone who knows you better than anyone else with your work, that's a good thing. If you can freak yourself out, even better.

But then I have to tell myself that, don't I?

R

We've got the same dark monsters in us that Hitler and Stalin did. We didn't put them in charge, like they did. But they're there.

I agree, readers sometimes have a hard time separating the actions of a character, from the actions a writer would actually take.

But I think if a writer thinks about it too much, it can hurt their writing.

Here is an example (sort of):

A friend of mine gave me Blow Fly, by Patricia Cornwall. I have only read a couple of her older books, So, I decided to give it a shot.

This one is written in a weird style I can only describe as present tense (with glimpses in the future) using 3rd Person Omni.
Basically, it reads like an all-knowing computer is rattling off a transcript of an unfortunate crime and its investigation.

As I read it, I wondered why she wrote it in such a weird and "distant" sounding format.

Then I got to the scenes where the "bad guys" do "very bad stuff". (Incidentally, in my opinion, these are the only scenes that have any "life" to them.)

It suddenly occurred to me that maybe she was afraid that if she wrote the scenes in a more personal, intimate format, people would realize that the "very bad stuff" was born out of her head. Then since it is such "very bad stuff," people would assume she was a "very bad person."

(Places a hand to her forehead and says, "Oh heaven forbid" in a distinctly southern drawl.)

It seemed almost, well, dishonest.

There are parts of me that would like to write a horror story because, I enjoy being scared, made to jump, and grossed out. I remember watching one of the "Friday the 13th" movies and saw how Jason killed one of the kids off and thought,"I never saw that before ," after he slammed the poor kid in the sleeping bag against a tree three times.

Sorry, but I guess I do have a morbid side, but that's from growing up on horror movies and the such.

The one thing that would get me is to have someone come up with something that I wouldn't, or even couldn't come up with.
But then again, I guess I just haven't wrote anything that dark before, but then again, I guess I could start. Bwahahahahahahahaha <evil laugh>.

But enough of my rambling, back to your forum.

-The Unmovable Monolith-

if it affects me too greatly i just take a break, go to something lighter for a while, maybe watch an episode or two of Love Hina, and then i return fresh and ready to tackle that horrendous scene anew.

There can't be light without dark, and I doubt some of the things we as writers come up with in our heads could really relate to what the real world has thrown at us. If you need some examples just think about the Holocaust and the Spanish Inquisition, two of the more well known. Now that was disturbing...

Here's a question: Is it more disturbing to be the person writing the material, or the person reading it and gaining some satisfaction and enjoyment from it? Because isn't that why we read in the first place? We want to be scared, amused, enlightened and entertained along with a host of other adjectives (I could give a lengthy list but I'm trying to wane myself off them- it's like my drug ;-)

I'm a better in than out person, I guess. But that's because I consider things like the Inquisition and the Holocaust about par for human behavior. The things I'm able to imagine don't scare me, but I sure as hell don't want to let you know about them if you haven't come up with it on your own.

I always reply, "Because the violence serves to underscore a specific theme!"

She doesn't believe me. That, or she says, "Isn't there a way you could take out the violence and still have the same thing?"

I just shake my head and say, "Yeah...but then my point isn't as strong."

"What do you _want_?" he screamed.

I've read a number of really fun stories that use God's POV, at least in passing, and they all have to deal with the question of "should" as opposed to "can". If you're not particularly driven by "can", then your daydreams are probably more interesting than your night dreams.