Creeped Out

This thread may have come up before in this sub-forum. Normally I hang out in the SF/F forums, so forgive me if I'm beating a dead horse here.

The current story I'm working on is UF, but it delves very deeply into demonology and Satanism. I have been doing a lot of research into the subjects (and angels, too; it's complicated), because that's the responsible thing to do: do your research, get your info right.

Some of the research has been fun. I read Milton's Paradise Lost again, and Dante's Divine Comedy,two books I really enjoy (yes, I have embraced my geekhood!), and I enjoyed them so much more this time. I even got annotated versions, and traced down all the Biblical references, and that gave the books even more depth than I had realized before (and some of the language is just beautiful. OK, I'll stop geeking now).

It's when I start getting into the less literary research that things get weird. I find myself really grossed out, creeped out, and just freaked by some of the stuff I've been stumbling across. The Internet has some scary scary stuff on it. Some of the grimoires and stuff that have been published over the centuries are equally icky.

So what's my question? My question is, have you ever had this happen to you? I love scary stuff, but this is way too much. Have you ever had a story -- or the research necessary to prepare for a story -- scared you, or made you want to stop working on it?

The stupid thing is, I don't believe in demons, or angels, not in the way they appear in my story; it's just a story. And I'm not prepared to abandon the story; I have a MC that is so real in my head that NOT writing him is just not going to happen, and I think the story is possibly my breakthrough project. I've never felt so confident about a writing project before.

I'm just freaked out by the research. Has anybody else ever had this? And I'm open to suggestions for what to do.

I am torn between continuing the research, just toughing it out, and abandoning the research entirely, and going with the "making sh** up" approach.

I hate the "making sh** up approach. It's actually more work in the end, and it feels wrong wrong wrong to me.

Martin Rose said:

Jallenecs - I don't know if it's any help to you, but I've delved in the "icky" stuff. I've read a lot of grimoires, done a lot of research into the occult -- extensive research. I'm way past icky now.
My parents used to move me all over the country, and every house we stayed in had a horror story attached to. So I developed an interest in the supernatural out of desperation -- I wanted protection. So from twelve on, I've been steeped in the occult.
You can decide this sort of stuff is real, or it's a crack-pot. I'm not here to prove or disprove. I can offer you practical, grounded advice. But only if you want it. So, if you want to talk about what you're worried about specifically, I could give some insights backed by long years of research.
What are you frightened of -- the research alone, the content? You can only be frightened of it if you're starting to believe it . . .

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I grew up in Appalachia, in a family that kept to the Old Ways, so my childhood was steeped in ghost stories, superstitions, the lot. I don't actually believe in any of that stuff. But, with my imagination, I can talk myself into anything long enough to freak myself out.

A lot of it, though, is the idea that there are people out there who REALLY buy into some of the scarier stuff.

Arkadia said:

I've also been seriously disturbed by some research I've done for a story. The worst of it came when I started researching snuff videos - I developed a small obsession, became convinced that must be real snuff floating around the underground internet somewhere, and went places online I never dreamed existed. After many many fakes, I believe I found what was a real snuff video, and that disturbed me on a level I never knew I had within myself - I always thought of myself as extremely mentally tough, but it rocked my world a little bit.

Possibly even scarier, during the course of my research I stumbled upon the same cannibal forums that Armin Meiwes used to find his voluntary victim.

For the trillion fake pages and posts on the internet, there's always a couple of people with real intent. Scary stuff.

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I never stumbled across one of those. But, on research for an earlier project, I stumbled across a famous video of a politician who was supposed to be doing a press conference, and chose that particular opportunity to blow his own head off on camera and in front of the press.

I don't know if it was real or fake, and my brain didn't really care. The amount of blood .... I don't know, it short circuited my brain or something. Honestly, I actually think that one sent me into shock, if that's possible. I sat there for at least twenty minutes, just staring into space, trying to process what I had seen. And I couldn't sleep for days after.

Needless to say, I dropped that particular writing project instantly.

Yep, that's the one. He had been accused and convicted of some sort of corruption in office, and was going to have to give up his office and do a little time (very little time, like eighteen months or something). This was his way of protesting the conviction.

My brain has mercifully blotted out the name of the guy, and I have zero interest in seeing it again, so no links, sorry about that. But even now, just talking about it, I can see that river of blood pouring out of his nose, and am disturbed all over again.

Bewildered. Yeah, that's the word. That twenty minute blank in my functioning that day was bewilderment. I just couldn't wrap my brain around it.

Now autopsy and decomp doesn't bother me at all. I'm a country girl, born and bred; I've killed and butchered game animals and farm stock. I've seen the family dog in a state of advanced decomposition (a car ran over her, poor thing). The smell takes a little getting used to, but nothing shudder-worthy there.

It's people. What they do to each other, and to themselves. That is hard to cope with.

DeleyanLee said:

And the pride--and pleasure--they take in doing so.

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I think you've hit the nail on the head.

I have been reading back over the conversation, and it suddenly struck me that I had sort of contradicted myself. I said the blood in the suicide video was what freaked me out, and I was and am telling the absolute truth in that.

But cows have more blood in them than a human, and trust me, butchering is a messy, bloody, dirty job. I've butchered Bossie the cow, complete with all that blood, and never given it a second thought. Farming is a family occupation, and it didn't bother me that my little kids were there, helping out, and seeing the blood and the guts. I did the same thing from the time I was seven, eight, nine years old. I wasn't emotionally scarred by it, and neither were they.

There's nothing personal in butchering a farm animal, or field stripping a deer. The animal doesn't understand; he's in some pain (though only for a few seconds; I know how to do my job), and maybe he's even afraid, but he doesn't comprehend, not the way a human does. I have nothing against Bossie the Cow or Bambi, and I take no pleasure in their deaths. My family eats that meat, and this job, while not my favorite, is part and parcel of country life.

With humans, though.... How can it NOT be personal? They say serial killers, the most f***ed up minds on our planet, have to purposefully objectify their victims, because even they couldn't do what they do if they saw their victims as human. They do the most horrible things imaginable, for the sake of sexual pleasure, or because their religion told them to, or who knows what reason, and they do it to somebody who comprehends what is about to happen.

That man who blew his head off, he had hopes and dreams and aspirations, loved and was loved, had hurts and joys and everything that I have and you have. He knew what that gun would do, and he did it anyway. The brain that held all those joys and dreams and memories was splattered all over the wall a few seconds later, and pouring out his nose.

Ummm.... I think I'm rambling. Sorry. I guess I'm still trying to sort it all out.