How much violence is too much?

gwendy85 · Sep 3, 2008

I've begun to ask this question ever since I finished the last chapters of my novel.

Exactly how much violence is too much?

My novel is World War II, so yes, violence is expected. But in my research, through every references in the library, the internet and the old footages in DVDs and in youtube, I suppose I've become numb. I don't know what's violent and what's not anymore (and I suppose reading Philip Margolin and David Lindsey didn't help either).

It used to be that my sister (my first and foremost beta reader) would hold me back but she's several nautical miles away.

And so again, my question.

Exactly how much violence is too much?

Here's a sample (unedited so please be gentle):

The devastation made her gasp. Houses had been destroyed, the ruins still smoking, while other homes, though spared like theirs, suffered broken windows and shutters. The street was a mass of black craters. People were running around, crying and yelling as they poked through the debris and extricated bloodied bodies.

Juanita covered her mouth and turned away, only to see a woman being brought on a stretcher. Where there should have been legs were only clumps of dark red flesh. On another side was a little boy, crying over the shrapnel-holed body of his father.

Wails and shouts, blood and mutilation, Americans and Filipinos sharing in the same shock and grief--death was everywhere, and Juanita suddenly found herself rushing to some bushes to vomit.

and

A warm splatter on his face and the thud of a body made him turn to his side, only to see a fellow soldier, eyes wide open, a cavernous hole where an ear had once been.

Swallowing, Kazuo scrambled up the dunes and towards a barnacle-infested rock formation. He cowered in its protection, clutching his rifle as the wind whipped him with rain, and carried in its howls the sound of explosions, shots and screams. And through it all, his mind centered on the image of that soldier, his eardrum splattered at the side of his face while his death-shocked eyes remained open.

And that's one of the less violent segments.

Am I going overboard? If so, how can I stop it?

CynicalRyan · Sep 3, 2008

gwendy85 said:
Exactly how much violence is too much?

This is highly subjective. An editor will be of great help here, I guess, since it really, really depends on your target audience.

For example: I have no problem with the violence and gore in Starship Troopers (the movie), but I have real trouble with the scene in Black Hawk Down (movie again), where a medic fishes for an artery.

I can't really enjoy (in the sense I enjoy Starship Trooper's over-the-top violence) the landing in Normandy in Saving Private Ryan, either.

The difference, I guess, is scale: Starship Troopers has so much violence that it becomes 'funny' again, where as Black Hawk Dawn or Saving Private Ryan show the violence up close and personal.

It used to be that my sister (my first and foremost beta reader) would hold me back but she's several nautical miles away.

What about email? But you are on the right track there: You need outside input to really quantify when too much really *is* too much.

Exactly how much violence is too much?
[...]

Am I going overboard? If so, how can I stop it?

A good hint: Leave the violence to your reader's imagination. Describe only what is necessary to convey the amount of carnage. Both your examples, to me, give just the right sense of violence. I don't need the description of the blood and brain leaking from the wounds. My mind fills that in all too eager.

The most effective tool you have, I think, is describe the effects. Look at good horror: The cause for the horror is not revealed, but a lot is left to the imagination of the characters and the reader. That's why Lovecraft and Poe are still rather popular, similar with Alien and its first sequel.

Also, you should ask yourself, if the violence is described to further the plot / enable characterization or if it is gratuitous. If it is the latter, you should cut it.

C.M. Daniels · Sep 3, 2008

I also agree it's very subjective. However, WWII was not pretty. Nothing in your samples covers up that fact.

blacbird · Sep 3, 2008

It's not a matter of quantity, or percentage. It's a matter of quality.

caw

FennelGiraffe · Sep 3, 2008

I don't see any violence at all in the first excerpt, and only a bare hint at it in the second. You've described the result of violence, not the violence itself.

A mangled corpse may be gruesome, but it isn't violent. Violence is what happened to a living human being to turn him into that mangled corpse.

gwendy85 · Sep 4, 2008

Thanks much for all your input guyz! I really appreciate it

Yeah, I'm think it also may differ on target audiences or the plot. Violence is needed to move the plot forward. The samples are from the first few chapters. The last chapters...I disturb even myself, which is probably I posted this. I wasn't barely able to sleep after I wrote what I did....

Or maybe it's just me. Then again, I'm mostly getting images of gore from those old footages running through my mind over and over and over. And like you said, C.M. Daniels, World War II was definitely not pretty.

Funny thing is, the novel's supposed to be romance! It started out that way. It evolved I guess.

Thanks again guyz. And by the way, if you wanna know what I'm talking about, search for Manila 1945. It's not like the Jewish Holocaust...but it's horrible just the same, and worse of all, very few people seem to know it.

I suppose that's a driving force behind my writing such violence. I WANT people to know.

And CynicalRyan, good example with "Saving Private Ryan". That was really violent :rant:

kct webber · Sep 4, 2008

It's only too much when it stops serving the story.

J C Coy · Sep 4, 2008

I have gone many rounds with this question and what you have posted is nothing to what I have written as far as gore and violence is concerned.

I decided that when it was too much for me and when I began wondering what readers would think, I had hit the over the top mark.

I eventually did another edit and removed or cut down on the violance content. I write dark (very dark) urban fantasy and some flat out horror. I do very bad things to my lead characters.

So to me, what you have posted is tame.

RJK · Sep 4, 2008

At some point, no matter how gruesome or violent the words are, after reading enough of them, the readers' mind begins to become numb to them. They just become words with little meaning.

It is much better to dole this out as spice, rather than the meat.

Danthia · Sep 4, 2008

As text, violence actually tends to be pretty boring because it's usually long pasages of description. It's the emotional reaction to the violence that captures reader attention. People care about characters. Descriptions of gore aren't that different from descriptions of scenery after a while. Too much of either starts readers skimming.

You'd have to use your own judgement here. If you feel the violence advances the story and is there for good reason then you're probably fine. If you feel you might have gone a little too far, trust your instincts and cut back. The fact that you're asking makes me wonder if this is the case. And from the samples you posted, it seems to be more setting than story related. If you delve more into the characters reactions to what they see, then the reader can fill in the blanks for themselves.

vrabinec · Sep 4, 2008

I'd butcher a baby-nun if I thought it fit in the story and advanced the plot.

zornhau · Sep 4, 2008

What's the genre/sub-genre? Level of detail of violence in romantic thriller might be different from gritty historical.

gwendy85 · Sep 4, 2008

kct webber said:
It's only too much when it stops serving the story.

wow! you're right! thanks

So far, it's serving the story very well.

And so...

More blood and gore it is! Haha! :rant:

Okay, I'll restrain myself now, but yeah, so far, it's serving the story. I'll keep this advice in mind. Thanks

gwendy85 · Sep 4, 2008

vrabinec said:
I'd butcher a baby-nun if I thought it fit in the story and advanced the plot.

You're cutting quite close to what had happened in Manila 1945....

And in one part of the novel. *shudders* I didn't want to put it in but I have to. It's part of the story.

Oh well. I think I'll know once I have a fresh pair of eyes to read em. Thanks for the replies guyz

Ageless Stranger · Sep 4, 2008

Too violent? Too violent?

I have a crazed hunch-back chop up several bodies and sew them together, and later on, one of my MC's performs a blood eagle- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_eagle

And I sleep just fine.

So I'd say compared to me, you're safe.

geardrops · Sep 4, 2008

gwendy85 said:
Exactly how much violence is too much?

When it stops adding to your work and starts taking away from it.

That's probably the most precise answer I can give. Determining where that point is falls on you

cethklein · Sep 5, 2008

What dempsey said.

Seriously, there is no limit to how much much violence one can use. But once it seems like it is gratuitous for gratuitousness' sake, then you have a problem.

kzmiller · Sep 5, 2008

Timing is important too. RJK mentioned the numbness from seeing too much. There's also the aversion from too much too soon and too fast. A lot of fiction that opens with a splatterfest immediately turns off readers (and editors) because there's no, um, well, foreplay. So, make sure it serves the story (check,) that readers care about the characters, that it isn't so constant that it becomes mind numbing, and something that hasn't been mentioned yet, that it doesn't hold the same position in the story the whole time. What do I mean by that? Violence can be part of the setting, as a result of a character's actions, or more abstractly, can be a character in its own right. If the violence is all setting, it's going to be numbing after a while even if you pace well. "Oh, another battlefield. Yeah yeah, we've seen this." But if the characters act and violence results, or if violent people come after them and hurt them, or if it seems to move and act and react like a character would (Tolkien's setting in LotRs was a character in this way) then it'll help maintain interest.

Oh, and remember that action should have its own story arc. A lot of people make the mistake of leaving out dramatic elements in action and violence. Great choreographers know how to write a mini-story for every action scene. Try it out. It's not that hard, just takes practice and a slightly weird mindset.

Good luck!

Shar-Jan · Sep 5, 2008

As always, understatement is best. Cormac McCarthy in No Country for Old Men is a perfect example of this. It has some horrific violence in it but it's left to ones imagination, only described in the sparest of tones.

I worry about the authors who need to rely on gratuitous violence.

Prawn · Sep 5, 2008

Shar is right about Cormac. He has shown less and less graphic violence over the years. The family eating the roasted baby in The Road was mild compared to the cactus bush covered with dead babies twenty years before in Blood Meridian. The single dead baby was much more horrific.

J C Coy · Sep 5, 2008

Prawn said:
Shar is right about Cormac. He has shown less and less graphic violence over the years. The family eating the roasted baby in The Road was mild compared to the cactus bush covered with dead babies twenty years before in Blood Meridian. The single dead baby was much more horrific.

Holy crap...that makes mine look tame...even before I cut it down.

Shar-Jan · Sep 6, 2008

The single dead baby was much more horrific.

I don't know why but something about this sentance is just hilarious to me.

The Road had some nasty bits in it, but if you look they're only described in one or two lines.

Chuck316 · Sep 6, 2008

Like most Americans, I have been desensitized to violence in most forms, especially war violence. I grew up reading the first wave of "uncensored" comic books, for example, where the writers and artists would just do things like show people putting knives through the bottom of people's chins and pulling outward just because they could/for shock value.

If you're not trying to force your reader into an eventual numbness to the violence that parallels your characters' own, I think what you have is just fine.

GLAZE_by_KyrstinMc · Sep 6, 2008

I think it's perfectly fine.

You described it well, good job!

How much violence is too much?

gwendy85

~Proudly Mestiza~

CynicalRyan

C.M. Daniels

Cinnamon, sit. Bad fish!

blacbird

FennelGiraffe

It's green they say

gwendy85

~Proudly Mestiza~

kct webber

Squirrel, Sekrit type, 1 ea.

J C Coy

RJK

Sheriff Bullwinkle the Poet says:

Danthia

vrabinec

Dipwad

zornhau

Swordsman

gwendy85

~Proudly Mestiza~

gwendy85

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Ageless Stranger

Dave Brubeck kicks your ass.

geardrops

Good thing I like my day job

cethklein

kzmiller

Fair weather fanatic

Shar-Jan

Prawn

Writing is finite,revising infinite

J C Coy

Shar-Jan

Chuck316

GLAZE_by_KyrstinMc

How much violence is too much?

~*Proudly Mestiza*~

Cinnamon, sit. Bad fish!

It's green they say

~*Proudly Mestiza*~

Squirrel, Sekrit type, 1 ea.

Sheriff Bullwinkle the Poet says:

Danthia

Dipwad

Swordsman

~*Proudly Mestiza*~

~*Proudly Mestiza*~

Dave Brubeck kicks your ass.

Good thing I like my day job

Fair weather fanatic

Writing is finite,revising infinite

~Proudly Mestiza~

~Proudly Mestiza~

~Proudly Mestiza~

~Proudly Mestiza~