Balancing Story Demands Over Author Preference

I think much of the decision on this is determined by why writers write. I write for my own entertainment which means I can at all points decide when this is becoming a story I don't wish to write or read. I am my own first reader (and probably only fan ) so I don't write what I wouldn't like to read. Also, I write short stories only, which allows me to focus on not-icky-things.

People who write true stories, biographies, historicals, ghostwriters etc, can not call it quits the way I can. If it were my job and livilyhood, things would be different, I imagine. You can't always do what you want with your job.

But because I have total control over what I write I can always keep in mind that the story answers to me, not the way around. I am the potter at the wheel and pots may collapse, be terribly misshapen or turn out to better bowls than teapots (this metaphor is getting away from me here), but they don't make the decisions. So I tend to go for stories that do not have elements from the 'do not want'-zone, or where they can be glossed over or only hinted at. There are endless sort of stories and I couldn't write them all anyway, so I stick to the ones I want to write. Unless it was something I would want to challenge myself with, 'do not want'-scenes just do not come up in my stories.

Aggy B. said:

And this morning I'm contemplating how we decide to satisfy the needs of the story when they conflict with our own preferences? Whether it's sex, violence, language, feels, tropes, whatever. What do you do when you have an idea that means you have to write something that lies, not just outside the comfort zone, but squarely in territory of "I don't like that." Do you just scratch the idea and look for something else? Chew on it for a while to see if you can find a way around whatever it is you don't like writing? Grit your teeth and write it anyway?

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Funny you should ask this. I have a fairly persistent story idea that calls for some pretty blatant themes that I'm generally uncomfortable with, but it's really nagging me to write it.

My biggest problem with problematic (for me) ideas is that I tend to pull my punches. I don't care for violence, so I always tend to ratchet it back from where it probably should be. I've got a natural theme in my WIP that I've shied away from, and there's a section of the book that's just not working. I'm going to have to get absolutely steeped in what I wanted to avoid in order to make the book work.

I think there's a difference between avoiding certain types of detail (i.e. explicit sex or violence) and avoiding whole themes. Level of detail is easily adjustable. Problematic themes, though, while they are sometimes included for lazy reasons (rape as backstory, as you mentioned, is overused to the point of absurdity), are sometimes what the story absolutely needs for it to work.

I dunno. I go by instinct. I've dropped numerous stories because they've bored me, and at least one because I don't have the background to do it justice. I've never dropped a story because it's sometimes unpleasant to write. Everyone's different, of course, but those tend to be the ones that are closer to the bone for me, and that's usually where I get my best words.

Do you just scratch the idea and look for something else? Chew on it for a while to see if you can find a way around whatever it is you don't like writing? Grit your teeth and write it anyway?

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This doesn't apply to everything I write that squicks me, but sometimes if something makes me uncomfortable, I can explore that through a character in a way that serves the story. But in some situations, that's impossible, so YMMV.

I think there's a difference between avoiding certain types of detail (i.e. explicit sex or violence) and avoiding whole themes. Level of detail is easily adjustable. Problematic themes, though, while they are sometimes included for lazy reasons (rape as backstory, as you mentioned, is overused to the point of absurdity), are sometimes what the story absolutely needs for it to work.

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This x1000. If you need to address the theme, the camera doesn't necessarily have to be set to microscope-level zoom. Distance can work just as well.

Recently, I had a similar conversation with a friend who writes, and I was dishing to her about some [totally gnarly stuff that was beyond my comfort zone], but decided to dial it up to 11 and plow through in glorious detail, because it's all about the raw exploration of the human condition. Her response: she started to cry, and told me a secret she never told anyone, something she thought she'd have to take to the grave, and only felt comfortable sharing after I was vulnerable enough to put [those uncomfortable ideas] out there first (the conversation was also a huge relief that I was taking my ms in precisely the direction I intended).

That opportunity for people to feel catharsis is why I believe if you have a candle to hold to a dark place, don't back out. You never know who is going to resonate, who needs to hear that story, who previously didn't have the words to express something that made them too uncomfortable or ashamed.

But, in terms of financial success, I'm happy with a small cult following and I don't write to pay the bills.

I feel like the longer I write, the deeper I dig into the ancient architecture of the mind, and that's where the really interesting skeletons are located. Everybody is built with that same architecture. Writing is the thrill of uncovering that lost city inside all of us.

One thing that squicked me recently were instances in which the subject matter/themes absolutely REQUIRED strong derogatory slurs in dialogue. Language that I would never endorse in real life, but due to the subject matter I'm dealing with, the story 100% would collapse if I removed a few key words in a few key instances. I placed them with utmost intention. They serve multiple major functions in the story. I decided to be prudent and specifically enlist a sensitivity beta for this. I wanted to take a knife to ignorance, and it was messy, but I won.

I'm reminded with a part from Stephen King's On Writing which I pretty much agree with. In defending his own use of graphic violence and language, he argues that it's important to be honest - to the story, to the characters and to how they would express themselves in the real world if the story was true. As others have said, how much distance you put between yourself and the difficult material is up to you and what you can handle...but if you try to fudge it, readers may notice.

However, there may be more than one valid way to approach the issue...I had something like this come up with my novel. I was half convinced that the way I had set up a pair of antagonistic characters it was likely that sexual assault might be perpetrated (by the woman, the one in power, against the man). But I started to second guess myself and take a harder look at it after I decided that to tell the story I wanted to I had to bring in a chapter with the man's POV. Ultimately I decided against the sexual aspect (the threat is made once but the antagonist has no actual interest in carrying it out) and I actually think the way I ended up dealing with that conflict turned out better than my original idea. (I also realized, in the process, that I would have been kidding myself if I thought that simply reversing the gender roles was in any way daring and I kept hearing Lady Gaga's "Till it Happens to You" loop in my head.) So it may be worth asking "If I took this approach off the table, how else might it work and would it still be true to the story?" to see if you get an answer.

blackcat777 said:

That opportunity for people to feel catharsis is why I believe if you have a candle to hold to a dark place, don't back out. You never know who is going to resonate, who needs to hear that story, who previously didn't have the words to express something that made them too uncomfortable or ashamed.

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I had this happen to me as a reader relatively recently and I agree it can be huge. However, I also know one person's catharsis can be another person's trauma trigger. That said, you can't predict who will read your work. You'll have to take it upon yourself to judge your intent and the likelihood of being to pull it off.

I think it's okay to have certain things that are off limits to you for personal reasons, both as a reader and as a writer. I've seen an agent who said they won't consider any book where a child is harmed or killed or even threatened. That pretty much eliminates most YA fantasy, and a lot of MG (like Harry Potter). I guess they still find books to rep that do well,

For me rape is problematic, because it's been so overdone in the name of "gritty realism" and "honesty" in stories where other realistic traumas or secret shames could serve as well or better for a female character.

It often seems to be used as a sort of punishment for female characters who are too spunky or defiant of their society's restrictions on women too. And it's still rather taboo to portray it happening to sympathetic male characters, even though it does in real life. And the motives and effects are often glossed over, or it's used to motivate a male character who wants to avenge what was done to "his" woman, sister, daughter or whatever.

None of this means that that it should never be used in a story. For me, it would be a matter of carefully examining why I'm including it and how it affects the overall plot and character arcs. Am I trying to bring something specific and irreplaceable to the table, or am I just being lazy and using it as a "go to" trauma for a female character?

I felt this way too re assault. I had a char in one MS whose story included some of those elements and for many drafts I just alluded to it without ever showing anything directly. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I either needed to change her story, or allow it to be shown; hiding it wasn't doing anyone any favours.

To the broader question, my first MS is all about the story(ies) I wanted to tell and for that reason it will probably never sell.

My second one is very much pitched at attempting to be commercial; trying to write to market, utilising certain tropes and conventions, etc. Take out the pretentious philosophy and OTT complexity, put in a minor romance (not because the story 'needs' it but because that helps sales) and just, all the high concept things.

It does work, at least in principle (whether it will work for me, who knows!). This is how indies make money. Consistently, make money. It's not really a great feeling but w/e, the point is everyone draws the line differently for their story versus what the audience wishes to hear. I guess it maybe varies between books as well and that's probably okay.

Ah I see. I don't know, in that case.

I have a particular emotional endstate in mind. Then characters. Everything is about getting characters to that endpoint. Story, plot, world, everything is malleable. Everything up for discussion. As long as that endstate is reached! But then once you make choices you start getting locked in and some things do seem to call out more than others.

I don't know, it could be a matter of life experience. Some experiences are dying to be told, in one form or another. They demand to be expressed. But I haven't had very many; my life is dull and I'm relatively young, still.

Some situations are uncomfortable / painful to write about. But I think there is some power in telling the truth about it.

I was (marked / scarred) by a professor back years and years ago... his near constant litany was "just tell the truth".
Indy, quit with all the damned prose, and just tell the fuckin' truth.
Everybody gets writers block. The way past it is to write one fuckin' sentence that tells the stone cold plain fuckin' truth.

Obviously he was really hung up on one word in particular.

IMO the power that comes from the truth is telling it without bias or adornment. If you approach it with a POV or agenda, that will be recognized and what you write is discounted.

Truth can set you free. It's kind of true. In my first novel I wrote about how my first girlfriend died. She was stabbed to death by her (drug addict) step father. I held her as she died - I was 14 years old. Writing about that kind of got that out of my system (somewhat). The story is out there, and now I don't have to carry it alone.

In fiction, writing about something uncomfortable your MC endures adds grit and a feeling of reality to the work - you just don't want to go overboard with it. Without that grit, a story could end up sounding like something from 'My Little Pony'.

Anyway - that's my two cents.

Aggy B. said:

Well, fiction is never truth though, right? It, by default, is biased and shaped even if the underlying bones of the story are based on a real life thing and not something just crafted from the imagination. Every word choice is a bias of some form and plants specific images and ideas in the readers head with the intent to leave them in a particular emotional state. That's why it's fiction, not journalism or even non-fiction.

(And I'm not saying that fiction can't be true for some quantity of truth, but it is always going to be biased and shaped.)

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So, one of my favorite poems is "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes.

Go home and write
a page tonight
and let that page come out of you.
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it's really that simple?

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Now the rest of the poem has the narrator (presumably Hughes) talking about the details of his life but I think there is applicability to fiction as well. The things we write in fiction are not objectively true but if they come out of the spirit and experiences of the writer they reflect a vision of the truth as the writer experiences it. IMO that's where some of the best fiction gets its power to move the reader: those things resonate with us.

This doesn't require girty subject matter though. I don't consider myself a Brony but I've watched most of MLP: Friendship is Magic and found several of the episodes startlingly resonant. (The writers on that show are definitely aware that an older demographic than the show's target audience follows them and it shows in the fanservice but FiM was created on the premise that young kids are generally bright enough not to be talked down to and it shows.)

Aggy B. said:

Well, fiction is never truth though, right?

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It's not objective truth, no. But I do think it has to communicate the writer's truth. That's a fuzzy way of putting it, but I know if I start leaving things out that belong in a story just because they're uncomfortable for me, or I worry what reception they'll get, the story suffers.

Those things aren't always explicit, or horrific. But sometimes they are, and in those situations they need to be written that way or the story won't work.

I'm struggling with this right now as I revise a short with one scene that's far more extreme than what I'm used to writing. I really want to dial it back, but I'm really not sure I should. It came out that way for a reason, and maybe I need to honor that.

(Actually, I probably need to get other people to read it and tell me how bad it is. )

Aggy B. said:

Well, fiction is never truth though, right? It, by default, is biased and shaped even if the underlying bones of the story are based on a real life thing and not something just crafted from the imagination. Every word choice is a bias of some form and plants specific images and ideas in the readers head with the intent to leave them in a particular emotional state. That's why it's fiction, not journalism or even non-fiction.

(And I'm not saying that fiction can't be true for some quantity of truth, but it is always going to be biased and shaped.) My curiosity remains on how different folks choose what shape and tone to use. What personal boundaries we push in order to tell certain stories because we know that holding back on things we normally don't like to write (or read even) will make the story less true. And maybe there's not a good way to explain how we make those choices. Maybe that's part of the instinct and "raw talent" authors all have to varying degrees.

ETA: Let's not diss My Little Pony. Audience and market says it's can't include balls to the wall violence, language or sex. But that doesn't preclude depth of subject matter. It is a question of presentation.

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Words are symbols we use to represent ideas, and since the idea itself is never actually represented (only it's symbol), then is anything we write actually true?

I believe that what my professor was getting at was that he wanted what we wrote to be more than just a story; it had to have relevance and meaning to life, and that our stories (written with symbols) should be something that illustrates a true life experience. When you wrote about it, readers should feel what it's like to hold someone you love in your arms as they take their last breath. He also used to say that the best, and maybe the only real teacher was experience (I've left out the expletives), so good writing teaches and entertains - poor writing just entertains. He wanted us to move out of our comfort zone and reach toward the truth.

"I exist, therefore I am biased."

Another thing that helps me unscramble my head when I get too caught up the question of what details to present is, what aesthetic do I want to maintain? How can the challenging content I need to include harmonize with the overall tone of the piece? That helps me decide on level of zoom for detail, if the telling will be more emotional or clinical, etc.

Another excellent age-old trick is "showcase everyone else's reactions" to Brutal Thing. Black Mirror does a fantastic job of this in the episode The National Anthem, how to skirt around something terrible by exploring the reactions of people watching, and also in building suspense up to the moment. I know it's TV, but you can conceptually do the same with fiction. I think the famous Outlander whipping (famous for its brutality) followed that same idea.

indianroads said:

Obviously he was really hung up on one word in particular.

IMO the power that comes from the truth is telling it without bias or adornment. If you approach it with a POV or agenda, that will be recognized and what you write is discounted.

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Possibly, but not always. It kind of depends on how you go about it. If you're using an unreliable narrator, for instance, or telling the story from the viewpoint of a character who has a definite bias, it can work beautifully.

Even if the author's narrative biases (or assumed truths) are slipping through, though (and I don't see any way to expunge them entirely), the story may well resonate with readers who hold the same truths to be self evident. Other times, we may wince at certain biases or assumptions an author has woven into their work, but we keep reading because other aspects of the story are so good. A case in point is HP Lovecraft, who was virulently racist, even above and beyond the norms for his time. It showed in his work. Some people can't enjoy him for this reason, but other people find enough else of merit that they can get past the racism. A few (I imagine) may actually agree with his views, even today.

I think this is why some people complain about "message fiction" or stories where they say the author is trying to force a social agenda. In a sense, all fiction is message fiction and conveys a social agenda, though some does so more subtly than others. But if you have a personal conviction (or simply an unexamined belief) about something, whether it be gender norms, the racial makeup of a "normal," generic society, sex, religion, environmentalism etc., you are more likely to notice writers whose unspoken assumptions run counter to yours and assume they're "cramming their views down your throat."

It doesn't have to be something as deep as an author's racism to knock me out of a story either. I remember being knocked out of a story where a character spanked a spoiled child, and it started the kid down a path to better behavior. Clearly the author is one of many people who disagrees with most pediatricians and child psychologists about the effects of spanking. A reader who agrees with the author that a "good spanking" is the best cure for out-of-control kids won't bat an eye at that scene and its outcome, but it bothered me, because I see corporal punishment and its effects in a much different light.

To be fair, I don't think the author was forcing a pro-spanking agenda with the book. It was one short scene in a tale that didn't even focus on the protagonist's relationship with the child in question. But the assumption that spanking is good and always has the desired result was probably an unexamined bias the author had. Many people share it, if facebook rants about spoiled kids is anything to go on.

If the attitude about this issue had been presented simply as a character bias, that would have been one thing. But it was portrayed as a sort of narrative truth. That's what I noticed. To be fair, though, I don't think it's possible to purge this kind of thing from a novel. If I'd written the scene, I would have presented it differently, based on my personal experience with spanking, and based on my academic knowledge of its effects, both short and long term. I think I'm better informed, but it's still a personal bias that all readers won't share.

One thing I strive to do in my own writing is to not have every "reasonable" or sympathetic character in agreement about everything, including beliefs I happen to have. I suspect I still miss things, though.

good writing teaches and entertains - poor writing just entertains.

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So, yes, I think there is a quantity of truth in any piece of fiction if it's art, otherwise it veers rapidly toward entertainment.

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What's with all the hate for entertainment???

Entertainment can be drama, comedy, or anything just plain interesting.

I'd offer this suggestion: poor writing is boring. Truth or not, your message is lost if it doesn't entertain even a little. A story that's filled with the author's truth but isn't compelling in any way is just didactic to me.

Besides, there's this gem from Mark Twain: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

I'd argue that poor writing neither teaches nor entertains. Good writing does whatever it is the author set out to do, whether it is meant to be a work of pure escapism, or is meant to be a work that subverts comfortable tropes and embraces deep, troubling themes in a way most readers find unsettling.

If a work of fiction intends to instruct as well as inform, it's generally best (imo) to have a light hand, because many readers will instinctively balk if they feel the author is spoon feeding them a "moral," especially if it's one they don't agree with. It's a hard line, because many readers are wired up to think anything that doesn't square with their own perceptions or world view is pushing an agenda. For example, one person's "presenting the world as it really is," might be another person's "diversity for the sake of diversity."

I agree with Mythmonger. Poor writing is boring. It can also be confusing in ways it's not intended to be. Poor writing fails to achieve the writer's objectives re connecting with the target reader. The problem with objective criteria for quality is that one person's "terrible-couldn't-get-past-the-opening-pages monstrosity" might be another person's "best read ever."

One thing I strive to do in my own writing is to not have every "reasonable" or sympathetic character in agreement about everything, including beliefs I happen to have. I suspect I still miss things, though.

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I like toying with the concepts of good/bad and right/wrong. In my stories, even the most violent and despicable characters believe that they are in the right.

indianroads said:

I like toying with the concepts of good/bad and right/wrong. In my stories, even the most violent and despicable characters believe that they are in the right.

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This makes sense. I would guess that very few people revel in their own "evilness," or do things that may violate their own moral code without cause. An interesting thing is that peoples' moral code will often shift to accommodate their behavior. An example might be a student who cheats on an exam or plagiarizes a paper for the first time because they are desperate and can't see another way to pass. But then they do it the next time they are desperate and so on. Eventually, they rationalize that the exams and papers are BS and the classes aren't teaching them anything they need anyway, besides everyone does it and so on and get to the point where they don't feel consciously guilty about it at all.

The question is how aware an author is of their own personal biases in terms of consequences and reactions of other people to things we personally think are problematic. For instance, consider a plot where a mostly sympathetic character who has a homophobic streak. Will that person end up being confronted with the consequences and and illogic of their feelings, even if they don't change and the story isn't about their homophobia, or will their values, go unchallenged in every way by the story because the author thinks such feelings are reasonable and sympathetic?

The difference can be subtle, but I think it's usually possible to tell what the author thinks, even if they are speaking to the reader through a character who doesn't share the author's values. I don't think it's wrong. There's no reason why stories should be value neutral. I also don't think it's really avoidable.

Addressing the OP from a different angle - I thought of this thread today when it became apparent that one of my characters must literally be shot with an arrow in the butt. I have no issues writing other more serious subjects that would make a lot of people puke, but an arrow in the butt is such a challenge precisely because I don't want the situation to be laughable, when it is so inherently laughable.

I sat down with my SO and went over all the pros/cons of, "Should I do this?" He made it painfully clear that I'm not serving the narrative if I skip over it, despite the fact I personally feel stupid about it.

I have a game plan for how to tackle the situation in such a way that the character's dignity remains intact. The kicker is that there is a creative way to connect the scene to multiple important motifs running through the book (as ridiculous as that sounds without further explanation), so that is pretty much the reason why it MUST be done. I'm officially not doing my job if I skip over this. The muse has spoken.

If you say no to the muse, the muse will say no to you.

(Well. I won't say no to the muse unless I can outwit her, and that option is always on the table.)