Does anybody else feel this way when writing a more intense story?

Pinkarray said:

That's okay if you don't want to write them. As long as they're good, then that's fine. Like I said above, I hate dramas and romance and can't write them due to my detachment from emotions but why don't you like light-hearted, accessible stories?

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For myself, I like stories that make me think and above all, make me feel. The lighter stories don't do that for me. Whether it's through the use of humor or drama, I enjoy the deeper explorations.

Pinkarray said:

That's okay if you don't want to write them. As long as they're good, then that's fine. Like I said above, I hate dramas and romance and can't write them due to my detachment from emotions but why don't you like light-hearted, accessible stories?

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ap123 said:

For myself, I like stories that make me think and above all, make me feel. The lighter stories don't do that for me. Whether it's through the use of humor or drama, I enjoy the deeper explorations.

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^^^ THIS

Plus I like stories that stays with me longer after I finished reading them, stories that I keep thinking about and lighter stories don't do that for me.

Coming back to this thread... because I just got to the climax point in my NaNo story. One of the characters just did something horrible. I'm trying to make it sound legitimate, but all I can see is the destruction her action will wreak.

Her choice is something I really need to consider and weigh. In the end I might scrap this plot point and go in an entirely different direction, but I suspect that first I need to spend a lot of time figuring out what it is about this type of choice that weighs me down so.

So yeah, I'm having one of these days today where the writing is too emotionally draining. I hate that this character (who I love) is doing something I would never condone, but I do understand her reasons.

I pesonally tend to prefer cartoonish adventure, as a reader, with or without humor, and if any insights about this or that are slipped in, these should be muffled with layers of pulp--i.e. keeping only the content of the insight, but stripped of teh drama.

So, when I read advice like "don't be too aloof as a writer, don't filter too much, the reader wants the direct unfiltered experience", I'm like "do I f*ck want the direct unfiltered experience. Give me the aloof filtered shit any day of the week". Different demographics

Hmmm... interesting topic and replies. I spend far more time here lurking than posting (i only get into trouble here when i post anyways), but occasionally, i have a thought.

I must confess, i am addicted to those cheesy, overly-PC and PG, 'saccharine' (my mom calls them) TV Christmas movies. I watch them for two months every goddamn year. Strikes that romantic note in me i guess (i'm actually a big romantic). Yeah, it'd be nice if they weren't so maddeningly formulaic and utterly predictable, but that's what you get. Beyond these, and the occasional well-written romance with a good story, i just cant do happy shit. I get nothing from it. It does not make me feel. I dont get... the feels. What i do like, is the darkest, blackest, sickest, most shudderingly depraved visions of our world, and us in it, that i can find. You know... truly plumbing the depths of the beast in man. Most of the movies i love, others cant even watch. The darker, the better (and i'm not speaking of horror movies). I'm pretty jaded... i've seen a lot, done a lot. Nothing, and i mean nothing shocks me, and i'll mentally/spiritually explore ANY demon, so when i seek out fiction, in any medium, well... i want to feel something, or i want to be intellectually stimulated. What i wouldn't give to find that shock that 'normal' people get when they watch ugly stuff. When i write? Its dark. If made into movies my writing would be X-rated, and not because of any porn content. I do love the contrast though, and no darkness has a shred of power without it. I think i write both ends well. Done well, and to extremes, you can create art that will survive time. I aspire to that.

As for writing it. I can live in that dark world for months on end, and it doesn't affect my moods. If anything, i find 'getting it out' cathartic, and in a way, almost like a therapy. I wasn't prepared for that when i started. The music i listen to is far darker than any fiction, and after decades of that i am still (to ask around) easily one of the most positive and unassailably high-toned people around. Its funny... i find i write my best romantic scenes when listening to black metal. And (i'm told at least), they're pretty 'saccharine' in their own right.

...I just listened to some ancient obscure Vordven demos yesterday evening, because walks in a foggy early winter evening are made for this.
I've prepared a bunch of Hallmark and Lifetime movies to watch starting like maybe tomorrow, so we'll see how this goes. I hope to be delighted, but you never know.
I also have a friend whose reading habits are some (to me) insane mix of splatterpunk in the "beyond Ed Lee" manner, with Danielle Steel type of romance. I can read neither. Up to now, that is, who knows what the future holds.

Pinkarray said:

I have been in the new age where I'm writing more darker, intense stories and I don't usually write those kinds of stories. I usually write something more light-hearted and cheerful. I have written one book that was dark but it was just a short chapter book so I was okay. This time, I've been focusing on screenplays and teleplays that are more dramatic and they're a little more harder to write since I'm not used to writing that sort of stuff nor do I usually like to read or watch intense fiction. Writing them more often now can make me feel down and just not in the right state of mind to write anymore for a little while. Part of the reason is because I'm writing something different now. Does anybody else feel depressed when they write more intense/dark/dramatic fiction like this?

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Hi Pinkarray. Maybe make sure you're balancing things in life when you're writing a dark/intense story. For me, b/c I work with suicidal kids, have my own mental health issues, and write dark/intense stories (even if I try to write something light, it won't stay there), I can't have much else dark in my life. So, for example, forget these serious Christmas movies, I'll watch Elf; and I spend a lot of time in nature and need everything in my physical surroundings to be light and airy.

FlyBird said:

I do think what we write affect our daily mood. Because to write about something one has to think about it a lot, intensely, deeply. I've heard about one author who wrote about atrocities in war and later committed suicide. (I don't know if that's directly related, maybe coincidental, the point is something like this happened.) One who watches light comedies movies all day will probably have a different mindset afterwards than one who watches horror movies all day. On the other hand, I think the mechanics of writing less intense material verses intense material is the same, so writes who focus on technique may not care about what material they are writing.

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Pinkarray said:

Really, an author committed suicide? Dang, I didn't think that a story would drive someone to do that.O_O Maybe it was a non-fiction story or something that reminded him/her of trauma?

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"Correlational doesn't equal causal." Writing about the atrocities of war might've exasperated the person's mental health difficulties, and I wouldn't say it's likely a coincidence, but underlying factors (mental health difficulties, a draw toward the dark things in life, etc.) likely caused both the desire to write about something like war and the suicide, so they're connected but not in a writing-something-dark-caused-the-suicide way.

I'm more likely to explore dark storylines in the books I read if there is some ray of light within it.

If a character is feeling homocidal, for example, but a dog is laying next to him, warm and soft and gently panting happiness, even if the character is consumed with.. rage, or the pointlessness of life, of a dog, of a minute of a day--that dog gives me (the reader) something to focus on that is 'good' outside the bleakness of the character's emotion.

I think I am more able to look at the character's experience if the author throws me a life saver to hang onto while I am doing it.

That's a good distinction.

Iain Banks more or less split his work into two:

1) Mostly dark and hopeless literary fiction in the Martin Amis vein
2) Cynical-yet-hope-inducing epic space opera, like a slightly less crazy and more focused Ballard

Both perfectly written.

I think dark vs light in storytelling can be an arbitrary distinction at times, oftentimes 'too dark' can be an easy label people throw at story that hits them the wrong way for whatever reason. But everyone has their limit, for me I think it ties back to realism. This can be oftentimes be tied to 'lightness'; people tell jokes, they love each other and their pets, sometimes they enjoy a good meal. Citing an example, I think about the difference between two relentlessly dark post-apocalyptic movies, Stakeland and The Road. Stakeland was more over the top, featuring sword-guys fighting vampires, but came off as more realistic than The Road to me because it captures a broader range of experiences, including positive ones too, whereas The Road was rather dour and every scene bent towards the movie's point of being as bleak as possible. And Stakeland felt darker when it went there for this reason as well.