Taboo

[queenoftheskies]

Do you have anything that you consider taboo in your writing?

If not, do you have anything that's uncomfortable for you to write about?

What kinds of scenes (taboo or not) do you find the hardest to write?

Comments

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

Nothing taboo, but action scenes are tough for me cuz I can't visualize them, and sex scenes cuz it's hard to write them without sounding silly or pornographic or clinical. ;)

Trying out a new icon here.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Cool icon. I love it. But just think, if you practice real hard, you can almost double your wordcount...

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

Actually, I type about 60 wpm, last I checked, but 45 was funnier, like 45 rpm records. heh

[rhienelleth.livejournal.com]

I used to have taboo stuff. I didn't write sex scenes, for instance. Not really taboo, just stuff I'd never done and was afraid to try. Stupid, since we can just delete what we don't like, but there you go.

Then I discovered fanfic. Amazing, how much "writing just for fun" can teach. I'd been writing for almost two decades when I wrote my first fic. At the time, I had despaired of learning anything new from my college professors, who ALL had less experience and less professional success than I did. (I was shocked, actually, at how little actual pro writing experience could be found amongst the faculty of the writing department at my university. And how generic and genre-phobic their knowledge base was.) In fic, I wrote my first contemporary fiction, my first sex scene(s), my first action scenes involving guns and bullets instead of swords and magic.

I now consider absolutely nothing as taboo and am somewhat fearless when it comes to trying new things with my writing. Long, long gone are the days when I only wrote fantasy, of the high or heroic variety.

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

I learned far more from writing fanfic for 15 years than I ever learned from a writing class and how-to-write books combined. And once you write your first male rapes male scene, nothing seems taboo. ;)

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

There are some things that I feel deeply uncomfortable about, both in terms of actual facts, and in terms of reader manipulation. I wouldn't be averse to writing graphic torture; but I won't write a torture scene that a character enjoys, or that would fulfill the reader with a sense of 'he had it coming, serve him right.'

With regards to sex, I tend to write the emotional impact rather than graphic scenes and firmly close the bedroom door - we all can imagine what happens behind it, can't we? I'm not saying that there aren't occasionally scenes where sex must happen on the page, only that I haven't encountered one in my own writing yet, and I can think of only two (out of many hundreds I read or skimmed) that really contributed to the books they were in.

Hardest to write are action scenes; and that's partly because I don't want to harm my characters (but still have to make the jeopardy believable), and partly because I find them difficult to lay out. I'm not a visual writer, more a kinesthetic one, and I go a lot by emotions - and somehow that doesn't work well for action scenes.

[pjthompson]

At this stage of the game and with a lot of writing under the bridge, there isn't much that's taboo for me in terms of "Can I write this?" There are things I won't write for moral or exploitive reasons, like sex scenes with kids or detailed torture scenes. I just don't see the need for stuff like that.

Taboos

[morbidmusings.livejournal.com]

I write whatever the story calls for, I try not to limit myself.

However, I do have a hard time writing rape scenes, or any scenes where something bad happens to a child or animal. I've actually made myself sick doing that.

~Meg

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

The taboo part doesn't come from writing it, but from having to read it aloud at a critique group.

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

It's taboo for me to write about anything I don't understand. That's why I chose to write fantasy - I get to make up all the rules so no one can nit-pick me for factual accuracy.

I don't write sex partly because I'd be too embarrassed, and partly because I'm afraid it would sound like one big fat cliche. Anyway, there are already plenty of people writing sex. No need for me to do it.

[lanyn.livejournal.com]

Nothing really taboo, except no deliberate hurting of animals allowed. Won't read it, watch it, or write it.

Action scenes are usually the easiest for me to write. When I hit the action parts, I come alive and can write for hours. The hardest scenes to write are not due to any particular subject matter, but simply ones I don't have a grasp of what I'm trying to accomplish. When I can't see through the end of a scene, it'll take me six times as long to get something on paper.

What about you?

[dragonmyst.livejournal.com]

rape scenes are taboo, sex scenes are uncomfy to write for some reason. Emotional scenes are challenging too.

[jediknightmuse.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time writing fight scenes, but that's mostly due to a lack of research. I have a hard time writing romantic scenes sometimes because of my lack of experience, and when I say romantic scenes, in this sense, I mean even the simplest thing, like characters being all lovey dovey.

The thing I haven't even tried to write is a sex scene, and here's my theory as to why: there's the saying that goes "write what you know." There's also something about how writers draw their writing from their own experiences; so since I've yet to have my own sexual experiences, it would be hard for me to actually write about a character having a sexual experience and have it written..."corectly," I guess, even though it could be edited over and over again. Plus, I'm generally not comfortable with writing sexual scenes at this point; and if my parents were to ever read something sexual written by me, I don't even want to know what they'd think, just because I'm "their little girl."

[jediknightmuse.livejournal.com]

No, I...don't really have any sexual fantasies. I'm only twenty years old, though I doubt that that has much to do with it. I can't really explain why, but I've never even really thought about that kind of thing. I've wanted boy friends, and have never had one before (I sort of think that might be why I haven't had them maybe), but I've never wanted them for sexual reasons. I'm a softy for romantic stuff- hand holding, walks on the beach, all that kind of stuff. Sex can be romantic, I guess, but I'm not at the stage where I consider it to be a romantic thing yet.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I wasn't interested in that at your age either. My 19 year-old daughter and 21 year-old son aren't openly either.

Sometimes, there are just more important things to get out of life before you get into the relationship stuff, you know?

I think I was probably 25 or so before I got into that kind of interest.

[jediknightmuse.livejournal.com]

Ha, I wish you could talk to my friends and tell them that. They pretty much spazzed on me and told me that I'm "wrapped in my own little world" of writing, and Star Wars (if they'd bother to notice, I'm not as obsessed with Star Wars as I used to be and really could be. I've lost interest on and off, for various reasons), and all of that other crap," and they want me to "go out and have fun." I don't like going out a whole lot. I'v definitely gotten better about it ever since I got my license and then my car, but I'm not really big in to socializing. They also spazzed because they wanted to take me to a porn shop (note: they have boy friends to use things for, and I don't- and I know you can use some of those things on yourself out of your own satisfaction, but I certainly don't have any desire to do so. They'd just become dusty like everything else. And ESPECIALLY in my DAD'S house, since it's his house I live in? EWW) and I refused, and they spazzed on me for refusing. Two of them also kept talking about sex, one trying to get advice from the other, and it made me a liiittle uncomfortable. I get the whole "girls talk about that thing" sort of thing, and it was fine at first but then it got annoying.

And this is all on the night that we were supposed to be celebrating my 20th birthday, not ridiculing me for the things I enjoy.

I think I'm glad to know that there are at least some people who were and are my age and don't have sexual fantasies and all that. To me it feels like more people my age seem to have them than those that don't, but I think that's mostly because my friends have had boy friends and have experimented or...even had a baby of their own. I have one friend who had a daughter at 19 with a guy she only married a few months ago and has a step-daughter through him because it's his daughter from a previous girl friend.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I think you sound perfectly normal. I knew about the mechanics, of course, but didn't really have the emotional connection what it was all about until my late twenties, and sex has never been anywhere near a priority in my life.

[jediknightmuse.livejournal.com]

That's exactly how it is with me. I know the mechanics, I know what happens...in health class my...sophomore year or so, there was this lady who came to talk to us and she had these plastic...figures. One of a male body part, and one of a female, and she showed how to put the condom on to each one. I think figures were named Peter and...I dunno. Something weird.

But just because I know the mechanics of it all doesn't mean I want to actually deal with the mechanics at this point in my life. My friends need to give me another five years or so to deal with that kind of thing.

[jediknightmuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't really mean it that way. I meant like...if by some miracle, one of my parents wanted to actually read my writing (they've never been super interested in reading it, although I've never really tried having them read it. But it's more out of not having the interest to write any sex scenes than anything. I think I tend to write young adult. More like what you'd read in Harry Potter, basically.

[mikandra.livejournal.com]

I have no taboos. If the story calls for an explicit sex scene, a rape scene or a torture scene, I'll write one. Personally, I'm a pervert and love writing erotic sex scenes ;-). I love writing scenes with deep emotion. Fear and grief are my favourite.

Frankly, I don't think writers should have taboos. OK, you can be grossed out by certain things, but this is part of the story, too. Slightly grossed-out readers will remember your writing. Don't most people find a bit of sex, a bit of gore and explicit stuff secretly interesting? As long as you don't overdo it.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a reader: if you gross me out, particularly if I get the impression that you mean to gross me out rather than writing a story which happens to hit my squick buttons, then yes, I will remember your writing.

But only because I shall never ever trust you again, and shall not buy any more books that you have written, and will - depending on the level of gross-out - probably tell all my friends not to buy your books.

So, yes, you'll get a reaction... but probably not the one you wanted.

[mikandra.livejournal.com]

as long as the grossing out makes a valid plot point, for example, how awfully mean and horrible a person is, I cannot see a problem with this, as long as you con't overdo it. For example, I think if you're writing a story about a WWII-type dictatorship, you'd want to show a little bit of what happened in the camps to make your point about how dreadful this regime is.

I think Tamora Pierce is an author who does this. You may not be familiar with her, but she writes for YA. Yes, she includes gross scenes sometimes, but never for gross-ness sake, but for the sake of making a point. I like an author who doesn't smooth over explicit stuff when it is part of the plot. I don't like violence, horror, sex for the sake of shocking readers either.