Controversial Topics

[Uilos]

Hey guys, I've been working on this novel for a while now, and as a practice I've been writing short stories that help develop my main character and the world around him.

In one of the stories I write about Rape (both sexual and mental) and the overlying choices that the victims has afterwards, to either let it consume them or to use the pain inflicted on them as a source of strength.

Now, I've written about alot of the things my age group (college age) is known for, drinking, drugs, and morals as strong as kleenex in a monsoon. But this is by far the darkest I've delved.

My question is, have you ever written on a controversial topic? What was your experience writing it? Of people Reading it?

[Tasmin21]

At age fifteen, I wrote a short story about teen pregnancy, and had to endure three months of my mother asking "Are you SURE you're ok?"  *grumble*

That's about the sum total of my experience. I think maybe it soured me a little.

[blgarver]

I've never outright chosen to write about something controversial.  I'm not Mike Moore...ahem.  However, I'm not out to really make a message or present a point to any particular audience either.  I think with a lot of the stories centered around controversy, the writer more than likely is trying to convey some message.

Frankly I'm not informed enough about too many controversies to write anything about them.  There have been a few concepts/issues that have sparked an interest, however.  I'd love to write a story about Skidmore, MO.  Look that town up sometime, perhaps there are stories about all the wierd and hush-hush stuff that happens there.

Concerning rape, that is a particularly touchy subject, obviously.  I usually avoid subjects of that nature simply because I've had a pretty good life, and I don't really have a lot of experience with genuinely bad situations.  I know a few girls who've been abused pretty much through their entire childhood, and I don't even begin to assume I understand what that's like.

[Matrix Refugee (formerly Morraeon)]

I'd write about a contraversial topic only if it was absolutely integral to the plot and the characters' journeys. I have no patience with Michael Moore or Dan Brown-esque writers who seem to write about contraversial stuff just for the shock value or to sell more copies of their screeds.

[Uilos]

It is more or less a look inside this character's reasoning why he is the way he is. The main character was a victim of systematic psychological abuse (to the point where it can be defined as Rape) and neglect from those in charge. Later in life, he meets a person like him (it's a fantasy setting) who has been sexually abused by several men over the course of her life, and he asks her two questions: Do you want to use your pain, or be used by it? and Where do you want to go from here?

[Uilos]

oh, and for the record, I detest Michael Moore. I agree with what he says, but he says it in such a way that it's vulgar.

I wouldn't consider Dan Brown to be a shock monger...at least, not until I read his next book.

[Kiriath]

Hmm, let me think... politics, religion, climate change, mythologies...

Yeah. Sounds like controversial material.

I like to think I'm delicate with it, but I'm not so sure. I do try and treat the subjects with the respect they deserve, though, not for shock value. Some of the reason for that is I like to get nice and deep into what I do. It's ambitious, what the heck.

[meg_evonne]

I write because I am driven to write.  I rarely share and have never attempted a query letter for publication. 

The whole reason I like the sci fi gendre is because you can cover controversial subjects, remove them one step over and one step forward from the real world and they are less forceful yet carry the point just as strongly.  Sci Fi people tend to agree with whatever I'm doing anyway.

My recent work started in Jan 07, which I hope to finish by 12.07, is about genocide and the destruction of human dignity and it came about from research on the Darfar.   Only a minority of the work is extremely dark, but what is dark is as bad as it gets. I tried to soften it a great deal but there aren't many ways to soften child rape, neighbor rape, torture etc.  I'm pleased with how those particular chapters are playing out in the sci fi context.  I kept it short, concentrated on characters threatened with, rather than living through it, and rescue two characters just in time, but the conclusions are there to be taken by those who face up to what they are reading.  Blood stains on a young girl's thighs, a main character almost disembowled to force another to an act.  Pretty grusome, but when you read the accounts on the UN page on Darfar--what I did was damn tame.  I'm pretty sick about our apathy to what's happening there.

Maybe the reason I wrote it this time will get me to actually find someone to put it out there...

Writing for the masses, I can't guide you.  Writing for yourself?  After almost 35 years of writing---there isn't anything out there more important or that you are more likely to complete than the issues that tear you up inside.  Go for it.