Poll

How graphic do you like to write sex and violence?

My imagination likes to leave a lot to the imagination.....
My mind works on a PG level.....
I draw the line at penetration....bloody or otherwise.....
My brain wallows in hormonal carbonation....

Author Topic: How graphic do you like yours?  (Read 9600 times)

Offline GWiz

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How graphic do you like yours?
« on: February 25, 2008, 07:53:32 PM »
I'm just curious.....I tend to be very graphic (good, bad, or otherwise).....it's fun for me as a writer, and from most feedback I've gotten so far, fun for my little group of readers as well. Not that, when I read, I can't enjoy less, and enjoy it more. For some reason, my descriptions are always pretty well.........uh, descriptive...... ;)
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Offline Murphy's Stunt Double

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2008, 08:25:08 PM »
I'll just say what my copy editor has told me....

"You lavish far too many words on your characters."


 ??? ??? ??? ???       ;D
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Offline Noey

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2008, 08:28:09 PM »
It's hard to answer your poll because different books are different things. I was horrified by the
(click to show/hide)
scene in the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey because it seemed so out of place in the dreamy My Little Pony with sparkly elves and ma-aaaa-aaaagic world of the Heralds, but take the drippy dismemberments away from Stephen King, and it's not the same. It all depends on what the author is trying to accomplish. What I do like is when the scene serves a purpose. In Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead, the sex scenes are about the character herself. Her thoughts, feelings, and actions in regards to what she's doing says a lot about her. There's a point to it that furthers the story.

To use an example of my own, I think of it this way. Say my main character is storming a house where someone has kidnapped and is currently threatening her family with harm up to and including death. I can say, 'She got very, very violent,' or, I can say, 'With blood on her eyes and on her hands, she tore the head off of one of the fresh corpses littering the lawn to send it rocketing toward the door because there's more than one way to ring the fucking doorbell.' The second one probably describes her state of mind better, and gives you better insight into her degenerated state of mind. Sex for sex's sake is porn, and blood for blood's sake is torture porn. That I don't like to read, but if there's something deeper there, I dig it.
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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2008, 09:01:44 PM »
Depends on what the scene is for and what sort of book it is otherwise.

To take an example I expect we are all familiar with, I do not think the bondage scene in Death Masks would have worked offstage, because of the emotional weight attached and the specific things going on there.

Myself, I tend not to write explicit sex scenes because the moments of transition in realtionships between people that I am interested in are more about becoming friends, becoming confident in being found attractive, becoming closer, making decisions... once you know where the scene is going to go, there's no point in putting it in.

There are people, fictitious and real, for whom having sex with someone is a world-changing and relationship-defining experience.  There are other people, fictitious and real, for whom it's something nice to do of an afternoon when it's raining and there's nothing decent in the cinema.  I tend to write about friendships and relationships within which it's closer to the second once the friendship and relationship are solid, partly because it's closer to how I work myself so easier to get right, and partly because I have very little time for a lot of aspects of how romance is generally supposed to work in Western culture and have no desire to wite a book promoting them.
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Offline LizW65

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2008, 02:57:30 PM »
I'd have to go with "none of the above", as for me it all depends on context.  For instance, in the story I'm working on now, a murder mystery, I anticipate writing a fairly bloody denoument, but decided some time ago that the book's one sex scene will take place off stage.  Why?  Although it is necessary to the plot, the mechanics of it aren't all that important - what matters is that it happens between two particular characters at a particular time.
Sex and violence for its own sake (or because the writer thinks it will sell books) doesn't do it for me.  It can be used very effectively to help define character or drive the plot forward, but unless you're writing porn, it shouldn't be the be all and end all of the story.  IMO.
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Offline meg_evonne

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #5 on: February 29, 2008, 02:15:28 AM »
what my mind carbonates on and what I'll keep in a work is worlds apart.  Still--I was shocked that so far all of you are in my portion of the ball park.   :D

Oh and Sexy sex and violence are two different mind sets to me.  the various body parts is why I don't read Stephen King--they haunt me at night.  And I'm thrilled to have missed anything involving a
(click to show/hide)
--I mean why not do
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on HBO for crying out loud....  Disgusting.  Okay now I sound like a prude.
« Last Edit: February 29, 2008, 02:17:50 AM by meg_evonne »
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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #6 on: February 29, 2008, 04:07:03 PM »
what my mind carbonates on and what I'll keep in a work is worlds apart.  Still--I was shocked that so far all of you are in my portion of the ball park.   :D

My people will be in touch with your people.

Quote
And I'm thrilled to have missed anything involving a
(click to show/hide)
--I mean why not do
(click to show/hide)
on HBO for crying out loud....  Disgusting.  Okay now I sound like a prude.

Is that "Barney goes to Jurassic Park" vid still floating around ? "I love you, you love me", then promptly gets eaten by a real tyrannosaurus ?  I have to say, I found that satisfying on an aesthetic level.
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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #7 on: February 29, 2008, 04:11:42 PM »
Oh and Sexy sex and violence are two different mind sets to me.  the various body parts is why I don't read Stephen King--they haunt me at night.

More seriously, the edge case there that interests me is of reclaiming things that are edgy or have been misused, for positive purposes.

Some of the most messed-up people I've ever met have been people who were abused in ways which, intentionally or not, used things they actively enjoyed against them, such that there were levels of a horrible negative experience to which they could not help having a positive response; and recovery from there by getting those same experiences in a positive context, even if they are actions that look negative, is an incredibly strong thing.

I think of it like spicy foods, myself. Lots of people like the sensations they get from eating very spicy foods, whereas to me that's agonisingly unpleasant; the taste buds and nerves involved are doing the same things and passing on the same sensations, it's up to the mind at the other end whether they are fun or nasty.
Mildly OCD. Please do not troll.

"What do you mean, Lawful Silly isn't a valid alignment?"

kittensgame, Sandcastle Builder, Homestuck, Welcome to Night Vale, Civ III, lots of print genre SF, and old-school SATT gaming if I had the time.  Also Pandemic Legacy is the best game ever.

Offline GWiz

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #8 on: February 29, 2008, 04:12:50 PM »
Anything that involves Barney getting wacked is appealing.....
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Offline LizW65

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #9 on: February 29, 2008, 10:06:34 PM »

Is that "Barney goes to Jurassic Park" vid still floating around ? "I love you, you love me", then promptly gets eaten by a real tyrannosaurus ?  I have to say, I found that satisfying on an aesthetic level.

Some years ago a friend of mine cobbled together a "Godzilla  Meets Barney" video from footage of both - it's a very short film of Barney singing "I love you, you love me" and then getting torched.  Is that what you're thinking of?  I believe it made the rounds of the SF conventions.
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Offline tagnizkur

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #10 on: February 29, 2008, 10:26:03 PM »
My characters are all angelic innocents who do not even allow the thought of touching to enter their imagined minds!
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Offline Murphy's Stunt Double

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #11 on: February 29, 2008, 11:26:56 PM »
Everybody duck....


The lightning is gonna hit real close, real soon!
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JamiSings

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #12 on: February 29, 2008, 11:41:00 PM »
You know, it depends on the mood I'm in. Sometimes I want something that's total
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* and sometimes I want stuff that stops at a passionate kiss and starts up again afterwards. You just have to catch me in the right moment for graphic. As for violence, never really could get too much into it. Tends to make me sick.

*Could be considered a little dirty.

Offline Cyclone Jack

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #13 on: March 01, 2008, 08:58:50 AM »

Since I find 99.999% of graphic sex and violence scenes that I read to be gratuitous and non-necessary, I avoid them in my own writing.
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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: How graphic do you like yours?
« Reply #14 on: March 01, 2008, 06:12:00 PM »
Could be considered a little dirty.

Um, the prose there made me shudder.

[ The Marquis de Sade in 30 Seconds:
"Don't whip me ! Don't whip me !"
"I will indeed whip you. *evil cackle*. But first I will spend forty pages going on and on and on about why it is philosophically right and  just that I should whip you."
"Could we just skip ahead to you whipping me ?" ]
Mildly OCD. Please do not troll.

"What do you mean, Lawful Silly isn't a valid alignment?"

kittensgame, Sandcastle Builder, Homestuck, Welcome to Night Vale, Civ III, lots of print genre SF, and old-school SATT gaming if I had the time.  Also Pandemic Legacy is the best game ever.