"The following story is, in my opinion, both gruesome and beautiful and is ultimately a brilliant piece of writing.
It’s gruesome because of the subject matter, the incest and all the gory details. But this happens in our world and it should not be flinched away from simply because it puts our nerves on edge or makes us want to turn away and sweep it under the carpet.
That is, in my opinion, the biggest no-no in writing. You write about things that hurt, that make people want to turn away. You expose the light to these dark things. You don’t write about the simple stuff, or at least not all of the time." http://a-twist-of-noir.blogspot.com/
That is part of editor, Christopher Grant's introduction to "Purgatory Sex Twins" by Cullan that he published on the site yesterday. The story is disturbing, yet it makes you ache for the characters and the choices they made. And the ending stops you cold.
After reading the story yesterday my thoughts went to the novel "Paris Trout" by Pete Dexter. There is a scene in that book where Trout rapes his wife with a full coke bottle. I remember thinking when I saw the movie that the scene in the book was more powerful because of the words Mr. Dexter used to pull you into that scene. You could feel the soda running down her legs and feel the pain of what he'd just done. But mostly you admired the dignity she displayed by not showing her husband how much he'd hurt her. She never lowered herself to his level.
And that's just it, isn't it? How we use our words to show the devastation of life on a person. We can do it with a beauty that haunts the reader or we can slam them with in your face violence that sends them reeling.
John Harvey touches on this very subject in his blog post today about Country Noir http://mellotone70up.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/3620 where he looks at the differences between Daniel Woodrell and Frank Bill's collections of short stories.
As writers we have to make a conscious decision of how we want to tell a story. Yes, we can put in all the graphic details for the shock value or we can find a way to show the same situation with a dignity that goes beyond the reveal of the violence.
6 comments:
I read Paris Trout recently as well. Disturbing, but it had purpose. The story on ATON, to me, had an emptiness where that should have been. I've never shied from writing disturbing fiction- in fact, my story "Little Sister" at Pulp Pusher was about abuse that led to incest and revenge-but I did not did not linger on the details. Pete Dexter used the scene to show humiliation and belittlement.
I didn't get that from the Purgatory tale. It felt salacious to me. What was its point other than to tell us a degrading story of telepathic twins? Why does he rape his sister, for the hell of it? telepathic twins leading to an ultimately destructive relationship is a good story idea, but this felt more like something else,to me.
I was not impressed by Mr. Grant's publication of it. There are plenty of extreme horror venues that revel in this kind of thing.
I'll agree that he could have toned down the details, Thomas. But realizing in the end that they were both dead and cursed to relive their actions forever brought the emptiness of their lives home for me.
I used "Paris Trout" as an example to show that scenes like these can be written in a less graphic nature and still make their point.
A writer has to make that choice and accept the consequences of what they've written and how it's received.
I have been working on a 34,000 word horror / thriller novella for six months now and I see the end in sight. (Probably this Monday or Tuesday.) Then it'll go up on Kindle for sale. Part of the product description is a warning to readers: "Face to face, eye to eye and belly to belly, they were both dead wrong about each other. Intense themes. Intense situations. Language and violence." Some days I could only write a paragraph because the scenes were too graphic. I hope the ending "pays off" what goes before. But I do not know. And I am very nervous about its reception. I do know that the story DEMANDED that I write it out THIS WAY, that I put "these words" on the page. Some nights these last two months I couldn't sleep more than an hour or two at a time. I'd jump up awake thinking about this story. I wish I had an answer.
Don't we all, Fred. It's never easy finding your way through a story. Short or long, they all demand something from the writer. Maybe that what they mean when they say, "cut open a vein and bleed on the page". Sometimes the truth comes wrapped in an ugly package.
As for a reception? No one knows how readers will take to a story you write. There's always someone who will hate it as much as another will love it.
I don't know. I still think that there's a very fine line between shocking the reader for the sake of shocking the read and keeping the reader hooked in spite of being shocked/revolted/turned off.
IMO, the line has been crossed so much that it really has turned me off to reading a good percentage of crime fiction out there.
I wrote a post about this particular subject and specifically this partiuclar e-zine:
http://cedarmountainnewengland.blogspot.com/2011/10/depravity-thy-name-is-crime-fiction.html
And just be reading this post, it still seems that there's a percentage of crime writers who are still trying to out do each other in depravity.
To me, I would like to think that instead of writers trying to out do themselves and impress no one but the small niche that writes the stuff, they might think of toning it done just a bit so that they could expand their readership and perhaps attract those who might otherwise not give them a second thought about the genre.
Yes, there does seem to be that idea of outdoing each other, G. I remember trying to write some of those more graphic stories but when I turned my own stomach I knew it was time to stop.
I think each writer has to decide that point for themself. Writing what's comfortable for them. As a reader I can choose to read or not.
For myself, I prefer most of the violence off-screen like the old BW movies did it, but there are occassions when putting it in front of the reader is necessary but it can and should be done tastefully. Like you said, it's a very fine line and each writer and reader has a different place for that line.
Post a Comment