Views from a writing group

[sr71plt]

If you fell in love with your characters, you need to make your readers fall in love with them too. That's all.

this is precious. You say there is no formula and then you dictate one.

 

[49greg]

I'm somewhat attached to my characters, but I actually get more attached to the characters in the stories that I read. Weird. I guess my writing isn't as good as what I read.

I have done bad things to my characters. One time I did very bad things to a character in the third or fourth chapter. I felt really bad after it posted. So bad that I'm sort of surprised that that chapter wasn't reported. The next chapter I pretended the 'bad' chapter was a bad dream. I still think about deleting that chapter.

I try to plan a story better now, so that I don't get so carried away by "Evil Greg", or at least recognize when it's coming.

 

[GoldenCojones]

I'm somewhat attached to my characters, but I actually get more attached to the characters in the stories that I read. Weird. I guess my writing isn't as good as what I read.

I have done bad things to my characters. One time I did very bad things to a character in the third or fourth chapter. I felt really bad after it posted. So bad that I'm sort of surprised that that chapter wasn't reported. The next chapter I pretended the 'bad' chapter was a bad dream. I still think about deleting that chapter.

I try to plan a story better now, so that I don't get so carried away by "Evil Greg", or at least recognize when it's coming.

That's funny. The only series of books that did that for me was the "Wheel of Time" series by Robert Jordan. Then he died and I was crushed. Then Brandon Sanderson finished the series and it was good, but not quite the same.

But I still think about those characters (even though I can't pronounce some of their names) kind of like long lost friends who you wonder about from time to time.

 

[Hypoxia]

Baddies are golden -- they give goodies something to work against. Goodies are often expendable, either like Star Trek ensigns (phaser fodder) or as tear-jerking tragic losses.

An adventure-type story depends on constant peril. Every time the goodies escape the last hazard (or even before then), yet more shit descends, more baddies take chase, more cataclysms, more losses. The pursued are whittled away... and then the MC (main character) loses their main squeeze, oh the tragedy! Cliffhanger endings entice readers to the next thrilling installments. Grab them eyeballs...

 

[Zeb_Carter]

There's something just so wong about that.

I wrote a series of stories about a single person. In each story they die at the end only to come back in a new story. One story was dedicated to telling why that happened. It all had to do with time travel and once he died so did everyone else because he changed the timeline, except in the last book, he died of natural causes in that one.

 

[Hypoxia]

I was in a real quandary approaching the last episode of The Book of Ruth. I knew *somebody* had to be eliminated. I might put Randy in prison, or knock-off all the women he'd impregnated (including his sister and mother), or even just slam a meteorite into Los Angeles and be done with the lot of them.

Then, inspiration: kill Ruth! So she contracted a tragic disease and the story ended just fine. Whew. There's already the Before Ruth prequel but I've room for an After Ruth sequel if I'm ever so inclined. Maybe I'll have to slaughter a few others there. It could happen.

 

[NaokoSmith]

This article from last weekend's FT Weekend is about whether poetry and novels on certain topics should be banned from literary studies, or at least have a warning label slapped on them, if students find them upsetting. (Hopefully you can get the gist of it by reading the introduction here.)

I wrote a Comment on the article online saying:

Three reasons why emotionally difficult texts should be included in the curriculum:

First, there is a plethora of bad writing (in many senses) about rape, snuff deaths; topics which many young people like to access freely. If the canon of literature is cleaned up, there will be no critical perspective available in which to contextualise the 'bad' writing.

It’s important to learn to read these texts in the context of more violent times, when it was acceptable to joke about rape. Exploring our history in gory realism is more likely to help us understand humanity than idealistic denial.

Thirdly, to take a less controversial example, as a new mother I found I had become hyper emotionally sensitive. Had I been studying Lady Macbeth’s lines: ‘I have given suck ...‘ I might have found them upsetting. Of course: this is a declaration designed to have shock value. What I would look for would not be censorship, it would be tutorial support which could draw out my subjective understanding of the lines, and balance that contribution with objective understanding.

That would suppose an academic system geared to high quality teaching, whereas what we have got is one geared to high quality research.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

KILL YOUR CHORUS TO GET TO THE FINAL ARIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkOK3aXzMpc&nohtml5=False

How genius gets the job done.

Poulenc, final scene Dialog of the Carmelites

 

[HandsInTheDark]

This article from last weekend's FT Weekend is about whether poetry and novels on certain topics should be banned from literary studies, or at least have a warning label slapped on them, if students find them upsetting....

Personally I'm fine with warning labels if something is really graphic. But I'd confine them to detailed descriptions of rape and murder. (The rape of Cassandra doesn't qualify). And I can't think of anything that really belongs in a school curriculum that gets that incredibly graphic. So I can't imagine we'll need to print up too many labels.

As for banning books that contain the darker unpleasantries of human nature, that's absurd. Most of our original fairy tales would be off the shelves. We'd lose A Passage To India (Gay noncon sex as an analogy for cultural imperialism - now there's something to shock both the prudes and the PC crowd), handfuls of James Joyce, a bunch of Greek myth, A Modest Proposal and every worthwhile sermon ever, masses of middle eastern writing, ... Revisionist idealism is the one thing we DO need to keep out of schools, except as a footnote, so students know it's out there and has to be evaluated critically.

The reality is, most of human history has been classist, sexist, and generally racist. These things are still with us today, sometimes in other forms - some of the diatribes written by the PC crowd sound exactly like the hate speech they claim to be against. Tribalism is in our genes and doesn't go away because someone says it should. Having literature that shows the cons (and occasional pros) of human nature is something people need to be taught about, not hidden from.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

The pleasant name for tribalism is ETHNOCENTRICITY, which is what most people mean when they blabber about racism. I prefer Mediterranean women to Nordics, and that preference is real racism because it is about racial features.

 

[sr71plt]

This article from last weekend's FT Weekend is about whether poetry and novels on certain topics should be banned from literary studies, or at least have a warning label slapped on them, if students find them upsetting. (Hopefully you can get the gist of it by reading the introduction here.)

I wrote a Comment on the article online saying:

Three reasons why emotionally difficult texts should be included in the curriculum:

First, there is a plethora of bad writing (in many senses) about rape, snuff deaths; topics which many young people like to access freely. If the canon of literature is cleaned up, there will be no critical perspective available in which to contextualise the 'bad' writing.

It’s important to learn to read these texts in the context of more violent times, when it was acceptable to joke about rape. Exploring our history in gory realism is more likely to help us understand humanity than idealistic denial.

Thirdly, to take a less controversial example, as a new mother I found I had become hyper emotionally sensitive. Had I been studying Lady Macbeth’s lines: ‘I have given suck ...‘ I might have found them upsetting. Of course: this is a declaration designed to have shock value. What I would look for would not be censorship, it would be tutorial support which could draw out my subjective understanding of the lines, and balance that contribution with objective understanding.

That would suppose an academic system geared to high quality teaching, whereas what we have got is one geared to high quality research.

If I responded, I'd probably start off with the view that students shouldn't be protected from everything that would upset them. That's how we've wound up with a generation of people who turn away from anything they don't want to deal with, refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and expect babysitting services. See that even here in the Literotica forum.

 

[Handley_Page]

If I responded, I'd probably start off with the view that students shouldn't be protected from everything that would upset them. That's how we've wound up with a generation of people who turn away from anything they don't want to deal with, refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and expect babysitting services. See that even here in the Literotica forum.

Good point

 

[GoldenCojones]

If I responded, I'd probably start off with the view that students shouldn't be protected from everything that would upset them. That's how we've wound up with a generation of people who turn away from anything they don't want to deal with, refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and expect babysitting services. See that even here in the Literotica forum.

I agree they should not be protected from EVERYTHING that would upset them, but especially younger students should be protected from some things. I would never want an 8 year old to read the stories I post on Literotica (although I suspect some are and maybe even posting their own) and I wouldn't want them to go to the movies and sit through "Caligula" or something else like that.

By the time they are college students, then yeah, they should have access to whatever they can get their sticky little demented hands on.

 

[sr71plt]

I was thinking of older students, of course. By high school, I think they should be learning to deal with life without a babysitter.

 

[Hypoxia]

I agree they should not be protected from EVERYTHING that would upset them, but especially younger students should be protected from some things.

Those younger students have already been exposed to violence, sex, politics, intolerance, bad taste, and bad food. What are you protecting them from? How will 'protecting' them help them face the Real World? The disease analogy: We can protect kids in isolation tanks, or let them develop immune systems. Which works better?

Nobody should be protected from upsetting elements. Reality is uncomfortable. Reality doesn't care about your fragile sensibilities. If you can't deal with reality, reality will surely deal with YOU. We hear Tromp and Hillary whining that their opponents aren't treating them fair. Boo hoo. We hear parents whining that Mark Twain or George Orwell or Ms Rowling will corrupt their kids' minds. As if life hasn't already fucked them over. Yawn.

 

[GoldenCojones]

Those younger students have already been exposed to violence, sex, politics, intolerance, bad taste, and bad food. What are you protecting them from? How will 'protecting' them help them face the Real World? The disease analogy: We can protect kids in isolation tanks, or let them develop immune systems. Which works better?

Nobody should be protected from upsetting elements. Reality is uncomfortable. Reality doesn't care about your fragile sensibilities. If you can't deal with reality, reality will surely deal with YOU. We hear Tromp and Hillary whining that their opponents aren't treating them fair. Boo hoo. We hear parents whining that Mark Twain or George Orwell or Ms Rowling will corrupt their kids' minds. As if life hasn't already fucked them over. Yawn.

No, I'm not saying put them in isolation tanks (although that would solve the problem of the little brats getting on my nerves) I'm just saying don't intentionally infect them with malaria.

I don't think 8 year olds should be allowed to buy whiskey or cigarettes or go into porn movies. Nor do I think they should be forced to work in brothels or sold into sex slavery. If that is being over-protective then I guess I'm guilty.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I don't think 8 year olds should be allowed to buy whiskey or cigarettes or go into porn movies. Nor do I think they should be forced to work in brothels or sold into sex slavery. If that is being over-protective then I guess I'm guilty.

I think that's going a bit far, GC. Nobody is arguing that anyone under the legal age for protection against these things should be exposed to them. (I don't think anyone should be forced to work in a brothel or sold into slavery of any kind, either.)

'Protecting' over 18 year old college students - the subjects of the newspaper article - from classic literature is another matter.

Personally I'm fine with warning labels if something is really graphic. But I'd confine them to detailed descriptions of rape and murder. (The rape of Cassandra doesn't qualify). And I can't think of anything that really belongs in a school curriculum that gets that incredibly graphic. So I can't imagine we'll need to print up too many labels.

I agree with most of what you say, but I'm not sure why the rape of Cassandra should be an exception.

I've realised there is another solution. We should slap a warning label on all of Literary Studies, warning that all degree programmes and courses and modules may contain graphic and offensive material. Of course, that may lead to a sudden upsurge in students signing up for Eng Lit

(My former partner teaches Criminology, and once had this complaint made about his course: "there's not enough gore in it," to his - and the Dean's - bewilderment. There isn't very much blood spilt in local community politics! the subject of his module.)

If I responded, I'd probably start off with the view that students shouldn't be protected from everything that would upset them. That's how we've wound up with a generation of people who turn away from anything they don't want to deal with, refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and expect babysitting services. See that even here in the Literotica forum.

I totally agree. That's why, for example, when I heard that some women writers were being approached by men who gained their trust by editing for them and then hassled them for nude pictures, I posted on here. Not to try to stop the men from doing this. Editing happens sub rosa and usually through off-site communications, it can't be regulated. I posted to make it clear to the women that they can take responsibility for themselves in this situation. Such behaviour is unacceptable, and they could find other high quality editors on here who would not behave in such a way. (The rationale was: since this is an erotica writing site, maybe anything goes? Are these men are within their rights to ask for sexy pictures? My answer: No.)

Sweeping such things under the carpet, either on here or in literature, does no good.

Pap literature where there are no complex characters, e.g. characters who can be plausible, charming and in many ways 'good', while also being people who would try to exploit others, is 'bad' writing in many ways. Writing which confronts young people with complex reality is an invaluable opportunity for them to think these issues through before they come face to face with them for real.

The article I posted talks specifically about the medieval poem Gawaine and the Greene Knight. Gawaine, the ultimate knight in shining armour, is entangled in a net of sexual intrigue in the story and barely escapes with his life. He feels that his honour is tarnished although others still regard him as a non-pareil. Apparently, this ancient poem now has a warning label on it as a result of an obscure - even disputed - rape joke in it.

To go back to your original question, GC, a story like Gawaine and the Greene Knight in which heroes struggle to remain virtuous, and characters are compelled to behave in ways they feel badly about, is more valuable than one full of dreamy 'knights in shining armour'. It might help young women to realise that 'knights in shining armour' are too simplistic, and that they should trust their instinct about a guy who appeared to be such a simplistic saviour of their writing but who suddenly started behaving in a less reliable way.

Cathartic emotional struggle in a world where the right course of action isn't obvious is both exciting to read, and helps us to think about how to live our lives.

 

[Serafina1210]

The article I posted talks specifically about the medieval poem Gawaine and the Greene Knight. Gawaine, the ultimate knight in shining armour, is entangled in a net of sexual intrigue in the story and barely escapes with his life. He feels that his honour is tarnished although others still regard him as a non-pareil. Apparently, this ancient poem now has a warning label on it as a result of an obscure - even disputed - rape joke in it.

The scan of the article is too fuzzy for me to read, I'm sorry to say. But the whole article is available online, and worth a read. Just Google "Gawain Trigger Warning" and you'll find it.

IIRC, the Lady of the Castle says to Gawain something along the lines of "You're such a big strong man: if you were to force me, there wouldn't be much I could do about it."

He doesn't, of course: he's Gawain. But the lines are powerful: she's offering him the most intense kind of sexual role-playing game.

I've taught this poem. Would I put a trigger warning on it? No--but then I don't put trigger warnings on anything. But remember that more than 25% of all women are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, and a lot of that happens in college. The concern is not trivial. Teachers need to approach their material with an awareness of who their students are and what their experiences have been, and that means being sensitive to the feelings a work like this may arouse. (Those are diverse, by the way: one also ought to be able to discuss why this particular fantasy is a turn-on for a lot of men and women--and do it without leering and snide jokes.)

I prefer a good discussion of a sensitive topic to a trigger warning. It's better for students to confront stuff that may make them uncomfortable than to opt out. It's up to the teacher to provide a setting in which students can freely discuss their reactions to difficult material.

 

[NaokoSmith]

The scan of the article is too fuzzy for me to read, I'm sorry to say. But the whole article is available online, and worth a read. Just Google "Gawain Trigger Warning" and you'll find it.
...
I prefer a good discussion of a sensitive topic to a trigger warning. It's better for students to confront stuff that may make them uncomfortable than to opt out. It's up to the teacher to provide a setting in which students can freely discuss their reactions to difficult material.

I'm glad you were able to get a copy of the article, sometimes if I post a link to FT Weekend articles, people say they are asked to subscribe before they can read them. (I have a free subscription but that's quite complicated to sort out.)

I agree with you; that's how I prefer to teach. I teach social sciences these days, curiously we don't put warnings on Criminological topics - we know people who study Criminology will be expecting this kind of material. Maybe asking for trigger warnings on literature shows that people expect classic writing to be a bit dull and not providing such gritty realism as the statistics on gun crime!

Here in the UK, academic teaching is under-valued and under-supported - especially compared to research. The hard work which you have to put into high quality teaching of this kind isn't well rewarded here. I suppose my comparable example would be teaching about the veil in education with some Muslim women in the audience; I and they worked hard to get a good academic understanding of what to them was a highly sensitive topic. We all gained from thinking it through together - a Socratic approach rather than me dropping what was then a highly topical issue because it might be contentious.

 

[Serafina1210]

Good for you, Naoko, for taking the trouble to do a good job rather than avoid difficult topics. And doing it while work conditions and pay are shitty. I know a number of UK academics, and have heard hair-raising stories.

 

[GoldenCojones]

I think that's going a bit far, GC. Nobody is arguing that anyone under the legal age for protection against these things should be exposed to them. (I don't think anyone should be forced to work in a brothel or sold into slavery of any kind, either.)

'Protecting' over 18 year old college students - the subjects of the newspaper article - from classic literature is another matter.

Okay, I admit it. I let my inner Yeti out and he bested me. I should have been more reserved and kind in my second post. My only excuse is that exploitation of children is a high-degree hot spot for me and I let my emotions get the better of my brain. Classic Literature should not be censored. period. I couldn't read the article, and didn't take the time to try and find it online, and if that is what this is all about then I stand chastised and corrected.

Hypoxia, I apologize. I realize you did not mean the extreme to which I took what you said and I certainly should have been far more polite in my response.

My point, however, still stands and is valid for children. I don't consider college students, in general, to be children and I completely agree they should be properly flogged with all of the nastiness that society has to offer in the name of toughening them up. After all, we have to build that wall as high as possible, right?

Damned inner Yeti, get back in your cage

 

[sr71plt]

I think people need to start being prepared for real life younger than college. Sorry. They shouldn't suddenly be pulled out from underneath mother's parachute and dumped in life the day they are legal to be doing stuff they should have been thinking about and dealing with intellectually before then. I have some granddaughters who are going to be getting one hell of a surprise life whammee one of these days soon.

 

[GoldenCojones]

I think people need to start being prepared for real life younger than college. Sorry. They shouldn't suddenly be pulled out from underneath mother's parachute and dumped in life the day they are legal to be doing stuff they should have been thinking about and dealing with intellectually before then. I have some granddaughters who are going to be getting one hell of a surprise life whammee one of these days soon.

I've come to realize I'm way off topic from what NS put out there. Had I read the article, I probably wouldn't have commented, but all I read were the posts and unfortunately I took them out of context. But I think I have made my stance clear so I'm going to plow on

You say "people need to start being prepared for real life younger than college" I agree! But it does beg some questions. How young? How are we to prepare them?

If it is teenagers being exposed to slightly risque classic literature then I'm on board. Sign me up!

But my point is, and I really am trying to be good here, there is whole ship full of nastiness in this world we've made that young children can't comprehend or deal with and should be protected from in constructive ways until they develop enough to be able to deal with it. By their teen years, most children are able to deal with a lot of bad shit. Six year olds, not so much.

Let's take the holocaust for example. I would be opposed to a kindergarten teacher showing graphic photos of the German concentration camps to the children. By third or fourth grade I think they should be made aware it happened. By seventh grade most of them are probably equipped mentally to handle it and it can be discussed intelligently and some photos could be introduced. I'll be honest, though, I'm 52 and I still find the most graphic pictures of the holocaust to be horrifying.

Or maybe slightly less provocative. When and how do you start the conversation about human trafficking? At a VERY early age children should be taught "Stranger Danger" but should they be subjected to the brutal realities of human trafficking? Not too young, I think. When they have matured enough to be able to deal with it? Sure.

I don't think anyone who has more than half their teeth or brains is really for censorship, especially at the college level, but some discretion about what we inflict on our young children is appropriate.

 

[sr71plt]

Well, it varies. At nine, as an American in Germany, I wasn't told not to go out and play by myself or to only go anyplace holding mommy's hand. I was told that the Germans had just gotten their sovereignty back and were a little cocky and anti-American at the moment, so to be aware of everything going on around me and avoid being trapped anywhere alone--to learn to observe building trouble and walk away from it. I was told what the problem was and given pointers about how to deal with it. I wasn't kept in the house. A friend who was protected from what the situation was and told not to go outside to play, did so one day and was beaten and raped in a telephone booth.

So it depends on what's going on. Some level of the threats in life can be progressively brought up and covered with your kids while they're growing.

If you let your kids walk to school by themselves now, you are called a bad parent (and sometimes can find yourself in court). It you let them sit in the mud and find out for themselves what mud tastes like, they start getting sick on anything that isn't homogenized to death because they you were helicoptering over them and they didn't build any immunities.

I unfortunately can point to a couple of sweet grandchildren who haven't been immunized against anything and are going to get one big kick in the teeth the day their parents leave them off at their college dorm door.