Is anything too much?
- Thread starter Maze Runner
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CharleeBeck,
Yes, I believe that you can get away with so much more with self-publishing. You can always used the word "rapeplay" and "ageplay" in blogs. It just an old trick that all psos and cam models use in their blogs.
Yes, I believe that you can get away with so much more with self-publishing. You can always used the word "rapeplay" and "ageplay" in blogs. It just an old trick that all psos and cam models use in their blogs.
I feel the same way. And honestly, the story is almost always more important to me than the potential sale. I'm willing to make small or neutral adjustments in order to make a story more appealing, but I'm not willing to alter a story in a way that will detract from what I cared about writing in the first place. And when it comes down to it, I'm writing for an audience that is interested in the things I like to write. Not an audience that wants something different.
... just for the record, again, I mean something really over the top! Just a scene. Not crucial to the whole. And more or less able to be substituted with a tamer substitute that still gets the point across on a smaller scale.
And yes. Certainly, don't compromise with the stuff that's important to you, e.g. eliminating a same sex relationship. Not that that would be even necessary these days, cooly. But along those lines. And as has been said, there really isn't much that is off the tables these days.
Your humble servant, Ken
ps also, toning scenes down. making them less graphic then you might ideally want, as the op has considered. how are you with that maenid and dawg ?
And yes. Certainly, don't compromise with the stuff that's important to you, e.g. eliminating a same sex relationship. Not that that would be even necessary these days, cooly. But along those lines. And as has been said, there really isn't much that is off the tables these days.
Your humble servant, Ken
ps also, toning scenes down. making them less graphic then you might ideally want, as the op has considered. how are you with that maenid and dawg ?
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I always thought it was sort of bizarre that fiction specifically for the 18+ audience is subject to more weird rules and regulations than even stuff in a YA book. Like, if ever there was a place to be ratchet, it's in a book where you literally need to enter a birth date to download it.
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Twilight is essentially about a susceptible, insecure girl with no character or interests of her own and no defenses in the form of self-love or a life she owns, seeking belonging in the arms of a creep with violent tendencies who's too rich to be ever held accountable for his actions. When he leaves her in an attempt to be decent, she loses what little of a sad excuse for a life she had and goes suicidal.
She's then torn between him, and a jealous, volatile kid from a known wife-beater clan. When she finally gets knocked up by the unaccountable rich kid after a bout of extremely rough sex, the pregnancy nearly destroys her, and ripping her from her family and her previous life forever is the only way to save her life.
Also, kids get beheaded.
And teens think that's cute.
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I appreciate the insight and advice, Ken. And I get it, I do. But by the time we have a finished MS every scene is important. The MS feels whole to us. We've carved out every last detail. We know they're not perfect, we've accepted that there's no such thing as perfect, but they're perfectly imperfect in the images that we have of them in our minds. One change tends to throw everything off, and we think we have to go through the entire MS once again to put it back in balance (in our minds, anyway).
It can be done, of course. I guess we've all done it, but that feeling that you have that tells you, that's it, it's whole, is a tenuous one, elusive, so you hate to mess with that.
I think what's bothering me is more of the philosophical nature. As Naem has mentioned in this thread, (and I paraphrase) what's acceptable and what's taboo seems to be arbitrary at best and hypocritical at worst, even to the point that some of the (I believe) most potentially damaging stuff is seen as A-Ok; and often when the target audience is the underage set. Violence of the goriest kind. The most horrific, nightmarish fare is fine, but write (or film) graphic sex, and "people" are offended. Just makes no sense to me; but you're talking about the realities of the publishing world and for all I know (which isn't much) you could be 100% right.
This is why I think a rating system would free us. You don't want your kid or yourself reading or watching something with graphic sex? Simple, don't buy it. Turn it off. I've fast-forwarded through many a book and movie. I just have no desire to watch or read graphic violence; it's just not my thing. I love the gangster genre in film. Goodfellas, I think is one of the best movies made. But that scene where they're stabbing Frank Vincent (can't think of the character's name - great jazz drummer in his earlier life, btw), when he's lying beaten and bloodied and half dead in the trunk of the car, the sound of the knife piercing his flesh like he's a side of beef, I find very ugly and will always fast forward thru that scene. But sex, no, can't do that. The only thing ugly about sex is what we in our puritanical, twisted manipulation (with a side of the allure of the forbidden of course) of it, have created.
Okay, I have a feeling I'm preaching to the converted here. I'd bet that most writers would feel just as I do about much of this stuff. But this is the reality that we live with if someone else is paying the tab.
Consider, though, that this question is posed on the erotica board. The presumption is that your work will not be appropriate for impressionable underage readers, whose reading materials should be (but often aren't) subject to parental review and approval.
Maryn, better parent than some
Maryn, better parent than some
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See, most of my erotica is kink-focused, and there are a lot of instances where toning down scenes might seriously detract from the hotness for people seeking out those kinks. In fact, part of why I write erotica is my because as a reader, I sometimes have trouble finding stuff that I like.
The problem is that if I alter a story for marketability reasons, that might defeat the point if I'm trying to reach an audience that wants something different.
There's also a risk of pleasing no one because I tried to please everyone (my story isn't hot enough to my main auduence, but doesn't appeal to people who don't like the kink), and kink is something that people can have very specific preferences for.
I will certainly alter scenes if I feel like they don't fit the story, don't get my point across, or won't appeal to the readers whom I want to attract. But I'm not going to make a BDSM story less hardcore when the whole point was to write a hardcore BDSM story involving niche kinks.
... okay, then take the opposite. Say you want to write toned down scenes b/c that seems right for a particular erotic title. (And to you, the story still sizzles, etc, but not in the usual and expected way, etc.) But you know that your audience is going to want more. Your publisher too. So what do you do? Stick to your story and possibly doom it in terms of your market or make a compromise and sex it up more? (Just curious. Not faulting your approach or anything.)
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Yep. Hypocrisy definitely noted, by me. Graphic violence OK; graphic sex, not. It's really weird when you get to considering it. Yes. I was, "expressing a practical perspective." Philosophically I am in total agreement. And at the end of the day, fiction is fiction. So to me anything and everything should be permissible in as much graphic detail as one wants. But hey. I am willing to play by the rules and make concessions so long as they don't get too ridiculous and limiting. Though, in a way they really are at least to me at times.
It depends a bit on how I feel about the story. This is a little hard for me to wrap my head around because I don't write with publishers or anything like that in mind. I write the stories that I want to tell, and I consider things like audience in terms of deciding if the story is coming across the way I want it to. On the rare occasion where I write something specifically to cater to another person/group's preferences, I approach the writing differently than I do with most stuff that I write. From the very start, the process is different.
I don't really care if I write something that's not very marketable. Making money off my writing is just an extra, not really a main goal. And there will always be other stories. If I felt like the tone was important to the story and that changing it would alter the story too much in a direction that I didn't want, I would publish it anyway or just put it up for free.
Thnx for the insight. Ones overall objective is, indeed, a factor.
Sure you'll do just fine in that regard anyway. Me, it's a main focus. Not that I follow trends or anything of such sort. But I am always attuned to a pieces sales potential. Crazy as it is I would like to make a career outta writing one day before the 9-5 grind does me in.
Sure you'll do just fine in that regard anyway. Me, it's a main focus. Not that I follow trends or anything of such sort. But I am always attuned to a pieces sales potential. Crazy as it is I would like to make a career outta writing one day before the 9-5 grind does me in.
It's not so much sex Vs Violence as much of sex OR violence. Like in a YA horror novel, there will be more gore than a saw move, but on the second f-word/first nipple, people start taking issue. Likewise, anything more than light PG violence in a "sexy" book will get comments calling you a serial killer.
I really don't get the skirting around the whole non-con thing either. When consenting adults have rougher, power-centric roleplays in the bedroom, they are fantasizing about a nonconsensual situation. When an adult with those tastes looks for a rougher story, wouldn't they want to read about that fantasy, not about two people acting out a fantasy of that fantasy? Like it's that too many degrees of separation from their actual endgame?
I always thought that erotica was more for the extreme stuff, like things that would be impractical/immoral/uncomfortable to do with a live actress. Otherwise why wouldn't people just watch?
That's an okay use of erotica, but not the only one.
Because porn, if it has any storyline at all, it's usually a shit one, with shit acting. If you're turned on by the story, a medium where all the effort is invested in that aspect is a better choice than one where they just make it up on the set.
The issue is that erotica is meant to be a turn on. Hence publishers tend to stick with what is legal in RL.
Things that are not erotica can go further, to a certain extent, because in a horror novel the dismemberment of a person is meant to be horrific, not arousing.
The trick being that there are books that have both erotic and horrific content, but an erotica publisher may be unlikely to take it on if they suspect the horrific content will also be viewed as erotic.
This is where some pubs will draw the line at portrayals of rape unless it's just really really really clear it's not intended as a turn-on, but an element of the plot. All of this because of obscenity laws. Seeming to promote something illegal and violent as erotic is not something most larger publishers will venture into.
Each book is different though, which is why there is some lee-way in what publishers will consider and publish. (This is also why Amazon is deliberately vague. They will sell anything as long as they aren't getting complaints or threats of legal action. So they prefer to leave to door open to pretty much anything, while maintaining the right to reject pretty much anything as they see fit.)
I think it's not that but just because they're two completely different means of arousal. Many people (more often men) are turned on by visual porn but others (more often women) are left cold by visual porn and turned on by written "porn." (I put "porn" I quotes because the word "erotica" implies more literary merit, a story behind just the turn on part. Some erotica writers would be insulted if their work was called "porn," in other words).
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In any event it would be neat if the extreme stuff was allowed. Necrophilia for instance. Not on my behalf, of course. For those interested in such, excluding me (a very prim and proper chap.) Why should they miss out? And why should writers interested in writing such (not me, heaven forbid) be denied the ability to do so? I really feel for them when I put myself in their place, with difficulty as such an inclination is alien to such an upright citizen as I who goes to church on sunday, synagogue on saturday, and the mosque on monday.
Incest and rape are almost always off-limits in erotica. You are unlikely to be able to persuade a publisher of the literary merits either. If you self-publish, Amazon won't touch your work if there's rape or incest in it, nor will Apple, and others are cracking down, as well. I'm not sure it even matters if the rape is supposed to be a turn-on or not. Amazon, I believe, simply does a computer scan for the word 'rape'. I had a lot of books banned before I realized they don't even read the books, mostly for role play 'rapes', ie. "You're not going to.. rape me, are you, sir!?" Amazon didn't care they weren't real rapes and everything was consensual. They never read it. Their computer read it and banned it. So I don't use the word 'rape' in my books, ever. Apple can be every bit as confusing and arbitrary as Amazon, and like Amazon, will never tell you why they refuse to sell a book, except in the most general terms. Other on-line publishers vary as to what they'll sell, but that can change with one bad tabloid story. Kobo certainly has cracked down after they got one.
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Thanks, Vbeacher. I remain incredulous, and ignorantly defiant.
Just meaning this: Yes, I have a rape scene. It is probably somewhat unusual for a couple reasons. First, it's the rape of a man by a woman at gunpoint. Second, and I'm sure this will offend some people, but while it is not taken lightly by the victim, and is in fact a turning point, the time when the MC who's been beaten, repeatedly threatened, tailed everywhere he goes, chased into one place of hiding after another, robbed of his livelihood, finally says that he's had enough, and that he will now go on the offensive; Otherwise, to him, it is not a shattering life event. It is only a shattering event, given what's preceded it.
I'm not glued to it. I won't stand on any philosophical grounds. It's just the pivotal point of the story. I could, I guess, come up with another way to up the ante, something that hasn't happened to him yet - though I'm having a little trouble imagining what that could be - that could serve to push him over the edge. But, you know, I think the scene works, really works. The way it's done, the way it's seen from the first person MC's perspective I think, is not something you've seen a hundred times before. It's one of those moments, when as the writer you say, Oh, damn, yeah, I don't know where that came from, but i'm glad it's here. It walks a nice line between horror, drama, and humor, the stuff of life. It's true to the character thus far, but offers a dimension we haven't quite seen in him before. He is growing, or devolving, or mutating, but there's interesting movement. I don't know, it's about my favorite scene in the book, probably because of that delicious tension that tells you something unusual is happening here, I'm a little uncomfortable with this, but at the same time, I can't dismiss it as false. Oh, fuck it, it's art. From what I know of art, as representing a truth in an interesting way, I think it is. So cut it I guess, or change it, or otherwise sterilize it so that it may be palatable to people that I wouldn't otherwise pay any attention to at all. Just irks me, you know?
Just meaning this: Yes, I have a rape scene. It is probably somewhat unusual for a couple reasons. First, it's the rape of a man by a woman at gunpoint. Second, and I'm sure this will offend some people, but while it is not taken lightly by the victim, and is in fact a turning point, the time when the MC who's been beaten, repeatedly threatened, tailed everywhere he goes, chased into one place of hiding after another, robbed of his livelihood, finally says that he's had enough, and that he will now go on the offensive; Otherwise, to him, it is not a shattering life event. It is only a shattering event, given what's preceded it.
I'm not glued to it. I won't stand on any philosophical grounds. It's just the pivotal point of the story. I could, I guess, come up with another way to up the ante, something that hasn't happened to him yet - though I'm having a little trouble imagining what that could be - that could serve to push him over the edge. But, you know, I think the scene works, really works. The way it's done, the way it's seen from the first person MC's perspective I think, is not something you've seen a hundred times before. It's one of those moments, when as the writer you say, Oh, damn, yeah, I don't know where that came from, but i'm glad it's here. It walks a nice line between horror, drama, and humor, the stuff of life. It's true to the character thus far, but offers a dimension we haven't quite seen in him before. He is growing, or devolving, or mutating, but there's interesting movement. I don't know, it's about my favorite scene in the book, probably because of that delicious tension that tells you something unusual is happening here, I'm a little uncomfortable with this, but at the same time, I can't dismiss it as false. Oh, fuck it, it's art. From what I know of art, as representing a truth in an interesting way, I think it is. So cut it I guess, or change it, or otherwise sterilize it so that it may be palatable to people that I wouldn't otherwise pay any attention to at all. Just irks me, you know?
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You know, I think the simple answer is, if I'm planning to try to market it as Erotica, as Vbeacher and others have said, I really have no choice but to cut or cut short the rape scene. If I try to market it as commercial fiction then it might pass, but I'm not even sure of that. There's something in the process that demands you get enamored to a scene, but that can translate into attached. I can probably find an opportunity in this scene that hadn't occurred to me, another way of doing it that may even work better. The real truth is I'm not sure about anything. Thanks to those who chimed in with their opinions. Most of you know much more about this than I do.
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Late to this thread, but in a similar boat here... writing a BDSM themed novel, and as an in extremis, last-resort punishment for a recalcitrant submissive, a dominant urinates on her hair and makes her sleep with it. The story and the character development support this act in the story, and it is actually just three or four sentences at the end of a chapter, not a protracted or drawn out scene at all, and certainly not intended to be erotic or exciting. But I wrote that before doing any research, and it appears now that I will need to snip that moment, if only to keep my chances "slim", rather than "none"...
Good call--Amazon and pretty much every paying publisher whose submission guidelines I recall doesn't want any urine or scat.
There are probably niche kink markets--but then you'd need to add a bunch more similar material and figure out what those markets are.
Maryn, who's written a little for, ah, "specialty" markets
There are probably niche kink markets--but then you'd need to add a bunch more similar material and figure out what those markets are.
Maryn, who's written a little for, ah, "specialty" markets