What wouldn't you write?

Ooh, this is a great question.
I think things like rape would be too personal for me to write. I'd feel pressured to "get it right." I'd also try to avoid things like really heavy drugs.

xDream said:

Ooh, this is a great question.

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It is indeed. I predict a long-ish thread here.

I don't know if I'll ever do erotica. I've always just had a harder time with sex than with violence. Yeah, I know typical American squeamishness: to paraphrase George RR Martin, I can handle an ax sliding into someone's skull more than a penis sliding into someone's vagina. I'm not going to say I'll never write about sex, because I don't believe in making "never" statements (if I've learned anything it's that God loves nothing more than upsetting "never" statements), but right now, it seems unlikely.

Emermouse said:

I don't know if I'll ever do erotica. I've always just had a harder time with sex than with violence. Yeah, I know typical American squeamishness: to paraphrase George RR Martin, I can handle an ax sliding into someone's skull more than a penis sliding into someone's vagina. I'm not going to say I'll never write about sex, because I don't believe in making "never" statements (if I've learned anything it's that God loves nothing more than upsetting "never" statements), but right now, it seems unlikely.

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Oh, yes, I'll second this.

I would never (I simply couldn't) write the wanton, willful abuse of animals—in YA, or any other audience for that matter.

The whole genre of horror I find difficult to write, YA or otherwise.

My discipline.

When I mention my writing to my peers they're all like oh you should write a book about statisticians.

Hell no.

Or worse, they think I write nonfiction and I should write a book about statistics or math or something.

I write pg 13 and tamer, because that's how I roll. I WOULD, however, be happy to write about college statistics, because that would be fun and I would make graphs, and send them to Kuwis for approval.

Ooh a lot of things, though I suppose I should never say "never." But for now the list would include: rape or sexual abuse of any kind; stories narrated from a small child's perspective; Middle Grade or picture books; mysteries or thrillers; time travel; books that center on a different culture (I would be too concerned with getting it right, and I don't think I ever could).

casualrungal said:

books that center on a different culture (I would be too concerned with getting it right, and I don't think I ever could).

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You just reminded me.

There are some things I am culturally-bound not to write about, and I'm constantly trying to figure out where that line is.

As in, literally taboo. Certain ceremonies and rituals and such.

Rape probably. I've writen about it in the past, but my ability to deal with it now is nil, though that could conceivably change. Sexual abuse from a child's perspective certainly. I can't detach enough. I'd feel like I was coming out of my skin. I have a really hard time seeing racism from a racist's perspective, so I probably wouldn't choose to write it that way. I'm also not a huge fan of penning torture scenes. Writing the aftermath is fine because that's more up my academic alley (osteology and forensic anthro) and thus is more familiar to me.

The bizarre thing is I've written all of this stuff before, I just can't do it anymore.

Sign me up for the "can handle violence but no sex" group, sadly. I used to think I couldn't write torture, but then a while back I wrote a horror story where I just went to town. I have a harder time reading it than I did writing it. I'm a little worried about how I managed to pull that stuff out of my own brain.

And on the flip side, I just revised a kissing scene and I'm all proud of myself because I finally managed to write the word "tongue."

This makes no sense! Kissing is fun. Why was torture easier to write?!?!

Oh wait, I got one on the violence side. Genital mutilation. I know this because I wrote a Ming Dynasty-inspired fantasy and couldn't bring myself to make castration a widespread thing like it was in real life.

M.S. Wiggins said:

I would never (I simply couldn't) write the wanton, willful abuse of animals—in YA, or any other audience for that matter.

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I second this. I can write about rape, child abuse, that kind of thing -- obviously not gladly, but they are things that happen in stories I write -- but when I'm reading, I have an intense disgust and absolute-zero tolerance level for animal abuse or torture. It's the one thing I'm squeamish about and I can't really explain it. The idea of a human, a being of higher intelligence and power, hurting a lesser being that cannot even comprehend what is happening to it... it just makes me sick. And in fiction, it's just so unnecessary to me. I could never write anything with that and when I come across in it a book it's really, really off-putting.

I'm not into violence in my writing, at least not of the physical kind, but I'm absolutely fine with writing sex

M.S. Wiggins said:

I would never (I simply couldn't) write the wanton, willful abuse of animals—in YA, or any other audience for that matter.

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I agree with this too. I've never read about animal abuse in YA before though... am I missing something?

This is an interesting topic. I've always been under the belief that whatever needs to be written, should be written, and that includes scenes of great horror. I feel like it's our duty as writers to represent human trials and emotion through fiction, regardless of how we feel about writing them.

So to answer your question, I'd like to think I can write about anything. But this obviously doesn't seem like the most comfortable thing in the world, and whether or not I'm able to write about anything is dependent on the moment. :/

I feel like I wouldn't say a definite and positive no to anything except animal abuse. It's weird, I know. The guy in my book is a merciless serial killer, and the heroine has to experience murders through his eyes (the writing of which was pretty disturbing), but she specifically states that she's never witnessed him killing an animal. Even though that's a classic thing for real-life future serial killers to do, and would be far more plausible than not.

I've read a couple of YA books where the family pet got fridged by the villain, so it's not off limits. But will I write it? NO. It's totally inconsistent given the awful violence against humans that I have written about, but there it is.

(I think I might have felt less strongly about this before I had pets.)

xDream said:

I agree with this too. I've never read about animal abuse in YA before though... am I missing something?

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Well, the comic book memoir MY FRIEND DAHMER isn't technically YA, but it could certainly be shelved that way. It's by a guy who went to high school with Jeffrey Dahmer, combining his personal recollections of the guy with facts he later learned about that time in his life when the murders became a public conversation.

Emmet Cameron said:

Well, the comic book memoir MY FRIEND DAHMER isn't technically YA, but it could certainly be shelved that way. It's by a guy who went to high school with Jeffrey Dahmer, combining his personal recollections of the guy with facts he later learned about that time in his life when the murders became a public conversation.

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I missed half of that compound noun on first read-through and was trying to figure out how that kind of memoir could be humorous. "Comic"? I was thinking, "well I guess it could be a dark comedy"?

Ha! One justification for calling some comic books graphic novels, I guess. It does have some moments of sick absurdity, but the author definitely isn't reaching to insert jokes. Mostly it's just super sad.

Anything that isn't strictly moral and in accords with the precepts in the bible and the moral and ethical guidelines of society and that would not meet with approval from friends and associates and members of this writing community. I also read Ann Landers column to find out what is and what is not acceptable. I do not want to take any chances of writing something I shouldn't. The sole reason I write is to gain approval. "There's Ken. A fine, upright citizen. One of us, at least on the surface, which is all that counts. Horay!"

I'm surprised at the amount of people unable to comfortably write about sex. Probably because I could do sex scenes all day. But then, I might be the only American raised deliberately to see through the sex-negative baggage of our culture. But that's another thread.

While I can (and have) written about rape, I choose not to. For one reason, I write sff, where it's horribly overused in place of character development or for "realism". I just refuse to stoop to that. My characters and my readers deserve better. But the real reason? I just don't want to. I've lived that shit. I know dozens of women who lived that shit as teens or girls. There are plenty of issue books and whatnot. But me? I write about heroes and adventure. There's no need for me to bring that into something I'm offering as a means to escape reality.

*cough* I might also be too lazy to write historical of any kind.

KateSmash said:

*cough* I might also be too lazy to write historical of any kind.

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Me too! I am so impressed by everyone who writes historical. The whole idea of learning so much about a different time period blows my mind. I'm sure I could do it, if I committed myself to the research... but I probably won't.

I would also never write the killing of animals. Makes me so angry! I walked out of I AM LEGEND when the dog died. Although in my MS I do have a character who thinks about killing an animal, but doesn't go through with it.

I think I could write all types of abuse except child sexual abuse. It's just too horrifying for me, and one of those things I never want to see in fiction, because I see way too much in the real world. Which is interesting because everyone was getting a pedophile vibe from the MC of my latest query.

I'm another who can't (won't) write about rape. Like KateSmash said, there are already enough issue books about it and it hits too close to home for me to personally write about. Same goes any sexual abuse really.

Put me down in the can write violence but not sex camp as well. I never know where hands go or mouths or anything. I can write awkward first encounters, but if I ever wrote a sex scene, everyone in the known world would be cringing the whole time.

I hate reading about or seeing animal abuse/mutilation (I cried SO hard during I Am Legend!). I don't know if I could write it. I started writing a serial killer story that followed the killer from childhood. A lot of serial killers start on animals. I couldn't write the actual scenes, but I did allude to them. The killer mentioned "taking care of the barking dogs" and "fixing the squirrel problem." Even that was really hard, though!

Genre-wise, romance and historical. The first because I personally find it quite dull to read (but I can appreciate there are some books classed as romances which are probably well-written - I just can't get past the love-interest element). Historical, as other people have said, would require far too much research and, while I love researching for non-fiction, I don't think I'd enjoy mixing it into fiction writing. I'd also be too worried about getting it wrong.

Content-wise, abuse of any kind - but especially animal abuse. It had never crossed my mind to write about that until I saw people mentioning it in this thread. The idea is just too upsetting. Things like physical and mental abuse are also kind of disturbing.

But saying that, I will write about violence, so I'm thinking it's the psychological aspect of abuse I find really off-putting to write about.