Gore - Where to Draw the Line

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Feidb

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In good icky bug, people gonna be "daid," or the threat of being "daid." It goes without saying. Depending on the style and the feeling of the story, the amount of descriptive gore is a feeling where you just have to know when you're going over the line. If you're a savvy writer, you should be able to tell when it's gratuitous. If not, beta readers can surely tell you. If you have a writers group, even better.

Context is the key. It's a lot better to have several second sets of eyes to give you an outside perspective if you're not sure. If you've been doing this a while, you'll pretty much know where the line is.

You don't HAVE to use it, but if you do...
 

Jake.Ashworth

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Some Al, no Tipper.


Best... Response... Ever!!!!!

That said, I would say the gore level depends on a lot of things. Your target audience for one. If you where reaching out to me, a B movie, low budget, gore hound, I love to see blood dripping from the walls and chunks of brain grinding between teeth. But if your book is geared more towards the psychological side of horror, the blood and guts can do more to break the scene when the attention should be on more details.

My vote... Grind em up, puree them into a nice soup, and make a salad out of there kidneys. I want to know all about the kill, some people want to know more about the killer.
 

TomMcClaren

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If it fits the scene and the situation, I'll write as much gore as is necessary to describe it for the reader. If it's a crime scene, I describe it clinically. If it's a monster movie-esque scenario, I'll describe the character's feeling of dread and/or pain as things are happening, and I'll describe what is being done to them in details that will inflict maximum terror. When it's overdone (For example, the Hostel and the Saw franchises), it trades horror for gore, at which point the audience is numbed to the fear of violence and just looks at it for what gory kill will they think of next. Final Destination got into that rut, with the first being kind of scary and thought-provoking, and the last ones being "How will they die?" mini-games.

Finding the perfect balance is difficult, especially in a horror novel, but just describe it enough to paint the picture without writing an essay on the arms being twisted off of a character. I find word choice also helps, as cacophony in words usually gets a better reaction, as well as what is being done (Fingers, toes, eyes, those kinds of things are usually scarier because they're softer and more sensitive so we feel it as the character does). Just don't go too far to make the reader cringe so much they can't read through their hands.

Hopefully, that makes sense and helps.
 

gypsyscarlett

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You can be as gorily descriptive as Clive Barker or leave it to the imagination ala Shirley Jackson, and anything in between.

It depends on your own writing style, the particular story, what mood you are trying to evoke...
 

Pestilence

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You only need to be as gory as you want to be. Simple as that. :)

It really just depends on what you're writing. Are you trying to totally shock your reader? Disgust them and physically turn their stomach? Then go all out.

Trying to scare them, instead? Then maybe focus less on the gore and more on the experience of death and mutilation, or even just the fear of it inevitably coming.

There are all types of stories and books out there, catering to all reader tastes. You can be incredibly graphic and brutal, or enjoyably gory -- for people who like Splatterpunk, as an example.

Just pick a path, and head on down it. You need to know what your overall target for the story is.
 

EMaree

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I delight in writing gore -- quite often explicit, but sometimes I just pick a few slim details to paint the nastiness picture. But I don't hold back.

Nobody expects bleak, violent horror from the quiet little Scottish lassie.
:evil

Follow your squishy, bloody heart, my friend.
 

williemeikle

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I delight in writing gore -- quite often explicit, but sometimes I just pick a few slim details to paint the nastiness picture. But I don't hold back.

Nobody expects bleak, violent horror from the quiet little Scottish lassie.
:evil


Follow your squishy, bloody heart, my friend.

Apart from Scottish guys like me, who know there's really no such thing as a quiet Scottish lassie :)
 
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