Handling Sensitive Topics

[JamesSavik]

Writing is about drama and you find drama on the raw cutting, bleeding edge of humanity.

 

There be dragons... and other things that are difficult to face and difficult for human beings to write about.

 

Murder, rape, incest, child abuse, insane people and insane acts: these are all the raw ore of drama. How a good story teller refines and purifies that ore and handles it makes all the difference.

 

I am curious about what other authors think and feel about these difficult topics. It's only human to shy away from them. Some people are so brain washed that if there's even a little drug use in a story, they'll quit reading. Others have similar biases to different topics.

 

How do you handle the difficult, ugly topics with grace and sensitivity with out making your readers run away screaming?

[Rilbur]

Well, I start by trying to make the characters human, and someone that the readers feel involved with. Throughout history, people have faced terrible struggles and hardships for friendship, for those they care about. They'll certainly read a story if the care about the characters!

[Nephylim]

I don't think there are any subects whatever I would shy away from... at least none that I think I could render into my story. I wouldn't include, for example things I have no knowledge or imagination to render emotively and appropriately. So, for exaple I had written about abuse at the most extreme levels, but only to examine the mental and emotional effects and the consequences that flowed from it. I wouldn't write about that just for the sake of it, in the same way that I wouldn't write sex unless it has a place in the story.

 

There are some things that I wouldn't write becuse they are things that make me personally and politically very angry so, for example I can touch on the religious troubles in Northern Ireland and Scotland, atthough I would never make political comment on which side I think is right or wrong, My character is simpy affected by them and again I look at the effects and not the issue itself I dont think, however that I could write about the occupation of Wales... although if the issue came up in a story I would.

 

Again swearing. If I think a character would use swear words, or for particilar emphasis then I would use it but I avoid doing it gratuitously.

 

Not even sure that answers the question but there you go

 

 

[Kavrik]

Sensitive topics can be wonderful to add to writing simply because they are unexpected, but they do have to be handled with care. William Faulkner did this great by handling necrophilia in his short story, "A Rose for Emily" and the subject of cannibalism was done exceedingly well in the novel, "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg. Both of these authors approached these subjects indirectly by hinting at what was really going on and leaving much to the imagination.

[John Doe]

Yes people shy away from these topics because they are such emotional topics. And few writers grapple the tasks of handling such topics. I think writers generally don't write about such things is because they don't know how. Sure they can write wonderful stories but such topics has to have another layer of skills to make the story good. Hence writers who do wrestle these sort of topics risks their reputation on the line. Many writers know that they either lack the skills to write such a story or lack the perfect execution. With these topics they have to be done right, or else the writer will be seen as insensitive, careless, thoughtless, generalizer, who knows nothing about the human nature of responses to these types of ordeals.

 

Some writer take Faulkner (as Kavrik mentioned) mention and lay it to readers at the end. It's ties the loose ends, so in essence throughout most of the story they avoid the taboo topic itself, with just minor references to it, so readers had no idea but when reveals it makes sense. Though here the facts has to be good and tight for readers to believe it and not scoff at the idea. This method is easier. The other is to basically talk about the taboo subject in an off handed way. A great short story that I can think of that does this is Mona Simpson's "Lawns." It's about a girl who was molested by her father growing up. There's a scene in the story where she (the narrator) states when she had her first orgasm: when she was nine and by her own father's hands. That in itself was an eye opener. When I read that part I felt sick to my stomach and yet I continued to read because the way the reader gave that information was so - hmmm can't find the words to describe it - different, unexpected that I read the story to the end to find out what happens. After reading that story I had to give Ms. Simpson kudos for writing on a topic so well.

 

I probably wouldn't write the emotional aspect of these topics well, but the psychological aspect I can probably do... but when writing you want to to grasp the human connection, the human experience and many writers have trouble grapsing that close to situations of these "taboo" topics. Which brings me to my next thought... Japanese writers have long wrote about these topics. No topic is taboo for them. It's become like a phenomenom there. Take for example the topic of rape. It's spread over to comics targeted to teens and highly prevalent in gay comic (yaoi). It's a strange concept and dynamic. So here most Westerners would probably be offended by the concept but as I read more of the stories, and author interviews, there seems to be a concept there that seems interesting. It's hard to explain, but I can see their need to explore these types of things through characters that they create because no one would ever want to go through an actual rape experience or condemn or think for anyone else to. Yes some of us may fantasize about it (I admit it, I do) but that stays just like that: a fantasy and I would never want to live it in real life. Never. So I guess a small bit of cultural setting comes into play also. Though maybe small but some nonetheless. And I just don't mean like ethnic but how a person was raised and their experiences.

 

I kinda touched upon this awhile back when I announced that I was going to write a story similar to these comics that I have read... though at the time I didn't ask what people's feelings were about tthe topic rather if they would read it and many encouraged me to write it. I written 10 pages so far and that was months ago when I made that announcement. I feel like I have to write in a way that is humanizing for both the agressor and victim and that initself is hard to do. So I'm curious to hear peolpe's thoughts on this...

[JamesSavik]

If you don't want to see something ugly, don't go under the spoiler.

 

 

 

One of the characters in a story that I am writing is very precocious sexually (aged 13/14).

 

So much so that one of the other characters notices and asks him how does he know so much.

 

The answer to that question was that, because of his father's alcoholism, he was foisted off on relatives during the summers.

 

When he was eleven, he ended up staying with a college aged cousin unsupervised for several weeks. They went from skinny dipping in the pool to eventually having quite a lot of sex together.

 

I don't belabor the point or dwell on it but this is a key piece of the puzzle that explains why this kid is on his way to being so messed up.

 

Without this point being clearly made, he would be like too many middle-school aged characters in gay fiction that know more about sex than most 30 year olds.

 

 

 

[Tipdin]

Sensitive or ugly subjects don't frighten me. (I survived my family!)

How an author treats sensitive and ugly is the key. I'm not interested in how fowl-mouthed an author can be, or how often they can describe gore. The subject matter won't scare me off, but the delivery of that material may.