Realistic Plot Elements

[JamesSavik]

Some of the feedback I get often chastises me for writing about naughty topics. It often goes something like this:

Quote

Ewww... you write about drugs and sex and rock & roll. You must be a horrible person for glamorizing this stuff.

Ahem... Trying my Gunny Hartman voice:

Well, holy shit, son. He's a boomer... one of the youngest of that generation, barely making the cut. He lived in a world where people had better manners than to go on Jerry Springer and talk about their trailer trash lives. AIDS wasn't a thing until the early eighties and, to be perfectly honest, the response to it by everybody was a cluster f*ck. In those days, you didn't have coming out parties. You got coming out beatings, and often, coming out wasn't your choice at all. The amount of sexual ignorance of this generation was appalling.

The Internet, we hadn't invented it yet and cell phones didn't exist outside labs. Homosexuality was a deep, dark secret to kids who didn't have influencers on YouTube telling everybody that gay is OK. Looking back, we were doing the deed before we even knew what it was. We thought we had invented something really neat-o!

We never heard of child pornography, but it was common for known gay kids to be offered cash to pose for spicy pictures.

The world has changed, but people haven't. Now a curious kid can hop on the Internet and easily find pics of stuff I didn't even know was a thing until after college.

Kids today can easily discover what we walked into blind.

If you look hard, one of the frequently occurring themes in my writing is the danger of ignorance, 

Trust me on this. I learned it the hard way. What you don't know can hurt you badly.

There's going to be bad stuff in my writing, but it's there for a reason. That's the world I know/knew, and has plenty of dark places in it. I go there not to emphasize the dark, but the strength of character required to move on from these places and not get stuck there.

 

 

Edited February 5, 2024 by JamesSavik

[Mikiesboy]

5 hours ago, JamesSavik said:

There's going to be bad stuff in my writing, but it's there for a reason. That's the world I know/knew, and his has plenty of dark places in it. I go there not to emphasize the dark, but the strength of character required to move on from these places and not get stuck there.

I love this, James!  Bad things happen, even in Bunnyville, where people wear rose-coloured glasses. You need to be brave enough to look in the closets and basements and write your story.

[LJCC]

That's where the rating goes. If the readers are affronted by debauchery and raunchy topics, then that's why the rating-M explicitly tells it as it is: that this novel isn't going to hold your hand and read you a bedtime story. 

I mean, writers can write about incest and rape, and still it would be classified as a mature rating (on this site) if the writing speaks for itself and talks about it sensibly, with a moral clause subjected to reason.

My last story was pretty violent and had some very graphic rape scenes, but I'd like to think I handled it fairly well.

If any reader were to come at me, I would gladly point them to the "M-Rating" plastered on the story.

"Go back to bed boy, this story ain't for you."

[Krista]

I had to google Gunny Hartman... don't hold that against me. 

The rest of what you said, if you had a mic I wouldn't be satisfied until that thing hit the floor. I personally hate the term, "you've glamorized it.." it is one of those things that got thrown at everything and unfortunately seemed to stick when it shouldn't have. 

[JamesSavik]

@Krista Full Metal Jacket is a major cult classic in a certain community, and Gunny Hartman is really how they are.

 

 

If you've read The Company, the character Gunny Anders is based on Hartman. Marines are some of the most stick-togeather-est people you'll ever meet. It's not uncommon for the officers and noncoms to cluster together after active duty. He actually taught the main character a lot of the same things the recruits got, and TS has employed him to teach semper-fu (Marine Martial Arts) to the kids he collects.

Edited February 16, 2024 by JamesSavik

[E K Stokes]

@JamesSavik paints a realistic picture of the seventies, eighties, but has anything changed? Half a century ago kids were admittedly ignorant, but one day those kids got together with someone and it was either a good, bad, or indifferent experience. Today, kids can easily get the picture and interact remotely, but one day these kids get together with someone and it's either a good, bad, or indifferent experience. 

[W_L]

@JamesSavik

When I write history, people either do not know what I am talking about or wish they did not  

Some folks imagine the world of the past as pure and innocent with techno-color lenses and Mary Poppin sing-along-songs. Reality is human beings have always been indulging in food, music, drugs, and sex of all varieties for thousands of years. Prostitution isn't one of the oldest professions for nothing, Babylonian and Assyrian laws even outlined how you should be treating your prostitutes and gay lovers.  

Full-plot realism may not be something some readers can accept. 

[JamesSavik]

41 minutes ago, W_L said:

Full-plot realism may not be something some readers can accept. 

Then they had better wear a helmet and get an emotional support squirrel if they read my stuff. I'm going to tag it mature and rock on.

 

Edited February 28, 2024 by JamesSavik

[LJCC]

25 minutes ago, JamesSavik said:

Then they had better wear a helmet and get an emotional support squirrel if they read my stuff. I'm going to tag my stuff mature and rock on.

 

I want my own squirrel now.

Quick! Hide in my beard Mr. McNatty!

Edited February 28, 2024 by LJCC

[W_L]

2 hours ago, JamesSavik said:

Then they had better wear a helmet and get an emotional support squirrel if they read my stuff. I'm going to tag it mature and rock on.

 

 

If I wrote history as it was, there would be a lot of technically underage things happening beyond just non-consent sex (that might even be a lesser evil)   Give a teenage boy a weapon, an inflated ego, and the belief he's doing God's work on earth or following some fearless leader, you can guess what happens next. Heck, even in modern times, child soldiers around the world are guilty of war crimes for a reason. 

That's an ugly truth that exists in reality, no matter what your belief system, race, or sexuality.

 

Edited February 28, 2024 by W_L

[JamesSavik]

There's a reason I try to keep it real. It's not to shock anybody.

I have a very low tolerance for lies. One of them cost me a normal life.

Nobodies going to get in trouble. You can tell me the truth. I just want to help.

Once you've heard that one, and after what it cost me, you're going to have issues.

Trust issues,

Authority issues.

Rage issues.

If I'd been a different person, I could have been a monster. In fact, I almost did.

The last time I saw the person who told me that egregious lie, it was through a Leopold scope attached to a .308 Browning. I had his eye in my crosshairs, a shot I could have made. The only reason I didn't take the shot was I would have blown his brains all over his youngest son.

There's another lie that we all tell: it gets better. I think it's a hopeful prayer and just as useless.

Make it real: Maybe it gets better.

Not every problem gets solved in thirty minutes or an hour with commercial breaks. Mr. Brady or Ward Clever don't sit down with you and dish out wisdom and fix it. Doesn't matter how good a person you are, you can roll snake eyes. There aren't any promises.

Put on a f*c&ing helmet and have your emotional support squirrel handy for this one. I never got hit as hard on the football field as I did when I would pick up the newspaper, grit my teeth and see another friend or acquaintance in the obituaries during the worst years of the AIDS epidemic. Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid dereliquisti me?

No one wants to go mad, but holy f*&%, how do you avoid it with that in your head?

Back in 2018, I flew to Seattle to donate stem cells to help my older brother fight his cancer. I did all I could to save him, but he died anyway six months later. I was there for a week in a hostel for people at the cancer clinic. Across the street was a shelter for homeless people. At night there was a woman who would go out in the street and howl with outrage at God knows what. How do I avoid joining her in her howling?

There. I let you have a peek inside my head. I know it's not pretty, but I've got to live with it. There's even a nice clinical term for it: Complex PTSD. It's like having broken glass in your soul. If it's undisturbed, it can just lay there and not hurt for years. Then, given it the right stress, it can come back with a roar. That's where I am now, and yes, I have an appointment with a psychiatrist as soon as I can get one.

Much of my writing started out as therapy because I couldn't talk about it without weeping.  I wasted so much time pretending, running and just overwhelmed by the epidemic and honestly, terrified. I'm tired. I just want the war inside my head to be over and know some peace.

That's my truth. If my writings take you to scary, dangerous places, just remember, that's where I lived for a very long time. There's a fine line between coping and howling at night.

 

[Mikiesboy]

4 hours ago, JamesSavik said:

Much of my writing started out as therapy because I couldn't talk about it without weeping.  I wasted so much time pretending, running and just overwhelmed by the epidemic and honestly, terrified. I'm tired. I just want the war inside my head to be over and know some peace.

hope your doc can help ... keep writing, James

[Mike Carss]

In my opinion, the best creative art out there is when the person is creating it solely for themselves. Sharing something personal with the world. The passion and emotion comes through so clearly. In contrast, pandering to a specific audience will often result in a lifeless piece of art because the creator's heart wasn't fully committed.

On 2/28/2024 at 2:24 AM, JamesSavik said:

Much of my writing started out as therapy because I couldn't talk about it without weeping.

We don't know each other so this may come off as insincere, but when I hear of someone finding any kind of solace in the process of creating something, it brings a smile to my face. Some people create for the simple joy of it, but browsing your body of work, I get the impression you've done it mostly for survival. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Circling back to your original message: if your story is marked Mature and people still complain about the content, don't waste your time on them. And definitely don't let it stop you from creating what you want.

[P. E. Knapp]

On 2/5/2024 at 2:28 AM, JamesSavik said:

AIDS wasn't a thing until the early eighties and, to be perfectly honest, the response to it by everybody was a cluster f*ck. In those days, you didn't have coming out parties. You got coming out beatings, and often, coming out wasn't your choice at all. 

The Internet, we hadn't invented it yet and cell phones didn't exist outside labs. Homosexuality was a deep, dark secret to kids who didn't have influencers on YouTube telling everybody that gay is OK. Looking back, we were doing the deed before we even knew what it was. We thought we had invented something really neat-o!

We never heard of child pornography, but it was common for known gay kids to be offered cash to pose for spicy pictures.

The world has changed, but people haven't. Now a curious kid can hop on the Internet and easily find pics of stuff I didn't even know was a thing until after college.

Kids today can easily discover what we walked into blind.

If you look hard, one of the frequently occurring themes in my writing is the danger of ignorance, 

Trust me on this. I learned it the hard way. What you don't know can hurt you badly.

There's going to be bad stuff in my writing, but it's there for a reason. That's the world I know/knew, and has plenty of dark places in it. I go there not to emphasize the dark, but the strength of character required to move on from these places and not get stuck there.

 

 

Oh yeah. Gunny Hartman. *Smiles fondly.* I knew someone like him once upon a time.

Truer statements of history have never been said. A history a lot of our generation share. The good old days of the late '70s and '80's. Memories that still cause pain and sadness today.

The kindness of some, a very few. The pure hatred from others, just because we were different. The absolute stupidity of even more...that could have helped and didn't. The very, very few you could talk to openly.

What you don't know can not only hurt you badly, but get you killed.

So, yes. There is going to be bad stuff in your writing and in three stories I've tried to write as sort of a therapy. There are very dark pieces because that is how it was back then. I lost a lot of people I called friends in a 12 year span from '82 to '94. To AIDS, suicide, murder.  Before I threw myself into my job and shifted to Europe on assignment for almost a year. Turning away from everyone, in a place where no one knew me, and I knew no one. And I didn't want too. A lovely old lady and survivor of WWII became a friend and helped me learn German as I helped her with English. That relationship reminded me there was more to life than death and destruction.

History isn't always written by the victor, sometimes it's written by the survivors.

At the end of the day, I wonder if our generation did enough to make it better for this generation through the decades or to help the kids of the '90's that found themselves on the streets. If maybe we should have told our stories decades ago so people would understand better, what we survived. It's easy to sit back now and second guess all my decisions from those days. 

Enough of my ramblings. Back to the salt mines for me.

[Jason Rimbaud]

On 7/19/2024 at 9:15 AM, P. E. Knapp said:

History isn't always written by the victor, sometimes it's written by the survivors.

Truer words were never spoken.

I think most of us gay kids that grew up in the late seventies to early nineties are some of the toughest SOB's on the planet. We had to survive against homophobia, (the real kind when people were killed and more often than not the authorities didn't even care. The kind that was all around us from our family members, our neighbors, our church's, our police departments, the justice system). We had to survive a deadly disease that no one really cared about, labeling it as the "gay disease" so good riddance to all those queers until the world saw little Ryan White waste away right in front of their eyes from this "gay disease", contracted from a blood transfusion. We had to survive as our friends, ex-boyfriends, hook-ups died all around us like some kind of horrific lottery drawing. We had to survive the long week as we waited for that test to come back to tell us if we are going to make it to our next birthday.

So yes boys and girls, we had to self-medicate to combat our self-loathing given to us from our society. Our stories are darker because our lives were darker still. I'm sure James, and others, don't even include most of the stuff that happened to them because those born after the nineties wouldn't even believe it or even comprehend the horror of our lives. 

That is why when we see young people yelling out for safe spaces, losing their minds over pronouns or misgendering, we look on in amusement. Not because we think it's stupid. but because we thank "god" every day that those are the only issues you have to rage against. I'll take being misgendered over having my ass kicked in the middle of the cafeteria as the teachers watched any day of the week. That was real violence.

So yes James, you do you, those aren't wrinkles on your face, that's a road map chronicling how many times you got kicked down and had to figure out a way to get back up. Write about sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, because what the kids don't understand, that's what they are standing on as they continue to force social changes to make it so that will never happen again.

End of my Rant

J

 

[ChromedOutCortex]

Referring back to @JamesSavik original post, depending on what you're writing I think you need to bring the real world into your stories. As so many have written their thoughts -- it's what we live with day in and day out and IMO often times, writers write about things that are close to them and you can't sugarcoat everything in life.

You are never glamorizing real life, simply stating what is there in front of us. If someone things of that as glamorizing, I'd love to live their life.

While I don't live it - I've seen the effect of drugs, homelessness and other situations in my community and when you write about these things you are bringing these social issues to the forefront. Maybe you're not trying to provide a moral to the story, or anything else of the sort but wanting to open peoples eyes to see what is happening around them.

I totally understand that people read as a way to escape - I love science fiction, and other types of stories for that reason but I also enjoy drama, slice of life type stories to help me think about the world around me.

I don't write as a way to talk about social justice but if it's in my story, and it get people to think and perhaps find a way to move forward -- isn't that a good thing?

[E K Stokes]

Nothing describes life like a slice of real drama, whether it's now or then, whether it draws parallels with your own experience or not, when it's real you can relate and unless you're made of stone it effects you, touches you, evokes raw emotion, joy and rage!

Everyone's got their opinions and sometimes writing is the art of challenging those ideas, not necessarily by confrontation, but by narrating a different point of view. There is only one problem, they -- the world, still impose their limits, making some realities off limits, sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, is okay for the rock n' roll, but the sex and drugs are often out of bounds even when they are real.

How would anyone avoid sex and drugs if they were a baby boomer living in the sixties, seventies, eighties... and if they are gay. How would anyone avoid the prejudice of those years which favoured the white middle classes and disfavoured the coloured foreigners. How would anyone avoid the anti-gay sentiment, which was more than a sentiment, it was a self-righteous proclamation that queers were perverts and evil scum that threatened the children. A sentiment that still exists today, with some people, in some countries.

What can you do about it? One way is to write...

[FV2112]

On 2/5/2024 at 2:28 AM, JamesSavik said:

Some of the feedback I get often chastises me for writing about naughty topics. It often goes something like this:

Ahem... Trying my Gunny Hartman voice:

Well, holy shit, son. He's a boomer... one of the youngest of that generation, barely making the cut. He lived in a world where people had better manners than to go on Jerry Springer and talk about their trailer trash lives. AIDS wasn't a thing until the early eighties and, to be perfectly honest, the response to it by everybody was a cluster f*ck. In those days, you didn't have coming out parties. You got coming out beatings, and often, coming out wasn't your choice at all. The amount of sexual ignorance of this generation was appalling.

The Internet, we hadn't invented it yet and cell phones didn't exist outside labs. Homosexuality was a deep, dark secret to kids who didn't have influencers on YouTube telling everybody that gay is OK. Looking back, we were doing the deed before we even knew what it was. We thought we had invented something really neat-o!

We never heard of child pornography, but it was common for known gay kids to be offered cash to pose for spicy pictures.

The world has changed, but people haven't. Now a curious kid can hop on the Internet and easily find pics of stuff I didn't even know was a thing until after college.

Kids today can easily discover what we walked into blind.

If you look hard, one of the frequently occurring themes in my writing is the danger of ignorance, 

Trust me on this. I learned it the hard way. What you don't know can hurt you badly.

There's going to be bad stuff in my writing, but it's there for a reason. That's the world I know/knew, and has plenty of dark places in it. I go there not to emphasize the dark, but the strength of character required to move on from these places and not get stuck there.

 

 

Honestly, this is something I think about a lot when it comes to my own project. It's not going to be this inoffensive slice-of-life romp with gay men as main characters. One of the main protags is a gay teenager attending high school in the late 2000s and early 2010s, people in those days said "That's so gay" when referring to something lame or stupid, people used the word f@ggot like there was no tomorrow. Having those words in my book does not justify or glorify the usage, that's quite literally how it was in those days. Believe me, I lived it.

This is really why "anti-" culture that you see on fanfic sites is so toxic. Just because you write about something doesn't mean it reflects on your morality as a human being.