No writing yesterday…but there is a reason

Well, as you may notice, I didn’t write at all yesterday.  My wordcount meters are both down significantly, especially the 7 day one.  Grr…I will get them back up before too long!  New goal: get both meters in the red by the end of the week.

However, I have a reason for not writing, and it’s not a lame excuse that such-and-such happened outside my control and I had to put my writing on hold.  It’s a lot more complex than that.

Basically, the scene that I’m stopped at has some graphic content, and I didn’t feel that it would be appropriate to write that scene on a Sunday.  At the same time, I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t write this scene at all.  In terms of the story, I think that this scene is necessary, but I can see people taking it the wrong way when they read it.  I can also see myself feeling somewhat embarrassed when my friends read it.  I’m not usually the kind of person that avoids controversy, but this is something where I’m not sure how to proceed.

Basically, here’s what I have in mind: Tristen, the main character, is on a mission to find his birth family.  He’s left behind this futuristic Bedouin camp that’s raised him, except that the sheikh of this camp will do anything to get Tristen to stay.  The first leg of Tristen’s journey is a pilgrimage to this famous temple, and the sheikh sends his daughter with Tristen, ostensibly because she want’s to make the pilgrimage too, but won’t have the opportunity in the future.  Really, though, the girl has conspired with the Sheikh to try and seduce Tristen to convince him to stay.

That’s the background, but it really has nothing to do with this specific scene.  In the scene I have in mind, Tristen and the girl are in a bar/restaurant halfway around the world, way far away from home, when this graphic performance occurs on the stage at this place.  Basically, there is this major religious cult in this part of the world whose priestesses are basically holy prostitutes, like many Ancient Near East goddess cults.

The scene would involve some suggestive nudity and would raise the already existing sexual tension between Tristen and the daughter of this Sheikh.  Basically, he’s been raised in this ultra-moralistic conservative environment, so the dance of this temple prostitute shocks him to the point where he doesn’t know what to think about it.  He gets these images in his mind that he can’t get out, and he feels confused, guilty, passionate, and just…well, weird.  This confusion gets him to the point where he doesn’t know what he’s doing with this girl who’s supposed to seduce him, so that she is able to break through his resistance and almost succeed in getting him to stay (and all that that implies).

Also, I want to throw this scene in to show the moral depravity of the society that Tristen passes through.  By demonstrating just how graphically immoral the mainstream society has become, I’m hoping to show who Tristen really is–a morally upright person.  I want to have this contrast in the story, even if it does mean writing a scene that might cause a lot of LDS readers (and even some of my friends) to throw the book across the room.

So how do I do this?  How can I write a scene that is graphic and yet not pornographic?  What do you think about my ideas here?  What should I do–and not do?  Why?

By Joe Vasicek

Joe Vasicek is the author of more than twenty science fiction books, including the Star Wanderers and Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus. He claims Utah as his home.

9 comments

  1. Joe, really? If you can’t write the scene on Sunday what does that tell you? You do have to live with your conscience the other six days of the week. Yeah….that’s all I have to say. You already knew I was going to say that though, so I don’t know that that helps you in your moral dilemma.

  2. But you see, one of the things I don’t like in fiction is when the writer waters down evil to the point where it isn’t really evil anymore. Some of my favorite fiction portrays characters struggling against real, brutal, graphic evil and immorality, and when the main character wins (or at least isn’t destroyed by the evil), that makes it all the better, IMO. I want to do a story like that, but…I don’t know how to go about it without crossing lines, I guess.

  3. Sorry, OLL, I’m with Gamila here. What’s more important–your morals and your conscience, or writing a good story? I’d rather see you in heaven than on the best-seller’s list. 😉

    My personal rule: if I’d be embarrassed if my mother read it, don’t write it.

    However, I also have to argue with your premise that it’s either-or. You can’t tell me that there aren’t powerful books out there without graphic sex scenes. You’re a good writer–get the idea across some other way.

    Maybe it’s just a case of “tell, don’t show.” 🙂

  4. I’m also with Drek and Gamila here. I would probably put the book down when reading this. I’ve heard your description of what your favorite fiction is, and it’s nothing I ever want to read.

    Along with what Drek says, is it really “watering down evil” if you just don’t describe all of it? Imply instead of being brazen?

  5. At the same time, what about Brandon Sanderson’s novels? You have to admit, the violence there can be pretty graphic. It’s not only violence, either–Lord Venture in The Well of Ascension is a very sick man, especially with regard to his concubines. Sanderson doesn’t dwell on it, but there is some nudity and suggestiveness in that novel. My question is, how did he get it right? You didn’t throw his book across the room, yet he had these controversial elements in his book. What can I learn from this?

  6. 1 – it’s not very detailed. Yes, there are some brutal massacres. But generally, the level of detail on those massacres isn’t very much. Sanderson doesn’t talk all the time about the amount of blood or of body organs getting everywhere.

    2 – it’s not dwelt on. Yes, there are concubines, but he just tells that instead of really showing it. When there’s nudity, he just says “her breast hung out” he doesn’t go into a paragraph of detail about how it looked.

    3 – He handles it in a way that it isn’t glorified. His protagonists are morally upstanding and learn what the horrors are and avoid them.

    4 – I am more turned off by sex/seductions than I am with violence. As soon as clothes start to get pulled off, that’s when I start wanting to skip the scene. Hence, if this girl is along for the ride just to seduce him, she’s going to be very unlikable for me.

  7. Well, it’s a little bit different than that. You see, this girl who is traveling with Tristen, she is supposed to seduce Tristen, but really she isn’t very good at it. After all, she’s lived a really sheltered life and hasn’t been outside of the home camp all that much. Tristen ends up falling for her more out of a combination of accidents than any concerted effort on her part. When he finds out that she’s scared and hesitant, it causes him to pull back really quickly, and then he finds out that the sheikh was just manipulating them both. This is a really big blow to Tristen, because all his life he thought that the sheikh and the desert tribesmen were upright, moral people. He starts to question whether anyone in the world is truly good, and the whole thing leaves him confused and angry. That’s what I’m going for.

  8. Yeah, I think the main key is the amount of detail and the emphasis used.

    For instance, you can talk about a fight and someone slashes a body in half. That’s rather violent, if you think about it. But since I didn’t dwell on it, you don’t really think about it. But if I took a paragraph to describe exactly what was cut, which blood vessels burst, which bones snapped, etc, then the same action is suddenly a whole lot more violent/graphic.

    Same goes with sexual scenes. The bible has lots of them but since it’s often lame sentences (“And he knew her”), no one really realizes it. Then you get the romance novels that spend chapters on scenes the bible explained in one sentence. Ick.

    Also, I’ve read a lot of books about the Holocaust and the horror that caused, but the ones I liked the best were the ones that didn’t get all ‘realistic’ about the violence and horror they saw. Instead, they used understatements and brief description that said a whole lot more. My favorite is a italian novel called “E’ un uomo…” Never goes into detail, but the way he uses his understatements let you know how horrific it was.

  9. Read “Crossbearer, a Memoir of Faith,” by Joe Eszterhas. Author wrote scripts for 16 movies produced in Hollywood, including “Jagged Edge” and “Basic Instincts.” King of sex/violence in movie scripts. Converted, looks back and forward in this memoir. EXCELLENT READ. I disagree with him at times but what a personal transformation!! And the backlash he got from his colleagues…

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