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I’m one of those oddballs who actually think it’d be a good idea to read something super terrifying and come out without any scars. Then, my super smart self ends up damaged and scarred and things that there are criminals hiding under my bed and scary men with guns peeking out through my open closet doors. I blame this all to those fantastically written adventure novels about terrorists (*cough cough* Andrew Klavan *cough cough*).
I’m also one of those oddballs who think it’d be a good idea to plot a mystery thriller type of novel which would not only keep me up for hours and hours because I’d be much too frightened to sleep, but it’d also give my readers a panic attack because it’s completely pee-your-pants scary.
And, I’m also one of those oddballs who thinks that I’m going to finish with one thing and end up with something completely different. So, the story that I intended to scare the living daylights out of people will really end up to be a narrative about unicorns that puke rainbows and have butterflies shooting from their diamond horn.
So, really, I just wanted to talk to other people who are writing thrillers/mysteries/scary-adventure type of things. And I wanted to see how far you take your characters (like, we’re talking murder and torture) and how far you’d be willing to go with such a topic.
Well I’m not exactly the kind of person who enjoys reading something that terrifying, at least not that terrifying in a dark, spine chilling, twisted sort of way. So… I don’t have a ton of ideas on this.
But… you did mention torture. I’m not big into graphic details of anything disgusting, but that doesn’t mean I’m against having anything disgusting like that in your story. So, I do occasionally use torture. (I write fantasy, by the way).
I would not use torture if it were good for nothing but shocking the reader. But I have found that there is no bond between reader and character so strong as the trauma bond, and one of the best, surest ways to cement that bond is to take the character through torture. Again, I don’t like describing the blood. I don’t like mentioning bones cracking or ligaments snapping or skin splitting or anything like that. I primarily focus on what the character is feeling mentally— his thought process, how he prepares himself to endure torment in his heart, etc. I also sometimes take the POV of the tormentor, just because. 😛But I would say that torture scenes are best kept to a level minimum. A surplus will cheapen them, and eventually just become sickening. You want the reader to return to these scenes again and again, because they are rare and precious and terrifying. And they won’t do that if they’ve been thoroughly disgusted by the details gone into or the regularity of this type of scene.
My two cents.
…but you do want some details or it won’t seem like torture. Just give them a starting point. Your readers can imagine the rest.
I’d say go with it for torture and murder and suicide and all that stuff. But who wants a nightmare? Don’t give your reader a nightmare.
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Yes— exactly. Of course you need some details— give the readers a starting point, and guide them throughout as you would with any other scene, but my point is you don’t have to take every agonizing turn of the rack, every sizzle of the branding iron, or every snap of the lash in slow motion. That is conducive to nothing but stomachaches.
And thank you, but I have plenty of those as it is. 😛
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