Too Dark?
So Loving Husband and I were on the way home from New Jersey, and I pitched him a story idea. (Yes, I pitch ideas to my man. This is sort of like foreplay.) In the story that I pitched, a baby gets killed near the end of the tale.
When I was done, he said, "Wow, that's dark."
So that got me to pondering: What's too dark? Is there such a thing? Are taboos meant to be broken (in the literary world)? Or are they there for a reason?
Yes, this is what I think about on a Saturday night.
Thoughts?
When I was done, he said, "Wow, that's dark."
So that got me to pondering: What's too dark? Is there such a thing? Are taboos meant to be broken (in the literary world)? Or are they there for a reason?
Yes, this is what I think about on a Saturday night.
Thoughts?
Comments
Reading about a baby dying would have depressed me before I had my son. Now I would bawl like a little girl and seek out my chocolate stash. Yes, it's happened. There were a few books I've read recently that killed a baby/child/small person who could be confused for one of the aforementioned. The scenes depressed me, but I didn't quit reading the books because of them. Each scene was well written and fit into the plot. There weren't dead kids used merely for shock value--they existed because the villain was pure evil (thanks, Rob Thurman, for the nightmares!!!) or because the world the characters lived in was that formidable (Jordan Summers' world makes me appreciate my life!!!).
Short story long, if it feels right and it is necessary to the plot, I say do it. Be respectful, like you would for any dead body, but do it. I've read your books, and I believe you can do make it work.
Thanks for the encouragement, Jackie!
I read a couple of books where babies died and the first time, I was pregnant and it was really hard to read, but I reread the book, it was still horrible, but I saw that is was so necessary for the book, that is would have been a disappointment for it not to have been written. So, you decide, it is not whether someone lives or dies in the end, no matter their age, it is whether or not that book is made or broken by that tragedy. Good luck!
When I was pregnant, I watch the Duke game on TV...and one of the players got hurt, bad. His mother ran onto the court to help him, and I started bawling my eyes out. Sigh. I was **such** a sap!
If I want violence and death for the sake of violence and death, I'll watch a teen slasher movie. In books, I want more than that--both as a writer and a reader.
In the story I'm thinking of, the baby **has** to die. That's the whole freaking point. Still, it makes every Mom vibe in me want to go "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!"
Well, I pitched the story. Let's see what the editor says. :D
Plus, as a non-breeder, I think the horrifying little moppets get it too easy in fiction.
Hey -- has anyone else here noticed how some middle-grade novels start off relatively light, and then by around book three, WHAM, people start dying? Is that because the readers are older? Or something else entirely?
And I confess to preferring really dark stuff, even though when I start to write it I keep thinking people will think I'm awful for writing stuff like that.
Thanks for all the comments, everyone! I haven't heard from the editor yet. I'll keep you posted. :D