Guest Blogger: JA Konrath
Author JA Konrath is on a big ass blog tour to promote and prove/disprove the theory that blog tours are the new shit. We'll see how he fares...
Pushing the Envelope
by JA Konrath
I'm one of those people who thinks you can joke about anything. Even the most horrible things.
My reason is simple. Laughter is meant to be a stress reliever. We laugh at things we're afraid of, things that don't make sense, and when bad things happen to other people. It's how we're wired. That's why, whenever there is some big disaster, whenever someone famous dies, soon afterward the morbid jokes spring up.
But are there things too controversial, too taboo, to write about?
As long as there have been books, there have been people banning books. Society dictates morality, and throughout history writers have trod over that morality line.
Sometimes a restrictive government or society suppresses thoughts and ideas. Sometimes those thoughts and ideas are, to the majority of the population, offensive.
Personally, I don't believe ideas are harmful. They can certainly be distasteful. But an idea or thought, spoken or written, is not a deed. Deeds cause harm, not ideas.
There's a case that ideas and words may lead to harmful deeds, but then we get into the whole free will thing, and that's not what I'm hear to talk about.
I'm here to talk about pushing the envelope in fiction.
I'm a horror writer. Always have been. I have the distinction of winning the World Horror Con Gross Out Contest, where a bunch of writers have 90 seconds to make everyone in the room sick.
My Jack Daniels thrillers, though labeled mysteries, delve into the worst depths of human nature and feature some very nasty characters.
This March, my first horror novel is being released. It's called AFRAID, and I wrote it under the name Jack Kilborn. It's pretty extreme, and my bet is that 25% of the people who start it won't be able to finish it because it will freak them out, gross them out, shock them, or offend them.
But, oddly enough, I didn't really push the envelope with AFRAID. Yes, awful things happen. But I know a reader's imagination is worse than anything I can dream up. So when it came time to write a violent scene, I just offered the barest minimum, and let the reader fill in the blanks.
It's scary. I really tried to write the scariest novel of all time. But it isn't gratuitous.
There are several extreme horror writers, many of them friends of mine, who are quite good at being gratuitous. I admire their dedication to perversity, but I don't go there in my fiction.
And yet, there are two stories I've written that make me think perhaps I've gone too far.
On my website, www.JAKonrath.com, I have a bunch of freebies. One is a book of short stories called 55 PROOF. It features 55 of my shorts, most of them previously published in magazines, anthologies, and online.
Two of those stories push the envelope.
One of them is called THE CONFESSION. The story is written entirely in dialog. No description. No exposition. I don't even use speaker attribution. It's just two people talking.
Yet I've gotten email saying it's the most horrible, depraved thing ever written, and I'm the Antichrist for writing it.
Two people talking? How bad can that be?
Apparently, pretty bad. :)
The other story is called TRAILER SUCKS. It's a humorous vampire story.
Yeah, I said "humorous." It's twisted, and morally bankrupt, and pretty much just plain wrong, but it is written for laughs, and there are laughs there, underneath the truly despicable premise.
Those are my dark horses. Those are the most extreme things I've ever written. But they aren't gratuitous. They aren't graphic. They aren't racist, or pornographic, or politically inciting. They don't wallow in gore or debauchery.
It's the subject matter that is extreme. And it's only extreme in the reader's imagination, because I use my words sparingly.
You can get them for free here.
If you're brave enough, you can also download the first part of AFRAID at www.JackKilborn.com.
Remember. They're only words. Words can't hurt you.
Just keep telling yourself that while you're reading...
Pushing the Envelope
by JA Konrath
I'm one of those people who thinks you can joke about anything. Even the most horrible things.
My reason is simple. Laughter is meant to be a stress reliever. We laugh at things we're afraid of, things that don't make sense, and when bad things happen to other people. It's how we're wired. That's why, whenever there is some big disaster, whenever someone famous dies, soon afterward the morbid jokes spring up.
But are there things too controversial, too taboo, to write about?
As long as there have been books, there have been people banning books. Society dictates morality, and throughout history writers have trod over that morality line.
Sometimes a restrictive government or society suppresses thoughts and ideas. Sometimes those thoughts and ideas are, to the majority of the population, offensive.
Personally, I don't believe ideas are harmful. They can certainly be distasteful. But an idea or thought, spoken or written, is not a deed. Deeds cause harm, not ideas.
There's a case that ideas and words may lead to harmful deeds, but then we get into the whole free will thing, and that's not what I'm hear to talk about.
I'm here to talk about pushing the envelope in fiction.
I'm a horror writer. Always have been. I have the distinction of winning the World Horror Con Gross Out Contest, where a bunch of writers have 90 seconds to make everyone in the room sick.
My Jack Daniels thrillers, though labeled mysteries, delve into the worst depths of human nature and feature some very nasty characters.
This March, my first horror novel is being released. It's called AFRAID, and I wrote it under the name Jack Kilborn. It's pretty extreme, and my bet is that 25% of the people who start it won't be able to finish it because it will freak them out, gross them out, shock them, or offend them.
But, oddly enough, I didn't really push the envelope with AFRAID. Yes, awful things happen. But I know a reader's imagination is worse than anything I can dream up. So when it came time to write a violent scene, I just offered the barest minimum, and let the reader fill in the blanks.
It's scary. I really tried to write the scariest novel of all time. But it isn't gratuitous.
There are several extreme horror writers, many of them friends of mine, who are quite good at being gratuitous. I admire their dedication to perversity, but I don't go there in my fiction.
And yet, there are two stories I've written that make me think perhaps I've gone too far.
On my website, www.JAKonrath.com, I have a bunch of freebies. One is a book of short stories called 55 PROOF. It features 55 of my shorts, most of them previously published in magazines, anthologies, and online.
Two of those stories push the envelope.
One of them is called THE CONFESSION. The story is written entirely in dialog. No description. No exposition. I don't even use speaker attribution. It's just two people talking.
Yet I've gotten email saying it's the most horrible, depraved thing ever written, and I'm the Antichrist for writing it.
Two people talking? How bad can that be?
Apparently, pretty bad. :)
The other story is called TRAILER SUCKS. It's a humorous vampire story.
Yeah, I said "humorous." It's twisted, and morally bankrupt, and pretty much just plain wrong, but it is written for laughs, and there are laughs there, underneath the truly despicable premise.
Those are my dark horses. Those are the most extreme things I've ever written. But they aren't gratuitous. They aren't graphic. They aren't racist, or pornographic, or politically inciting. They don't wallow in gore or debauchery.
It's the subject matter that is extreme. And it's only extreme in the reader's imagination, because I use my words sparingly.You can get them for free here.
If you're brave enough, you can also download the first part of AFRAID at www.JackKilborn.com.
Remember. They're only words. Words can't hurt you.
Just keep telling yourself that while you're reading...
Comments
I'm definitely curious to hear people's thoughts on extreme horror.
The two most extreme books I've ever read are The Bighead, by Ed Lee, which is. quite literally, torture porn. But it is very tongue and cheek, and though disgusting and offensive, you could tell Lee was grinning when he wrote it.
Suing sexual violence, torture and degradation as an indictment against society is Hogg By Samuel R. Delany. This book has something to say, but it is almost unreadable as its non-stop depravity.
But the granddaddy of the depraved is DeSade, whose Justine still manages to make you wince and wonder "what the hell was wrong with that guy?" over 230 years later. Trust me, it's pretty sick, and completely makes you understand why the word 'sadism' was named after the guy.
How about you folks? What books do you consider too extreme?
However, in my books, I have no problem writing about it. In my newest work in progress, I find myself making that face-cringing expression for quite a bit of the story.
Shock value, but tamed, if you get my drift. I write just enough to place a very vivid picture in the readers' minds, but go deeper by leaving some of the really nasty stuff to the imagination.
Like Joe, I unequivocally believe the imagination is far worse than what MOST write about. Like Stephen King's earlier works, it was almost all imagination. Frightening.
I don't care for gratuitous gore or sadism. I much prefer it to have a point to the story. Just enough to get you pissed off at the bad guy (or gal).
And we all know how much fun being the antagonist is in our stories.
I also find humor in writing relieves the tension. I'm really not sure what a shrink would say to these posts…
Mary Duncan
A good example of what you're talking about is American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. It's shocking and grotesque, but it's also a brilliant satire.
I like what you had to say about how quickly we (the societal one, not the royal) attach humor to tragedy. Morbid emotional detachment for the win!
What I think is pushing something to or past the limit is when someone puts a person or a group of people down - not just joking, like comedians like Carlos Mencia, who picks on everyone - but really putting them down to the point you are reminded of someone like Hitler.
Well, they're just being ridiculous. Have you ever read anything the Antichrist wrote? The man's over forty and he writes nothing but self-indulgent emo poetry that sounds like it was written by a thirteen year old. It's embarrassing, no wonder the Apocalypse never came.