How far is too far?

[Marburg]

That's two people so far in the thread that mentioned adding a disclaimer...add one if you like, but let me explain why it's a bad idea:

First, I understand the logic of people who think one should be there as a warning, but it actually has the opposite effect. If you happen to be the type of person that is easily offended or fears offending others, then putting a warning on your thread is for you. If, however, you are the type of person that knows that a disclaimer draws readers like moths to a flame, don't bother adding one.

I used to be convinced that most people added their disclaimers just to up their read-count. While that's still mostly the case, as time goes on, I think more & more are adding 'em out of a fear-based, 'legal-style' obligation to cover their asses.

Screw that.

If a story calls for sex & violence you put it in & you don't think twice about it. Period. All you really gotta
not do is write a scene with detail specifically to make the reader pop a woody (& that applies to both sex and violence)

Basically, don't write anything that will screw up a good thing for the rest of us by bringing the admin eye over the RP section & get them starting to have to chat about having to add more restrictions.

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[Not Espi]

server is in germany now right?

we should be fine with male DP scenes?



just dont overuse penis, ben. k?

[Taneru]

It is far better to write what is needed to get the idea across and let the reader's imagination do the rest than to describe it in the untmost detail.

A story is not something that should be laid out in absolute detail, down to the exact number of hairs on your character's head.

You have to think: "Why am I writing this scene like I am? Do I need to go into gory detail of every blood vessel slowly leaking their contents across the deck, or can I assume my reader understands the concept of bleeding? When a bullet hits my character in the arm, do I really need to describe it tearing through muscle and flesh and clothing as it impacts, possibly shattering as it strikes bone and splits into fragments which burrow deeper into the flesh, or can I assume that my reader knows that when someone is shot, it hurts?"

Detail is nice and all, but unnecessary detail just drags the story down.

If the wound or whatever is intended to be a central plot point, something completely life-changing for that character or whatever, fine. That is a situation where you might want to go into heavy detail.

If it's just a small wound in the middle of a frantic battle scene, tons of detail can actually hinder your story drastically. If you have an action scene, people are going to want to find out what happens, not read about a knife cleaving through each and every muscle in someone's leg.

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Characters
Alan Markson: The Hellfire Legion's Lord Commander
The Perihelion: Freeport Four's guardian, and yet much more. Missing and assumed Lost with all hands.
Eric Dresmund: Junker, smuggler, thief. Last seen drunk on Beaumont
Vayrn Wyard: IMG Recon pilot turned Neo-Terran Captain. Last location unknown

[jxie93]

I can't really tell you what's enough and what's too much, that's for you and your readers to decide. Implicit scenes of a sexual nature up to bodily motion is fine by me, as long as you don't touch the keywords. I don't really have a problem with violence as I've read and seen various degrees of it but to be safe I'd rather go with what the community thinks as acceptable.

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[Taneru]

I can't really tell you what's enough and what's too much, that's for you and your readers to decide. Implicit scenes of a sexual nature up to bodily motion is fine by me, as long as you don't touch the keywords. I don't really have a problem with violence as I've read and seen various degrees of it but to be safe I'd rather go with what the community thinks as acceptable.

I agree.

From personal experince based on the many books I've read over the years, actually describing a sex scene in detail usually tends to ruin that part of the book, if not the entire thing, for me.
The moment you start describing genitals meeting genitals, it goes from "oh, character development" to "Ugh, just another porn novel."

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Characters
Alan Markson: The Hellfire Legion's Lord Commander
The Perihelion: Freeport Four's guardian, and yet much more. Missing and assumed Lost with all hands.
Eric Dresmund: Junker, smuggler, thief. Last seen drunk on Beaumont
Vayrn Wyard: IMG Recon pilot turned Neo-Terran Captain. Last location unknown

[Marburg]

Listen to Cab & Ed:cool:

Just to add (& let's be honest- to bump) Think back to a scene that stuck with you after you read it. Have you re-read it lately? Odds are, it had more tone & style than descriptions. Clive Barker for example, can spend 3 pages describing every tiny detail of a slit throat, while someone like Quentin Tarantino can offend you more by not showing you someone getting their brains splattered on the back windshield of a car.

When I said 'Less is more' earlier, that is what I meant.

I can write about dogs pissing blood in pint glasses & people drinking it down, people dying in red puddles from a hemorragic virus, all while people are busy getting it on with hot, sweaty monkey sex, but I can do it with a modicum of class.:lol:

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[Hawk]

Walker said it best I think. I seldom write about sex. When I write about violence or throw in bad language, I first ask, is this necessary? Does this have to be here to make the story work.

There is a lot of sex, violence and profanity that is gratuitous. Sometimes you just can't make the statement you want or portray the image you want without doing it.

I rode an ambulance for thirteen years and spent a lot of time in a firehouse. I won't get grossed out or offended by profanity. I also think we should try to hold ourselves to a higher standard. If it's necessary do it. If it's not, why do you really want it there?

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[tansytansey]

Keep it to what is tasteful. If you have trouble with that, try writing the scene with someone else in the room, or at work, or in a public library.

You don't need to describe every detail when you're writing, because you have two kinds of audience members: People who have experienced what you're writing, and people who have not.

The people who have experienced it won't need to have everything described to them because they'll already know, and the people who have not wouldn't know the difference, and thus won't particularly care about missing details.

Scenes overflowing with description are boring to read any how, you should be focusing more on your story than unneeded detail.

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|Ashes and Draya's Epic Adventure|Ashes "Nighthawk" Yotaka|Nightfall|Eva Jones|
[5:50:49 PM] JakeSG (William Darkmoor) says: I like you, Ashes. You're more cynical than God.

[Boss]

It was said earlier.

Less is more.

Implied violence that leaves the reader to compose the result with their own imagination will always be more terrifying than carefully crafting a scene detailed to the specks of dirt under the corpse's fingernails.

Unless it's a CSI novel, in which case the specks of dirt are somewhat important.

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Just go play the game and have fun dammit.

all in all the conclusion is that disco doesn't need antagonist factions, it doesn't need phantoms, it doesn't need nomads, it doesn't need coalition and it doesn't need many other things, no AIs, the game is hijacked by morons to confuse the game with their dickwaving generic competition games mixed up with troll-of-the-day.

[TFinnegan]

I am a writer. I get PAID to do it.
If I may, a VERY famous writer once wrote an essay on 'how to write'. In it, he delves into the subject of details, and in fact that chapter by itelf should answer your initial post title/question.

Allow me to paraphrase...

Like so many of the great writers know, half of the game is letting the reader do the hard work. Too much detail turns a 'story' into an 'essay'.

While it's a fine sort of ego-masturbation for an author to give every detail, as if his readers are incapable of thinking for themselves, excessive detail can take a story, which is written to be read by a reader, out of the reader's hands and head and make it more of a show-and-tell than an experience for the reader.

For example, Writing;
"The dark brown Victorian table which had rich hues of antiqued wood, lathe-turned legs and hand-carved lion's claw feet, each holding a crystal sphere, worn opaque with age, sat in the rectangular dining room with two doors leading into it. One from the kitchen and the other from the study where Richard sat, looking at the table through the french double doors. On it was a blood-red tablecloth, hand stitched in gold paisleys and running vines, leaves and grape bunches. Offset slightly from the center was a mint-green frosted glass bowl, an art-deco piece from somewhere in California, whcih was filled with a banana, two oranges, a pair of apples, a pear, and some strawberries."
-can certainly fill pages, it makes the whole thing a dissertation, and fails utterly to invite the reader into it.
Instead, allow the reader some credit, and let them make the story thier own, an experience for them, not at them.

Instead try this:
"Richard looked at the antique table in the dining room. A bowl of fruit sat off-center on the red and gold tablecloth."
You can still get the same picture acress.
Only THIS way, the reader brings his or her experiences into it, and for each reader then, this table will look different, but for each reader, it will also look 'right'.

That said, some of the greatest horror writers, Lovecraft, Barker, King, among others, have left the truly gory and scary details completely out. Nothing is quite as scary as the unknown. Show the reader the aftermath, or let them hear the screams of pain, and thier imagination will run wild. FAR more intensely than any 'preaching of scene' you can do at them.

Here's another example, this one of 'hidden' or 'assumed' gore...
"...He was being dragged by the armpits, his bonds gone. Blind and unable to lift his head, he bobbed between two men as he tried to gather his feet beneath him. Gunfire erupted in his ear, and hot spent shells danced off his head and back. Answering shots were fired from somewhere nearby, one hand dissapeared from his armpit and something wet and warm splashed across his side. Bullets dink-dink-dinked off of a bulkhead nearby, and he was unceremoniously dumped to the deck.
More gunfire. More Pain. Darkness..."

Obviously one of the guys carrying the main character just took some hits. Did his neck explode at the jugular? Did his intestines and half-digested food erupt from his belly?
Who knows?
I'm sure that was different for everyone who read it.
Either way, it was effective and allowed the reader to decide, while still getting the author's point across.

Anyway, I know I'm going a bit off here...
I guess I'm just reiterating alot of what was said above me...
Is it NECESSARY?
Or can you trust your reader's worst thoughts to do your work for you?
Only you know the answer to that.

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