Arrogantcur
10-14-2009, 01:00 PM
Some of the time. Along with a pantheon of others who have the fates of the DC characters in their hands like Johns (in fact, mostly Johns :wink: ), Busiek, Morrison, etc.
This is something I've been thinking about for a long time, and something I wanted to post about, but didn't get around to until today. There is an actual question I will ask, which I am building up to.
All of us have read stories that didn't turn out the way we wanted. We wish that things had turned out differently, and from all I have seen that is why a lot of people write fan fiction; they want to write a story where Fry and Leela got together, or where Gwen Stacy didn't die, or whatever the case may be. They say to themselves "I don't like this story, so I'm going to make a new one."
Often it's not very good. Sometimes it is good. But in many cases, it's born out of people's need to have more control than they do over things that they care about.
So I'm puzzled by some of the things that Gail has said about it being difficult for her to write certain things, to make this or that happen to a particular character. Most notably, she has said it was very hard for her to write the scene in which Scandal horribly tortures Pistolera. More recently, she said that it was hard for her to write something else, although I forget what. I'm pretty sure that it involved something bad happening to another character, either in the past or in an upcoming issue.
Here's my question: if writing a particular scene actually makes you upset, why not write it differently?
As writers go, I'm an amateur and a dilettante, and if I did it for a living I might understand. But, possibly since I don't do it for a living, I don't understand. When I've written, even when I've written about bad things happening to characters I like, I've never actually managed to upset myself. Part of that, I'm sure, is because a big part of being horrified or upset by something is dealing with the unexpected, and when I have been the writer I have known what to expect. The other part of it may be an obstacle to writing the best stories I possibly can, although I've never thought of it as such before: whatever I've done to a character--whether that character has been forced to freeze his own arm solid and break it off, or whether that character has been turned into a cockroach and left in a forest to be eaten while visibly distraught over his plight, or whether the character has been imprisoned and subjected to conditions which would certainly drive anybody mad given enough time--I've never done anything to a character that I had trouble coping with. I could have done worse, sure, but I didn't want to. And since I controlled what happened, and since I thought each story worked fine without me writing anything that was hard for me to read afterwards, let alone upsetting, I didn't.
If I did write something that was upsetting for me--if I thought of the absolute worst thing that could happen to a character and then forced myself to write a story in which it happened and go into as much detail as I could--would that result in a better story? (Assuming, of course, that I was able to write worth a damn to begin with.) I don't know.
I guess I have two more questions. Gail, first of all, what makes it so hard for you to write stories or scenes like that, when you know what's coming up--when, as the thread title says, you control what's coming up--and the elements of shock and surprise which affect the reader aren't a factor? And second, if it is that hard for you, do you think that the quality of your stories would suffer if you decided to avoid writing the kinds of scenes that made you feel really terrible?
This is something I've been thinking about for a long time, and something I wanted to post about, but didn't get around to until today. There is an actual question I will ask, which I am building up to.
All of us have read stories that didn't turn out the way we wanted. We wish that things had turned out differently, and from all I have seen that is why a lot of people write fan fiction; they want to write a story where Fry and Leela got together, or where Gwen Stacy didn't die, or whatever the case may be. They say to themselves "I don't like this story, so I'm going to make a new one."
Often it's not very good. Sometimes it is good. But in many cases, it's born out of people's need to have more control than they do over things that they care about.
So I'm puzzled by some of the things that Gail has said about it being difficult for her to write certain things, to make this or that happen to a particular character. Most notably, she has said it was very hard for her to write the scene in which Scandal horribly tortures Pistolera. More recently, she said that it was hard for her to write something else, although I forget what. I'm pretty sure that it involved something bad happening to another character, either in the past or in an upcoming issue.
Here's my question: if writing a particular scene actually makes you upset, why not write it differently?
As writers go, I'm an amateur and a dilettante, and if I did it for a living I might understand. But, possibly since I don't do it for a living, I don't understand. When I've written, even when I've written about bad things happening to characters I like, I've never actually managed to upset myself. Part of that, I'm sure, is because a big part of being horrified or upset by something is dealing with the unexpected, and when I have been the writer I have known what to expect. The other part of it may be an obstacle to writing the best stories I possibly can, although I've never thought of it as such before: whatever I've done to a character--whether that character has been forced to freeze his own arm solid and break it off, or whether that character has been turned into a cockroach and left in a forest to be eaten while visibly distraught over his plight, or whether the character has been imprisoned and subjected to conditions which would certainly drive anybody mad given enough time--I've never done anything to a character that I had trouble coping with. I could have done worse, sure, but I didn't want to. And since I controlled what happened, and since I thought each story worked fine without me writing anything that was hard for me to read afterwards, let alone upsetting, I didn't.
If I did write something that was upsetting for me--if I thought of the absolute worst thing that could happen to a character and then forced myself to write a story in which it happened and go into as much detail as I could--would that result in a better story? (Assuming, of course, that I was able to write worth a damn to begin with.) I don't know.
I guess I have two more questions. Gail, first of all, what makes it so hard for you to write stories or scenes like that, when you know what's coming up--when, as the thread title says, you control what's coming up--and the elements of shock and surprise which affect the reader aren't a factor? And second, if it is that hard for you, do you think that the quality of your stories would suffer if you decided to avoid writing the kinds of scenes that made you feel really terrible?