I am often confronted with the question by my wife, "Don't you feel bad about...you know, the violence in your book? What if someone GETS OFF to it? Or, what if someone made a movie from your book. Would you watch it? Would you be OK with them showing that kinda stuff to potentially your parents, or kids, or anyone in general, straight from your sick mind?"
My answer? I don't know.
In American Media, violence is much more acceptable than sex and nudity. Why? I mean, wouldn't we want a bunch of sex-o-maniacs running around rather than terrorists and murderers?
Not to say that media makes the choices for an individual--though that is an interesting topic for another blog post.
We censor language more than we do violence. Cartoons often have bloody violence and even if they are less graphic, is graphic really all that matters? What about concept? After all, writing is primarily conceptual. "Graphic Writing" is merely how much conceptual imagery we give a reader from his/her own head. We didn't feed the reader anything they didn't already have available to visualize, because the reader wouldn't have understood if they didn't already have the tools to imagine it.
Or is that my cop out as an author?
If someone goes and...not to give real spoilers...face rapes toothless people because of my novel. Is that my fault? Shouldn't I feel guilty?
When writing anything, conflict is necessary. To show the light, you have to show the dark. As any graphic artist will tell you, contrast is far more powerful than a bunch of bright colors everywhere overwhelming the senses. So, the darker I go the lighter I can show, right?
Though with that logic, why not show all the gore and sex possible to children, just so that they can see how good their life is.
I hope nothing bad comes from writing Murder Genes. Because the truth is that I will feel guilty if something bad does happen. But if something good comes from it as I hope it will--should I feel proud? Is the result the final measurement of a good, ethical and moral use of sex and violence in a book?
Maybe I should have figured it out before releasing Murder Genes. Maybe I'm just irresponsible.
I don't know, you tell me.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
"Murder Genes" Receives A Particularly Kick-Butt Review
I love reviews, negative and positive. Negative reviews give you something to work on, positive reviews are reward for hard work paid off. Of course, positive reviews are what every author ultimately hopes for, but on the journey of learning to write--positive anything is few and far between. But it does happen, and for me the positive is happening more and more frequently. In this piece and my other published works.
This review gave me enough seritonin receptor stimulation that I had to repost it.
Course, the author in me wanted to point out how to properly spell "following" and where vs were, but that's me being author. I wish I had advice to other writers about how to get positive reviews, especially reviews that make ME want to read my own book, but I think as with all things that the answer is simple. Write a good book. Do a good job. There is no shortcut.
Mikael
Check it out:
In the future they have determined that genetics lead to a predisposition of character, and choose to ship everybody that caries the so called 'murder gene' into a large walled city. Inside the citizens have chosen to live under the rules of a game. Enter the main chara, who is there to shake their world to the very core, of course.
The book splits into two stories really early on, one fallowing the father on the inside,the other fallowing his son, who's story line in very different. Both of which I would have been more than happy to read as separate novels. In many ways they did seem like two different novels in the same universe.
Much of the overlying themes dealt with why people would kill, so much to the point where the main chara, Jay, seemed haunted by his choices early on. He was excepting of his actions, but careful of justifying them. In a dark and twisted world of dog eat dog, one must kill. Quickly adapting to the circumstances, he quickly becomes a key player in their game, in many ways changing the rules.
The opening to this was so very violent! The main chara is no stranger to pain in this.
The cast of characters where well rounded and complete on both sides of the story. But, I do have to say that half way through the fathers story line took a HUGE sideways slant. In such a strange way, I'm not sure if it made the story better, or if I can ever understand why the author did it (I really want to read an interview about this book). It was entertaining though, so far out there, controversial, unexpected, just fucking bizarre. If you can, try and read this before some jerk off spoils it!
If you haven't noticed yet, I haven't said anything about the son's story yet. I don't really want to talk about it, I would have read the book just for that story alone. It was very good, and provided some decent weight to the book.
This book is going to go down as very controversial for the content. Both for the content, and the surprise change in the middle. If you like hyper-violent fiction, read this!
This review gave me enough seritonin receptor stimulation that I had to repost it.
Course, the author in me wanted to point out how to properly spell "following" and where vs were, but that's me being author. I wish I had advice to other writers about how to get positive reviews, especially reviews that make ME want to read my own book, but I think as with all things that the answer is simple. Write a good book. Do a good job. There is no shortcut.
Mikael
Check it out:
Every couple of years I read something that seems perfectly suited to my tastes, and this delivered.
The first thing I would like to say is that this was absolutely savage.
The first thing I would like to say is that this was absolutely savage.
In the future they have determined that genetics lead to a predisposition of character, and choose to ship everybody that caries the so called 'murder gene' into a large walled city. Inside the citizens have chosen to live under the rules of a game. Enter the main chara, who is there to shake their world to the very core, of course.
The book splits into two stories really early on, one fallowing the father on the inside,the other fallowing his son, who's story line in very different. Both of which I would have been more than happy to read as separate novels. In many ways they did seem like two different novels in the same universe.
Much of the overlying themes dealt with why people would kill, so much to the point where the main chara, Jay, seemed haunted by his choices early on. He was excepting of his actions, but careful of justifying them. In a dark and twisted world of dog eat dog, one must kill. Quickly adapting to the circumstances, he quickly becomes a key player in their game, in many ways changing the rules.
The opening to this was so very violent! The main chara is no stranger to pain in this.
The cast of characters where well rounded and complete on both sides of the story. But, I do have to say that half way through the fathers story line took a HUGE sideways slant. In such a strange way, I'm not sure if it made the story better, or if I can ever understand why the author did it (I really want to read an interview about this book). It was entertaining though, so far out there, controversial, unexpected, just fucking bizarre. If you can, try and read this before some jerk off spoils it!
If you haven't noticed yet, I haven't said anything about the son's story yet. I don't really want to talk about it, I would have read the book just for that story alone. It was very good, and provided some decent weight to the book.
This book is going to go down as very controversial for the content. Both for the content, and the surprise change in the middle. If you like hyper-violent fiction, read this!
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