Fuck, what a day. I don't usually start with profanity, but it's been one of those days.
Not a bad day, not by a long, cold stretch, but intense.
I started writing on a new series. Breaking my own rule, I opened with torture and attempted rape. I have strong feelings about opening with things that trigger trauma victims, especially since this is supposed to be fiction, you know, entertainment. And I don't find that sort of thing entertaining.
Violence to a certain extent can be entertaining if it's detached sufficiently from reality. People dancing around with swords (or in Masks, ancient firearms) and being violent in an archetypal way are not going to come off the same way to victims of violence as, for example depicting buildings coming down 9/11 style in "Cloverfield" did to 9/11 victims. Unless, you know, they were mugged and raped by the Three Musketeers. (Not intended to be funny but you know, it really kinda is. I'm a terrible person.)
I wrote the scenes with respect. I've never been raped, but I had a nasty close call in a remote area where, if my attacker decided that he might get in less trouble if he murdered me afterward, it would have taken a long time to find my body. I wasn't even out of high school. That's how long ago it was. But it still affected me. I don't have nightmares or PTSD symptoms. I don't have scars or injuries from it. But I knew him for several years before and he stalked me for a while after and he stole a bit of my innocence. Not innocence in the wide-eyed babe sort of way. But in the way that people innocently feel safe in their homes until some asshole busts in and wrecks the place and takes their stuff. Until it actually happens, burglary seems like a non-violent, fairly low-key crime. But victims of burglary report that they don't feel safe anymore, than they feel violated, afraid, hyper-vigilant. Some buy firearms, or a dog. Some move, or start neighborhood watch programs, or just suffer quietly until they heal and the trauma fades into a scar. Sound familiar?
So it was intense to write about my poor character going through this. I have friends who've been raped, and I've been on the edge of that cliff myself. It's hard to describe the fear and violation, and honestly, I didn't want to make it too real. Just real enough to respect reality and the sense of violation without turning it into some sort of sick celebration of horror. Not sure I'm explaining myself well, but I kind of want to preserve privacy, not of the character but the human condition and our vulnerabilities as living beings.
Violation. It's an overused word and so it has lost its power. It's overused because we don't have a lot of words for that feeling. It's also lost power because so many more people in the western world are safe. The ones who aren't probably aren't going to enjoy depictions of violence in books. They have enough in their lives. That's my guess, anyway.
While I'm doing this, I'm also pecking away at a trilogy that will be the sequel to The Lord Jester's Legacy. Because, apparently my brain doesn't have enough to do right now. It's tentatively titled The Descent to the Throne, but I haven't Googled it so I'm not sure if there's a series or book already called that. The first book's working title is Face of Hearts, which at the moment I can take or leave it.
And then I got to look at the design for the promo material for The Lord Jester's Legacy, including the cover for Innocence and Silence. Much better than those early covers. They've gotten thumbs up on facebook (I'm not on facebook btw, sorry) which makes me hope that they'll do well.
It's time to go home and do something useful, I guess. Be safe out there.