There was a whole list, but I can only remember these three:
1) Never harm a child
2) Never write a comedy about another race or gender
3) Never kill a pet
Obviously there are movies that have managed to break these "rules", but the general consensus was that if you wanted to actually SELL your script, you should avoid those things like the plague.
I've been thinking about this list a lot as I struggle through my current novel.
You see, I want my villain to do something absolutely horrific...which in turn would be the motivation for another character to do something equally horrific, but if I do that, I fear I'll never sell the book. (It's not an unfounded fear since I ran the idea past my agent and she agreed.)
I want to sell this book AND I want to make it the best story possible. I haven't figured out a way to reconcile those two desires yet.
You'd think I could figure it out. After all, Maggie Lee in CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN gets paid to kill people, but most readers would say I've managed to make her a fairly sympathetic (even likable) character.
Still, I'm stumped at the moment.
What are the kinds of things you'd never read? What makes you put down a book and never pick it up again? What sorts of things make you tell your friends "don't read that book"?
11 comments:
What makes me put down a book? Bad writing, that's what! You say you came across these "rules" aeons ago. So isn't it time you started ignoring them? Watch "The Kumars at No.42." Read "Dancing to the End of Love" (Adrian White/Kindle) I think the rules you were given are, frankly, daft.
Parent/Child affair = Gross and never read the author again.
(If the child were raped, I can see a revenge story happening.)
I hear ya. I say go for it anyway and see how it turns out. In the book I'm currently working on (urban fantasy with genies), one of the baddies gets transformed into a dog but the MC still has to get information out of her. That was a hard scene to write, but squirming out of it would've been a disservice to the story.
As for things I won't read, I almost put down JD Robb's Naked in Death. Molestation - even in flashback. Don't wanna read it. But I muddled through. Also, killing off a character for no good reason ticks me off.
I have a long list of things that turn me off in a book. Cruelty to animals is probably at the top. At the bottom, but still a deal breaker for me is the phrase 'coming of age' - use that in a blurb and I'm out the door. It's a cliche that irks me to no end.
Anything written purely for shock value. There's enough in the news. I
don't want to be entertained reading about that stuff.
Lucy -- I think that breaking the rules in writing and breaking the rules in selling something are two different concerns. Not that doing the first will make the second "impossible" but it will make it that much more difficult.
There are, as you pointed out, definitely exceptions to the "rules".
I had sooo many people tell me they wouldn't touch my book THE FIRST VICTIM because of the things that were done to teenage girls. I'm very aware of this tricky tightrope I'm walking with my current project.
Charlie -- I can see adding that one to the list!
B.E. -- I'm with you on killing off characters for no reason.
Clarice -- I'm going to name my WIP "Coming of Age"
;-)
Em -- It's interesting but sometimes I think that shock value things at least make more sense in fiction. We understand why a character did their horrific thing, or we get to see the fallout of such acts...whereas with the news it's usually a sound bite or a few paragraphs....
I don't see what the problem is if the person doing this horrific thing is the villain. I mean don't we expect horrific behavior from them?
Now if the MC did something and you were still trying to make them sympathetic then I would say stay away from the unforgivable, like harming a child or wearing white after labor day.
Marsha -- No! Not white!!!!! ;-)
All I think about when I'm writing is what is real to the character and what conveys their story in the best way possible. If I have to break a rule or a few rules to do that then I do it. The story is more important to me than the rules.
But everyone is different. It's true that there are some things no one wants to see but that doesn't mean they won't sit and watch it. Children are harmed in films all the time. There are jokes about other races or genders all the time. Animals are killed all the time. I don't know where these rules came from but I think you should do what you think is right and see what happens. You can always modify it later on if a certain thing is a problem.
Jai
Jai -- Thanks for chiming in! :-)
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