hellenebright asked me if I'd write a post about writing things - subject matter, rather than style - that make you uncomfortable.I, of course, jumped at the chance.

Please bear with me, since I ramble quite a bit.



A while back I wrote a story that involved major character death. One of the remarks made about the story (by jadesfire2808) was that it didn't flinch. That remark absolutely made my day, because the story might not have flinched, but I sure did.

A lot of my stories contain 'sensitive subject matter' that ranges from kink to rape and death. Those are things that make a lot of people uncomfortable. I'm not exempt from that, just because I'm the one doing the writing. A lot of what I write makes me squirm. Sometimes it even flat-out squicks me.

How I feel about what I'm writing, personally, isn't important. What is important is that those feelings not be reflected in the story.

I think it's something we've all seen. You're reading along happily and suddenly you can just tell that the writer doesn't want to be in that story, scene, or character's head. It's hard to pin down. I can't give you examples of doing it right and doing it wrong like I could if it was a grammar rule. All I can say is that if your storytelling flinches, the readers will know and it is a Bad Thing.

Two things make it bad. The first is that it pulls the reader out of the story. You (probably, usually) don’t want to do that. Likewise, you probably don't want to tell your readers how to feel about an act, a character, or a scene. When the writer’s intent, their feeling, becomes inescapable, it limits the heck out of the reader’s ability to internalize the story and invest in it. Then we're back to square one, and they're being pulled out of the story.

The first and easiest way to avoid that flinch is that if you're not comfortable writing something - don't do it. No one is going to think less of you if you're not writing kinky bondage non-con snuff.

If you really want to push your own boundaries and write it anyway, there are things that make it easier. Most of those things have to do with exposure, understanding, and distance.

Research. Research it into the dirt. This is absolutely the most effective for me. I'm not just talking about the mechanics of *how* things happen, I mean why and where and when and what it feels like when it does. Use every resource you have at your disposal. Talk to people with personal (even second-hand or tangential) experience, go to your local library, search the internet - whatever you can think of.

Research it from every point of view possible, too. If you're writing kink, even if you're writing from the sadists point of view, know why the masochist would like it and what it feels like. If you're writing rape, don't just research the psychological effects of being raped, dig up some profiles of rapists and look into statistics.

Take all that information and go read some fiction that deals with the subject. If you can, read a lot of it. While you're reading, pay attention to what doesn't work for you, and (importantly) why. Figure out where you trigger. Figure out what the line is, both in terms of believability and your own comfort. Know why the subject disturbs you. You don't have to do anything with that knowledge, but know it.

Figure out your Point of View. Knowing what exactly makes you uncomfortable will help with that. There are things I can't write from a close, intimate, point of view. I can write someone dying; I can't write watching someone die. Switching the point of view to another character - an observer, someone who isn't going to experience what squicks me - or to a looser narrative voice gives me some distance. Doesn't make it comfortable, but makes it possible.

Know the motivations of all the characters involved. Even if you're not writing from their POV/inside their head, you still have to figure out what they're getting out of it and why they're doing it. This one's pretty big for me, too. It's remembering that *you* aren't doing these things to the characters. Yes, you've set them up, but you're not dressing the Doctor up in a frilly smock because you want to write cross-dressing. You're doing it because the Master finds the idea of humiliating the Doctor absolutely irresistible. It's a distancing thing, and it's giving yourself permission to be horrified and squicked because it's not you who's doing it.

It also means if, for instance, you're writing Master/Doctor cross dressing and you're using a Doctor POV that, when the Doctor flinches, he's not going to be flinching at this thing you're doing to him. He's going to be flinching at that thing the Master is doing to him. That? That's good. That flinch can stay. If the Doctor flinches away from the writer, there's a problem.

The rest, the actual writing part, is really the same as writing anything else. Do what you need to get it down on paper, and if you start to shy away (and if you're anything like me, you will) revisit your research and especially your motivations. (If the Master *really wants* the Doctor in a dress to humiliate him, it’s unlikely that he's going to change his mind because the Doctor protests - even if you (and the Doctor) *really want* him out of it.).

Editing is a general fic thing, not a flinch thing. We all know about betas and drafts and rewrites. The only difference is that you're going to feel it a lot more, and know a lot better. Your ability to help yourself here is enormous. When you notice the story pulling off to the left, you're writing and it feels like you're trying to write around something, or avoiding, or you just hit a wall - mark it. Go back to it. Ask your beta to look specifically there.


So, basically - expose yourself as much as you can stand, learn everything you can, and use your point of view and the characters to provide some distance.

Also worth reiterating: You are not what you write. Yes, posting some of this stuff can make you feel exposed and nearly as uncomfortable as writing it. Yes, there are people who will confuse you with what you write. Yes, it sucks. It is also wrong.

Your stories are not you. They are not measurements of your morals, ethics, values, politics, sexual preferences or your worth as a person.

This isn't meant to be an inclusive piece of meta. I am sure there are things I haven't elaborated enough, others that I've left out altogether. I'm also sure that some of what works for me won't work for others.

So, talk to me about it. What up there needs to be clarified? What wouldn't (or doesn't) work for you? What does? What'd I forget?