Roger Morris, you should be ashamed of yourself. There's always time. Anyway, the most disturbing plot idea I've had was about a guy killing another guy, then stuffing his organs into his mouth, then carving smiley faces into his eyeballs, stitching the body together so it doesn't fall apart, packing it more tightly together with duct tape, plus a bloody bandage as a gag over the mouth. Finally, the whole squeezed together remnants of body was dropped into the middle of a crowded street. Inspired by a dream... way over-gory murder.
Most of the stories I write tend to have disturbing or horrifying plots/ideas in them. This is mostly because (and this is going to sound so cliche, but its actually true) most of my ideas for stories come from dreams. And I dream really, really messed up stuff. I always have, and I'm not sure why. It makes me sound a bit insane, but for some reason my brain just likes to come up with horrible situations while I'm asleep! One dream I had was about a girl who was kidnapped in a foreign country, by her boyfriend and some girls he met there. It was very strange because despite it being first person POV, the girl wasn't me. It was like I was in someone else's body. Anyway, the girl was then kept prisoner and abused by her boyfriend and the girls, and the dream was basically about her experiences, and how she was desperately trying to escape. She eventually did, but was badly hurt in the process. It was a horrible dream, and I haven't yet turned it into a story because I'm not sure I could face writing something like that.
I don't think I'll write any graphic, morbid plots, but I did interview a woman for my nonfiction story who used to assist one of the Khmer Rouge leaders in Cambodia during the 1970's. She had admitted to having hung people who got on her bad side by all four limbs on banana trees and having someone slice out their livers, which were then served to her in front of their dangling bodies. After her interview, I remembered being overwhelmed by this pervasively sickening feeling that wouldn't lift; I couldn't shake it off. I've put that story on the backburner for now to focus on my short stories. I guess it would have been easier to swallow if I had imagined all that up in my head: I could live with that. But it's really hard to work on a story when you know it's true, it has happened, and these people who committed these atrocious crimes are seated right in front of you.
Interesting you mention Stephen King. I think that some of the most disturbing scenes are not always the graphic ones - and Stephen King is very good at that. A simple event can be 'unsettling' in a 'stepping on an escalator that isn't moving' kind of way, but continues to haunt after the event. For instance, in Misery, I think that Annie filling the glass from the mop bucket for Paul to take his tablets is a 'shudder moment'; and then obviously the sledgehammer to the ankles scene is another. Neither are particularly graphic, but in the stage adaptation both of these scenes become very disturbing (even though it's simple theatrical trickery) - but I digress. We all have our limits, but many of us have common irrational fears, and playing on some of these simple fears can be far more disturbing than fantastical scenerios that we may not relate to. As the saying goes, "What's worse than biting into an apple and finding a worm... finding HALF a worm!" Enjoy your lunch!
I suppose you have to be careful, if you writing something for others to read it needs to be stomach-able. (not sure if that's a word_if not i take dibs on it). One thing for people to go ewwwwww as long as they don't go "that's disgusting" and put the book down. Yeah one or two might think its cool but i think its fair to say the majority are a bit more picky.
I try to keep my plot ideas close to the vest, to keep from having copy-cats and subscribe to using graphic depictions of violence when I want to make a point, otherwise it's something generic like: X raised the rifle and shot Y where ever." Now when I wanted to describe how hellish warfare is, then I went more graphic and took advantage of something that would pull people's heart strings. You can use some of the same principles to humanize your character too.
Of course I don't want to overdo the craziness in my stories (over-the top gore and whatnot), but I would count it as a victory if someone read it and was genuinely disgusted or offended; it would mean I'm doing my job right.
The human mind is amazing in what it can create. I relate to thinking of things that I'm not sure I would want to see come to life in print. I appreciate the original posts and replies because (if for no other reason) it's good to see that if I'm crazy, at least I have company.
I get tons of odd, and sometimes disturbing story ideas. I wrote a short story a while back that one of the elements involved a man being tortured, having his toes bashed one by one with a hammer (although I'm sure it's been done before, still can't think of where) I would have to agree with Julia, it's rather amazing the kind of things our minds can dream up. But it's rare for me to go that dark in my writing.
I find that the true 'hard-core' or shocking stories are not what they are about, but how they are told. A murder in essence can be a dull affair, even a gruesome murder. But how that murder, or rape, or torture, or whatever, is either described or treated, that brings the shock value. It's like an action film. An extremely violent film can be less shocking than a single moment of torment. An anxious encounter with a stranger can be written in such a way that it is far more disturbing than a bloody mass murder. It's brutal and extreme, and certainly gory, but personally I don't find it disturbing because the body is dead. Kinda like carving a turkey. I mean, if you think about the gory nature of how we bake and rip animals apart for consumption, it's kinda the same thing. Now carving smiley faces in a living person's eyeballs, that would be disturbing!
I have two scenes from one of my scripts that I think are pushing the boundaries of good taste a bit. I'm wanting to post them here but not sure if I should. One of my screen-writing buddies said that after he read these scenes he didn't want to read any more of my script, but I don't think they are all that bad. It's for an action horror film.
Edgar Allen Poe is the master, not one of his stories are gory or graphic. It doesn't matter how many times I've read each of his stories, I'm scared to death of being buried alive.
I agree with you. Think of the Gimp scene in Pulp Fiction. Trying to be hardcore just makes me put my head in my hands and sigh. But genuinely jarring the audience (or the reader) is something much more satisfactory. Things like this can easily be overused, and that is what will make them essentialy worthless. Violence for the sake of violence is just a lowbrow tactic.
I think the manner of dealing with the situation is as important as the situation itself. I have some scenes where the situation seems to be an everyday event, save for the trickle of blood staining the spine of the book, or the jigsaw puzzle that's been completed in the night, or the teddy bear that has spider eyes. I don't set out to draw attention to the facts, I just describe them and move on. On the other hand, I also have scenes where I describe torture in painfully overdone detail, so I'm kind of guilty of going straight to the gore end of the spectrum too. When it comes to other people's ideas: Edgar Allen Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" is beautifully done. H. P. Lovecraft's "The Beast in the Cave", "The Garden" and "Despair" have all made me wish I had even a fraction of his talent. He also did an essay, "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction", which offers his viewpoints and experiences on... writing weird fiction. It's definitely helped me in my approach to writing, so ... yeah.
I read not long ago a story named "Satan has acne." Needless to say, the title caught my attention And basically God has punished Satan by throwing him down to earth, in the shape of a teenage-boy. With a family, friends, school, everything a normal teenager has. His biggest enemy; a zit on his nose. It totally cracked me up! I found it original and really entertaining^^,
