Good read and some interesting insights. I generally agree with keeping things PG-13, though I also tend to write for myself as an audience. If actually moves the story I do not think I would have an issue putting it in the story. At the same time, unless you are writing porn, it is seldom necessary to go into graphic details regarding a sex scene. Horror is much the same way if you are going for the psychological mind twist a lot of blood and gore graphic description may not be needed. Slasher style horror, then pour on the buckets of blood and entrails.
While Lazarus Gray is a fairly new (to me) discovery and has become one of my favorite reads, think I need to go hunt up Rabbit Heart. 🙂
I keep most of my New Pulp writing in the PG-13 range but I’ve been known to cross “the line” on occasion… some of you may remember when Sun Koh mutilated a rapist in an old Peregrine story, for instance. And my novel Rabbit Heart is basically a study in excess! Whenever I thought that I might be pushing the envelope too far in that book, I went ahead and tore it open.
But when is it *really* too far?
I’ve kept hardcore sex and violence out of Lazarus Gray, for instance, but there’s an element of subjectivity there, as with all artistic endeavors. When I wrote The Damned Thing, there was a scene early on that involved oral sex. To be honest, I’d forgotten about it by the time it saw print — it was just a brief character moment and believe it or not, not every scene sticks…
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