In the pieces I’ve been writing so far, I haven’t exactly been shying away from tough scenes, death, sex, whatever. I don’t think you can write well if you’re scared of what your mom, or some random person with delicate sensibilities will think, and I’ve made every effort not to hold back.
However, in the book I just started reading, there’s an early scene that made me think there may be limits to that. I’m not going to go too deeply into the scene (Let’s just say it involved the potential apocalypse, and some panties from a laundry basket), but I’ll say that I wondered how necessary it was. Now, it’s possible that it will have an important role in building the character that was involved, in which case I’ll just have to revisit my thoughts on this, won’t I?
But, even if so, it seems like a scene like this would play better if it happened after the reader already understood its context. Basically, it’s a fairly gross and creepy scene inserted into the narrative very early in the story, and as one of the first bits of character development for this 17-year-old character. Reading it actually made me mildly uncomfortable, and I wondered why it had to be there. That took me out of the flow of the story; instead of thinking “What’s going to happen next?” I was thinking, “Why did that just happen?”
It made me think, maybe there should be limits to how far I’m willing to take my characters. I still can’t write scared. I’ve still got to be willing to follow my characters wherever they want to go. But it’s worth thinking about how the reader is going to receive a scene, and if it fits in the flow of the story. Sometimes, it might not be that a scene has to be cut, but it may work better later, or earlier. And, other times, it might be worth taking it out entirely if it’s going to be too abrupt or distracting for the reader.
Of course, one reason not to take something out is if it makes me (or you) uncomfortable. Not only is that not a bad thing, it’s often a really good one. If you read my stuff, I’ll probably make you uncomfortable at some point. Hell, I’ll make me uncomfortable. And I’ll enjoy doing it.
Most of these scenes that I’ve encountered were too soon in the story before the reader has become attached to the character. If you push it farther back, it will usually fit in better because it makes more sense with the character and story.
But there are still those times you stumble across a story where the writer has made a gratuitous scene just to be gratuitous. While I agree that you shouldn’t cut a scene just because it might make someone uncomfortable (my own work is full of this sort of content), if the scene’s only purpose is to make the reader uncomfortable, it serves no purpose to the story and should be cut.
Thanks for the great post!
Really good point, Dana. The scene I’m talking about definitely was really early in the story. And I think it’s something to consider. I’m definitely willing to push the reader a bit, but I think you’ve got to be careful about taking a character to a particularly uncomfortable place before it’s been justified by the development of the character beforehand. If you jump the gun, you do risk taking some readers out of the flow of the narrative.
Thanks for your thoughts, Dana.