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? [Read more…] about When Your Story Goes Too Far