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Deleted: Posting deemed offensive. Apologies to those so offended.
Characters stories often take their own twist; some might be philosophical, others filled with love and romance; and still others might exhibit a bit of a chip on the shoulder from past experiences. Characters speak with their own voice that is not necessarily the voice of the writer, yet the writer must be held accountable for all that their characters do and say. A writer rarely sets out to upset or dismay readers, yet that might often be a consequence of broaching sensitive subjects. My thought prior to posting the deleted excerpt was that some readers might have identified in being oggled in such a manner. It appears not. Again, my apologies.
P.
Comments
Tbh when I saw the title of this thread thought we might have had another opportunity to discuss incontinence pants
Was it something you said?
I would like to stress that I've only had academic interest in boobs, obese or otherwise, since my Hormone treatment.
Does that contribute to the discussion?
)
For the record, i have gone off men, so snail has nothing to fear.
How about being boggled then? Fancy that instead?
I respect your decision and realise that it would be churlish of me to suggest that chance might be a fine thing.
For me, nothing is lost. The whole writing experience is a learning exercise. Just look at the amount of effort Lydia1960, for instance, puts into achieving her ambitions. What I have learnt from this simple 'contentious' post, is that not only did the subject paragraph ring alarm bells, so did the context of the novel in its entirety.
While none of us 'fully' trash our work, I have just flushed 70,000 words into Bill's recycling bin. Sure, I'll pull out a few gems and a couple of scraps, but I feel gratified that views expressed in this particular thread have made me take a more objective look at my work.
Now I will go for an emotional hit of the Jaffa Cakes!!
Basically what was in her head had not completely made it to the page, although she thought it had...
We also agreed never get rid of it all, but bung it into another file for later.
One of the things writers often forget is that you are the only person who will ever hear your work in your voice, the way you intended it to be heard. Every single reader does a voice-over, in effect, and you cannot possibly cater for all of them. Do it your way, and to the best that you possibly can, and that's all that you can hope to do.
It's in part why it's so hard to put your work out there: it will never be only yours again.
There are times when we need someone else to hold up a light to our work, because we have become too close to it. Doesn't mean you have to ditch the lot, or that you've got it all wrong; you may only need to re-work a couple of lines or paras to change the whole tone of the piece.
Nothing written is ever wasted: and as someone once said, every day's a school day.
If your writing has created opinions, that's good. What would be awful is if everyone was in agreement that it was bland.
PET, sarcasm is very difficult to convey in writing.