Monday, April 27, 2009

Gratuitous Sex and Violence

**

I’m in the midst of slogging my way through the latest thriller by a NYT bestselling author. I’m putting myself through this torture because I like to keep current with the publishing industry, and because the subject of this particular book touches close to something I’ve written myself. Since I’m not enjoying the process, I’m reading fast. And I’ve found I can skip the action sequences without missing anything. I’ll come to one and think, Oh, good; the bad guys are going to try to kill the heroes again; I can skip ahead at least ten pages!

If that isn’t the definition of gratuitous violence, I don’t know what is. I’m reminded of the gratuitous sex scenes that populate so many of today’s romance novels. When I was judging RITA entries, I frequently found myself skipping sex scenes, too. Now, since authors put in sex and violence in order to make their books more entertaining, yet some of their readers are actually skipping those scenes, something is obviously wrong.

So how does a writer keep an action sequence—or a sex scene—from being boring?

In the best action sequences or a sex scenes, something happens that actually moves the plot forward. We learn something new about the characters. The characters learn something new about themselves or each other. The action ups the stakes. Or it changes the characters’ motivation. Or it changes the characters’ goal. Or the characters acquire new information that causes them to alter their course of action. But something has to happen besides just violence or sex. When nothing changes—if the characters and the conflict are all the same at the end of the scene as they were at the beginning—then the scene is gratuitous. The writer could yank the car chase/shootout/sex scene from the plot (or the reader could skip it) and no one would notice. The plot line would flow on without interruption or confusion.

Unfortunately, today’s audiences are so addicted to sex and violence that writers frequently feel the need to insert sex/violence every so many pages/minutes. Now, it’s pretty hard to make each and every one of those scenes pivotal. Yet I do think it is possible to have gratuitous sex and violence without boring the more discriminating members of your audience. How? By creating sympathetic characters.

If your readers care about your characters, they will be carried along by the action, both because they care what happens to the characters and because they like spending time with them. If I’m watching a movie and I don’t like the characters, I have nothing at stake; I couldn’t care less if they killed or caught. Oh, our heroes are being shot at again? Yawn. Let me go make another cup of tea…

Even if I don’t care about the characters, an action sequence can still hold my attention if it’s well done, if the sequence is original, or funny, or cleverly orchestrated. Ironically, the NYT bestselling author of the thriller I’m reading at the moment writes really, really bad action sequences. They’re unoriginal, unbelievable, and badly executed. There is absolutely nothing to entice me to read them. So, I skip. A lot.

Of course, a lot of people really don’t care if the sex and violence in a book or movie is gratuitous or unoriginal--they're actually reading/watching for the sex and violence. Sigh.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bravo! So well stated. One thing I've noticed about your St. Cyr books is how low key the sex scenes are, related to other books written about that era. But I actually bought your last in hardcover and plan to buy the next in hardcover, so you must be doing something right! (I cannot wait to see what happens next. In fact, that's how I found your blog, trying to dig up info.)

Steve Malley said...

I'm a big believer in Barry Eisler's rule of thumb:

If all that matters is *that* the characters have sex, best pan away to the fireplace. If what matters is *how* they have sex, then you gotta stay with it.

I think the same could be said for violence. Imagine the hero menaced by a couple of thugs in a bar. She turns, props her elbows on the rail.

"You guys are kidding, right?"

Cut to the next chapter. She's fine, we assume they're toast (the reader will have done *much* more mayhem in their imagination than we ever can) and we've learned all we needed to learn from that scene.

I see nothing wrong with that. Maybe there's something wrong with me...

Unknown said...

An excellent post, Candy. A related problem now creeping in is the editors who can no longer discriminate between what is and what isn't gratuitous. There's sex and violence, and there's sex and violence. . . But the knee-jerk reaction is to delete the lot! The key is in your paragraph 4. Should be required reading by all authors and publishers.

cs harris said...

Anonymous, I'm glad you're enjoying the St. Cyr books!

Steve, you hit it exactly. Great illustration. Unfortunately, I suspect an editor would pencil in the margin of your bar scene, "Can we see this play out, please?"

Chap, I suspect it's a house rules kind of thing. My St. Cyr editor frequently wants me to tone down the violence ("Can't some of these people be allowed to live?") and show more of the sex. My thriller editor likes the violence, and also wants more sex (which I refuse to put in because I want the relationship between Jax and Tobie to be on a very slow simmer). Other houses don't want sex or violence, just lots of praying!

Charles Gramlich said...

The key, as you say, is good "scenes." I read books where scenes occur, sex or violenc or sometimes other types of scenes, where the writers seem to have lost track in the backs of their heads that they're writing a novel and moving toward a conclusion.

CJSteiner said...

I completely agree with you, Candy. It is so hard to find great romance/romantic suspense novels that don't insult my intelligence or completely gross me out. I can't tell you how many novels I have stopped reading because I could absolutely gag at the author's obsession with explicit and unnecessary details that amount to nothing. I have to rely on hard to find books by old and long deceased authors to satisfy my romance craving without making me throw up. Let it be known that I am not an old fashioned prude. Quite the contrary; I am young and well versed in modern sexuality. However, I can't help but daydream about a time when romance novels actually had a plot that didn't jump from one naked scene to the next. Where did all the romance go?
I am not saying that sex or violence have no place in good writing, but I have found that each year an increasing amount of novels contain descriptive words and excerpts that I would never use in even the most depraved circumstances or conversations. (I'm embarrassed to even mention it but I was flipping through a Gothic romance novel at the library and came across the use of the word "cock" in a sex scene. I promptly returned the book to the shelf. Yikes!)
I enjoy your books and the style in which you write. I understand the publishing industry can be very difficult for good writers. I assure you, as a fervent reader and one who knows a great deal more readers like myself, we do appreciate your dedication to not allowing gratuitous sex and/or violence to overshadow or replace good writing.

cs harris said...

Claire, I'll admit that when I was writing romances I succumbed to pressure and included more explicit sex scenes than I would have liked. But I drew the line at gratuitous sex; a sex scene had to advance the plot, or it wasn't there. Unfortunately, the market tends to reward romance writers who write "hot" books with LOTS of gratuitous sex. Maybe people who don't like that have quit reading romance?

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