Where do I draw the line? (#IWSG)

It seems like everyone has an opinion these days about what writers should and shouldn’t do: Show me all the sex! Keep the sex behind closed doors. Write about diverse characters! Don’t write about identities you don’t share. Write honestly about difficult topics. Stop writing about rape. And on and on.

Yeah, those are oversimplifications, but sometimes the discourse about what writers should write isn’t very nuanced. So today I’m going to piss off everyone by wading into these controversial waters. I’ve written about this topic before, but I’m going to get into it in a bit more depth in this post.

But first: This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group monthly blog hop. On the first Wednesday of each month, I and my fellow insecure writers post something related to writing, and then we visit the blogs of our fellow members and read and comment on their IWSG posts. This month’s optional question is, In your writing, where do you draw the line, with either topics or language?

And second, since this is my blog, I’m going to interrupt our regularly-scheduled IWSG programming for a little shameless self-promotion: I just published a short story! Yay! But wait… there’s more. It’s been produced as a full-cast audio drama for the Storyteller Series podcast!

Learn more about the this story here and here.

Now, back to our regularly-scheduled programming: are there topics that are off-limits?

My answer is simple but with a complex caveat. First, the simple part:

Write whatever the hell you want.

Now for the not-so-simple part: But do it right.

You could probably write a book-length treatise about what it means to, “do it right,” but since this is a blog post, not a book, and I’m not wearing my academic hat right now, I’m going to keep it as simple as I can. To me, “doing it right” means a few things:

• Do research. Do good research. Do good, careful research. Example: I’m a white, cis-gendered, straight, middle-class American woman. Does that mean all my characters have to be white, cis-gendered, straight, middle-class, and American? Of course not. But it does mean that when I write characters who aren’t those things, I need to educate myself about the experiences of people who are different from me, avoid stereotypes (which means educating myself on what those stereotypes are), and pay attention to what people in the group in question are saying (not what people are saying about them). In other words, I need to recognize and understand my own limitations (we all have them) and work hard to overcome them.
• Get an expert opinion. If I’m going to put my writing out there, I should seriously consider hiring a sensitivity reader from the group I’m portraying to make sure I got it right and that I didn’t inadvertently write an offensive stereotype. It’s easy to write stereotypes. We’re bombarded with media that’s full of them, but we don’t have to perpetuate them.
• Don’t use controversial topics or portrayals gratuitously or carelessly (I’ve pontificated before on this blog about gratuitous sex.) I’m not going to throw in graphic sex or violence, sexual assault, profanity, or any other hot-button item just because. But if I think it belongs in the story, if it fits the plot, the characters, the genre, and my vision for the work, then in it goes. I’ll also do research and get expert opinions as needed to make sure I’ve portrayed the awfulness accurately. Some readers won’t want to read it, and that’s their right. I’ll even give ’em a content warning, so they can make an informed choice.

Which brings me to another important point: You can’t please everyone. Some people love graphic sex. Some people hate it. Some people think a story without profanity is unrealistic; others will slam your book closed and leave you a 1-star review for a single f-bomb.

And that’s OK.

The world is made up of 2 kinds of people: Your Readers… and Not Your Readers. You’ll exhaust yourself trying to write for Not Your Readers.

I’ll end with a confession: This stuff is hard. My first novel deals with domestic violence and sexual assault. I struggle with how to portray both of those things. How graphic should I be? Where’s the line between honest and gratuitous? My second novel includes a serial killer who targets middle-school girls. I entered the first 25 pages in a contest and got some pretty brutal feedback from judges, most of whom thought it was too dark and disturbing–and I hadn’t included any on-page violence or sex.. One even implied I was wasting my talent.

Yeah.

But serial killers exist, and some do target middle school girls (go read about BTK if you want to lose both your lunch and your faith in humanity). And, more broadly, women are frequently the targets of male violence, especially male sexual violence. As someone who’s been on the receiving end of both, I refuse to ignore or sugarcoat that truth.

So where’s the line? Do I re-evaluate the opening of my novel or write off the judges as Not My Readers?

I don’t know.

It’s hard.

Maybe I should stick to writing haunted house stories… like the one that JUST GOT MADE INTO AN AUDIO DRAMA ON A PODCAST.

Oh, wait. I think I mentioned that already on here. Once or twice. A day. All week.

How about you? If you’re a writer, what’s your approach to controversial topics? And if you’re a reader, what do you want/not want to see on the page?