Originally Posted by BookCat
Gregg, I don't think you understand what you're writing. That paragraph is still graphically violent. The tactile description of warm saliva running down her arm etc just emphasises the gruesome rather than making it comic.
Swift's A Modest Proposal was satire written about the way the English treated the Irish at that time. He was saying that they were being killed anyway (through poverty) the state might as well go all the way and eat the children. It's neither comedy nor literal but political.
Your book will garner many very bad reviews, not only from those who dislike the violence, but because of the animal cruelty angle. I don't want to go into detail, but do you realise what happens to dogs 'on the menu' in far eastern countries? Have you researched the cruelty involved?
Your book has potential IF it was genuinely lighter, less violent, more like a Tom Sharpe novel. Make what Donovan is doing with the dogs less gruesome and more funny: perhaps he's a hoarder whose animal (dog) hoarding is very out of control and he lets them run uncontrolled over land he owns, which is fenced in. The overcrowding is the cruelty; and having so many means that injuries and illness are overlooked.
Don't describe the killing, just allow the reader to know that it's happened by showing the aftermath: getting away from the scene of the crime and a few flashbacks to a fight (not graphically described). She knows she's done it again.
I hope your book is better than it seems. Sorry.
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