Love or Violence ???

[eBooksgp]

Basically what I mean by the title is - what do you find people prefer to read about these days?

I've had my readers come back and say they would like to read less violence and read more on the heart strings books.

Does anyone here have readers recommend a genre?


Thanks all - GP

[Nancy Fulda]

I think think real issue under discussion here is 'tension'.

Love and violence are two ways to introduce tension into a manuscript, but they are not the only ways, and in fact if used carelessly, they can begin to feel klunky instead of grabby.

Todd McCaffrey's literary agent, Donald Maass, advises authors to maintain tension on every page. I consider this to be excellent advice. The thing to remember here is that tension requires a reader to be both (a) emotionally invested in the characters and their wellbeing, and (b) uncertain about the outcome of the immediate situation.

This is why love triangles are so common. If a romance novel features only one guy and one girl, it's pretty obvious that they're going to end up together; the outcome is not in doubt, only the means by which we'll end up there. Introducing a second love interest automatically raises tension levels because now the reader is uncertain about which fellow the heroine will fall for.

Similarly, life-and-death jeapordy is often not as effective as authors might hope. You can put your protagonist's life in peril all you want, but chances are, if you're only 25% into the novel, that readers know he's not really going to die. It's often far more effective to threaten the protagonist's favorite pet, a treasured relationship, or something equally dear to him. Readers know that the protagonist isn't going to die. They're much less certain about whether he's going to lose his job/reputation/girlfriend/whatever.

Umm... so I think I've strayed off-topic here a bit. I guess my main point is I don't think it matters whether you pick love or violence. Far more important is how well you apply your chosen technique.

[morriss003]

I get enough violence every day when I check my news sources, and I don't need to read about it in the books I read for entertainment. I do put some violence in my books when it is necessary to further the point of the story or to set up a new and strange situation that the reader may not have considered, but I try to keep those scenes brief. But of course every reader is different. I've never read a Stephen King book, but I've read every book by Jayne Ann Krentz. I don't usually read the Nora Roberts suspense books, except for the JD Robbs, but I enjoy her romances, even those that are not well written.

[mr ploppy]

I like writing violence best, but I did write a "girl" story at the request of my daughter and I might write another one some day because it was sort of fun to do. But I don't think I would ever let readers dictate what I write.

[eBooksgp]

All good posts, however - Mr Ploppy I feel you have hit the nail on the head. I think writing is about what the author wants to write about.

thanks all.

[ScalyFreak]

Love or violence? You say that as if one by necessity excludes the other.

[Penforhire]

Scaly has a point. Many of my favorite books have both, thinking of Barry Eisler's John Rain series for example.

[crich70]

I agree that ScalyFreak has a point. Love and Violence can be intertwined. Just look at Romeo and Juliet for an example. Plenty of both in that play alone. While not every story has both in the same amounts (there is no love story in Treasure Island for example) there are different kinds of love and different levels of violence in a lot of fiction.

[eBooksgp]

Thanks to everyone for all their posts, being new to writing you have all helped me. Going by your posts a combination of the two won’t hurt at all which possibly means I will be hitting a larger audience. Readers have commented on the use of bad langue should this then be avoided?

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by eBooksgp

Readers have commented on the use of bad langue should this then be avoided?

I would say that depends on what you're more concerned with: What your readers approve of in your books, or what you want to write in your books.

There was another thread a few months ago about whether swearing is okay or should be avoided, I'll see if I can find it for you. There were some very good points made for both sides in that discussion. EDIT: Found it

Personally, I take the "keep it realistic" approach. If one of your characters is a former Marine, chances are that if he slips in the shower one morning and cracks his knee on something hard and sharp, what comes out of his mouth is not exactly "shoot!" or "goshdarnit!"...

It's up to you whether you want to actually spell it out what he says, or just go for a metaphorical description of how the things he says turns the air around him a lovely shade of blue and makes his wife go pale in horror, but the character immediately stops being realistic if he's not swearing under the above circumstances.

[eBooksgp]

ScalyFreak, thats a good point, it all depends on the character. This is a massive learning curve for me thank you.

[crich70]

And if you are worried about what others will think of you writing about a character who swears, etc. you can also use a pen name so that they don't know it's you who wrote it.

[Coralm]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

Love or violence? You say that as if one by necessity excludes the other.

The best stories have a good mixture of both, I think.

[Harper Kingsley]

@Nancy Fulda mentioned the two male love interests popping up in stories. Ugh, I'm getting kind of tired of that. It just seems like every supernatural book has that whole angle pretty much covered. It's played out and done.

It just seems like every love triangle is a human girl with something special about her, a hot vampire, and a hot lycanthrope of some kind. And every single time, there's all this "I totally hate you, she's mine!" No one ever says, "Let's share her" or "Forget her. I know two chicks that are just as good and we won't be fighting over them," to which the other guy can respond "Awesome!"

@eBooksgp, choosing between love or violence depends on what kind of book you're writing and what audience you're aiming it toward. I would not write "The Tell-Tale Heart" and send it to a bunch of erotica readers. It wouldn't go well.

I tend to just write what I would like to read and I figure there's an audience out there somewhere. Eerie voice: "If you write it, someone will eventually get around to reading it..."

[eBooksgp]

Harper Kingsley, thank you for your post.