Writing About Rape Apex Magazine. By Jim C. Hines. So youve decided to add a rape scene to your story. After all, youre writing a horror story, and whats more horrific than rape Its the perfect way to show how evil your villain or monster really is, and everyone always says you have to start a story with action and conflict, right Best of all, your story will help to educate women about the dangers of walking alone at night The editor is a chick, so she should appreciate that kind of thing. Or not. I admit this is a hot button issue for me. Motor Trend reviews the 2010 Mazda Mazda3 where consumers can find detailed information on specs, fuel economy, transmission and safety. Find local 2010 Mazda Mazda3. Author Motortrend. IDSERP,5254. 1Writing About Rape Apex MagazineBy Jim C. Hines So youve decided to add a rape scene to your story. After all, youre writing a. Purple2/v4/99/9f/0a/999f0a9c-d02f-1400-7153-80f331fe6f38/screen568x568.jpeg' alt='Overdrive Magazine Pdf' title='Overdrive Magazine Pdf' />Ive worked as a rape counselor and spent several years speaking to various groups at my university about sexual assault issues. Im also an author. So reading books and stories where the author added a rape to make things edgier, or to motivate the heroine, or simply because he or she didnt know what else to do to that characterit gets old fast. Its not that writers cant or shouldnt write about rape. The problem is that its so often done badly. In unpublished manuscripts Ive seen in workshops and elsewhere, as well as in published work, it often feels as if people are following the Official Writers Guide to Creating Clichd and Offensive Rape Scenes. Cube World A Download App there. Chapter One The Rapist. In the world of fiction, rapists are evil, nasty, scruffy looking dudes who lurk in the bushes or the shadows of the parking garage. Buy Now httpsgoo. SQUqLD Today were exploring the Kliptonite by Stone Deaf FX. Utilizing the guts of the PDF2, Stone Deaf has dropped the tone. View and Download Ford Ranger owners manual online. Ford Ranger Owners Manual. Ranger Automobile pdf manual download. Rakuten OverDrive, Inc. American digital distributor of eBooks, audiobooks, music, and video titles. The company provides secure management, digital rights. Triumph Spitfire and GT6s largest site, TriumphSpitfire. Magazine has a huge classifieds page of Spitfires and GT6s for sale, troubleshooting bulletin board. Theyll usually have a knife, cause thats a sexual symbol I learned that from watching a cop show last week. As for the victim, shes not really important your story is about the rapist In storyland, almost all rapists are strangers, easily identified by appearance and mannerism. In the real world, the majority of rapes are committed by friends and family members, but who wants to think about that Its more comforting to presume rapists are visibly deviant and easy to identify instead of normal looking, often charming individuals. But if you want a real challenge, try making your rapist sympathetic. Show how he didnt really mean to hurt anyone. Maybe he was overwhelmed by the moment. Maybe he lost control. Maybe he feels really, really bad about what happened. Portray him as the good guy who just made a mistake, even if that means shifting the blame onto the victim. Chapter Two The Victim. Remember, youre doing a public service for women here, teaching them about the dangers of rape. Sure, women are inundated with such messages every day of their lives, telling them to watch their drinks and always walk with a buddy and be careful what they wear and never lead a guy on and carry mace and a rape whistle and never let a guy get you alone, but rape continues to happen Women obviously arent getting the message. So make sure the girl does everything wrong. Have her jogging on her own at night, or inviting a stranger from the bar back to her place. A lot of readers dont like it when bad things happen to innocent people, so make sure they know shes responsible for her own bad choices. It helps if you emphasize how slutty she is, because then shes just getting what she deserves. Most importantly, try not to show her as a person. The more you humanize the victim, the more the reader might feel bad about what happens. Chapter Three The Aftermath. If you, like so many would be writers before you, are using rape as a shortcut to show how bad your bad guy is, then who cares what happens to the victimBut maybe that victim is actually going to be a character in the story. In that case, the rape should be her primaryher onlymotivation throughout the story. Make sure the rape defines your character and everything she does. For the purpose of your story, she didnt exist before the rape. Every conversation, every choice, every action should revolve around the rape. Thats the incident that defines her. Sure, you could do research into how sexual assault actually affects people, and the wide range of reactions people have, but who has the time for that Youve got stories to write Chapter Four The Twist. Every good story needs a surprising twist. Why not shock your reader by turning the tables on the rapist Make your victim a monster even worse than the rapist, a monster that will give the bastard the slow, painful, gruesome death he deserves. Dont worry about story or plot or worldbuilding this is about Message. Rape is Wrong, so make sure you show how Wrong your rapist is, and go into great detail about how he gets whats coming to him. Character development Who needs it Your great twist where the rapist becomes the victim is all you need, and once again youre providing a valuable public service announcement. Maybe your rapist will even end up getting raped himself Because then its all about justice, kind of like those hilarious prison rape jokes your buddy shared the other night. Chapter Five Keep it Sexy. Sure, rape is a horrible, dehumanizing, brutal, and violent crime, but thats no reason you cant make it titillating, right Show some skin, and emphasize the rapists arousal. Maybe the victim enjoys it on some level, too. Once again, reality is not your friend. Youre writing fiction. In the real world, rape is a physically violent and terrifying act. Who wants to read about that Your job is to make rape sexy and edgy, and appealing to the readers. By following these instructions, youlike so many writers before youcan create offensive, shallow, uninformed, and flat out bad stories, too. You can collect rejection letters from editors who will cringe in anticipation the next time they see your name on a submission. But what if you actually care about your storyWhat if youre writing about rape and sexual violence not as an emotional shortcut or a cheap attempt at motivation or characterization, but because its important to your story How do you write about rape and sexual violence and do it well Theres no right answer to that question, of course. Im not about to sit here and dictate the Right Way to write about rape. But here are some of the things Ive thought about over the years as both an author and a reader. Research I remember reading a book by a fairly popular author, one who had obviously done a tremendous amount of research into the science behind his SF story. And then it felt as if everything had changed, as if the author had exceeded his research quota, and so when it came time to write about rape, he produced an utterly clich ridden scene that crammed every conceivable rape myth into a two page scene that made me give up on the whole damn series. It was badly written and lazy. I dont believe in Write what you know, but Im a big believer in Know what you write. If youre going to write about sexual violence, read about it first. Read about the dynamics of rape and power. Read about rape myths, and read about the statistics and research that bust those myths. Read books written by survivors of sexual violence. Characterization A friend of mine reviewed an episode of a new TV show that dealt with sexual slavery, an episode in which the victims were nothing but set pieces. They were scenery, present only to be caged and abused, with absolutely no voice or agency in the story. They didnt even have names. Their job was to show how evil the villain was, and to be rescued by the hero. Cardboard characters make boring stories. Defining a character simply as The Rape Survivor is just bad writing. Every character should have multiple motivations and desires and fears.