Well, as you may notice, I didn’t write at all yesterday. My wordcount meters are both down significantly, especially the 7 day one. Grr…I will get them back up before too long! New goal: get both meters in the red by the end of the week.
However, I have a reason for not writing, and it’s not a lame excuse that such-and-such happened outside my control and I had to put my writing on hold. It’s a lot more complex than that.
Basically, the scene that I’m stopped at has some graphic content, and I didn’t feel that it would be appropriate to write that scene on a Sunday. At the same time, I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t write this scene at all. In terms of the story, I think that this scene is necessary, but I can see people taking it the wrong way when they read it. I can also see myself feeling somewhat embarrassed when my friends read it. I’m not usually the kind of person that avoids controversy, but this is something where I’m not sure how to proceed.
Basically, here’s what I have in mind: Tristen, the main character, is on a mission to find his birth family. He’s left behind this futuristic Bedouin camp that’s raised him, except that the sheikh of this camp will do anything to get Tristen to stay. The first leg of Tristen’s journey is a pilgrimage to this famous temple, and the sheikh sends his daughter with Tristen, ostensibly because she want’s to make the pilgrimage too, but won’t have the opportunity in the future. Really, though, the girl has conspired with the Sheikh to try and seduce Tristen to convince him to stay.
That’s the background, but it really has nothing to do with this specific scene. In the scene I have in mind, Tristen and the girl are in a bar/restaurant halfway around the world, way far away from home, when this graphic performance occurs on the stage at this place. Basically, there is this major religious cult in this part of the world whose priestesses are basically holy prostitutes, like many Ancient Near East goddess cults.
The scene would involve some suggestive nudity and would raise the already existing sexual tension between Tristen and the daughter of this Sheikh. Basically, he’s been raised in this ultra-moralistic conservative environment, so the dance of this temple prostitute shocks him to the point where he doesn’t know what to think about it. He gets these images in his mind that he can’t get out, and he feels confused, guilty, passionate, and just…well, weird. This confusion gets him to the point where he doesn’t know what he’s doing with this girl who’s supposed to seduce him, so that she is able to break through his resistance and almost succeed in getting him to stay (and all that that implies).
Also, I want to throw this scene in to show the moral depravity of the society that Tristen passes through. By demonstrating just how graphically immoral the mainstream society has become, I’m hoping to show who Tristen really is–a morally upright person. I want to have this contrast in the story, even if it does mean writing a scene that might cause a lot of LDS readers (and even some of my friends) to throw the book across the room.
So how do I do this? How can I write a scene that is graphic and yet not pornographic? What do you think about my ideas here? What should I do–and not do? Why?
A couple of weeks ago, we started learning about the Seljuk Turks in History 240 (History of the Middle East to 1800). This band of rugged, horse-riding nomads went from mercenary warriors of some Persian dynasty to the de facto rulers of nearly half the Muslim world. In an era when radical Shi’ism swept across North Africa and the Levant, and people thought the rise of the Fatimid Empire marked the end of the world, the Seljuks, self-appointed defenders of Sunnism headed the Fatimid conquest at Baghdad and pushed them back to Egypt. Fascinating stuff!
While chatting with my coworkers in the FHSS writing lab, I decided to dress up as a writer. After all, the costume shouldn’t be too hard–I am one, after all, right? Well, it proved to be a lot easier than I’d thought! Turtleneck sweater, Birkenstocks with socks, a copy of Strunk & White in my pocket–all I really needed was a gray sports coat and a European cap, both of which I got at DI (one I bought, the other I borrowed from a friend I happened to run into at the store).
For the Halloween short story contest, we did something new and experimental: we had a live reading during the actual party. I was a little bit worried at first, but it worked out really well, I think. We had the third, second, and first place stories read out loud by their authors. It wasn’t as visually exciting as watching anime explosions and giant mecha fighting each other, but it was still a treat to hear the stories read out loud, especially the first place winner, The Beauty of Decay. We actually had a big prize to give out (a $20 gift certificat to the BYU Bookstore), so it was lots of fun!
