Have any other writer ever felt guilty for torturing their characters? I have been feeling guilty lately for how I am planning and writing my stories but I can't seem to be able to write happy chapters and feel any horniness out of it. Whenever I try to write erotica, all the thoughts in my head are degrading and torture for my characters. Is there something wrong with me?
Fantasies are fantasies. Do you feel guilty when playing a violent video game in which you kill many people? No? This is no different.
I am not the one who designed the game. But when I write a story I am writing it how I want so feeling guilty is a bit weird here. I am staring to think writing stories might have impact on my real life. What if I become a sadist in real life.
It can sort of depend on a bunch of stuff. I think that if you're really feeling worried and guilty about it, then it could be worth taking a step back for some amount of time, just to figure out exactly what you wanna do/to generally drop down the bad stuff you're feeling. I don't think it'd be a good idea to carry on like normal or just dismiss the feelings, since in pretty much all cases, pretending you aren't feeling something when you are feeling it is a bad idea. Even if it doesn't make sense to feel that way or it's embarrassing, at the end of the day it is the way you're feeling, and you can't change that by pretending it isn't (assuming you do want it to be changed, like in this case). If you're still really keen on writing some more, maybe experiment a bit with making it overly clear and unquestionable that the characters are really really enjoying it? That way, you still get to write the stuff you like, but there's less guilt about it because the characters wouldn't have it any other way. So, for example, instead of Queen Rachel fighting tooth and nail when the invading forces are tearing off her clothes n stuff, she's pretending to put up a fight but actually is super duper glad about it? If you're into humiliation, that could even be another angle to it -- "why am I letting down my people like this" sort of stuff. Or maybe she gets felt up by her guard Captain from behind podium in public, and she's cool with it because she's had a crush on that guard Captain for a while -- or just general stuff where the people involved are consenting and in love with each other, maybe. I'm super new to people getting turned on and to all of this smut terminology, so I'm not really sure of the exact parameters of what "torture" implies in this context (and therefore whether this still counts), but in general this sort of thing is only a solution if it still works for you in that way, and iunno how that'd work out. Maybe if you're fully set on changing what's turning you on, and you can't think of ways of making it work by just changing the background stuff, you could "practice" by reading some of the softer lovey-er stories? Things like Somburliss' Rainy Day. If you're wanting to change what makes you feel that way and changing the surrounding circumstance isn't enough/isn't working, just getting that taste for liking nicer stuff could be something that helps. I wish I could help more, because I really want to, but so much of this is variable on precise circumstances and the person involved that it's hard to give any set advice. I think the best thing to do (if the above two don't work/don't appeal) is to take some time to think about what you want, and what you can do to get there. If writing certain things makes you feel bad or guilty, then you shouldn't write them, because those feelings suck tons -- if you can't find a solution or you're still in the process of finding a solution, writing a bit less or taking some time away from it all could be good for you. If you try take some time away and you don't like that either, that's fine too! Overall, the only advice I can give you that's concrete is to not try pretend that you aren't feeling the way you are. It's really easy in these sorts of situations to get the advice or think to yourself that the way you're feeling is wrong, and then end it there. That's definitely something to avoid, even if it's true -- if you're feeling bad in a situation where you should be feeling good, or where you should be feeling neutral, then it doesn't matter at all what you should be feeling. All that matters if what you are feeling. We've all got to play from the square we're on, and it's not helpful to act as though we're on the square we should be on when we're not. I suppose that last part is more advice for anyone else who comes to read this, since you're probably already on the right track here considering you made this thread about it, but I still wanna emphasise how important it is for you too anyway. If something doesn't make sense, but it's still what's happening, then that second part is the part we gatta focus on. I hope everything turns out well for you!
I have tried not writing for a while, in fact some times I don't feel like writing because of this feeling. But I am worried people might think I have abandoned the story, I don't want to disappoint anybody. And this has its own problems, in an attempt to satisfy every body I am trying to include everything in one story(using game mode) which is a lot of work and being lazy I am not doing it properly and feeling bad for it too. The problem is even though I like reading these kinds of things, whenever I start to write it becomes a humiliation story. I am just incapable of writing good romantic stuff everything I write is just forceful stripping, golden shower, people laughing at someone else's humiliation etc. One thing I tried which seemed to work for a while was making the story as fictional as I could though it ended up not so much fictional and I started getting this guilt feeling again. I wanted to write a story (which was possible to happen in real life) but didn't wrote a word as I started feeling like what if someone gets inspiration from here won't I be responsible then. I didn't wrote it but I got an idea which seemed like it could never happen but as i wrote it here on CHYOA it started to have some things that people could do in real life. One of the reason about this guilt is that I think someone might do it for real after reading what I wrote as a fictional story. Also when I realized I might be breaking the rules of CHYOA, it discouraged me further. I feel like a horrible person who has horrible fantasies. Why do I get off on the stuff that I feel guilty about? I will try another break though, might work.
Hm... someone writing about, let's say, non-consent stuff and not feeling bad for the characters might be more worrying.
Can't affirm that. Though I feel for the characters when something bad happens to them and I don't want that such bad things actually happen to any real person.
The characters are real in a sense when you are writing them, but you are not one of your characters. Consider writers of mainstream crime or horror genres. Stephen King is not I assume going around dressed up as a clown eating kids or chasing his own family around a deserted hotel with a fire-axe. You can write about bad people doing bad things without being one yourself. As long as you don't feel more inclined to be like them then I think you're fine.
I am not saying I want to do this bad stuff but if someone else gets ideas from my work and do something bad in real life, am I not responsible for this?
I don't think so. Not any more than the conventional crime writers are responsible for people committing real crimes.
Maybe try writing an Addams Family story, just for yourself. Gomez and Morticia Addams would have had tastes outside the mainstream but were very much in love. Perhaps that might be a middle ground to help you write something more romantic? I dunno, it was just a crazy idea that came to me while reading the above thread.
Problem with that idea is I don't know anything about Addams Family. I just know that there is a .mkv file in my hard-disk (probably a movie) that I haven't watched yet (when you have almost 3TB movies, you will miss some too). I will try to watch it whenever I have time only then I will know what you mean.
Don't beat yourself up @blank97 - I dont think youre causing the ills of the world. or in the words of Morticia Addams, "Dont torture yourself Gomez! That's my job"
To pretty much steal from the plot section of Wikipedia: The Addams Family are a close-knit extended family with decidedly macabre interests and supernatural abilities. Much of the humour derives from the Addamses' culture clash with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great warmth and courtesy, even when the guests express confusion, fear and dismay at the decor of the house and the sight of Lurch and Thing. Some visitors have bad intentions, which the family generally ignore and suffer no harm. The Addamses are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their own good-natured and (to them) normal behaviour. Accordingly, they view "conventional" tastes with generally tolerant suspicion. Almost invariably, as a result of their visit to the Addamses, a visitor only wants to leave and never come back. Hope that helps give you an idea.
I am continually wrestling with something similar. The solution for me is to embrace that Chyoa offers a branching story structure. If I am conflicted about what is about to happen to a character, many readers probably are as well. Letting the reader make the choice of going dark or not shifts the tension to them, and I don’t feel like I am forcing the worst things to happen. If I am really conflicted, I make the really dark options a little harder to get to. The reader will have to really want it to find it. Write something dark and humiliating, then write an alternate chapter that offers some mercy, targets a different weakness, or changes the dynamics of the scene. One version might be acting out physical humiliation, the other might be agreeing to stop if the victim confesses their most shameful memory. It can be a fun exercise in exploring something new in the characters while still being twisted.
Thanks every one who posted here. But I took a little break and I think the feeling is gone so I will just continue writing as usual. I just noticed this phrase. And you know what if you read my story, you will know that this is so not true. In my story there is a character "the writer". While I am not writing about myself, some might think that character represents me. I even wrote a chapter that disassociate me from that character but I would be lying if I said I didn't plan on this character representing me.
I find its quite cathartic to get some of the other voices out of my head and down in print. The characters aren't me, and once those characters are written and the story told, I don't need to think about them so much.
