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A friend of mine sent me a story outline to look over, and see if I saw anything that needed work on, and I finally just finished it, and it left me troubled. I'm assuming that this is the feeling the writer wanted, but...well...it's troubling to me.
The gist of the (non-porn BTW) story (reposted with the writers permission, provided I keep it general) is someone who pressures a girl at his work to go out with him on a date, using his seniority to "entrap" her into the date. Turns out this girl is a witch (in the fantasy use of the term), and punishes him for pressuring her into the date.
The resulting punishment from her is so incredibly over the top, so hefty, so long, and so scarring that she becomes more evil than the poor guy being punished. And then when Dad pops in and says "Hey, stop being mean" the witch goes out of her way to make the guy look like even more of a jerk beyond his control and they both wail on him over the span of three months.
While I can enjoy a good story, and this isn't bad from a story point of view...I can't abide movies and stories where characters are blackmailed or forced to be humiliated simply because the alternative is more humiliating. One thing about my characters, when they are forced into positions where they have submit for no good or useful reason, they fight it until their last breath (aka Susan in The Book of Zand being hit with a tranquilizing dart by an intruder - she fights him and it till her body just shuts down). This story reminds me of the cliched anime porn woman who is forced to do nasty things, simply because someone saw her naked and they might tell.
I also hate characters that bully for no reason other than to satisfy their own bloodlust. It's one thing have a character blocking an inchworm from moving anywhere for a few minutes, and another to have that character actively blocking the centipede for months, forgetting to feed the poor thing, and then shopping half it's legs off for good measure, simply because it thinks it's been slighted, and sending it on it's way after crippling it so much that it would be better just to snuff that life out. There's a point in the story where the character simply withdraws to the point where so much is out of his control, he simply shuts down because he's on remote control anyways.
In fact, there were several parts of the story that left me feeling a bit off kilter and troubled. The story is good, it just had way too many moments where the character was forced into a situation where I probably would have cut my throat than go on. I know if my characters were put in a position like that, they would have died really early in the outline.
Anyways, I made my notes, sent them along, and I'm sure it'll be posted in some fanfiction archive very soon.
The gist of the (non-porn BTW) story (reposted with the writers permission, provided I keep it general) is someone who pressures a girl at his work to go out with him on a date, using his seniority to "entrap" her into the date. Turns out this girl is a witch (in the fantasy use of the term), and punishes him for pressuring her into the date.
The resulting punishment from her is so incredibly over the top, so hefty, so long, and so scarring that she becomes more evil than the poor guy being punished. And then when Dad pops in and says "Hey, stop being mean" the witch goes out of her way to make the guy look like even more of a jerk beyond his control and they both wail on him over the span of three months.
While I can enjoy a good story, and this isn't bad from a story point of view...I can't abide movies and stories where characters are blackmailed or forced to be humiliated simply because the alternative is more humiliating. One thing about my characters, when they are forced into positions where they have submit for no good or useful reason, they fight it until their last breath (aka Susan in The Book of Zand being hit with a tranquilizing dart by an intruder - she fights him and it till her body just shuts down). This story reminds me of the cliched anime porn woman who is forced to do nasty things, simply because someone saw her naked and they might tell.
I also hate characters that bully for no reason other than to satisfy their own bloodlust. It's one thing have a character blocking an inchworm from moving anywhere for a few minutes, and another to have that character actively blocking the centipede for months, forgetting to feed the poor thing, and then shopping half it's legs off for good measure, simply because it thinks it's been slighted, and sending it on it's way after crippling it so much that it would be better just to snuff that life out. There's a point in the story where the character simply withdraws to the point where so much is out of his control, he simply shuts down because he's on remote control anyways.
In fact, there were several parts of the story that left me feeling a bit off kilter and troubled. The story is good, it just had way too many moments where the character was forced into a situation where I probably would have cut my throat than go on. I know if my characters were put in a position like that, they would have died really early in the outline.
Anyways, I made my notes, sent them along, and I'm sure it'll be posted in some fanfiction archive very soon.
