In No-Shit-Sherlock News: Pain is Painful.

[megwrites]

A good post about how pain and trauma are not romantic, but rather boring and also painful. All you writers, listen up and take notes. Because this is important.

Good writers are going to have occasion to traumatize their characters, either on or off screen. Learning how to manage that in your writing so it doesn't breed distrust in your readers (and yes, bad portrayals of pain and trauma inevitably will break the trust of the reader) is vital.

This goes back to one of the elements of Urban Fantasy that I'm quite fed up with. Using trauma as a character flaw or quirk doesn't cut it. It rings false for me in 99% of the books I read.

I have such a hard time articulating why. I still haven't dredged up the right words to explain why it is that when I see these things on a page in front of me, I totally unplug. I can't explain what sets off the Bullshit Detector, but it's there. It's real. It affects my reading choices.

I think it amounts to a feeling of being insulted that someone expects me to believe that pain is beautiful. People who think that either have the wrong definition of beauty or the wrong definition of pain. Possibly both. And I wonder if those who say those things have experienced either.

Comments

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

Well actually, pain is not the same for everyone. About 10% of the population enjoys some level of pain with their sexual experiences - and they DO find it romantic because it is consensual - not like a jabbed toe - so, bullshit detector or not pain has interesting attributes - so does trauma, it is reasonably well known that trauma at the time you meet someone often provides a type of romantic experience - i.e. people bond suddenly. Many dating websites recommend activities like roller coasters or bungie jumping on first or second dates to activate these physical responses.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

I think you may have misunderstood the entire point of my post.

I was not talking about people who use physical pain during their sexual activities. This has nothing to do with them, and I wasn't referring to that sort of pain at all.

Also? Roller coaster rides and bungie jumping voluntarily are not trauma. Please, do not lessen the things that people have gone through (rape, abuse, molestation, and experiences in war) by classifying something that may evoke a temporary and relatively mild fear/excitement response with things like that.

They are not the same. Not even a little.

My post is about the use of such things being abused as a child as a character quirk which is seen to be romantic and interesting in a person. Perhaps I failed to make that abundantly clear, if so, my apologies.

I'm not sure what it was that you hoped I would understand better by leaving this comment.

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

I was probably equally unclear and I apologize.

I didn't mean to conflate bungie jumping with trauma except in the activation of the body since many parallel systems are activated by both.

What I will say about 'abandonment issues' (as an example) is that it is likely that if two people share an unresolved issue from their childhood, that issue will act as an attractor or might be from that perspective considered romantic. People bond over similarities (a lot of the time) and often those alignments are hidden but show up as quirks or an attitude or a specific reaction - so I'm not sure if I agree with you or not ::muddled again:: people can 'read' body language and respond in an informed way even if on a conscious level they are unaware.

People with a shared 'history' in the sense of trauma like child abuse may feel that someone 'will' understand me based on really subtle cues.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

I think any continuation of this discussion merits me clarifying that when I say "romantic" I do not mean it in the sense of flowers and hearts and Valentine's Day. Nor do I mean it in the sense of relationships between people which lead them to become lover or significant others or what have you.

When I talk about pain and trauma not being romantic, I'm talking about the exoticized, idealized version of it. I mean it in the rather Byronic sense of that word, wherein people attribute special meaning to trauma and pain that it really doesn't have.

I hope you read the post I linked to. These comments in that post (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1557650.html?thread=31414162#t31414162) may also help you understand what I'm driving at.

What I will say about 'abandonment issues' (as an example) is that it is likely that if two people share an unresolved issue from their childhood, that issue will act as an attractor or might be from that perspective considered romantic.

I hope I don't come off unnecessarily rude or prickly, but I have to take issue with this.

Okay, let's grant you that perhaps two people - sharing a common trauma or past - may bond with each other. Trauma survivors often find each other.

It still doesn't make that trauma and pain romantic or ideal or somehow beautiful. It doesn't make it any less dull and boring after a while to both of them.

Their relationship may be romantic, their trauma is not. The trauma remains the same, and they remain damaged because of it, either together or separately.

You might try directing your thoughts and comments to the post I linked above. The people there are far more articulate and experienced in this kind of thing than I am, and I'm sure they'd respond to what you had to say.

[denoue-moi.livejournal.com]

It's all a case of bad writing, isn't it? It's not treated like what it is at all but some kind of heroic trait. Maybe those writers really do believe what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I say it makes you stranger.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

It's all a case of bad writing, isn't it?

Basically. Because you never see the really smart, savvy writers doing this crap. It's always the not so savvy ones, yanno?

I say it makes you stranger.

Yes, THANK YOU. THIS. THIS X 1000.

Why is it you can articulate the things that I just can't seem to get to come out of my mouth. Is it because you are made of Grade A awesome? Is it because you are smarter than EVERYONE ELSE I KNOW? Maybe both?

We don't know, it's a mystery.

[denoue-moi.livejournal.com]

Shucks. :)

[mallory-blog.livejournal.com]

Butting in again - it is precisely because the writer has a lack of visibility around these features that they are drawn to write about them in the way they do. And, I would argue, it isn't related to intellect as much as awareness. Really bright people often have utter blind spots too.