Awesome...
I don't like to brag, but so far, in the months I have been here, this is the first time I've gotten a Woo! for writing. Basically what I'm herefore, and in the aftermath of leaving RavisU, it took me a while to dial in on what the readers here seem to expect. (I was also traumatized from writing so much Rape, coupled with childhood Incest hitting too close to home.)
I feel compelled to over-explain myself in stories, to the point of ruining them, so I thought I'd get that urge out of my system here. Basically, I was watching old episodes of Avatar, both The Last Airbender, and Legend of Korra, when I saw a video on what fans of the former seem to hate the latter.
In short, because Aang went through the Warrior's Journey (Just look that up, it's a 12 Step Program to write formulaic stories. Throw in a 3 act structure, and it satisfies the audience, basically without them understanding why it's so satisfying.) Korra did not, and therefore The Legend of Korra is trying to be too much like The Last Airbender, and sucks because it can't recapture that magic. (Instead of, you know. Not being a fairy tale for children, and giving the audience credit for following a story that doesn't start with "A long time ago in a land far away" because they already know the rules for all the Benders. Moving on...)
So, that gave me an idea, on how to twist that around, as I usually do. See, I like to take the tropes, and cliches, then play with them. For example, take a proverbial adage, and expound apon it: "That which does not kill you Can make you stronger, but only if you can Learn from the experience." That takes a Nitsche philosophy, repeated ad-nauseum by coffee pub "Nihilists" to extol the virtues of suffering, when they haven't suffered a day in their lives. I got a bit of an epiphany, living on the streets of Portland, and making a living off of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans picked out of Recycle Bins, and carried to convenience stores for a nickel each.
Or in other words: "Punish Artists, we'll do better work." ~Psiberzerker.
Back to the
story, I'm in the process of telling a Victim's Journey, to answer a fairly common FAQ: "How can you keep going back to an Abuser?" Well, like any FAQ, it's borne from an over-simplified assumption. In this case, it mis-represents it as a Choice: Either, stay with them, and continue to be abused, OR leave, and live your own life. 2 simple solutions, where there is an obvious lesser evil, and therefore it's entirely rhetorical. Blaming the victim for staying with, or returning to an abuser, on the assumption that Freedom is obviously a better life.
As if the victim 1: Has a choice, when a manipulative abuser is going to do anything in His (Another assumption) power to deprive you of that freedom, and B: The victim is aware that she's being abused in the first place. When it's oh let's say a Big Black Man beating his girlfriend, and turning her out as a prostitute, it's obvious.
When it's a "just" 9 year old girl, she just doesn't look like an emotional abuser. You don't even think about it. It's so implausible, the mind will come up with any excuse that fits into a world, where little girls don't sexually abuse adults. (Babies, older boys, and anyone else she can get her hands on.) In that world, once discovered, any adult/child incest (Lets say) is going to be assumed to be the adult abusing the child, because adults abuse children.
This becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because then it's so implausible that no child ever abused an adult, because every report of that ever happening comes from a child molester trying to make excuses for molesting her niece. I have this great amulet of a Tiger, that keeps Leopards out of my yard, and I know it works, because there's no leopards in my yard. Never mind the fact that the old Indian mystic that sold it to me had to sell the idea that a Leopard attack was imminent, so that I was afraid of leopards in my yard, when it was never a fear of mine before, because there was never a leopard in my yard before...
This is circular logic. It works, because it works, because it works, and that rock is shaped like a rock. The same thing with that Defensive Handgun, or the EDT sign in your front yard... Obviously, you were never broken into, because it says (Protected by ADT) right out front.
^Spoilers. So, that's what this thread is about. If you have read any of my stories, and never told me why they suck. (I know they suck, why I'm trying new things to make them better) now there's a place. You don't have to worry about me lashing out because you interrupted a story I'm working on. (Also, I don't do Endings. A story ends when the character dies, and I don't kill off characters, because then the Story is over...)
Likewise, if you want to say congratulate GeminiGuy, who routinely discourages feedback in topic, and may even delite non-sequitor posts. This is how we Learn. As authors, I no longer encourage punishment, I feel that I've suffered enough to inspire lifetimes of work, but I can not know WHY my stories suck, specifically, unless you tell me.