topics/ideas you would not write about/with

[cacian]

I think as an individual I tend to draw the lines about certain approaches,topics,mannerism,activities in life in general because it suits my ideals.
I would not for example include religious beliefs or sexuality in my stories because I do not understand them enough.

what topic/s would you not tackle or write about in your stories in general and why?

[cafolini]

I think that's a good observation. I like to think I would write about anything that comes up only sooner or later. But if I were to approach it now, I can see I'd avoid unintentionally what doesn't fit my ways or my intentions (known only to an ignorant extent, i.e., unintentionally). I see anything as circumstantial except that circumstantiality.
Good question. I wish prejudice were completely avoidable but it is not, and worse, to a holder, it is the least known. I think there are areas where one could easierly be known to others a lot better than to the so-called "himself."
Communication is master over communicators.

[martunia99]

I wouldn't write about "serious" kissing because:
1. I'm not old eanough
2. I don't understand it
3. I don't really know how I could write about it.

[JBI]

I have been noticing American authors tending away from real sexuality in books because of fear of it. Chabon, Franzen, etc. come to mind explicitly shying from real sexuality, whereas Philip Roth, though clearly a misogynist, at least gets some credit for trying. It seems in our established fiction from the US, sexuality is still a feared subject - it seems the only sex people can have in books is mediocre romantic passionate "in love" sex, which is weird because that neither fits with our progressive political mentality, nor reflects a reality.

As for violence, well, that seems to have come a long way.

Canadians have the benefit of being unread, so we get away with everything, though I have read about European books with obscure depictions of sex and violence not being banned, but just not being purchased because our buying public doesn't sensationalize as much over subjects like Sado-Masochism.

I once needed to read a story from a book called Macho Sluts called "The Surprise Party", which was nothing but vulgar depictions of sex (heterosexual, homosexual, and non-consensual), and I could not help but feeling that this wasn't challenging in the sense that it reflects something challenging to our mores, but that it was challenging because it was absolute crap as literature.

Still I would not touch modern politics at all, it's too polarizing - well, at least in the US, and in the international sense. The only polarizing topics in Canada have to do with separation, which has dried out already, and Native American rights, which pretty much every civilized, educated intellectual reader already agrees on anyway.

Still, it could be worse. I've lived in countries that deny people the right to know what is going on around them in print, to the extent that they can apply that internationally. Places like China will ban you from their country if they do not like what you write about, and if you are Chinese will do far worse to you. You learn to keep your mouth shut. It gets worse when the government becomes a major financier of academic institutions, presses, and the like - when books are printed in Chinese factories, which means the same censorship is put in place. As a scholar then, I feel marginalized - you either need to be deny your own critical position (and political position), or else face expulsion.

I guess we are all too touchy in this day and age, and are afraid to put our reality within a text, for fear of being branded anything that ends in "ist" or "ism". That's probably why fantasy literature has grown so much in the last 30 years - it is right now the only real outlet where you can do anything. There is no political fact checker for a made up world, so it allows a form of exploration without the confines of politics. Oblique allegory is harder to politically interpret.

We are losing all our old pastorals as "politically incorrect" in a sense. the "Orient" of Aladdin could not be drawn and animated today, as it is deemed politically incorrect by Western sensibilities. Westerns are gone too, as they as well are racist spheres. Victorian times still hold, but soon they will be kicked out as sexist, and inappropriate. New York city is almost always politically incorrect.

Without the pastoral myth behind fiction, it ends up lacking any real basis - the author needs to invent something. That's why there are so many particular genres emerging now to take the place of dated, or politically incorrect ones. The same way Gothic was a hoot back 250 years ago, so too is "paranormal" or whatever is fashionable. Comic books, manga, anime, cartoons - these are all similar manifestations.

[cacian]

I wouldn't write about "serious" kissing because:
1. I'm not old eanough
2. I don't understand it
3. I don't really know how I could write about it.

Haha...sorry I do not mean to be rude it is just I never knew or even thought of a kiss as being 'serious', 'a kiss is just a kiss' or so the song said:p
Anyway I agree that if you do not know or understand something it is best left alone when it comes to writing it down acurately.
I personally feel that physical sexual context is so personal and down to the individual that attempting to recapture in a sentence or two may not work as well as one had thought. So yeah I personally would not approach it for the very reason that I would not wish to disappoint myself or the reader.
There are things that are best practiced then theorised.

[Easter]

I think I would find it difficult, for myself, to write about anything I hadn't experienced. A lot of writers can do this (and do it effectively!) but I need to have lived and felt something to make it come through more fluently in the written word. I suppose that's why most of my writing is either introspective or just plain silly. I tend to veer wildly back and forth between those two personality traits...

[Delta40]

I'd steer clear of science fiction. I have written a science fiction story but I blended it with a true historical event which turned out quite well but to create pure science fiction and come up with things which don't even exist - :out: I have no interest in going there personally.

Horror is another one. I don't have it in me to write in that genre.

[cyberbob]

I dont think I would write about water balloons or laminated folders. I have no interest in those subjects.

[MANICHAEAN]

Since it seems today that we no longer write about the union with God, writing about sex has become the ultimate test for the writer: to communicate the uncommunicable.

Regards

M.

[paradoxical]

I don't feel comfortable writing about sexuality. It just seems too personal, even though I know it is a part of life.

I also haven't written anything involving my political beliefs since I was an undergrad. Mainly due to the awful political stuff I wrote at the time. I find it's a hard subject to get right.


Horror is another one. I don't have it in me to write in that genre.

Same here. I could never write horror or detective stories, murder mysteries, etc. Although I have dabbled in science fiction.

[Dark Muse]

I have no limits, there are things of which at one point I would not thought I would have written about, and yet find myself doing so at another point. So there is nothing I can absolutely write off ( no pun intended) as something I would not address.

[dysfunctional-h]

All my favorite books address those things tho. DX David Sedaris's books are hilarious and cathartic for me because of [homo-]sexual overtones, as are Faulkner, Joyce and Mann. I just think that sexuality is too essential an element of literature to consider expendable. o_o I'm actually beginning to write sketches for a memoir, to get the juices flowing. And let me tell you, sexuality is a MAJOR part of what i've written so far.

I generally find science fiction hilarious and difficult to swallow, so I'd avoid getting too romantic about fancy smancy new tech. And I will try to avoid getting too boring in discussions of death, after reading 1Q84. XDDD honestly boring stuff is boring so I won't go on about it for too long without any comic relief or emotions attached to symbolism in the extreme. That includes stream of consciousness. Faulkner pulled it off because his novels speak oceans of emotion with every sentence. I, on the other hand, won't touch it.

[martunia99]

By "seariuos" kiss I ment like making out, I just didn't want to be rude. I'm ok with just a little kiss on the cheek.

[cacian]

By "seariuos" kiss I ment like making out, I just didn't want to be rude. I'm ok with just a little kiss on the cheek.

Hi martunia
I am sorry if I have missed what you mean, I still don't understand ''serious'' kiss. Do you mean to say ''to have sex''?