Fart and Feces In A Novel

[miyako73]

Is it a good idea to write about farting and defecating and include them in a novel? I don't know if this is Wolf's subliminal effect on me. I could not write last night, so I reread his dirty posts. I immediately came up with this:

"Ompo Kalaw, a close friend of my grandmother, was one of the characters who had me thankful that I grew up in a town where the magic and the real coexisted. Her every reading of my dream about myself farting or defecating always came out to be true. Utot (fart) and tae (feces) in her deep vocabulary portended good luck in anything that involved money and winning. Both meant I should gamble what my father gave and elbow my way through the sweating crowd to enter the jampacked sabungan—a roofed, open arena with a centrally elevated c0ckpit the size of the boxing ring—that allowed kids who had bills to waggle in front of adult bettors. She would prod me to bet on sabong, the bladed c0ckfight, and to pick, shout, and repeat sa pula, the c0ck on the red side, like I was in a bazaar hawking. When Luna, our mythical goddess of the night, blessed me with a stinky, dirty dream, it also meant Ompo Kalaw's balato (her share) she asked forthright after every win. I had to give it to her readily to avoid malas (bad luck) befalling me. The old seer had endeared herself to us: to me because I won lots of times and to my grandmother who dreamed a lot."

[Charles Darnay]

bodily matters are a part of humanity, so excluding them outright from literature, a medium exploring human nature, doesn't seem to make sense. But throwing farting and ****ing for shock value, with no meaning, and no connection to the human, as Wolf is prone to do, is just garbage.

Your paragraph needs a bit of tweaking, but it is quite good. It is an odd quirk, but you are using body humour to explore a character, and to help us better get into a character - thus giving it a place.

There is a part in Ulysses while Leopold Bloom dips into a bath and lets out a loud fart (which Joyce spells out). Yes, Joyce is saying that farting is part of this man's everyday life, get over it - but he is also using a highly relatable action to explore the release, the letting go of stress and cares, and just luxuriating in a fart.

In short, farting and feces are not jus placeholders for "I am edgy, look at me, bipboopbapfap" - they are part of us and should be explored as such.

[cacian]

No it is not. I would not if I could help it. I treat bodily functions like swear words. I do not include swear words in my writing the same goes with bodily functions.

[WolfLarsen]

Miyako – I like your piece very much. If farting & feces help you to experiment and write new things I think it is good. You don't want to get stuck in a conventional rut. It's sort of like choosing a new route to work just to have some variety, or eating in a different restaurant, or traveling to someplace you've never been before, or sharing an intimate experience with somebody new (don't forget the precautions). Variety & experimentation can be good.

[cafolini]

Careful with indigestion. It tends to happen as you absorb what has already been digested.

[AuntShecky]

At first, I thought your thread was about something else-- as if some critic had told you that your work is a big steaming pile of poop.

The fictional paragraph opening the thread is compelling, methinks. It's an anecdote showing aspects of life in a culture different from mine own. Very well-expressed, as well.

This fictional passage differs from raw scatology designed to shock in that your story uses the gastrointestinal substances as metaphors for something else, in this case, "good luck." (Incidentally, all my life I've been told that if you step in horse dung it brings good luck. Well, that's happened to me a couple of times at a racetrack, but all that came out of it was a pair of messy shoes. The nag I'd bet on came in last.)

[WolfLarsen]

This fictional passage differs from raw scatology designed to shock in that your story uses the gastrointestinal substances as metaphors for something else, in this case, "good luck."

What others think is written for shock value may actually be what is natural for the writer. Perhaps some things are shocking to some readers because some readers are so puritanical. Some readers may think something was written for "shock value", but perhaps the writer was only putting down on the page what was in his head without self-censorship.

The writer needs to write first, and worry about public reaction second. In fact, let the puritans amongst the reading public be damned! The writer should put on the page whatever comes natural to him.

[hillwalker]

I don't think Auntie is saying anyone's work is 'shocking' - or that writing about bodily functions is 'shocking'. She's suggesting that there are writers who write purely to shock the reader. That's the problem, because most of the time they fail miserably.

H