My current book is squarely aimed at adult readers. It contains a lot more sex and violence and nastiness than what I’ve written before. Part of my brain is always screaming in my ear don’t write that! They’ll think you’re weird!
There’s always discussion about external censorship, but today I’m curious about self-censorship. How often do you stop yourself from writing something? Is it because of external or institutional pressures, fears of being judged, or because you have your own red lines?
Are you constantly second-guessing yourself and what you can ‘get away with’? Do you deliberately restrict your writing in order to hit a particular age group of readers? Do you write under a pseudonym to get around these issues?
The book I'm writing behind my paywall, JACK OF DIAMONDS, has sex, violence and swearing. I'm not really self-censoring myself as much as I would if my parents were still alive. (Don't ask me why, it's probably some Catholic Guilt thing from childhood.) I do understand there are those readers who are strictly against any bad language or sex, and will unsubscribe from your 'Stack if you write "Filth." First off, anyone who thinks of sex as filth, well, I think the problem lays more with them than it does the writer. As for swearing, it depends on the character and the circumstances. When I write sex scenes, I don't want them to be titillating, or mechanical, but I don't want them to be boring either. Sex scenes are probably the most difficult scenes to write, and even more difficult when you censor yourself. (I know people like to read sex as much as they like to watch it. My mother's favourite show used to be "RED SHOES DIARIES.")
Isn't it weird the way sex and violence are treated in western entertainment? Sex being seen as far more 'forbidden' and dangerous than, you know...killing someone. It's always confused me.
Intimate scenes are definitely a challenge to get right, and can so easily tip over into being something else: cringey, or leery. I think it comes down to remembering the characters involved and making sure it represents their personalities (for good or ill).
Interesting what you say about your parents. I totally understand that.
Just reading the 4th book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and there's a scene there which is meant to be menacing (and is), but also comes across as full-on male gaze, where he almost revels in the visual details. There's a similar scene in Paulo Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl", where we're meant to feel disturbed, but it also risks seeming gratuitous. So I think even if the intentions are good, it's a tricky thing to get right (as you say).
I think I probably do. That thing about seeming 'weird'; questions about 'where did that come from' and not feeling confident enough to say, 'from my imagination' or 'the story told me to say it'. Yep, definitely holding stuff back. The difficult part is to judge whether it is holding my work back.
This is why horror and crime writers hate questions like "where do you get your ideas?", because there's an implicit sort of judgment there. Only a sick brain could come up with these ideas!
Great question. Thanks for bringing that up to the surface at this time and occasion.
Both internal & external pressure. I do restrict because, well I'm not that confident about writing my deepest and most sincere contemplations about/in my life and how I navigate (basicly that is the field of writing I right now publicly put forth). I wish I could and had the gut to not restrict, but I simply do not have the courage at this point. I wish I will have the necessary courage as the conflict is an ongoing process I have internally (connected to the instutitonal pressure). Truth for me is something very dear and fundamental and I dont really feel I can be 100 % loyal to that. I have some work to do because I am certainly not where I want to be.
It definitely takes some courage to write without worrying about what others will think. But, then, I think about books I've read and films I've seen, and it's very rare that I think about the creators in a negative light. Unless something is done badly, of course - but that applies regardless of the specifics of the content.
Hi Simon, good question. I don't censor things like words/sex/etc. even though I'm a (sometimes)teacher and I often question that. I guess my stuff isn't that out there in that regard, but I do think about it when I hit the edge of those areas. I do censor more personally-related things. Sometimes I want to write about my family members or friends. I don't do that either in non-fiction or fiction, even when I think they could morph into a really compelling character. Shame because there is some rich material! ;)
Both reasons at times. Yes I agree that deeper in fiction once can still play with these ideas/characters. Sometimes they are also things I write about but don’t publish. There’s a lot of that writing!!
If it's fiction, I'm not going to self censor at all. (But then I do hide behind a pen name 😆, but even for those who know who I am and read me, I trust that they understand the nature of what I'm writing, even if any truths get blended in.)
If it's factual stuff, I hold back, unfortunately. I don't want to. There's lots I want to open up about, and some that I have done a little (although one recent post elicited an instant unsubscribe from a friend, so 🤦♂️🤷♂️) but in general I'm very aware I'm self-censoring to a certain degree.
Oh some people I know are definitely fiction inspiration! It’s just how far I take it. And then, it’s what they project into fictional characters as well... so complicated! Sometimes I am jealous of your pen name. I think from a professional standpoint it could be useful!
If by "self-censoring," you mean "keep material appropriate for the target audience," then, yes. As an example, in my commentary on "Day of Faces," or "No Adults Allowed," I certainly didn't start swearing - they were kid/YA books, so I stayed more "family friendly." "Triverse" itself is grittier than your other works, so I have no issues dropping a "Fucking Miller."
This applies to fiction, games, essays, letters to family etc.
That said, this is also typical human nature, and generally applies to most human behavior. In the pub, I might say, "Oedipus, you goddamned motherfucker!" (think about it), but I wouldn't drop that line if I was working a school play. My director would like the joke, but I'd offend at least one parent for being foul around their precious babies. I'd drop that joke on my cousins, not my Uncle Tom (if he were still around).
Those who never engage in any kind of self-censorship tend to neurodivergent. The rest, sociopaths.
But my self-censorship is minimal and entirely based around situational awareness.
"Oedipus, you goddamned motherfucker!" is a line I wrote into a one-act play which was a parody of ancient Greek plays. Sadly, the disk is was stored on has decayed and I've lost my hardcopy. Only other gag I remember is, "Why are you still here?" We're the Chorus. We can't leave."
All the time! What will readers think? Reviewers? What will people in my life say/feel, how will they react? The worst is when I come to these thoughts AFTER I've written a thing - and put away. All that work. And one little thought can make me throw it all out. I'm learning to be more brave
Every time I get one of your newsletters I shake my head and mutter "I can't believe Meaghan wrote this...."
Just kidding.
But yes: that sudden fear after hitting 'send' on something, and feeling like you overlooked something, or phrased something wrong, or touched upon something you didn't quite mean to. I tend to have that feeling more in my non-creative pursuits, like when sending a formal email or comms with clients at work. I'm slightly more comfortable with my own creative output.
I've actually got a short story I've yet to publish because it deals with race and disability. That little voice was screaming in my head the entire time I wrote it.
I write to entertain myself. It unloads my ideas, and permits me to explore topics honestly. If I found violence, bloodshed, and physical pain entertaining I would write about it. I don't. But those who do are being honest if that's what rocks their boat.
I guess almost all writers have been nurtured to 'behave', and be friendly and empathetic towards their peers. And, yes, we self-censor without giving our upbringing a thought. But I find, once I am gripped by a theme and plot I'm writing, this tends to fly out of the window, and the characters often behave appallingly. That's life. Real life.
Quite. I have characters in my current book that frequently appal me, but I still have to write them as rounded personalities. Rather than as 'bad guys'. It's a tricky one, sometimes, as I've been so conditioned towards a moralist approach to storytelling over the decades.
I agonise every time I write a post, fretting about it and the wording all day and night until the morning after and then once I have had my first coffee it is completely forgotten...If i think about it later, I always wonder what was all my internal fuss even about...
So go and tell us what is going in that dirty mind...;)
I always have an hour or two after publishing something, when I'm poised and waiting for a backlash or a torrent of negative comments. If I get through those first coupe of hours, I figure I got away with it.
Q: How often do you stop yourself from writing something?
A: I don't. If the story needs it, the story gets it. (Every answer beyond this are footnotes.)
I will clarify on obvious questions of sex and violence. I don't care for sex scenes nor do I think they add much to the stories I've read. In general romance doesn't come to my mind when creating stories anyway and when it does it is quite subtle.
Q: Is it because of external or institutional pressures, fears of being judged, or because you have your own red lines?
A: Given I answered 'no' to the first question this doesn't need answering but I have thoughts on it anyway. I do have red lines when it comes to writing but it is about the craft and not substance. If the story needs something, it gets it.
Judgement will be rendered upon my work regardless and my own judgement will be worse than the audiences if I think I have failed to explore an idea/story fully because I was being cowardly. Lacking the skill/knowledge to explore something fully is a fact of learning. Cowardice is not.
Q: Are you constantly second-guessing yourself and what you can ‘get away with’?
A: I don't second-guess myself about 'getting away' with something more that I haven't pushed hard enough with an idea or scene. I'm not bothered by being seen as "safe" or "edgy" or whathaveyou but I am bothered my own failure to really dig into something and show the story how it is meant to be.
Q: Do you deliberately restrict your writing in order to hit a particular age group of readers?
A: The obvious answer to restriction is swearing and I tend to use it sparingly or if it fits the character in question. Generally I think my writing is for anyone who can and wants to read it, age be damned.
Q: Do you write under a pseudonym to get around these issues?
A: My name is not a pseudonym and also not my full name but not because for any writing reasons.
I like your approach of focusing on your own creative satisfaction and the needs of the work itself, rather than worrying about the external reaction of third parties. Seems like a healthy way to go about it!
I do. Sometime I wish I’d not been as open as I have been about being a writer...I personally know some of my readers, and that makes me hesitant to write certain things sometimes. (I spent about a month in a cold sweat any time I saw my pastor’s wife, because she told me she was reading my books.)
I know it’s a detriment to my stories--I’m already highly aware I struggle with putting real emotion into my work because of it. And I’m working to overcome it because I know I can’t grow as a writer with that hanging over me.
That jovial announcement from friends or people you know in person, "Oh, I'm reading your newsletter/book/thing..."
Always meant in a positive way, but it immediately makes me fret. It's like realising they've been sneaking around inside your head.
Obviously having people read my stuff is a critical part of the whole endeavour, and I'm very comfortable with people I didn't know previously reading my work. But when it turns out to be someone I've known for years, who I didn't talk to about my writing, and I find out they've been reading for ages without me knowing....that always feels odd. :)
Yes, I self-censor with different intent. Sometimes I feel an essay or story has too much scope to reveal my stupidity to the world. Or I wonder if what I've written isn't too mean. I don't intend to spend too much time on Substack and yet I find myself drafting every piece at least 30 times. I tone-correct my writing too. Though I think I would benefit from having a beta-reader or two. So far, I have none. In Dec'23, I published a post on misogyny, found it to be too harsh and unpublished it. Going to make edits and publish it in March. Self-censorship is really time consuming.
In my non-fiction, I have a policy of trying to never write anything mean. I don't have any interest in putting mean stuff out into the world. Beyond that, though, I try not to think too much about the reaction it'll get...easier said than done, though.
For my so far only novel, I steered clear of sex (though I'm no prude), but that's about it. Quite a bit of weird violence and probably too much politics.
I like to push the envelope in my more voluminous non fiction (mostly Burma related) writing. But some info is confidential so can't use that.
I probably do self censor some painful and difficult realities in my Substack - although I'm being always truthful, trying to be.
Yeah, you can be truthful while also restricting your output. Some self-censorship is needed in order to make the finished thing be as good as it can be. Ultimately, good writing is all about choosing which words to use - and which to NOT use.
Really good question. My answer to this is probably a variation on; always. Constantly second guessing myself. In particular I don't want to offend people. Or more specifically, I don't want to offend the wrong people. This probably relates more to when I have my playwright hat on; there are three plays I've written and they have underlying political/social commentary and due to the POV I write the characters from, my nervousness was always "Are the audience going to think that I believe this side of the argument or think that this is who I am?" I'd say that's when I self-censor. But a good rule for me sometimes has been, if I keep coming back to it and find it essential for the story then I'll keep it in. One of the plays has been produced and performed in front of an audience and they absolutely got it. You'd think that might make me second guess and self censor less? Despite that, it doesn't make it any easier when writing similar 🤣 I also find it useful having people read and if they have a strong reaction to something, that will inform whether I remove it or not. That is, if it makes it into the draft that is read.
It's really hard when you have a character that doesn't share your own beliefs! I frequently have that concern, that someone might associate me with one of my nastier characters, or might read a chapter from their point of view out of context.
Simon, I believe that we shouldn't censor ourselves, just as we shouldn't accept being censored. What is necessary is to be open to criticism, to be willing to accept that some of it may be right. Or else, as a Portuguese film director once said: "I want the critics to f#ck off"
Right now I'm struggling with this. My story involves pulling lots of "stuff" from my early years. I really don't want my 1st wife to be triggered by it so I tend to soft-pedal a lot. The truth is also probably too much for my kids to be able to handle. whew thanks for listening
Not often, but there have been a few stories I've kept back because I knew they could potentially cause a furor. I keep saying I should put all of them in an anthology and call it "Offensive Stories for Terrible People".
Good question! I always second guess myself because I know I'm weird. However, as time has gone on in my writing journey, I feel less afraid. Being with a community of writers and seeing the collective sense of humor they have, the daring stories they create, and their enjoyment has lightened me up. I didn't realize writers don't always take themselves seriously. So to answer your question... with my stories, I've been more courageous but with social media and comments, I am far more worried about coming off as strange. I've deleted and rewritten this comment over ten times and I'm still afraid to post it but here I go... pressing that post button :)
That's a really interesting and important point: that being surrounded by other writers can actually help us feel more confident in our own work. Seeing that other writers are just people, rather than elevated magical beings, is I think quite a healthy thing.
A bit of weird is usually a good thing, if you ask me. :)
When writing, I try to read the room. Depending on my intended audience, I may need to change my approach or phrasing, but I take every measure to ensure the message stays in tact.
When writing a difficult subject, I often refer back to an exercise from Renni Browne's and Dave King's "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" in which you have to write a scene involving an eight-year-old protagonist in third person omniscient, third person limited, and first person. I found that as my lens tightened, the details and phrasing changed to reflect what I felt an eight-year-old's perception would be. This felt limiting, until I realized that I hadn't lost any beats in my scene. If I am loosing beats, then I stop and ask myself where they're going and what they're being replaced by.
I feel that determining whether a scene is appropriate for your audience is less about asking "is this too much?" and more about "what does this do for my story?" If you feel that it advances your plot and/or message but you're still uncomfortable sharing it with your intended audience, test several approaches. Ask yourself scene by scene whether it's more effective to be frank or to allude. We all have our personal boundaries, which definitely shape our writing, but if your discomfort is stemming from what the reader might think, then I suggest changing your approach before you consider removing the story beat.
Limitations and restrictions can absolutely lead to fascinating creative choices. A lot of early cinema faced heavy censorship, but that also led to the emergence of specific genres and ways of depicting stories. A lot of noir storytelling stylings I suspect were as a consequence of dancing around censors.
I’m working on this, learning to let my characters speak their truth without me butting in and cutting out the important parts for fear of what others might think of me. It’s not about me. It’s about the people who whisper in my ear, telling me their secrets, they’re the ones I’m loyal too.
In my ill-fated series [*The Passion of Elena Bianchi*] I made no attempt to self-censor. However, I got an ugly lesson on the realities of censorship.
The first two volumes were released by White Bird Publications, a small "traditional" house. The publisher placed paperback and digital editions in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and GooglePlay. Then she died (intestate), and I was obliged to squander hours recovering my rights.
IngramSpark returned paperbacks to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and I uploaded digital editions directly to Kindle. Then the fun began. When I was ready to "go wide," I went to Draft2Digital (whom I very much like, by the way; they have marvelous, user-friendly software for formatting), only to find that my material was objectionable EVERYWHERE, including Barnes & Noble. Thus, two volumes are selling in paperback on that website, yet they are too obscene to sell in digital format? Go figure!
I self-published the last two volumes without incident on Amazon, but they were again censored by Draft2Digital. I even prepared an expurgated edition of the first volume [new title: *The Lovers and the Curse*]. This time the book was accepted by Smashwords only and rejected everywhere else.
I am currently working on the conjectural sequel to Bataille's *The Story of the Eye.* I have severe doubts it will sell anywhere other than Amazon, and it may even be censored there.
Bottom line: I don't need to self-censor. Retailers have already taken the job off my hands!
I don't know if I'd call it self-censoring exactly - I'm always thinking about what's appropriate to the story and the atmosphere I'm trying to create, and often times my characters have their own thoughts and opinions about that. So, I might not censor my writing, but my characters often do! 😂
Using a character's name or a fictional writer's name for a particular story works best for me when the text has been written under the influence of an energy that does not usually visit me or has never visited me before. In such cases, I am only responsible for typing the story and editing, so I give total credit to the force, and it provides peace of mind and closure. I think I give names to the synergies of the moment.
On the YA side I don’t self censor. I don’t write anything in the YA sphere that would warrant that (like graphic sex) so I just do what I do there. On the adult side I do operate under another pen name and there is a little censoring happening there. I think it’s a combination of external reception with my own modesty (clearly this is in regard to sex scenes 🫢). My erotic horror novella really doesn’t hold anything back and it was pretty freeing. In my cyberpunk novel I’m holding it back more, largely because that’s not the point of the book. So I wade into those waters a little there, but not a lot.
Horror is definitely my comfort zone. Romance and sex are new areas for me in writing so I’m still getting my sea legs there. I’ve definitely found myself backspacing over something I’d written on the erotic side that I was like no. No one’s going to like that. They’ll think I’m TOO much of a freak if I put that in there. Only to find out later readers, too, are freaks.
I think most censorship is self-censorship. We write with an idea of our audience - what would please or shock them, intrigue or turn them away. So this isn't necessarily bad; it's part of good writing. So I think there's no such thing as "completely free" writing - it's all crafted to create a particular effect. But we also have a deeper, less conscious sense of what is "appropriate". The philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed a circular prison which he termed the Panopticon, and where every prisoner's cell was viewable from a central hidden guardpost into which the prisoners couldn't see (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon). The result is that prisoners behave as if they're being watched, whether they are or not. French philosopher Michel Foucault later used this as an analogy for how society shapes us: we "internalise" the watchman, and behave in ways that we think he would not disapprove of (even if he's never actually there...). The problem is that good writing needs sometimes to shock or disturb - perhaps in ways that the watchman wouldn't like. But the truth is that we don't really know what effect this might have until we try it. Perhaps you'll find like minded people with controversial comments, or maybe the majority will simply turn out to agree, and your views are less controversial than you thought. So we should write as if there was no one staffing the guardpost (often the best ideas come from "nowhere" and haven't been consciously vetted). As the poet Ted Hughes put it, "The progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own inner police system". But we must still apply our judgement as to whether what we're writing is achieving what we want it to.
I had to write three YA-friendly books to get to the point where I was able to write the more difficult themes in my current book. It's not easy to build up that courage/confidence/whatever it is.
I wish I lived in the 17th century and could be taken out with Giordano Bruno into the public square and burned heroically. That my heroic smoke might mean something transgressive to somebody even if it's just a simple footguard whose eye is momentarily stung by the soot.
Present day restrictions are not sensitive to context but based mostly on linguistic taboo and rigidly though inconsistently enforced, which means work can be simply shuffled offstage as inappropriate by the standards imposed by a certain very narrow American youth demographic over the rest of the world, quicker than you can say cultural imperialism.
As an punk-era rebel now rebranded against my will as a boomer fossil and shoved in the irrelevant box with the other inappropriate and disrespectful specimens, I've learned to shrug it off... but always yearning for that unexpected spring of the pouncing Inquisition.
I have a character flaw (that's what my wife calls it) where I don't give a damn about sensitive people. The only time it was awkward was when my father decided to read one of my books (unexpected). He said it was hard to read graphic sex written by his son. I told him graphic sex is what made him a son.
The only self-censorship I practice is to keep away from specific Native American spiritual practices—from my tribes or any others. It's too easy for a Native writer to make a career out of selling spirituality to non-Native writers. A lot of Native writers do it. I don't.
I look at it this way: everyone can write, but there are few real writers. And real writers are storytellers. You go where the story leads you. Some characters are downright despicable but here's the thing: I recently wrote a story which appeared on Wordpress and got a comment from a reader that wanted to "know" more about the abuse. The "abuse" was sexual, between a crazy aunt and a small girl. I'd given hints aplenty. Bladder infections, nightmares, bedwetting, the whole works and anyone with half a brain would know what had happened. However, he wanted to "see" this. My response was that I wouldn't write a scene involving graphic child molestation because I couldn't -- it would make me puke. And then, getting a tetchy, recommended getting into foster care and reading a case file, any case file, and finding molestation accounts to his heart's content. Renee Denfeld writes wonderful books about these sorts of things, hard things, but her violence or the violence done to others isn't gratuitous, yet the reader knows exactly what's happened because her prose is spare and to the point. She skips where she should, and yet manages to convey (particularly in The Enchanted) what goes on in prison, foster homes, boyfriend attacks on children with negligent mothers, etc. "More" isn't necessary. I'm currently reading "The Bee Sting." It's a good book and there's an almost gang rape scene, (the girl gets rescued) but there's such a build-up that I'm thinking (as a woman you dread these scenes) "Man, I wish I didn't have to read this." And I didn't. The author rescues the girl in a most ingenious way but the reader knows, without having been put through detail by sadistic detail, what the gang of four morons had planned. Actually, it was more effective with less. You do what the story demands, and your sense of art allows. If someone thinks you're too graphic, it shouldn't be an issue if you know you've been true to the text.
I'm not sure if it is self-censoring as much as writing what I want to be proud of and sex/swearing/violence is not something that rings the bell for me. A great teacher, years ago, said sex/swearing/violence are easy...too easy...writing from the heart is the thing. He referred me to the work of Tolstoy, about the horror of war captured in the description of men crying to being like the howling of dogs. That image haunts. I suppose, I'm after that in my own work.
That's often the case: that the presence of sex, swearing and violence is what marks something as being 'mature'. Which is, of course, not the case. In fact, they are often markers of something being quite immature. Gratuitous inclusion, or revelling in a work's supposed 'adult' nature doesn't tend to ring true.
The book I'm writing behind my paywall, JACK OF DIAMONDS, has sex, violence and swearing. I'm not really self-censoring myself as much as I would if my parents were still alive. (Don't ask me why, it's probably some Catholic Guilt thing from childhood.) I do understand there are those readers who are strictly against any bad language or sex, and will unsubscribe from your 'Stack if you write "Filth." First off, anyone who thinks of sex as filth, well, I think the problem lays more with them than it does the writer. As for swearing, it depends on the character and the circumstances. When I write sex scenes, I don't want them to be titillating, or mechanical, but I don't want them to be boring either. Sex scenes are probably the most difficult scenes to write, and even more difficult when you censor yourself. (I know people like to read sex as much as they like to watch it. My mother's favourite show used to be "RED SHOES DIARIES.")
Isn't it weird the way sex and violence are treated in western entertainment? Sex being seen as far more 'forbidden' and dangerous than, you know...killing someone. It's always confused me.
Intimate scenes are definitely a challenge to get right, and can so easily tip over into being something else: cringey, or leery. I think it comes down to remembering the characters involved and making sure it represents their personalities (for good or ill).
Interesting what you say about your parents. I totally understand that.
Just reading the 4th book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and there's a scene there which is meant to be menacing (and is), but also comes across as full-on male gaze, where he almost revels in the visual details. There's a similar scene in Paulo Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl", where we're meant to feel disturbed, but it also risks seeming gratuitous. So I think even if the intentions are good, it's a tricky thing to get right (as you say).
Easy question: never. Is it appropriate for the story? In it goes.
Nice and simple! :D
I think I probably do. That thing about seeming 'weird'; questions about 'where did that come from' and not feeling confident enough to say, 'from my imagination' or 'the story told me to say it'. Yep, definitely holding stuff back. The difficult part is to judge whether it is holding my work back.
This is why horror and crime writers hate questions like "where do you get your ideas?", because there's an implicit sort of judgment there. Only a sick brain could come up with these ideas!
Oh, and my mum reads my stuff!
Great question. Thanks for bringing that up to the surface at this time and occasion.
Both internal & external pressure. I do restrict because, well I'm not that confident about writing my deepest and most sincere contemplations about/in my life and how I navigate (basicly that is the field of writing I right now publicly put forth). I wish I could and had the gut to not restrict, but I simply do not have the courage at this point. I wish I will have the necessary courage as the conflict is an ongoing process I have internally (connected to the instutitonal pressure). Truth for me is something very dear and fundamental and I dont really feel I can be 100 % loyal to that. I have some work to do because I am certainly not where I want to be.
It definitely takes some courage to write without worrying about what others will think. But, then, I think about books I've read and films I've seen, and it's very rare that I think about the creators in a negative light. Unless something is done badly, of course - but that applies regardless of the specifics of the content.
Hi Simon, good question. I don't censor things like words/sex/etc. even though I'm a (sometimes)teacher and I often question that. I guess my stuff isn't that out there in that regard, but I do think about it when I hit the edge of those areas. I do censor more personally-related things. Sometimes I want to write about my family members or friends. I don't do that either in non-fiction or fiction, even when I think they could morph into a really compelling character. Shame because there is some rich material! ;)
Is that because you're worried about how they'll react, or because you want to protect them? Or a bit of both?
It's definitely easier the more one goes into fiction. The closer something hits to home, the more difficult it is to write honestly about, I find.
Both reasons at times. Yes I agree that deeper in fiction once can still play with these ideas/characters. Sometimes they are also things I write about but don’t publish. There’s a lot of that writing!!
If it's fiction, I'm not going to self censor at all. (But then I do hide behind a pen name 😆, but even for those who know who I am and read me, I trust that they understand the nature of what I'm writing, even if any truths get blended in.)
If it's factual stuff, I hold back, unfortunately. I don't want to. There's lots I want to open up about, and some that I have done a little (although one recent post elicited an instant unsubscribe from a friend, so 🤦♂️🤷♂️) but in general I'm very aware I'm self-censoring to a certain degree.
Oh some people I know are definitely fiction inspiration! It’s just how far I take it. And then, it’s what they project into fictional characters as well... so complicated! Sometimes I am jealous of your pen name. I think from a professional standpoint it could be useful!
A delightful complication to have ;) Rich sources of inspiration. So long as they don't find out, hehe.
If by "self-censoring," you mean "keep material appropriate for the target audience," then, yes. As an example, in my commentary on "Day of Faces," or "No Adults Allowed," I certainly didn't start swearing - they were kid/YA books, so I stayed more "family friendly." "Triverse" itself is grittier than your other works, so I have no issues dropping a "Fucking Miller."
This applies to fiction, games, essays, letters to family etc.
That said, this is also typical human nature, and generally applies to most human behavior. In the pub, I might say, "Oedipus, you goddamned motherfucker!" (think about it), but I wouldn't drop that line if I was working a school play. My director would like the joke, but I'd offend at least one parent for being foul around their precious babies. I'd drop that joke on my cousins, not my Uncle Tom (if he were still around).
Those who never engage in any kind of self-censorship tend to neurodivergent. The rest, sociopaths.
But my self-censorship is minimal and entirely based around situational awareness.
"Oedipus, you goddamned motherfucker!" is a line I wrote into a one-act play which was a parody of ancient Greek plays. Sadly, the disk is was stored on has decayed and I've lost my hardcopy. Only other gag I remember is, "Why are you still here?" We're the Chorus. We can't leave."
All the time! What will readers think? Reviewers? What will people in my life say/feel, how will they react? The worst is when I come to these thoughts AFTER I've written a thing - and put away. All that work. And one little thought can make me throw it all out. I'm learning to be more brave
Every time I get one of your newsletters I shake my head and mutter "I can't believe Meaghan wrote this...."
Just kidding.
But yes: that sudden fear after hitting 'send' on something, and feeling like you overlooked something, or phrased something wrong, or touched upon something you didn't quite mean to. I tend to have that feeling more in my non-creative pursuits, like when sending a formal email or comms with clients at work. I'm slightly more comfortable with my own creative output.
lol! Don't scare me like that Simon!
😛
I've actually got a short story I've yet to publish because it deals with race and disability. That little voice was screaming in my head the entire time I wrote it.
Publish it anyway!
You could always find some beta readers with direct lived experience to provide extra feedback, before publishing more widely?
I'm chewing over that. Ideally someone from the Black Caribbean community here in Britain (which I appreciate is very specific).
I write to entertain myself. It unloads my ideas, and permits me to explore topics honestly. If I found violence, bloodshed, and physical pain entertaining I would write about it. I don't. But those who do are being honest if that's what rocks their boat.
I guess almost all writers have been nurtured to 'behave', and be friendly and empathetic towards their peers. And, yes, we self-censor without giving our upbringing a thought. But I find, once I am gripped by a theme and plot I'm writing, this tends to fly out of the window, and the characters often behave appallingly. That's life. Real life.
Quite. I have characters in my current book that frequently appal me, but I still have to write them as rounded personalities. Rather than as 'bad guys'. It's a tricky one, sometimes, as I've been so conditioned towards a moralist approach to storytelling over the decades.
I agonise every time I write a post, fretting about it and the wording all day and night until the morning after and then once I have had my first coffee it is completely forgotten...If i think about it later, I always wonder what was all my internal fuss even about...
So go and tell us what is going in that dirty mind...;)
I always have an hour or two after publishing something, when I'm poised and waiting for a backlash or a torrent of negative comments. If I get through those first coupe of hours, I figure I got away with it.
Q: How often do you stop yourself from writing something?
A: I don't. If the story needs it, the story gets it. (Every answer beyond this are footnotes.)
I will clarify on obvious questions of sex and violence. I don't care for sex scenes nor do I think they add much to the stories I've read. In general romance doesn't come to my mind when creating stories anyway and when it does it is quite subtle.
Q: Is it because of external or institutional pressures, fears of being judged, or because you have your own red lines?
A: Given I answered 'no' to the first question this doesn't need answering but I have thoughts on it anyway. I do have red lines when it comes to writing but it is about the craft and not substance. If the story needs something, it gets it.
Judgement will be rendered upon my work regardless and my own judgement will be worse than the audiences if I think I have failed to explore an idea/story fully because I was being cowardly. Lacking the skill/knowledge to explore something fully is a fact of learning. Cowardice is not.
Q: Are you constantly second-guessing yourself and what you can ‘get away with’?
A: I don't second-guess myself about 'getting away' with something more that I haven't pushed hard enough with an idea or scene. I'm not bothered by being seen as "safe" or "edgy" or whathaveyou but I am bothered my own failure to really dig into something and show the story how it is meant to be.
Q: Do you deliberately restrict your writing in order to hit a particular age group of readers?
A: The obvious answer to restriction is swearing and I tend to use it sparingly or if it fits the character in question. Generally I think my writing is for anyone who can and wants to read it, age be damned.
Q: Do you write under a pseudonym to get around these issues?
A: My name is not a pseudonym and also not my full name but not because for any writing reasons.
I like your approach of focusing on your own creative satisfaction and the needs of the work itself, rather than worrying about the external reaction of third parties. Seems like a healthy way to go about it!
I do. Sometime I wish I’d not been as open as I have been about being a writer...I personally know some of my readers, and that makes me hesitant to write certain things sometimes. (I spent about a month in a cold sweat any time I saw my pastor’s wife, because she told me she was reading my books.)
I know it’s a detriment to my stories--I’m already highly aware I struggle with putting real emotion into my work because of it. And I’m working to overcome it because I know I can’t grow as a writer with that hanging over me.
That jovial announcement from friends or people you know in person, "Oh, I'm reading your newsletter/book/thing..."
Always meant in a positive way, but it immediately makes me fret. It's like realising they've been sneaking around inside your head.
Obviously having people read my stuff is a critical part of the whole endeavour, and I'm very comfortable with people I didn't know previously reading my work. But when it turns out to be someone I've known for years, who I didn't talk to about my writing, and I find out they've been reading for ages without me knowing....that always feels odd. :)
Yes, I self-censor with different intent. Sometimes I feel an essay or story has too much scope to reveal my stupidity to the world. Or I wonder if what I've written isn't too mean. I don't intend to spend too much time on Substack and yet I find myself drafting every piece at least 30 times. I tone-correct my writing too. Though I think I would benefit from having a beta-reader or two. So far, I have none. In Dec'23, I published a post on misogyny, found it to be too harsh and unpublished it. Going to make edits and publish it in March. Self-censorship is really time consuming.
In my non-fiction, I have a policy of trying to never write anything mean. I don't have any interest in putting mean stuff out into the world. Beyond that, though, I try not to think too much about the reaction it'll get...easier said than done, though.
Thanks for a great question Simon.
For my so far only novel, I steered clear of sex (though I'm no prude), but that's about it. Quite a bit of weird violence and probably too much politics.
I like to push the envelope in my more voluminous non fiction (mostly Burma related) writing. But some info is confidential so can't use that.
I probably do self censor some painful and difficult realities in my Substack - although I'm being always truthful, trying to be.
Yeah, you can be truthful while also restricting your output. Some self-censorship is needed in order to make the finished thing be as good as it can be. Ultimately, good writing is all about choosing which words to use - and which to NOT use.
Really good question. My answer to this is probably a variation on; always. Constantly second guessing myself. In particular I don't want to offend people. Or more specifically, I don't want to offend the wrong people. This probably relates more to when I have my playwright hat on; there are three plays I've written and they have underlying political/social commentary and due to the POV I write the characters from, my nervousness was always "Are the audience going to think that I believe this side of the argument or think that this is who I am?" I'd say that's when I self-censor. But a good rule for me sometimes has been, if I keep coming back to it and find it essential for the story then I'll keep it in. One of the plays has been produced and performed in front of an audience and they absolutely got it. You'd think that might make me second guess and self censor less? Despite that, it doesn't make it any easier when writing similar 🤣 I also find it useful having people read and if they have a strong reaction to something, that will inform whether I remove it or not. That is, if it makes it into the draft that is read.
It's really hard when you have a character that doesn't share your own beliefs! I frequently have that concern, that someone might associate me with one of my nastier characters, or might read a chapter from their point of view out of context.
Simon, I believe that we shouldn't censor ourselves, just as we shouldn't accept being censored. What is necessary is to be open to criticism, to be willing to accept that some of it may be right. Or else, as a Portuguese film director once said: "I want the critics to f#ck off"
Right now I'm struggling with this. My story involves pulling lots of "stuff" from my early years. I really don't want my 1st wife to be triggered by it so I tend to soft-pedal a lot. The truth is also probably too much for my kids to be able to handle. whew thanks for listening
Not often, but there have been a few stories I've kept back because I knew they could potentially cause a furor. I keep saying I should put all of them in an anthology and call it "Offensive Stories for Terrible People".
Ha, that sounds like something that would sell.
Good question! I always second guess myself because I know I'm weird. However, as time has gone on in my writing journey, I feel less afraid. Being with a community of writers and seeing the collective sense of humor they have, the daring stories they create, and their enjoyment has lightened me up. I didn't realize writers don't always take themselves seriously. So to answer your question... with my stories, I've been more courageous but with social media and comments, I am far more worried about coming off as strange. I've deleted and rewritten this comment over ten times and I'm still afraid to post it but here I go... pressing that post button :)
That's a really interesting and important point: that being surrounded by other writers can actually help us feel more confident in our own work. Seeing that other writers are just people, rather than elevated magical beings, is I think quite a healthy thing.
A bit of weird is usually a good thing, if you ask me. :)
When writing, I try to read the room. Depending on my intended audience, I may need to change my approach or phrasing, but I take every measure to ensure the message stays in tact.
When writing a difficult subject, I often refer back to an exercise from Renni Browne's and Dave King's "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" in which you have to write a scene involving an eight-year-old protagonist in third person omniscient, third person limited, and first person. I found that as my lens tightened, the details and phrasing changed to reflect what I felt an eight-year-old's perception would be. This felt limiting, until I realized that I hadn't lost any beats in my scene. If I am loosing beats, then I stop and ask myself where they're going and what they're being replaced by.
I feel that determining whether a scene is appropriate for your audience is less about asking "is this too much?" and more about "what does this do for my story?" If you feel that it advances your plot and/or message but you're still uncomfortable sharing it with your intended audience, test several approaches. Ask yourself scene by scene whether it's more effective to be frank or to allude. We all have our personal boundaries, which definitely shape our writing, but if your discomfort is stemming from what the reader might think, then I suggest changing your approach before you consider removing the story beat.
Limitations and restrictions can absolutely lead to fascinating creative choices. A lot of early cinema faced heavy censorship, but that also led to the emergence of specific genres and ways of depicting stories. A lot of noir storytelling stylings I suspect were as a consequence of dancing around censors.
I’m working on this, learning to let my characters speak their truth without me butting in and cutting out the important parts for fear of what others might think of me. It’s not about me. It’s about the people who whisper in my ear, telling me their secrets, they’re the ones I’m loyal too.
In my ill-fated series [*The Passion of Elena Bianchi*] I made no attempt to self-censor. However, I got an ugly lesson on the realities of censorship.
The first two volumes were released by White Bird Publications, a small "traditional" house. The publisher placed paperback and digital editions in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and GooglePlay. Then she died (intestate), and I was obliged to squander hours recovering my rights.
IngramSpark returned paperbacks to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and I uploaded digital editions directly to Kindle. Then the fun began. When I was ready to "go wide," I went to Draft2Digital (whom I very much like, by the way; they have marvelous, user-friendly software for formatting), only to find that my material was objectionable EVERYWHERE, including Barnes & Noble. Thus, two volumes are selling in paperback on that website, yet they are too obscene to sell in digital format? Go figure!
I self-published the last two volumes without incident on Amazon, but they were again censored by Draft2Digital. I even prepared an expurgated edition of the first volume [new title: *The Lovers and the Curse*]. This time the book was accepted by Smashwords only and rejected everywhere else.
I am currently working on the conjectural sequel to Bataille's *The Story of the Eye.* I have severe doubts it will sell anywhere other than Amazon, and it may even be censored there.
Bottom line: I don't need to self-censor. Retailers have already taken the job off my hands!
Yikes. That sounds like a long and frustrating experience!
I don't know if I'd call it self-censoring exactly - I'm always thinking about what's appropriate to the story and the atmosphere I'm trying to create, and often times my characters have their own thoughts and opinions about that. So, I might not censor my writing, but my characters often do! 😂
Using a character's name or a fictional writer's name for a particular story works best for me when the text has been written under the influence of an energy that does not usually visit me or has never visited me before. In such cases, I am only responsible for typing the story and editing, so I give total credit to the force, and it provides peace of mind and closure. I think I give names to the synergies of the moment.
On the YA side I don’t self censor. I don’t write anything in the YA sphere that would warrant that (like graphic sex) so I just do what I do there. On the adult side I do operate under another pen name and there is a little censoring happening there. I think it’s a combination of external reception with my own modesty (clearly this is in regard to sex scenes 🫢). My erotic horror novella really doesn’t hold anything back and it was pretty freeing. In my cyberpunk novel I’m holding it back more, largely because that’s not the point of the book. So I wade into those waters a little there, but not a lot.
Sounds like those are more artistic and audience choices rather than external pressure?
Do you prefer writing some of those books/genres over others?
Horror is definitely my comfort zone. Romance and sex are new areas for me in writing so I’m still getting my sea legs there. I’ve definitely found myself backspacing over something I’d written on the erotic side that I was like no. No one’s going to like that. They’ll think I’m TOO much of a freak if I put that in there. Only to find out later readers, too, are freaks.
I think most censorship is self-censorship. We write with an idea of our audience - what would please or shock them, intrigue or turn them away. So this isn't necessarily bad; it's part of good writing. So I think there's no such thing as "completely free" writing - it's all crafted to create a particular effect. But we also have a deeper, less conscious sense of what is "appropriate". The philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed a circular prison which he termed the Panopticon, and where every prisoner's cell was viewable from a central hidden guardpost into which the prisoners couldn't see (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon). The result is that prisoners behave as if they're being watched, whether they are or not. French philosopher Michel Foucault later used this as an analogy for how society shapes us: we "internalise" the watchman, and behave in ways that we think he would not disapprove of (even if he's never actually there...). The problem is that good writing needs sometimes to shock or disturb - perhaps in ways that the watchman wouldn't like. But the truth is that we don't really know what effect this might have until we try it. Perhaps you'll find like minded people with controversial comments, or maybe the majority will simply turn out to agree, and your views are less controversial than you thought. So we should write as if there was no one staffing the guardpost (often the best ideas come from "nowhere" and haven't been consciously vetted). As the poet Ted Hughes put it, "The progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own inner police system". But we must still apply our judgement as to whether what we're writing is achieving what we want it to.
Yes! Love the way you put that.
Thanks Simon! Just my random thoughts. It's nice to have a place to dump them! :)
I self-censor regularly. That's one of the reasons I don't make as much progress on my fiction as I would like.
I had to write three YA-friendly books to get to the point where I was able to write the more difficult themes in my current book. It's not easy to build up that courage/confidence/whatever it is.
I give you permission to stop doing so, David ;)
Break new ground!
I wish I lived in the 17th century and could be taken out with Giordano Bruno into the public square and burned heroically. That my heroic smoke might mean something transgressive to somebody even if it's just a simple footguard whose eye is momentarily stung by the soot.
Present day restrictions are not sensitive to context but based mostly on linguistic taboo and rigidly though inconsistently enforced, which means work can be simply shuffled offstage as inappropriate by the standards imposed by a certain very narrow American youth demographic over the rest of the world, quicker than you can say cultural imperialism.
As an punk-era rebel now rebranded against my will as a boomer fossil and shoved in the irrelevant box with the other inappropriate and disrespectful specimens, I've learned to shrug it off... but always yearning for that unexpected spring of the pouncing Inquisition.
I have a character flaw (that's what my wife calls it) where I don't give a damn about sensitive people. The only time it was awkward was when my father decided to read one of my books (unexpected). He said it was hard to read graphic sex written by his son. I told him graphic sex is what made him a son.
The only self-censorship I practice is to keep away from specific Native American spiritual practices—from my tribes or any others. It's too easy for a Native writer to make a career out of selling spirituality to non-Native writers. A lot of Native writers do it. I don't.
I look at it this way: everyone can write, but there are few real writers. And real writers are storytellers. You go where the story leads you. Some characters are downright despicable but here's the thing: I recently wrote a story which appeared on Wordpress and got a comment from a reader that wanted to "know" more about the abuse. The "abuse" was sexual, between a crazy aunt and a small girl. I'd given hints aplenty. Bladder infections, nightmares, bedwetting, the whole works and anyone with half a brain would know what had happened. However, he wanted to "see" this. My response was that I wouldn't write a scene involving graphic child molestation because I couldn't -- it would make me puke. And then, getting a tetchy, recommended getting into foster care and reading a case file, any case file, and finding molestation accounts to his heart's content. Renee Denfeld writes wonderful books about these sorts of things, hard things, but her violence or the violence done to others isn't gratuitous, yet the reader knows exactly what's happened because her prose is spare and to the point. She skips where she should, and yet manages to convey (particularly in The Enchanted) what goes on in prison, foster homes, boyfriend attacks on children with negligent mothers, etc. "More" isn't necessary. I'm currently reading "The Bee Sting." It's a good book and there's an almost gang rape scene, (the girl gets rescued) but there's such a build-up that I'm thinking (as a woman you dread these scenes) "Man, I wish I didn't have to read this." And I didn't. The author rescues the girl in a most ingenious way but the reader knows, without having been put through detail by sadistic detail, what the gang of four morons had planned. Actually, it was more effective with less. You do what the story demands, and your sense of art allows. If someone thinks you're too graphic, it shouldn't be an issue if you know you've been true to the text.
I'm not sure if it is self-censoring as much as writing what I want to be proud of and sex/swearing/violence is not something that rings the bell for me. A great teacher, years ago, said sex/swearing/violence are easy...too easy...writing from the heart is the thing. He referred me to the work of Tolstoy, about the horror of war captured in the description of men crying to being like the howling of dogs. That image haunts. I suppose, I'm after that in my own work.
That's often the case: that the presence of sex, swearing and violence is what marks something as being 'mature'. Which is, of course, not the case. In fact, they are often markers of something being quite immature. Gratuitous inclusion, or revelling in a work's supposed 'adult' nature doesn't tend to ring true.
Pois é
Isto é algo teu que me intriga muito desde de o início
Uma das conversar que gostaria que ter contigo
I do and I don't. What I mean is I do in terms of the voice of the particular story.