Pink Think: “Readers respond to every genre intensely, if it’s a genre that appeals to them. Again, who can say why anyone enjoys horror and dark fantasy? If I can’t answer the question for myself, I wouldn’t dream of trying to answer it for others.” – Laurell K. Hamilton
photo from stockxchng
I wasn’t going to post about this. But (belatedly) seeing the Wall Street Journal article criticizing YA books as “dark and depraved” made me think of a recent experience I had with my 15 year old daughter.
***
A couple of weeks ago, I stayed home to write a short story which I could enter into a contest due at midnight that day. When my family came home, I proudly showed “The Tenant” to my husband on my laptop.
As some of you might know, I have a penchant for writing horror stories, and “The Tenant” is probably the grittiest, darkest I’ve ever written. It is the story of a young woman who is pregnant out of wedlock, who refuses to have an abortion, and who has moved in to a haunted house. She wonders what is behind a closed door at the end of the hallway and goes to investigate. What she discovers comes as an emotional and physical shock.
I chomped at the bit waiting for my husband’s reaction, which was a polite, “Very interesting.”
“Good interesting or bad interesting?” I wheedled.
“Geez, I’m late for an appointment,” he said. Or something smacking of avoidance.
So I thought I’d try it on for size on my 15 year old. She usually reads my short stories. Horror is not her genre, I knew, but I wanted to see what she thought. I watched her face. Absorbed, wide-eyed. She read to the end, then re-read to another part.
Again, a polite response. Later, in the truck, she said, “Why did you write that story?”
“When I was young,” I said, “my family lived in a house like in my story, and there was a room at the end of the hall everyone said was haunted. I always tried to imagine what was in that room, and this was my way of doing it.”
She referred to a couple of words in my story I’d used, “whore” and “slut”. “Why did you put them in there?”
I felt like I was seeing her for the very first time. My kids are sweet. We hardly watch TV. A lot of things shock them and I hadn’t been sensitive to this. There was nothing explicit or graphic in my story, but I suppose you could say the content and some language was “mature.” “I don’t know where that came from,” I said. “I just wrote what came to me.”
“I felt violated reading the story,” she said. “And now, I feel like I can’t erase it from my mind.”
***
Her reaction, brought on by something I had thoughtlessly tossed in her lap, weighed me down all day. It made me wonder what my obligation as a writer is to my readers. Was there merit to dark and gritty literature? Even though it reflected reality? Or the darker seams of life?
As a mom, I can relate to the mom depicted in the WSJ article who walks in the bookstore feeling depressed at the dark themes evident in YA book covers and synopses, wondering what, if any, books kids can read. There is “happier” fare, but they are few and far between. Does this reflect the fact that writers usually write to exorcise some dark past?
As a writer, I vowed I would be more careful what, of my writing, I have my children read. I never did submit that story. I’m still trying to decide what my goal as a writer is. Is it to illuminate the dark places of life, or to darken the light places?
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