Once more into the breech
Reposting a reply I wrote over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Topic: the ongoing talk of how the VA Tech shooter wrote creepy, violent stuff in his English classes.
This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I’ve blogged about it twice before, here and here.
As a writer, the notion frankly scares me. A writer’s goddamn job is to go into the backbrain and poke around and, sometimes, dig out the really fucked up shit and present it to the world in the context of fiction.
I think more writers need to step up and remind non-writers of this.
Coincidence isn’t correlation. Lots of creepola writing comes from the keyboards of reasonably normal people. And lots of sickos never give sign that they’re quietly murdering people in their basement.
If we as a society honestly want to be able to identify the loonies before they kill people, then we need to not waste time looking for false indicators. Every moment spent harrassing an ordinary, angsty teen who writes scary stuff is a moment not spent noticing the quiet kid in the back who never talks to anyone.
This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I’ve blogged about it twice before, here and here.
As a writer, the notion frankly scares me. A writer’s goddamn job is to go into the backbrain and poke around and, sometimes, dig out the really fucked up shit and present it to the world in the context of fiction.
I think more writers need to step up and remind non-writers of this.
Coincidence isn’t correlation. Lots of creepola writing comes from the keyboards of reasonably normal people. And lots of sickos never give sign that they’re quietly murdering people in their basement.
If we as a society honestly want to be able to identify the loonies before they kill people, then we need to not waste time looking for false indicators. Every moment spent harrassing an ordinary, angsty teen who writes scary stuff is a moment not spent noticing the quiet kid in the back who never talks to anyone.