Once more into the breech

[barbarienne]

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 hereAs a writer, the notion frankly scares me. A writer’s goddamn job is to go into the

Comments

[green_knight]

Someone once said online somewhere, and I wish I had taken note of who and where, that fantasies - even the darkest, most disturbing ones - fulfill an important role - you can play 'what if' in the safety of your own mind. His (or her) theory was that these *were not meant to be acted out in the real world* - dreaming (or daydreaming, or writing) about anything did not mean that one should or would want to see it manifest. As long as people can distinguish between inner and outer life, there should be no problem. Certainly my mind has come up with some thoughts I don't want to own, but that's ok - it's between me and myself.

[ruvdraba]

It's true that what you read reflects your interests, but it doesn't always shed light on why you're interested. Romance readers don't necessarily want to commit infidelities; Old Testament readers don't want to stone people and pour molten gold on one anothers' heads; and readers of the Anarchist's Cookbook don't all want to make pipe-bombs.

Writers write what interests them, but for marketing reasons, they often write more narrowly than their full spectrum of interests. So horror writers can be very compassionate people; fantasy writers can be practical, and crime writers may abhor crime.

More on what I think constitutes reasonable accountability for what we read and what we write here.

[spherissa]

I'm sorry but if we can judge on what people write why arne't Stephen King, Tami Hoag and oh gods THOUSANDS of other people LOCKED up?

Such rubbish.

Nice reply on your part.

Yeah, Stephen King, fools!

[malkatsheva]

The most obvious rebuttal is definitely Stephen King. I mean, "Gerald's Game," hello? But we can take it back further. Sophocles didn't want to gouge out anyone's eyes although he wrote Oedipus Rex. . . Homer wrote about Achilles dragging Hector's defiled body behind his chariot, but it seems a safe assumption that he didn't regard that as his own personal goal in life

[duskpeterson]

I was talking about this just this afternoon with someone. I too was disturbed by the news articles you mentioned. But you know, this often happens in a fan context too. I've lost track of how many readers who have read my first-person contemporary fiction have assumed that I'm like my narrator and have addressed me accordingly. They obviously like my protagonist, and they're prepared to like me too on that basis.

Naturally, when it reaches the point where they're making assumptions about me that could harm them, I correct them. But I think it's human nature to assume that writers' fiction = writers' lives. Just look at all those literary biographers, diligently digging into the lives of writers to see what evidence exists for parallels between novels and real life.

It's always helpful for someone like you to step up and say, "It just ain't so, Joe." But I don't think this type of assumption is ever likely to go away.

[angledge]

I'm confused. What concerns you - the idea that people are horrified by what he wrote? Or that people are saying that he should've received more scrutiny from mental health professionals/campus authorities/the police because he wrote violent plays?

I think his writings were definitely a sign of trouble, especially when combined with other behaviors. He WAS the quiet kid in the back who never talks to anyone. Lucinda Roy, the professor who's been quoted all over the place, has surely read a lot of violent writing. And even with her previous exposure & her knowledge that yes, teens & twentysomethings often write stuff like this, she thought his stuff stood out as particularly disturbing. I don't think she's advocating rounding up all authors who write disturbing stuff - but she is saying that once in a while (once in a career?), a teacher may see something that should set off alarm bells.

[barbarienne]

I'm confused. What concerns you - the idea that people are horrified by what he wrote? Or that people are saying that he should've received more scrutiny from mental health professionals/campus authorities/the police because he wrote violent plays?

-->The second one. The news, in particular, is covering it very simplistically. "He wrote about violence, therefore he should have been watched" and "The fact that he wrote about violent things creeped out his profs and fellow students--they knew there was something wrong with him."

No. As a writer, I categorically reject this simplistic view.

What bothered the profs and the other students was the whole package: Cho was, in a word, weird in a particularly creepy, scary way. People can smell an unhinged predator in their midst. His creepy writing might have been part of the package, but if he had never written a word, I'm pretty sure he would have been creepy anyhow. I would like to hear some comments from profs and students who weren't in English class with him. I saw an interview with

[angledge]

So it's the way it's being covered by the media that bothers you, not the comment by the professor? If that's the case, I'd have to agree with you.

But I also think that teachers should be supported if they feel like a student's writings indicate trouble. It's a balancing act.

[barbarienne]

Yes, the media. They are sensationalizing something that shouldn't be, or at least not in the way they are doing it.

But I also think that teachers should be supported if they feel like a student's writings indicate trouble. It's a balancing act.

Granted. The teacher, being in direct contact with the student, is in a position to have more data than just the words on the page.

I would hope the teacher would try to talk to the student first and suss out the situation, rather than just go run off to the guidance counselor and say "I've got another one." My greatest concern is on the high school level, where more people seem inclined to freak, and where the qualifications for teachers aren't as high (and where there are just plain a broader spectrum of them, in raw numbers).

I don't like witch-hunts.