Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > General > Writer's Corner > No, I can't say that... can I?

[Odaisé Gaelach]

My question is this: have you ever written a poem or a story or anything, and when you looked over it again you saw something in it that you felt dodgy about saying?

Not because it was a bad idea, or it didn't fit in, but because it might be inadvertently offensive or it might glamourise something, or you just felt uncomfortable saying it.

All right, I'll give an example. I wrote a story a while ago in which the protagonist kills herself because of the magic and it was her duty blah blah blah. She kills herself by driving a knife into her gut. Now in the first draft I wrote she dies with a smile on her face. I looked back at it and thought, "No, I can't say that. That's kinda glamourising suicide, isn't it?" And I didn't feel comfortable saying it.

So in the next draft I changed it - which made sense, because she stabs herself with a kitchen knife, she's not going to die happy.

But my question is this: Have you ever changed something in a poem or a story because you thought, "No, I can't say that... can I?"

[Polaris]

No, not really! Everything I want to say I just say or write! I die poems about death and blood and people quite often don't understand them here in Portugal which makes me sad but I won't change them! And my poems are not offensive or even the book I'm writting... ok the book it is, but I cover the things I want if I want

[eiko guy]

Ive had second thoughts about what it could mean and how people can interpret it but I try to change as little as possible

[arcanedude34]

Its mostly not because of what I write, but mostly how people will take it. What I think when i write it seems to always be completely different than what people think (check some of my early posts for examples).

[eiko guy]

Thats what Im saying I will see the sweet irony in some of my un posted poems but others just see the sadness and take it differently

[Martyr]

I really don't like swear words, but I must acknowledge their appropriate use in writing a piece. 99% of the time, it's wrong.

The problem is that sometimes it's right, and I often go back and correct the writing to get rid of swear words because I don't like them, and then I fall into a limbo because I can't figure out what's right, what's wrong, or if I'm letting my personal tastes impede the creativity and truth of the piece.

Mark Twain once said, something along the lines of:
the difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between the lightning bolt and the lightning bug.

And so writers live in indecisiveness. Because I like my writing filled with bolts and not bugs. And swear words generate some of the most precarious right/wrong word situations.

Spoiler: not a lot of swearing in Twain, unless you count "nigger," which didn't really have the exact same kind of racist connotations in that era that it might have today. And he's arguably one of the best writers who ever lived.