I am not sure if this will be a silly question, but a story I will be writing soon has a very abusive theme, which I obviously want to approach with some sensitivity, so I was wondering if anyone else has written physical, mental or sexual abuse in to their stories and how they went about it as I do not want to come across as insensitive :)
Thank you so much for your comments! It gives me PLENTY to think about. I was worried about not being sensitive enough, but it seems as if i should lessen the sensitivity and write the truth of the situation...with a point :) TY
I was once told that menace should be long and drawn out, violence should be short and sweet.
I would echo that. A lot of my worst scenes were written while my children were at school and several people thought I was ignoring them when I picked my children up because I was still reliving the scene and just didn't notice real people around me. Others were written very late at night when I couldn't be disturbed. You need very strong focus to remain in the heads of the affected characters and a very strong heart to not feel quite affected yourself for several days after.
When it comes to how to write those scenes, I found myself quite character led. If you really believe they are the experiences of those you are writing about and that their reactions are true to their character, you shouldn't go far wrong. As for trying to be sensitive to those it has happened to, it's a lovely thought, but they are nearly always fighting an unimaginable battle inside and triggers to their upset can't be predicted. What you must remember is that abuse should always remain a talked about subject if it is to continue to be unearthed, so no writer should think they are helping by avoiding it. Think about that campaign currently running on television to raise men's awareness of the reactions of a sexual partner. My instant worry was that there were some women rolling into the fetal position and rocking back and forth in front of their TV sets, but it's not the campaign that is wrong.
The only thing I would say is that you have to be very careful about the point you are making. There has to be a point because this sort of writing can never be considered entertainment - if anyone is suffering for reading your story, they won't want to find it was because you felt adding some gratuitous abuse might pep things up - but you cannot get on your high horse about a subject you don't fully understand and to be accusatory can actually make too much of a statement. Even the guilty shouldn't be too heavily judged by the author (and that means keeping an eye on how harshly each character judges.) A reader will happily make all the judgements for you based on the plot anyway. Emotions may be running high in your characters, but you must be able to see the whole picture in a detached way and be able to justify every element of a disturbing scene's inclusion.