I frequently fantasized in detail as a child (and still do, truth be told) about characters suffering great emotional and occasionally physical pain, but it was always for the sake of hurt/comfort and sometimes to explain why they were the way they were.
Well, I used to crawl round at the bottom of my bed beneath tightly tucked-in blankets as a child and pretend I was a slave in the mines, but I don't think that was for hurt/comfort, so far as I recall -- it was just for the glory of grim suffering (and to see how long I could stay down there without suffocating :-p)
I can't find anything sexy about a man physically and psychologically harming a woman until she breaks down and decides that she loves him. Not every Wattpad romance plays out like this, but a lot of them do.
The 'rape romance' has been very popular since at least the 1970s (and probably since Mrs Radcliffe in the 18th century), in which a woman is carried off by a strong, masterful male (thus absolving her of any blame in the enforced intimacy) and subjected to a series of titillating indignities, until it finally dawns upon her and/or him that he is actually in love with her and that he will henceforth repent of all his previous copious liaisons once she confesses to returning his affections. Bondage/sadomasochism is currently regarded as a morally approved 'kink' that should not be 'shamed' (probably assisted by "50 Shades of Grey" and its precursors/imitators); the emotional equivalent of "he ties her up and hits her, and she is aroused by the sensation of helplessness" has been rebranded as dated and sexist, but they appear very similar to me. I imagine a lot of women still enjoy those fantasies, even though they have been told that it's not socially permissible.
if you wanted to write a story about two gangsters in an uneasy alliance just waiting for the inevitable misunderstanding and tragic ending...
You really do know me, don't you? :P
Well, you're probably the only other person (besides myself and DutchS) I can think of who would actually have been eager to see my unpublished fanfic on Frank Capra's The Way of the Strong...! (Did I ever recommend Underworld to you? I probably did.)
I actually had no idea, because Wattpad doesn't advertise itself as being romance-centric, but I guess it is.
I had no idea either. I only ever posted on Wattpad because it was suggested to me as 'therapy' by a (female) job adviser who said she posted there herself; original fiction in her case, I assume, but I never really got beyond the limited fanfic section! I never got any of those jobs, but posting fiction about self-torturing protagonists was actually one of the more helpful therapy suggestions I ever received, with hindsight. It's one of the few situations where trying to make other people feel bad is regarded as a desirable talent...
I wish there were a site specifically for stories that don't have romance as the main focus.
I suppose there's asexual fiction, although I'd assume (and I may be wronging it) that that sort of thing tends to be about characters Finding Their Sexual Identity and Learning They Are Not Broken, rather than about the vast majority of bits of life that don't consist of people romancing one another.
In regards to my own book, it's just a matter of moving some scenes around and rewriting one or two. It's back on track for the time being.
I've found several times that it's odd how the impression given by something can change according to its context. A specific line of dialogue that seemed to be going into entirely the wrong place for the character can be salvaged by having the same words spoken with icy control rather than blurted hotly out, for instance, or a scene can take on different connotations by having it take place at a different stage in the plot.
The great art is in identifying what the 'wrong' thing specifically is, I find -- and, ideally, working it out before you've developed a whole lot of other stuff depending on the element that shouldn't be there...
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Well, I used to crawl round at the bottom of my bed beneath tightly tucked-in blankets as a child and pretend I was a slave in the mines, but I don't think that was for hurt/comfort, so far as I recall -- it was just for the glory of grim suffering (and to see how long I could stay down there without suffocating :-p)
The 'rape romance' has been very popular since at least the 1970s (and probably since Mrs Radcliffe in the 18th century), in which a woman is carried off by a strong, masterful male (thus absolving her of any blame in the enforced intimacy) and subjected to a series of titillating indignities, until it finally dawns upon her and/or him that he is actually in love with her and that he will henceforth repent of all his previous copious liaisons once she confesses to returning his affections. Bondage/sadomasochism is currently regarded as a morally approved 'kink' that should not be 'shamed' (probably assisted by "50 Shades of Grey" and its precursors/imitators); the emotional equivalent of "he ties her up and hits her, and she is aroused by the sensation of helplessness" has been rebranded as dated and sexist, but they appear very similar to me. I imagine a lot of women still enjoy those fantasies, even though they have been told that it's not socially permissible.
Well, you're probably the only other person (besides myself and DutchS) I can think of who would actually have been eager to see my unpublished fanfic on Frank Capra's The Way of the Strong...!
(Did I ever recommend Underworld to you? I probably did.)
I had no idea either. I only ever posted on Wattpad because it was suggested to me as 'therapy' by a (female) job adviser who said she posted there herself; original fiction in her case, I assume, but I never really got beyond the limited fanfic section! I never got any of those jobs, but posting fiction about self-torturing protagonists was actually one of the more helpful therapy suggestions I ever received, with hindsight. It's one of the few situations where trying to make other people feel bad is regarded as a desirable talent...
I suppose there's asexual fiction, although I'd assume (and I may be wronging it) that that sort of thing tends to be about characters Finding Their Sexual Identity and Learning They Are Not Broken, rather than about the vast majority of bits of life that don't consist of people romancing one another.
I've found several times that it's odd how the impression given by something can change according to its context. A specific line of dialogue that seemed to be going into entirely the wrong place for the character can be salvaged by having the same words spoken with icy control rather than blurted hotly out, for instance, or a scene can take on different connotations by having it take place at a different stage in the plot.
The great art is in identifying what the 'wrong' thing specifically is, I find -- and, ideally, working it out before you've developed a whole lot of other stuff depending on the element that shouldn't be there...