When is Gross too Gross?

Well as the title inquires, when is gross too gross? This blog will be quite short, but I figured I’d share it nonetheless. When you’re writing a horror story (and sometimes even in mysteries this arises) you have to realize when the gore is enough. I remember some advise I had given to a friend once who was writing a story and he was afraid that it would be too gory. These were my exact words to him. (Laugh if you like, it’s o.k. I laugh a bit myself when I look back) “Dude, you gotta embrace the gory goodness and roll in the carnage candy.” Hmm…pretty…stupid!


I mean come on. What kind of advice was that? Yeah, sure, if you want to write a little story that only the desperate will read. I should know. I’m writing a book (I’ve currently set in the “let sit and marinate” file cabinet in my brain right now while I work on shorter stories) about zombies. I believe it to be the first Christian zombie story which is making it quite easy to explain the origin of the virus, but I won’t get into that right now. What I was getting at was that it would have to be quite a bloody spectacle. You really can’t write a zombie story and it not be. Well I had one part where one of the characters is with two of his friends when the spread starts. His two friends become infected and turn and he is forced to…we’ll say dispense of them. We’ll also say that he dispenses of them with a golf cub and a crowbar. For your sake I’ll skip the details.


Needless to say I skipped the whole emotional part and went straight for the shock value. Was it shocking? Yes, in the way that it’s the first real scene with zombies and it’s filled with blood and other…things. Was it a bit overwhelming? Uh…That’s a big YES!!! A bit overwhelming is an understatement if there ever was one. Back then I thought overwhelming was a good thing, but I had missed one important thing; the emotionality of the situation. This was the kid’s two best friends and all I had him do was a little bit of crying and throwing up. If I had to do that with my friends I would probably want to kill myself and never sleep again. But thankfully I’ve gone back and hopefully fixed that problem.


Now to the other end of the stick. You don’t need to be afraid to throw some blood in there. That was the problem on my first book. I was too afraid to be violent and therefore took away from the power of my antagonist (the villain). If you don’t have some violence then you’ll never get across to the reader the consequences of messing with this guy. Yes, you need to be concerned, but don’t be afraid. That would be like if my Sweet Heart goes on a long trip and I’m afraid she’s going to die the whole time. That’s not what I do. I’m simply concerned for her safety, not paranoid something’s going to happen.


Like I said before I’m not exactly sure why I decided to post this, but I figured it’d be fun. ‘Till next time I’ll be dreaming, writing, living for Jesus.