Reviews for For the Writer: On the Use of Violence in Fiction
warnthepenguins chapter 1 . 3/30/2004
Well-structured, articulate, reasonable. A thoroughly useful and excellently-phrased essay. Made me think. Congratulations.
p.s. I've always hated 'Tom and Jerry.'
Demeter Rose chapter 1 . 3/29/2004
Very well-written and useful essay. Seriously, thanks for writing this. I needed some motivation to go edit, and now I have a mental list of problems to go look for.
Mbwun chapter 1 . 3/29/2004
Interesting essay, obviously well thought out. However, I have some problems. First off, you tend to write about absolutes too much. For example, the villain raping the hero's girl. Yeah, it's a cheap sympathy trick, but that can be true of anything, if it's poorly done. The difference is in the execution.

You seem to spend too much of the essay telling the reader what he or she should be thinking.

Also, you don't make a distinction between the author and the narrator, and the difference between the two is very important to the subject matter. You did touch briefly on it when you talked about moralizing, but such a separation wasn't the point of that passage.

All in all, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say with this essay. In the beginning, it seems like you're against violence in fiction in general; toward the end, you seem to be giving pointers on how best to disturb the reader.

~He Who Walks On All Fours
J. W. Meisinger chapter 1 . 3/29/2004
Were you by any chance prompted to write this by the recent release of "The Passion of the Christ"? What you are discussing is very similar to the critical debates over that film.