How much violence is too much violence in a novel?
By John Fagan
First establish what the level of 'misfortune' is needed for your protagonist to have to deal with, let the natural flow of events build the plot but stop when it's no longer relevant to the storyline.
Violence isn't a new thing - here we are comparing Violence in 19th century literature with a banned 1970’s movie (because it was deemed with too much violence.
Here is a comparison between tow novels:
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace to the Sea
vs A Clockwork Orange
Violent acts were commonplace in the 19th century literature, particularly in the likes of Dickens and the Bronte sisters novels, showing the dark side of society and humanity. Charlotte Bronte, for example, used it to test her characters or create suspense. Her classic Jane Eyre has plenty of it and to mention but a few instances: Jane’s cousin John attacks her, striking her with a book, her friend Helen Burns dies of tuberculosis, Mr Mason is stabbed by an unknown figure, and Mr Rochester is blinded and loses his hand in a fire, his first wife, the culprit, commits suicide. That sure is a lot of violence for a so-called romance novel!
There is an argument that the more darkness a writer can produce in their novel, the more light the reader will see in the story. All of the darkness in the Jane Eyre novel works to shine more light on Mr Rochester gaining sight back in one eye – enough to see his newborn son. This is one way literature can make the mundane parts of a story seem interesting and emphasis the good in it. While it could be seen to be inevitable that a literary novel will contain some form of violence, how much is too much violence?
Well, in comparing The Sailor Who Fell From Grace to the Sea to A Clockwork Orange, two classic 1960s novels that are famous for their violence, we can see where some sort of line of restraint falls.
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea
Violence and cruelty occur in the writing of the Japanese master Yukio Mishima. In his 1963 novel, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, the young protagonist Noboru starts the violence with a graphic killing of a little cat with his gang. The violence builds up to them first drugging then killing the sailor his mother is having a relationship with. However, while it infers that the gang will dissect the sailor to redeem his honour, the novel ends before the murder takes place. While the level of violence and cruelty is graphic in some parts, it’s not overly excessive, relatively speaking in terms of other literature, and serves a purpose in the story.
A Clockwork Orange
Comparing Mishima’s gang to the one in a 1962 novel by English writer Anthony Burgess called A Clockwork Orange, where the violence and cruelty are fully out of restraint, we can get some perspective and see where a line could be. Burgess refers to his use of excessive and uncalled for violence as ultra-violence. Detailed beatings, sexual assaults of minors, and murders are commonplace in this novel as the teenage protagonist Alex and his gang run amok. The novel is brimming with excessive acts of violence and Burgess himself was said to have been nauseated by it.
Come and Meet John Gerard Fagan
A Scottish writer and Creative Writing Assistant Professor. He writes in both English and Scots and in a number of genres, including Japanese historical fiction and crime noir. He moved back to Scotland in late 2019 after being in Japan for the last decade.
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www.HappyLondonPress.comWhat Writers and Readers say about how much violence should go in a novel
t depends on who your target audience is. If you1re writing just for yourself, then write what you like. If you're hoping your novel will have mass appeal, than 9 times out of 10, the answer is going to be yes, there is such a thing as too much violence.
The question you have to ask yourself is whether or not the violence actually adds to the story or whether it's a stand in for lazy story telling. Torture, rape, death/rape/torture of a loved one are often tropes that are put in to a story as short hand for "this character has depth" or "this story is supposed to make you feel things" or "here's a character's motivation because I can't think of anything else". If you take the violence out, is there still a story worth reading, or is something missing?
For example, the Deadpool stories are extremely violent. But, if you take away that violence, you've still got a compelling story and an interesting character. The same is also true of Tarantino. The violence is certainly part of his style, but it's not a stand in for the story.
For a darker example, look at Brett Easton Ellis. Two of the worst passages I've read come from American Psycho. I'm not squeamish, but there's some pretty serious violence in those books. Still, American Psycho is an amazing book, almost in spite of the violence. But, it's good because Patrick Bateman is a compelling character, and the violence is only a small part of that. It's more reflecting on his obsessively detailed music reviews that are utterly lacking even a slight opinion. It's passages like this, "Some nights I would find myself roaming the beaches, digging up baby crabs and eating handfuls of sand – this was in the middle of the night when the sky was so clear I could see the entire solar system and the sand, lit by it, seemed almost lunar in scale." that really capture his madness. If that book didn't have much going on between the graphic murders, it would be completely uninteresting. It wouldn't matter if it told a story or not.
You've also got to decide on a threshold. Too much violence can become ridiculous, no matter how horrible the violence is. It can also get tedious and repetitive. There are ultra-violent books out there that are nothing but the worst things an author can think of. I've read parts of some of those books, and it was always the tedium that made me put them down.
The best way to figure out if the violence in your books is too much is to read. Read Ellis's books, read A Clockwork Orange and some Deadpool. Reflect on why it works. But also, read violent books that you don't find interesting as well. Figure out what it is about those books that doesn't work. It's the best way to get an idea of how to best use violence.
Certainly, there can be too much violence for a certain genre. For example, a romance novel with that much violence in it, wouldn’t really be a romance novel anymore. But there are genres of books that would accept such an amount of violence. The key is finding the right way to market your story and not misrepresenting it.
But before marketing, finish it! And read over it once, twice, three times even. Every time you re-read you’ll find something to change. Get the major things changed, and THEN worry about marketing your novel. The authors aren't Alpha and Omega to know from the beginning if their novel would be a hit, because they don't know the readers' preferences. You feel like including all the violence? Try it. So many people, so many minds and everyone has his own tastes. Publishing a story is an act of courage, after all.
Yes, all too often there is too much violence in novels and movies and it usually distracts a lot from the story. Some level of violence is needed to portray some things. But the most effective and creative writing shuns graphic and explicit details. Rather the worst is suggested or implied in a way that engages the imagination and that way the novel is able to tailor the episode to each reader’s fears and sympathy. It’s about engaging readers through storytelling and emotion, not news reporting.
The normal human reaction to horror and violence is to prepare the nervous system to act and react. If the violence does not prepare the reader for something to come later in the plot or if the violence is too far removed from the ultimate consequences then the author has wasted the reader’s emotional energy and dissipated the impact of the story.
We call it “gratuitous violence”; violence portrayed for its own sake rather than for storytelling. It the same as when bad comedians throw in rude or dirty language during a stand-up act just to get cheap laughs. The audience laughs out of shock and nervousness, not because it’s entertaining. If that’s all you’ve got, then OK, perhaps you need help. Maybe you should get a coauthor or an indulgent editor.
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