Author Topic: Victim or Rapist  (Read 1015 times)

Offline JustJess_33

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Victim or Rapist
« on: January 14, 2024, 03:43:59 AM »
Who in your mind has more of a story to tell?
The victim or the rapist.

In my own experience. The victim can be anyone.
Anyone who’s caught in the headlights at night by the speeding vehicle of reckless lustful insanity.

Yes she’ll have a story to tell and to write her life take a huge plummet is important. Or see her fall and then bounce back to be a powerful woman is a good trope I like to write as I can resonate with her feelings, struggles and shames from the act.

However I’ve always found the rapist to be the main cast member in a story that requires development . Why does he do what he does?
What’s his back ground? Was he abused himself?
Does he just think it’s his arrogant right to take what he thinks is his?
Does he not think of the consequences? Does he even know what he’s doing is wrong?
And female rapists the story is even more complex. How does she get another man or woman to submit to her desires and why is it important to her?

The rapist is what makes the story happen so I do try to give them
The most air time of their thoughts, and working out why they tick or in some
cases they’ve never been caught.
I find this a challenge because I’m not a male so I find it hard to write from the male psyche, we are told over the years the victim can make the rape happen. In what we wear, bad decisions, meeting dodgy people etc and some of the latter id still agree with. But where do you get your inspiration to form a plausible scenario where a man or woman suddenly wakes up that morning to go and commit such a deed?   

Offline spunkjunk

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Re: Victim or Rapist
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2024, 04:29:51 PM »
1) Who in your mind has more of a story to tell?
2) But where do you get your inspiration to form a plausible scenario where a man or woman suddenly wakes up that morning to go and commit such a deed?

1) In my experience, the female victim's perspective always guarantees good ratings.
I usually limit myself to the observer's point of view.
You don't have to delve that deep into the psyche and you don't have to be so precise about character motivation what might bore readers.

2) From the perpetrator's point of view, these are  points for committing a crime:
- Affect
- The prospect of getting away with it
- You have nothing left to lose
- being certifable /a psychopath
you just need a scenario where one of these fit

Greetings, Spunky
« Last Edit: January 14, 2024, 04:46:10 PM by spunkjunk »
'Gone with the wind' like many others, is a fucking good story.
Unfortunatly, like many others, it lacks the fucking...

Offline Smiling_Sadist

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Re: Victim or Rapist
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2024, 10:52:24 PM »
Who tells the story is dependent upon what you want the reader to feel. If you want them to feel fear and helplessness and sympathy; then you write as the victim. If you want to lead your readers on a journey through darkness and depravity and the ability to take pleasure in suffering; then you write as the perpetrating individual.

There are, of course, other options. For example you could write from both points of view a la George R. R. Martin in Game of Thrones and provide all sides. Or you could write as a completely detached narrator and give nothing more than a cold description of events. It is all up to you. The author.

As far as trying to write from the opposite gender's perspective, don't overthink it. The old advice to write what you know is garbage. We are writing made up fantasy and fiction for the love of the gods. Write what you feel and you will be on the right track.

Offline SoftGameHunter

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Re: Victim or Rapist
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2024, 10:32:26 AM »
Everyone in a story has a story. I really don't think there is a generic best answer to this question, not absolutely, and not even usually. There are too many things for readers to get out of these stories to say that there's a default viewpoint.

Our genre here is an oddball one from a story-telling perspective. It has one or more main characters that often has absolutely no agency of her own. This is a big no-no in writing, having characters be entirely reactive, but in ravishment stories not only can the victim be entirely reactive, the reaction might be nothing more than expressing grave distress, not actually doing anything on her own. I mean, we can have perfectly good stories where the victim is rendered immobile and voiceless before she gets to say or do anything. She can start and end bound, blindfolded, and gagged in a basement and it can still be a perfectly valid story whether told from the rapist's point of view or from her own. It's a known and accepted convention in this genre that a story based entirely on a stream of negative emotions is a normal thing. It doesn't have to be, but it can be.

So the best answer, I think, is that when you, the writer, are trying to pick the POV, just ask yourself what you are feeling as you set down to create? If you want to focus on her fear, her shame, her pain, her confusion and distress as her world is shattered, then go with the victim POV. If you want events leading up to the story to be murky, unexplained or inexplicable, go with the victim. If you're getting off by mind-reading a raped woman's thoughts as she is brutalized, go with the victim. But on the other hand, if you want to emphasize why she has it coming to her, over some past offense, go with the attacker. If the thrill is the hunt, go with the attacker. If a misogynist stream-of-thought accompanies the actions, use the attacker. It really can go either way.

Personally, I don't and wouldn't worry about how well your own viewpoint meshes with the story POV. Authors here and everywhere vary in their level of attempted realism, and rape stories are rarely written without the express purpose to titillate the receptive reader. In my own writing, though I try to really mix it up in terms of POV, first vs third person, etc, I fully realize that my stories rarely are all that realistic. They're usually some high-concept idea I got in my head and frequently include a healthy bit of absurdism, satire, surrealism, or just go full-out into speculative fiction. I'm happy with suspension of disbelief in my readers, but I'm not going to create the perfect rendering of the real raped woman any more than I can define a real rapist because I don't know either of those things in real life. I can write realistically about middle-aged, middle-class white men sitting at computers mansplaining sex and writing. Everything else is creative writing. As long is the story mimics life enough to get a rise out of the reader or (insert female equivalent metaphor here), you've done your job well.
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Offline Glike
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Re: Victim or Rapist
« Reply #4 on: July 01, 2024, 07:54:05 PM »
Although I just started writing, and am very new to this... I always find myself writing both sides, what each is thinking and share almost at the same time what the victim and the rapist are going through.  I find it exciting to know what the thought process from each point of view is... and i love portraying that.  Now it might not be everyones favorite thing, but its the style I like.  It gives the direction of both characters and what they are going through....  and i enjoy that and find it fascinating