Appropriate or inappropriate, that is the question.

I recently stumbled across an article talking about an English teacher in Kingswood Regional High School assigning a creative writing project based on a prompt most people are deeming inappropriate. In case you haven't heard of this, the specific prompt was, "If you knocked your brother down, would you urinate in his mouth?" And no, I'm not kidding. The question was posed to a creative writing class composed of about 12 seniors. The teacher is well known for motivating her students, but obviously everyone had a problem with this particular prompt.

Now, I don't want to get into this particular instance on whether the teacher was right or wrong, it honestly doesn't matter at this point. However, I do feel it begs the question of what is and is not appropriate where creative writing is concerned. So most of this blog is going to be about my personal opinions, consider yourself forewarned. lol

While on the one hand I think the particular audience you are writing for will determine the appropriateness of the material, on the other, I do think writing is an art form. I don't feel that you should be restricted what so ever on what you can and cannot write. You can't control art. It takes you were it wants to, whether you agree or not. And I'm not even going to bring up the laws we have in the United States guaranteeing the right to free speech and freedom of press. Otherwise this blog will be gigantic and I'll go off on a tangent of rights slowly being taken away, not by the government, but by ourselves.

Getting back to the topic at hand, how do you go about deciding what is right? I think the easiest answer to that question is to do massive amounts of research into your specific audience, and also what the publishers, etc, are expecting. If you are planning on writing an article for Home and Garden magazine, or whatever, then you should take the time out to read through several past issues. Pay attention to the stories they have bought and what they are looking for. I also think its extremely important to know ahead of time where you are writing for and not be absurd about your expectations. Obviously a story about aliens invading earth is going to be more fitting for something like Asimov's Science Fiction magazine or Heavy Metal than Vogue or PC Gamer. Find a fitting target and write to those specifications.

Which brings me to my next point, pay attention to their writing guidelines. You would think this is a given, but I have heard many, many people say well my story is X amount words longer but I'm sure they will take it. While it is never feasible to say it's impossible for that to happen, it is however, unlikely. These people get millions of submissions each month, and I can almost guarantee that if they see you are over in word count, they won't even bother reading it. They have better things to do, and work to read from people that actually follow instructions. Harsh, but true.

And if your thinking, "But CoD, I'm writing a novel, not an article for a magazine. So this really doesn't apply to me," you are dead wrong. Every publishing company out there has its own individual submission guidelines. And yes, different companies are looking for different kinds of work. For example Flying Pen Press or Dark Cloud Press are certainly not going to publish that steamy erotica story you have, no matter how good it is.

So to sum everything up, because this blog is getting longer than I intended, I suppose being appropriate is in the eye of the beholder. By all means write whatever you want, on whatever subject you choose, just make sure that you gear your writing towards an appropriate audience when its sell time.

Until next time peeps,
CoD

And now, because Sandra already took the awesome Inappropriate Drawings video, I bring you, Inappropriate Comeback Guy...