Do you censor your own work?

Given that you are unconstrained by audience, publisher, creative writing class, etc.

For the most part I am completely uncensored—if characters swear, they swear, if they do controversial things, they do just that, if there is vivid gore, I describe it in all its gruesome detail because I like disgusting things. Oftimes I may describe gore or a sexual act in a roundabout way that may or may not resemble me censoring myself, but is actually part of my style.

In the case of comics, I love drawing spattering blood and such, so you usually won't see that sort of thing censored. Nudity and sexuality don't get censored either, I treat nude people the same as if they were clothed.

In short, if what I'm writing ends up r-rated by nature, I let it be that way.

edited 6th Jun '11 6:32:07 PM by annebeeche

Only when I think my hormones are getting the better of me, I tone it down.

Sort of, but not on the sense of toning down sex, drugs, profanity and violence.

I sometimes wonder if what I'm writing implies stuff that I didn't want to imply at all. If I think my work is stating something I don't want it to state, I change it... Unless it'd mangle the narrative.

This. Some of my Author Appeal stuff is universal enough that I can away with it (yes, I like strong, sexually confident women, as the folks in the Character Development Threads may have figured out) but a few of my perversities would risk overwhelming the story in readers' minds.

I do nowadays, but only because it's hard to write a respectable work with a lemon, and I'd like to be able to share my work with my friends. Now, back in high school, I had no problem writing some downright disturbing things.

Only in that I use a lot of Discretion Shots. The imagination is far more powerful than anything I could write when it comes to sex, violence and general weirdness, so I simply write as much as I need and let the implications do the rest.

Swearing in my work is done most often when its in proper context such as being on the receiving end of incoming enemy artillery fire.

Beyond that, it's actually pretty rare.

One of my earliest sex scenes was a single sentence: 'They had sex.' I don't write sex scenes well and don't like writing them, so I generally skip them. Ironically, I'm less likely to skip over non-consensual sex scenes. It seems like the only time I can write a sex scene is when at least one partner is being exploited. Though I (obviously) know that people can have healthy consensual sex, I find it really hard to imagine.

There's loads of violence in my stories, though I tend to skim over the most gruesome details. It makes them more effective, I think.

I guess I do, in a way. I'm always really mindful of the audience and what I'm trying to convey in the narrative, so if I think something sticks out too much, it's going to get cut. And that can and does cover things like editing out some of the swearing, moving horror elements into the background, or cutting back on racy jokes, when the story is meant to be a bit Lighter and Softer.

However, on the other side of that, if the story calls for graphic gore, sex, rape, Unfortunate Implications, what have you, I'll also stretch myself quite a bit in an effort to convey that properly. In a way, it's usually less about censorship, and more about quality control.

… But then there's other times, when I realize that I'm creating something I'd be embarrassed about if anyone ever knew I wrote it. I've hesitated and stopped writing things before, when I can't justify it to myself after realizing that.

I make extensive use of Foreign Cuss Word , my characters hardly ever swear in English, but I do look up the appropriate equivalent in, let's say Russian to give you an example. As for gore, sex, and all that jazz, I tend to just describe the foreplay and the aftermath. Full on torture or sex is hard to write, and I just plain don't want to include those scenes in my story.

edited 6th Jun '11 8:18:33 PM by ladygem

@OP: I'm not going to censor anything I write. Books are the last great uncensored medium, and I think everyone should take advantage of this fact while it remains true.

Who knows how long it will last, after all...

The only thing close to censoring I've done where Too Soon kind of stuff: I made a very poor taste joke about Heath Ledger days before his death and I just erased that part, not only because it felt wrong, but because to be fair, wasn't really that funny...I can enjoy some Black Comedy, but if you're going to make fun of touchy subjects, you better give me the laugh of my life

It depends on the audience and the POV character.

I tend not to write too explicit stuff.

My policy is that if I am not able to read this stuff at a reading, I should'nt write it. This creates weird situation, where I can describe Fanservice, but not curse.

I make extensive use of various Discretion Shots as well, for the same reason others have said - I just don't want to do those kind of scenes. Don't enjoy writing them, don't enjoy reading them, and as I only write for myself, well... The exception tends to be the Gory Discretion Shot: my only work in a visual medium had Bloodless Carnage - everyone was a stick figure, so it would have been rather narmy. And while I don't enjoy writing about gore either, I put a lot of emphasis on the fact that War Is Hell no matter when or where it's fought - and one of the ways I do that is by showing that a realistic space war would not be nearly as nice and clean as it's usually thought of.

The cursing thread already covered my attitude towards swearing, but to reiterate, I never actually censor myself, per se. I don't actually put in swearing except when I feel it's actually necessary, but neither do I make use of asterisks, symbols, et cetera - those are just silly.

The one exception to that rule would be my comics, where I made extensive use of censoring-as-comedy, especially when the censor got a little long-winded (as in replacing presumed obscenities with "I agree in spirit, but you know we can't put that in a PG comic!" or "Whoa, man, are you sure that's even possible?"). I also had some fun with things like Relax-o-Vision, especially with the "Mach-O-Vision", in which (almost) all of the Official Couple's romantic moments were replaced by random panels of ninjas fighting robots "to spare the audience's sensibilities".

edited 6th Jun '11 8:55:56 PM by nrjxll

If it fits the narrative and is relevant to the plot or character exposition/development, it gets in. If it does none of those things, I leave it out. Other than that, no limits.

Consequently, full-on sex scenes are generally left out as I haven't yet had characters or plot that require them. Violence and gore are at realistic levels when required. Language is unfettered.

The only reason I would have to tone down some parts would be to avoid Narm. Otherwise I go wild as I please.

I don't usually write particularly violent or gory stuff, and I've never written a single sex scene (probably because I also pretty much never have any kind of romantic involvement between my characters). If I do write something more explicit, whether or not I would censor it would depent entirely on the nature of the work. For example, in "Forgotten Lore" I've planned to include a few quite violent fight scenes. The first fight scene would be againt a horde of zombies, and I feel no need to censor it. The second would be againt humans, and is supposed to be a pretty big mood whiplash but I'd feel showing people getting evicerated and dismembered left and right would contrast the rest of the story a bit too much. On the other hand, I wouldn't want the entire fight to happen offpanel. So I though about using some stylistic methods, like doing the entire scene as black silouettes againt a red background. No blood and guts would be shown directly, but it would be pretty obvious there should be some, especially when in the aftermatch the character is shown covered in blood (the dismembered bodies would remain offpanel tho, but from reactions of other characters seeing the scen affter the battle, it should be obvious it isn't pretty).

Oh, I write it anyways if I think it works. I have one short story I'll never read at a reading - it's a rather explicit description of a child vampire luring in a pedophile and then murdering him. (Including details such as why the vampire's mouth ended up near the large veins in the guy's thigh...)

I tend to say "[Character] swore" rather than actually giving a profanity, and I don't describe violence in much detail, but I do make use of sensuality when I think it's story-appropriate. (And I'm unusually likely to keep a story on a track that, if followed, will lead it into profanity, violence, or sensuality—I don't like to add in a Deus ex Machina just for the sake of making things family-friendly.)

It depends on if you consider implying things instead of showing them explicitly as censorship.

I don't use profanity in them though, they don't really fit well with the serious business.

That sounds awesome.

It really depends on what you consider self-censorship. I mean, I don't write sex scenes because I feel they rarely add enough to the story to be worth the immense trouble they take to write well. And I don't do loving descriptions of gore or violence or horrible monsters or whatever because as a reader, I tend to prefer it when things are left to the imagination to some extent. But I don't really sit down and go "oh, gosh, I can't write/have to delete this thing or the hypothetical Moral Guardians won't like it!"

Sometimes I do write stuff aimed at kids, in which case of course I have to keep in mind what is and isn't appropriate for my audience, but I feel like that's also not quite the same thing as self-censorship.