So we lets say we do need the audience to know something terrible/disgusting has happened because it is needed to move the plot forward. But we are also not going for shock factor and just flat out showing it all graphically. What are some techniques you would use?
Jan '20
Jan '20
Just showing the reaction of those who have the horror in front of them is a good way of suggesting and let the reader imagine what could be horrible to that point.
This could be a tell don't show moment where the characters talk about the horror after the fact and you can get some reactions there.
Show shocked faces reacting to the horror. Draw shadows on the wall that vaguely depict what has happened, use a close-up of an arm/leg/ part of a face covered in blood or blood drops. Put the graphic content on the foreground and focus on the environment/people in the vicinity. Make it blurry so people get an idea about what they're looking at without actually seeing any gore.
Focusing on intimate but no graphic details.
Clenched hands, bloody bandages, ticking clocks.
Small objects with emotional meaning damaged or discarded.
Getting realistically into the character’s head. Nothing pulls me out of a moment like.a character in a horrible situation who is thing both clearly and emotionally. Showing a character who has detached emotionally and is thinking totally practically, or who is focused on insignificant details, has more weight. On the flip side, a character who is thinking totally in emotion and not painting a clear picture of what’s actually happening.
It reaaaally depends on the scene and what sort of awful thing it is and if you're writing it or drawing it. Things like showing it in shadows or silhouettes and the typical anime bright pink blood negate some of the graphicness of violence Quite honestly I saw one where a young girl was ripped apart by dragons, the silhouetted versions were in many ways more impactful than seeing the blood and gore when I watched the uncensored version. Gushing blood can also look pretty dumb.
I think the best way to do graphic scenes is to sort of unstate them. If you want to avoid shock value, don't linger on them. Especially if you're killing a character violently or similar. It happens, but don't linger on it. Don't show lots of shots of it or from all angles. Just BAM it happened and then carry on into people's reactions ect. More emotional terrible things, focus on the victim's face, or little details, but again, don't linger.
I think a lot of it depends on tone of your work too though. A darker series can get away with a lot more without being called going for shock value than a series that was bright and then suddenly went dark with some big shocking event. And about how you handle it. Show it as a scary emotional, earth shaking thing rather than just something that happened. I've seen so many shows that think they're being edgy by doing something dramatic and big but it actually has no impact on the plot. It has to have the right impact for the size of the event.
Gory discretion shot. Pull away to show a blood splatter, black it out so it is just silhouettes, show a reaction as the awful happens off-screen, or just cut away and only show the aftermath.
The problem here is that on some level the purpose of graphic scenes is shock value. They're supposed to provoke a reaction from the reader. If you want to be subtle, you need to be subtle in a way that still provokes a reaction.
Take this scene from the Searchers. We never see the scene John Wayne talks about, and he doesn't even really describe it, but just from the way he talks about it the audience knows all they need to.
It really depends on the story I suppose. As previously mentioned, you could show the reactions to whatever it is and keep the actual graphic content vague. If it happened in the past, there is also the option of alluding to it in dialogue. Furthermore, if the issue is how things became graphic, you could always just show the aftermath.
I don't do gore, but my books are on the violent side. I have the violence happen off the page, and show the fallout, both physical and emotional. Example: a character is kidnapped, tortured, and dismembered. I don't show that. Instead, I have a scene where someone describes what these bad guys do to women they kidnap, and another1 where my MC witnesses the screams of the two men who find her body after the fact.
As a sidenote: all the creepiest movies I've ever seen had the actual violence taking place off the screen, and showed the aftermath. Think about Silence of the Lambs, and Seven. Each person's mind thinks up the darkest thing it can if you leave it a blank space... we're all so afraid of what we can't see. To a great degree, when you do draw or graphically describe the gore, you're taking some of the creepy chilling factor away.
Quite a few great responses here already, but I'll just add my two cents as someone who hates jump scares. Jumps work on sudden viewpoint or pace changes, so if you're going for the opposite then gradually ramp things up starting with subtle hints from the environment- bad weather, suspiciously unlocked front doors and escalate it to more obvious signs like smashed furniture and blood spatters. And end with a one of more subtle reveals as mentioned- showing characters' reactions, showing through shadows, off screen scream etc.
You could do what some anime does and show the immediate aftermath of what happened, without showing the action itself. For example....if you say, have two characters fighting to the death and one kills the other cough cough you could cut to the scene where Character A is holding Character B's head and stroking their hair, without actually showing the beheading.
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