If You Missed Readercon, Then Don't Miss Readercon

BSFW went to Readercon for the fourth time and did are darndest to record the panels and events for you guys. Then the good folks at Readercon jumped into the 21st century, videoed the panels themselves, and posted them on Youtube!  

This panel was Successfully Writing About Horrible Things with Mike Allen, Catt Kingsgrave, Shira Lipkin, Kate Nepveu (leader), Patty Templeton. The BSFW members who went to Readercon will also contribute blog posts about their experiences in the coming weeks.

-Cameron

If you're not writing horror but your plot calls for something horrific to happen to a character, how do you handle it? You might go overboard and be detailed to the point of undermining or derailing the narrative, or might be so vague that the horrific event has little effect on the reader or the story. A reader who's been through a similar experience might be offended or distressed by a description of awfulness that's lurid, gratuitous, clichéd, or bland. What strategies can writers use to help readers empathize with the characters' suffering and build stories that respectfully handle the consequences of terrible events, without falling into these traps?