Mass Crux Writing Advice

[Andrew7895]

So, I’ve been wanting to write my own crux story for a while. The problem is, this is my first time writing such a story, and I don’t really know what to do next. I have the general plot down, along with most characters, but I feel like I should think over some things before I start writing. Here’s the general (and pretty rough) outline of my story:

In the 22nd century, the world is dominated by a worldwide federation known as the New Roman Empire; a union run by corporations and politicians from across the globe and loosely based on the Roman Empire. Slavery, gladiatorial games, and public executions have been brought back to serve the sadistic masters of the federation. One such CEO, Ms. Catherine of Iron Claw Weapons Corp., has been poisoned by a rival company’s assassin at a party. With no culprit found, the blame is shifted to Catherine’s collection of 182 exotic slave women. As per the old laws, they will be crucified in the arena as punishment for their master’s death. The story follows Grace Witherspoon, a 20 year old American slave girl, as she is tortured to death for the public’s entertainment.

Any tips, suggestions, or changes I could make while writing this story would be welcome. Thank you.

 

[thecuriousone]

If I speak from my own heart: keep it on the short side. Many may disagree, but I easily lose focus when passing the 20th page.

 

[Hangnail]

182 is too much of a good thing! I hope you'll be including in your story interactions between a few well-developed characters. The rest can be background.

 

[SirMGBZ]

Stick with just the one POV character, and remember that while you as the author know what everyone is doing and thinking, she only knows what she sees, hears, smells, touches, or tastes.

Along those lines, it is easy to neglect the senses beyond sight and hearing. I’m guilty of that myself. So try to think about what she feels, and what she smells.

And yes, if this is your first foray into writing, keep it shorter. Don’t forget, you can always return to this world to tell new stories, if you find you have more to say. Don’t try to cram it all in to this first effort.

 

[dommmu]

Stick with just the one POV character, and remember that while you as the author know what everyone is doing and thinking, she only knows what she sees, hears, smells, touches, or tastes.

Along those lines, it is easy to neglect the senses beyond sight and hearing. I’m guilty of that myself. So try to think about what she feels, and what she smells.

And yes, if this is your first foray into writing, keep it shorter. Don’t forget, you can always return to this world to tell new stories, if you find you have more to say. Don’t try to cram it all in to this first effort.

Just what I wanted to say

Do not describe 182 individual crucifixions in every last detail, but focus on the experience, thoughts and emotions of your main character.

 

[KolterJan]

Just start writing. Write from the perspective of a narrator. Describe the feelings of each protagonist. One is very brave. Another suffers terribly. Another has to watch a friend being crucified next to him. Then there are the arrogant and cruel executioners.

 

[Zephirantes]

If I speak from my own heart: keep it on the short side. Many may disagree, but I easily lose focus when passing the 20th page.

I very much agree.

I will give my personal opinion here: the best stories are those that go straight to the point, to the heart of the matter.
In our case, the nailing, the erection of the cross, the agony, the death.

Anything else, again in my opinion, is incidental at most.
The context, the world, the reasons for condemnation-- who cares? These are not such interesting things.
There are certainly stories out there that tell all this better.
Just think, for instance, about Camus' L'Étranger and all the events that lead the protagonist to his capital punishment: it is a masterpiece from a Nobel-prize winner writer, and I doubt anyone here can write something better to introduce an execution.

But-- there's a big but here!

But what only writers of snuff porn like us can tell, are the feelings during the execution, the erotic thrill that precedes it, the pleasure and pain that mingle, the horror and together the attraction to the looming death.
The part where horror, heartbreak, despair and unapologetic pornography overlap.
These are the things that "decent", "respectable" writers have never (or... almost never) written about.
And that, in my opinion, is what a writer of snuff porn has to do: we are not decent or respectable (nor we want to be, I hope! at least in matters of literature! ), so we can explore idea and desires that respectable authors never explored.

So, in my opinion, I would suggest: short stories, few characters characterized as best you can, try to avoid stereotypes (mean and cruel executioner, insults, slurs, name calling-- these are trivial things), and focus on emotions and feelings of the victims, of the executioners, of the audience.

I will confess something unexpected here.
I guess we all know Jedakk's masterpiece in this forum, right? Serpent's Eye.
Here, mind you, I love it: it's an excellent story combined with very, very evocative 3D illustrations. Funny plot twist in the end.
Hats off to Jedakk.
Chapeau.
And yet, Jedakk takes that story very far, far away. Too far, IMHO.
He takes many chapters to get to the heart of the matter. Chapters that are, let's face it, a little boring (at least for me).
Also, I will say here that for me the single best scene is the one in which the protagonist observes the crucifixion of a slave girl (Lucilla, chapter 3 if I remember correctly) condemned to be crucified 12 times: the first 11 tied to the cross and then nursed back to health, the 12th nailed and left to die.
I imagine that in Jedakk's intentions that was meant to be just a small foreshadowing of what comes next.
Jedakk himself elaborates on that here: https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threa...story-of-sabinas-crucifixion.597/#post-339965
He says that Lucille's ordeal is needed to push the main character on her path of self destruction.
A literarily excuse, in other words, albeit wonderfully written...
An appetizer in anticipation of the main course.
Instead, overall I found myself preferring the appetizer, and when that happens, well, it makes me think that maybe the story has gone on too long.
So even a great author like Jedakk overstretched himself a bit in his own masterpiece.
That's a good reason, I think, to remain short and focused.

My 2 cents.

 

[malins]

So, I’ve been wanting to write my own crux story for a while....
public executions have been brought back ...With no culprit found, the blame is shifted to Catherine’s collection of 182 exotic slave women. As per the old laws, they will be crucified ...the story follows Grace Witherspoon, a 20 year old American slave girl, as she is tortured to death for the public’s entertainment.

Well very simply you ought go to with, what do you find enjoyable/energizing to write -- and how do you think you can captivate some readers.

To give an example:
well written battle/fight scenes can be captivating -- but for instance I feel I'm neither any good at writing them nor especially enjoy it.
so if I had a story where the plot made it necessary that a big battle happens, I'd rather go to the aftermath and how dealing with that affects the surviving characters. The kind of people who might be reading one of my stories in the first place are more likely to enjoy that kind of storytelling, than a bad and boring attempt to do blow by blow fight scenes.

So if you feel confident that you'd enjoy writing about Grace's emotional state as she copes with the sentence handed to her & the others do that.
For instance maybe she has feelings of guilt, as she realizes some days before the event she was questioned by a stranger, and she now realizes that person must have been involved in the plot, and the answers she gave probably helped the assassination succeed.
That can be a device to get readers to be more involved with her as a character, which can make the crucifixion more hard-hitting.
As such I don't think having elements in a crux story that don't deal directly with the torture make them less powerful.

You can choose from the full range, from a pure 'this is done to her' blow by blow to a character-developing novelette where it just so happens that torture and crux are explored in a lustful way you wouldn't readily get in mainstream fiction.

The premise is similar to the Lucius Pedanius Secundus case, where it's also documented that there was some protest against the executions.
You could also work that into the tale, some bleeding heart activists from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Slaves attempt to get court injunctions to stop it etc.
But if that's not your thing it doesn't mean it makes the story any worse.

One thing that I guess everyone agrees on is that with 182 victims you need to focus very closely on the main character and maybe a few supportive ones.

One way you can bring across the enormity of the mass crux on an emotional level, is to have Grace realize that despite serving in the household for years... some of her fellow condemned slaves, are people whose faces she's seen up close for the very first time only today, on the day they all go to their crosses.

 

[Naraku]

Ad not by others, describing the crucifixion of 182 people is going to get tedious for the reader and, I would imagine, yourself.
When I wrote my own mass crux story, I kept everything confined to the perspective of just one character. For the most part, his view was restricted to the persons on either side and across the road. He was aware of others being crucified, but my focus was entirely on his own experiences.