The Devil's in the Details

Have you ever heard or read something that just sticks in your head because of how messed up it was? Like, it's sickening and you can't get it out of your mind? I wrote something like that. I think it was Wednesday. It might have been Tuesday. Either way, I'm still thinking about it. Part of said I shouldn't write it like that. Another part said I definitely should, because that's how messed up the situation was.

So, a bit of context (because I have to make you read it now too). It's a bit of backstory about how Des became a vampire. That involves a horrific plane crash that he alone survives (and not for long). This is what happened to his punk band, Winter on Venus. They met a horrible end.

He first finds the band's drummer. Now, I've killed a lot of people over the years, in a variety of ways. And for some reason this one sentence is the most fucked up:

It was a big enough piece that I knew it was him, but a small enough piece that I knew he was dead.

It's not even graphic. It tells you very little about what he sees. But I find it god damn disturbing.

I wish A) that it would make everyone have the same response, and B) I could tap into that power of emotional manipulation to make readers feel all kinds of things. That's what writers do. Good ones, anyway. They make you feel something. And if I can make people feel sick, well, that's a start.

I've never been good at things like that. I can have emotions, or I can have eloquent words. Never both. I don't know how to convey feelings. So after the aforementioned excerpt, he finds his now deceased girlfriend, and I just don't how I'm supposed to describe that. I know he's feeling some stuff, but I don't know how to explain that. I mean, it's told from his point of view, so it's not like I can step back and get all analytical.

In related news, I've been saying that I need to describe things more, to boost my word count. But there's nothing to describe. None of this matters. The layout of someone's apartment? Not important. The exact color of Mint Chikatilo ice cream? Who cares. (It's green, by the way. Mint ice cream always is.) What exactly is important enough to describe? What really matters?

None of it.

I have to make it matter. And I don't know how. I don't know why anyone should care about any of this. I want them to care. I want them to feel something. I want them to see it the way I see it.

But that's not going to happen because I can't describe things for shit.

See you Tuesday. Probably.