Getting "Hardcore"

What is "hardcore?"

The definition given in my copy of Webster's New World Dictionary is "adj: absolute; unqualified."

Some people's idea of "hardcore" is ramming a soda can right into your forehead and crushing it flat.  Or flying a crop-duster right into the middle of an erupting volcano and somehow coming out in one piece.  Or walking right into a village of ninjas in feudal Japan as if you owned the place, and then leaving with dozens of beaten ninjas right behind you.  Or riding all the rides in Disneyland in one day and then claiming that you've seen better.

Or how about playing Call of Duty online and sniping people left and right while saying really nasty things about your opponents' mommas?  (I'm sure there are thousands [nay, millions!] of eleven-year-olds who would think of that as "hardcore.")

About a week ago, I had wondered: Is my book, "The Taming of Adam," hardcore enough?

Yes, I'm coming back to "The Taming of Adam."  I'm rather proud of that book since I think it's a fun read that also makes you think.  My sister (who is not usually a reader of fantasy--unless it's something written by yours truly) said that she found the ending pretty exciting, particularly the surprise that comes out of nowhere.

So I may be proud of the book, yet I wondered if I had perhaps made a mistake with the basic plot.  I wondered if I had played it too safe instead of making it truly "hardcore."

You see, the book was partly inspired by the April 1999 school-shooting at Columbine High School, in which two young men stormed their school with shotguns.

Whoa, did that last sentence totally turn you off?  I apologize, since I truly don't wish to disgust you with referrals to one of the most heinous acts of violence in living memory.  So let me explain: The shooting at Columbine--though shocking and truly evil--simply fascinates me.  I can't help but wonder what those two boys went through, what torment they endured, and why they believed that life simply wasn't worth living anymore.  And why in the hell did they feel they had to go out in such a heinous fashion?

I suppose I feel this way because there have been times in my life when I felt like a misfit.  While the cool kids were doing all the things that made them cool, I just hung in the back and morphed into a wallflower (a trick I still do to impress friends and coworkers).  I'm not saying that my awkward teenage years were all bad; I'm saying that, if I had lived in a certain place and hooked up with certain people, I myself could have been as tormented and angry as those two crazy bastards in Columbine.  I don't believe I would have done what they did, but I would have had a better understanding of them, at the very least.

So you see, in being so fascinated with the Columbine shooting, I couldn't help but be influenced by it on an artistic level.  So I wrote a novel about a young man, Adam Taylor, whom others suspected was capable of carrying out such heinous violence.  At about the midway point, Adam does go on a rampage on his college campus, but instead of committing murder, he hurts two strangers and then leads campus security on a merry chase.  No firearms are involved; Adam simply uses magic spells (since that's the kind of story this is).

By that simple description, you should see that I played it safe, giving the Columbine influence only a light touch.  But on that day about a week ago, I wondered if I had actually missed a golden opportunity.  You see, over the past few years Americans have occasionally been seeing "Columbine-like" occurrences in which young men decided to commit terrible violence due to their anger and broken psyches.

Artists like myself cannot ignore this terrible aspect of our society, so we write stories and do paintings that reflect our thoughts on the matter.  Two movies about public massacres--Gus Van Sant's "Elephant," and Uwe Boll's "Rampage"--explore this phenomenon in a rather blunt and straightforward way, by showing murderous rampages in their entirety.

I wish to give my thoughts, too, but one thing I did not want to do was describe in great detail an urban massacre and try to pass it off as entertainment.  What I wanted to do in "The Taming of Adam" was to instead say that people who are capable of doing such acts are also capable of rising above their homicidal tendencies and bettering themselves.  And yet ... perhaps I played it a little too safe.

Suppose I tried to make the setting of "The Taming of Adam" similar to that of Columbine High School.  Instead of having Adam be a college student learning how to do magic spells, he could still be in high school.  Instead of him being a loner, he could have a really good friend whom he'd known for many years.  The two boys are tormented by many of their classmates--not just girls and jocks, but also kids who generally think of Adam and his friend as weirdos.  So Adam and his friend mostly stick to themselves, playing video games and talking about pop culture.

Over time, Adam's friend becomes demented and writes an angry blog (which is what one of the Columbine shooters did).  In this blog, he starts off making rants against his classmates and the small town he lives in.  Then he writes about terrible fantasies he has in which he kills particular people.  He shares his fantasies with Adam, and Adam thinks he's just kidding around, not being serious in the least.

Then one day the friend earnestly asks Adam if he would like to grab some firearms (or even learn some dangerous magic spells) and go on a shooting spree.  Adam seriously considers this, since he had been bullied by classmates just as badly as his friend had, and he himself was on the verge of the breaking point.  But he ultimately decides not to go through with it (for reasons I'd have to make up on the fly), and his friend gets upset and nearly disowns him.  The friends plans on going through with the massacre, and Adam at first does nothing about it.  Upon realizing that his friend was absolutely serious about his plans and was obtaining firearms, Adam does the right thing and tells the police (despite his strained relationship with many of the officers).  Maybe the police believe him; maybe they don't.

Of course I'd never allow the story to get to the point of Adam's friend actually carrying out his sinister plan.  Adam would find a way to get him arrested, and disaster would be averted.  The story would then somehow continue as it does in its current form: A weaselly lawyer would use Adam for his own benefit, and Adam would make a big mistake in allowing himself to be used.  Only this time, the story would have the added element of tragedy, for Adam had lost his good friend, and he wonders how he can go on without him.

Perhaps the friend would show up again in the sequel as a villain, or maybe he would somehow redeem himself by doing some good (something other than picking up highway trash in a chain-gang).  Whatever the case, the book might end up being a visceral and thought-provoking account of the terrors of the public-massacre phenomenon.

In other words, it would be "hardcore."

There are some problems with this setup, though.  In order to show the type of vicious bullying that would drive a man insane, I would have to include some pretty vile language.  Not just swear words but also language that was sexually-profane.  Call me a softy, but I am hesitant to include such contemptuous statements, even if they are said by villainous characters.  Also, this plot would leave very little room for humor.  There would bound to be a lot of scenes where any attempt at humor would come across as out-of-place and/or tasteless.

As I was writing the book, I wanted my story to be mostly clean of profanity, and I wanted my story to be a little funny (and not uncomfortably so).  So really, I was wondering about something that should (and will) never come to pass.  I won't go ahead and rewrite the story, hoping to capture that raw feeling you get every time you turn on the news and learn of another public massacre.  In the end, what I got was a fun little romp with a character who starts out as a jerk but eventually gets an attitude adjustment.  And that's not such a bad thing.

So the book won't be the next great American novel.  I never intended it to be.  I just wanted to write an urban fantasy novel that flirted with a serious topic but never delved fully into it.  So if there are any critics who will say, "It's too bad the story isn't very 'hardcore,'" I'll just say, "If you want hardcore, go fly a crop-duster into a volcano."

Damn, this post turned out to be longer than I thought it'd be.  If you actually reached the end of this, I want to thank you for checking out my thoughts, and I encourage you to add some of your own in the comment section.