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It depends on your audience, but it's true that you don't need to get specific to be harrowing, or whatever your intention is. Never forget the things the reader imagines will be stronger than anyt...
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#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35477 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
It depends on your audience, but it's true that you don't need to get specific to be harrowing, or whatever your intention is. Never forget the things the reader imagines will be stronger than anything you put there yourself. The right way to think about this is that you need to maintain proper focus and intamacy with your POV character. If your protagonist would take pain in what occurs, then you show us that pain and discomfort as the POV character feels and expresses it. My guess is that you're not deeply into your protag's viewpoint based on what you're saying, but that's largely a guess. And also, this idea is not foreign to me, I grok it, but I'm having trouble finding resources that speak directly to it. Even if this answer is incomplete, it's the common thread running through articles when I searched "writing violence" and "POV closeness vs detail".