Why So Dark?

I love to write a few different genres, and to me they blend together sometimes—or at least the initial ideas for the stories do. I’ve always been a horror fan. The creepy, strange, freaky stuff; not so much the blood and guts (that’s fine too though) My mother is a horror fan too so there were also Stephen King stories in my house. And as surprising as it was to have an 8th grade English teacher assign us Ray Bradbury short stories rather than the popular school standby of Fahrenheit 451, it was stranger to many that I had already read them. And loved them. October Country is probably my favorite collection for the views into the bizarre and eerie. The too dark for a Twilight Zone episode feel was my wheelhouse even back then.

I’d like to think that I can fit some of my stories into that vein (on a good, optimistic day) Funnily enough my novels have leaned toward a more traditional thriller narrative. I never really intended that but, using Excite as an example, the almost throwaway prompt that started it was something like ‘A doctor discovers how to counteract the placebo effect and the patient won’t stop screaming.’ Now, that screamed (hahahaha. . . sorry) horror, and I started writing it that way, but as I went on, I got more taken in by what might happen if it wasn’t so serious. What if they had some fun first? Thus Excite the crime thriller was born. My new WIP is similar, more psychological thriller, but thriller none the less. The shorts I am playing with- more horror and sci-fi, so the roots are still there.

I don’t think you have to be limited to one, or two, genres. If the story is good and dying to be told, I’ll tell it. When I was ghost writing I did a few YA’s and have played in sci-fi YA for myself as well. It’s all about what you focus on, I could take the same characters in the same plot and focus on the relationship instead of the party and it would be a romance. I’ll keep following the story and I hope you will come along for the ride!