I was working on a short story last week and afraid that I was being too cryptic with the ending so I asked my non-writer husband to read it and let me know if he could see any major gaps in the plot. His only comment was that he liked the beginning but then it just went…blah. I asked him what about it was blah and he looked at me sideways and said he just didn’t like it. Fair enough, I don’t need him to like what I write but I really wanted to know what didn’t work for him. I pestered him over dinner until he turned to me and finally said, “You should be writing happy stories.”
I don’t do happy. I tend to create more serial killers than princesses. My characters are more apt to be seeking revenge then to be looking for love and I find sociopaths fascinating.
Cory doesn’t like my writing because he thinks it means I could be damaged or depressed or just plain crazy. Why would a happy person want to delve into the mind of a psychopath?
When I show my work to those outside my writing group will they see me differently? Will they be hiding the knives in case I snap?
What does our genre of choice say about us? Can happy people write about horrible things?
Do non-writers look at horror writers differently than those that write fantasy? Are all romance writers sex crazed and all science fiction writers geeks?
Maybe…maybe not.
Previously published at bridgetshaffer.wordpress.com
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I tend to view horror writers, such as Stephen King, as a bit disturbed because the horrors they have flying around their heads scare the beejeebus out of me and it can’t be good to have all that evil running around your noggin all the time. Then again the can be perfectly sane BECAUSE they put it on paper. Maybe serial killers become what they are because they don’t have a creative outlet for the weirdness?
And dark heroes and villian are more fun to write! Who wants to write 350 pages of a Pollyana hero/heroine? Not I. I want my hero damaged.
I tend to view your work as more pyschologial thriller than horror. Maybe your fascination is driven by a desire to know why people do the sick evil things and understand it better to help you cope with the cruelties of the world. Maybe your stories are a way of punishing the bad people we see daily in news and entertainment.
Then again maybe all writers are indeed just nuts
I object to the notion that SF writers are geeks! I write SF, and I… Well, yes, I do play D&D. And Star Trek Online. And yes, I speak a little Klingon. Okay, fine, I know most of Firefly by heart! I’m a geek! Happy now? Happy? Happy now?
Whenever I’ve gotten the “You might have a problem line” after someone reads my work, I just point out that Stephen King hasn’t ever killed anyone.
Of course if this backfires and they say, “That you know of!” Just reply with, “Well all that writing makes us pros at getting rid of the body.”