I know I’m a writer if for no other reason than I have a massive horde of notebooks I will probably never completely use and I start a new file for every story idea and get about 800 to 1,000 words into a synopsis before I remember some other critically important thing I must do at this exact moment and proceed to completely forget about the New Shiny until the next time I open the program I use for writing and see the last shiny idea looking at me like a one night stand I never called the next day.
One thing I’ve noticed over the past few months is that when I start putting down words for one of the New Shiny ideas it always starts fun and quirky and positive and upbeat and hopeful and then I have the “what if…” thought and then everything turns to darkness. Murder, betrayal, death, not dismemberment yet but it’s probably coming sooner or later, crime sprees, and other assorted darker parts of society and the human psyche.
Why the majority of the projects I start take this dark turn I have yet to figure out. Not that there’s anything wrong with horror or dark fiction but since I’ve never been a fan of those genres it always seems a little out of left field to me that in an aggressively normal plot and story line to suddenly throw in, “what is the absolutely most fucked up thing I could do to these perfectly nice characters?”
Maybe I’m taking out aggression or maybe the darkness was always there but afraid to peek out because reality was already fucked up enough. Maybe one day I’ll finish at least one of the projects I have in progress and if I’m lucky the world can read my words and decide for themselves if it’s too dark or nah.