Avoiding the dark side

Despite what you may have heard, there are no cookies on the dark side.

It’s one thing to write about things that scare you, or intimidate you. I find writing about fear to be difficult, but it can really add to the story. We all have stories that haunt us because of the way the writer told the tale. We remember them because we connected with the hero as they walked into hell.

But the Dark Side is different. In American Psycho, the protagonist is the killer. Instead of following along as the hero avoids (sometimes…) the nasty monsters hiding in the shadows, you *are* the monster.

Most of us have a sliver of a monster inside us. Some have more, some less. Some writers believe that by writing about it, you can somehow get it out of your system. I don’t agree. I think that like anything else, the more you play with it, the more it becomes a part of you. The more it seems normal.

I’m not interested in holding hands with my beast. I don’t want to think about cruelty or villainy without wanting to see it as wrong. I want to keep the horror, be able to express it in my writing. Numb acceptance can be kind of horrifying too, but not in a way I want to embrace.