HEART-WARMING, BUT DARKNESS LURKS BENEATH

One of the questions I ask authors when I interview them is, ‘What aspect of your personality have you explored through your writing?’

A few days ago, I received a review on Reedsy Discovery for ‘Intimate Lines,’ and one word stood out.

Heart-warming.

‘The protagonist is undeniably loveable, and the growth she experiences throughout is heart-warming.’

I find great satisfaction with every word I write when describing characters with evil intent; assassins, a father who knowingly puts his son in danger, or a child who releases an evil creature.

What does this mean about me, as a writer and as a person as I swing from heart-warming stories to pure evil?

Does my coating of sweetness and smiles like a pastel-coloured love-heart, crack occasionally? Allowing my quietly evil and deliciously wicked inner thoughts to ooze out like a thick dark chocolate and hot-chiili sauce?  

And does it matter if I have dark thoughts and feelings? Does it make me a bad person?

What if the underlying dark gives my heart-warming stories a depth that wouldn’t be there otherwise. After all these stories are often about grief or hardship.

I could be dipping my fingers into the blood of my darker side, testing how far I am prepared to go and then retreating to the comfort zone of quiet, gentle stories.

Or I could be finding a balance. After all, too much sugar is bad for the health and if I hold back the tide of evil for too long who knows what may happen.

Perhaps I need to step from my comfort zone and create a fully-fledged horror story, letting all the monsters out to play before tucking them back into bed and continuing with quiet stories of hope.

Or maybe I just accept they are part of who I am.

So, after musing here is my answer to the question - What aspect of your personality have you explored through your writing?

Through my stories I have explored a complex range of human emotions and personality traits, some of which I have never experienced in real life, and hope I never do, and yet through writing I can empathise. I can step into oversized and undersized shoes and walk for a while as someone else. And through being someone else I can see and understand myself better.

I understand that recognising and accepting the shadows of my personality as well as the sunshine is what makes me whole. What makes me, me. It’s okay to have them both, it could even be an essential part of being human.  

Just like characters in a story we all need our flaws so that our virtues can shine.