Hey all. I've been thinking about what and how I write. Well, the examination of my writing style was brought on by a request I received from soraidh here.

I've never really done a really dark fic. There was the one for the Music of Pain ficathon, but it wasn't really all that dark. I just took a look at what would have happened had Buffy been killed in Becoming II. I think I stuck pretty close to the characters in that one.

With the above challenge, which I did take up, though not exactly how she wanted, I found myself in a quandary. I can't do the dark torture-y stuff. I tried. The story I ended up writing started out with the torture and blood letting, but I couldn't do it. Found myself getting squicked by it. So I set about with a different kind of torture. Once I decided on that, the story just sort of fell out. Of course, it was bare bones, only barely grazing the depths I wanted to achieve. So I needed a beta BAD. Well, now it's finished - Not to be posted til November, can you believe it? And the thing is, it's supposed to be dark but it ends lightly. I mean, the ending is satisfying, not syrupy or anything fake like that, but I find myself going back to the happy, schmoopy side of things.

What is the point of this? Well. I'd like to be able to take my writing to a much darker place. I'd like to be the one people respond to with "ohh, that hurts so much" or "owie. So dark." So my question is this: what is the key to writing the dark stuff? Is it some psychological thing or some experience that puts a writer in that frame of mind? Does it require having some sordid or painful past? Or is it just being really in touch with the darker emotions?

If it is the last, then I'm screwed and destined to write lite fluffy pieces. And dammit that gets boring. I'm not the most emotionally available person in the western hemisphere. Hell. I'm barely in touch with what I feel normally. It's one of the reasons people don't get me most of the time. I don't feel things the way others do. Is that distance from my feelings going to hinder me, do you think? Should I just give this pursuit up? Or struggle with it and fight with it, hoping that writing will teach me to delve a little deeper, feel a little more?

I sent this question out into the cosmos. Any answers or opinions my flist wants to share are more than welcome. I mean, I signed up to lj cuz I wanted a place to put my writing, but it is a journal people. The big questions deserve a place to be posited.

Thanks for reading.