It's funny - in real life I'm a pleasant young man (), but when I write, my mind becomes dark. I tend to write depressing things, such as cancer, chaos, and dead relatives. I'm not saying these things don't exist and shouldn't be talked about, but let's just say I'm not one of those people who'll write about a conflict involving a set of lost keys. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one 'light' story I've written. Maybe I write dark stuff to get away from all my niceness when not writing?
Good question. I have this thing about writing stories where people turn out to be something else than the Mc (and the readers) first thought. I also seem to write about characters who has a difficult relationship with their fathers (2 in a row now).
Violence, power, greed, corruption, justice and survival. When reading through what I have written, these themes are present more often than not, in any way shape or form. I'm drawn to stories and incidents and people that include these elements or live in dangerous circles or tough circumstances. I love dialogue also.
My books are all part of a series, so there's always the same themes: Female MC, violence, sex, drug use, alcoholism, etc... Each is written in a very close 1P/Present format too.
You forgot the, "Heh, heh", T.Trian. I am obsessed with writing a better role for girls, addressing peer and marketing pressure, and how/why people see the same world so differently from each other.
Depends what gear I'm in... If YA/NA then angst and all other heavy emotions surronding it and unexpected curve balls that life throws at us and the hurdles we have to jump to overcome/deal with their fowl out. I don’t like sugarcoating so swearing and sex can at times be included. The same can be said about my creative non-fiction writing. If I’m in my Erotic Romance/Erotica writing gear, then at the moment I seem to be obsessed with threesomes and triads – the dynamics of these relationships and how to make them work long term. If not that then BDSM Erotica would be my next obsession in writing. If poetry, pretty much anything goes… suppressed pain and lost often dominate this genre.
Currently, I'm very big into villains, anti-heros, and their motives. I find it to be quite the journey to walk in their shoes for a while.
Sex, drug abuse, alcoholism, abuse, disfunctional relationships. At least one of those seems to occur in any story I write, no matter what kind of story I originally intend to write. And I will give all of my money to the first person who will find a big project of mine that doesn't include or at least reference to music.
I like the words to be pretty, till they dance a tune. I will sabotage most stories for beauty in rhyme; drafts take me to English: ponce.
I considered it, but then decided, seeing as this is a writing forum, to imply instead of shoehorn the compulsory laughs. That is actually close to what KaTrian and I strive to do in a few of our projects: to write strong, independent girls/women that also deviate from the tired, old clichés, e.g. if a woman is a soldier/warrior and is actually athletic and has a practical haircut and outfit instead of being a tiny anime girl in skimpy clothes and hair long enough to reach her feet, she is obviously a lesbian. The trend in our writing has come from dissatisfaction regarding quite a few female characters we’ve encountered in fiction so far because so many of them are unrealistic or cliché or both, at least by our standards. There have been a few refreshing exceptions (e.g. Wassmo’s Dina and Grimsdottir’s Isbjörg), but they are few and far between even in this day and age when female MCs are quite common.
I am obsessed with mysteries. I love a good puzzle, unexpected twists and keeping it all eerily believable. Also, I love exploring the dark side of human nature, so I'm usually very fond of my villains. And romance that usually involves steamy scenes here and there. And female protagonists.
Well, it seems all my characters require redemption in one way or another, completely unintentionally lol. Rape seems to pop up time and again too. It's a topic I'm rather passionate about. What else pops up? Ah, a little dose of bondage. I just can't resist. looool
Perhaps your villains should use the following quote: "Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away and have their shoes". As for me, I love writing fantasy. I know it's a bit broad, but I like creating a world, with different areas and cultures within it. I also like writing dialogue. I don't really view my stories as "character-driven", I just find that dialogue works well in my stories.
Dark Science Fiction. I just can't see the future all happy and Star Treky. Whether I am aiming for scientific accuracy or plain fantasy with science elements, it's just going to be one brutal future I write about. There will be cold deaths, terrible warfare, abuse, humiliation, suffering all in an era of space colonization. I'm basically taking the evils of humanity into a future setting. It sounds awful when I try to make a cold story like this but I'm just trying to put in a sense of reality. This is what happens to people no matter the circumstances. Other than that, I often go post-apocalyptic sometimes.
Villain protagonists would have to be the biggest one, if you didn't already guess from my thread on the topic. I enjoy following evil, megalomanical manipulator masterminds far more then I do your typical SF/Fantasy action hero of average or below average intelligence. I just enjoy the bad guys so much more then I do the heroes; I've attempted to write stories with "heroic" protagonists and just could not finish them because I was so bored writing them. So villain protagonists would definitely be an obsession of mine. Another one would be science-fantasy settings in which both high technology and high magic are present and many times work in conjunction. I also seem to have an affinity for evil corporations. Most of my stories either follow high ranking members of such corporations or feature an evil corporation(s) in some way. When given the choice to write about a dystopia run by a corrupt government or dystopia run by a giant megacorp, I'll almost always choose the latter. My final obsession would be dragons. I love dragons and many of my stories include them in some shape or form. I have everything from monstrous dragons with animal-level intelligence that are just engines of destruction to highly intelligent, manipulative and ruthless dragons who run Megacorps to adorable little wyrmlings and even eastern, Japanese style dragons. If your reading a story by me there is a high chance that somewhere in it there will be a dragon, or at the very least a character or organization associated with dragons in some way. (Such as, say, an evil corporation with a dragon in it's logo.)
not so bizarrely ive taken to writing about Lucifer and portraying him in a different light, that is actually quite interesting, its not quite horror, not quite fantasy. i say not so bizarrely, but i am a metal lover after all, and we all know the assumptions some have about us >.<
I like writing dialogue a lot because I'm fascinated by the way people talk, different accents to really listen to what they are saying, different speaking styles, etc. For stories, lately I've done a couple of, for me, bizarre, I hope funny, fluff pieces. My husband noticed I tend to kill people off a lot in my stories.
