Does your subject material veer from light to dark?

[DeMont]

Good evening my dear colleagues,
A question that has come most strongly to mind recently is does my writing stray between "light", casual temper and temperament to "dark" temper and temperament between stories?
There is no question that my first piece published here was a dark and rather psychological story with an inevitable, although unhappy, ending. As to one of the latest of my pieces (Third part underway now) which is rather laid back, somewhat philosophical and happier piece of writing.

Where do you, in general, find yourself on the scale from Dark to Light and which do you believe is more suitable for this environment?
Deepest respects,
D.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Yep. My stuff is all over, sometimes in the same story, and you never know where my next piece will fall on the spectrum. I always love trying something different and surprising the reader. Unfortunately most readers here don't like surprises.

 

[AchtungNight]

It varies. Some of my stories- Relaxing with Lisa & Confessions of a Sexaholic come to mind- are very lighthearted in tone. Others- like Courtney Crowe and Kings in Conflict- are intentionally dark. Some- like Debrief- start out dark and end up light by the end. It depends on my writing subject matter and mood.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Anything from HEA romance to "and then the monster skinned him alive". Just about anything can work here; let the story be what it needs to be.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

I have tried both but find I struggle to write darker stories. It's an area I would like to improve in.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I've gone dark once, and I won't do it again.
One, my followers don't follow me for dark, and two, I almost couldn't publish the story, because it made me so uncomfortable.
I'm a sucker for tears and happy endings. What can I say?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Where do you, in general, find yourself on the scale from Dark to Light and which do you believe is more suitable for this environment?

Generally my stories are positive, affirmative, celebrating the joy of our sexuality. So Light in that sense. On occasion I've gone darker, not to blackness with no forgiveness, but mid to dark grey. But even my darkest characters end up redeemed in one way or another, because fundamentally, I'm an optimist and enjoy life. I don't do bleak, never have, never will.

 

[StillStunned]

I write whatever story is in my mind. Sometimes that's a bit of light fluff, sometimes it's grimdark. I have one story that the commentors unanimously declared to be "disturbing as fuck". It depends on my mood, and what genre and category I'm writing.

One of the great advantages of publishing on Lit is that there's always a readership for your story, no matter what you've written.

 

[Erozetta]

I've written everything from fluffy fluff to bleakest of black no hope at all. It depends on what the story needs.

 

[crookedletter]

I tend toward dark in general, though the erotica I write is usually something of a departure. I write about terrible things happening to people and nobody having sex, then I take a break and write about more lighthearted things, all the sex, etc. It's the latter that I post here.

My Dark Fairy Tale entry leaned a bit more toward the dark, which seemed appropriate to the theme, but the fairy tale element kept me from going all in. And, of course, there was sex. I did enjoy that exercise, so I might consider blending the two a bit more in then future.

 

[iwatchus]

For all of you who write dark stories and go wherever the story wants to go" Do you think your mood dictates the story?

Some of my stories can get a bit morose in the middle, but, like @ShelbyDawn57, I want to write HEA stories, so they resolve themselves. At this point, I don't think I would publish something that had an unhappy ending. I was completely a panther when I started writing and I often wondered whether my mood drove a dark spot in the story that I needed to recover from or the story drove my mood.

 

[PennyThompson]

I've been told repeatedly that my stories are light and cute and wholesome, even when they're about monsters and severed heads, so I'm not sure what to do with that information

which do you believe is more suitable for this environment?

I think there's an audience for either, and also an audience that can enjoy both.

Some erotica fans want meanness, maybe because they enjoy it as a sort of harmless social transgression? But I fear that some of them enjoy meanness because they would like to inflict meanness or revenge on certain individuals or kinds of people in their lives.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

The dark stories I've written are speculative fiction with a dystopian setting. Now that dystopia is live on the news, I'm sticking to the happy stuff.

 

[SmilingLez]

As a poet, most of my work falls in the goth/dark/macabre category. My writing is raw, minimal, and very visceral. My one story is an internal neuro monologue.

 

[NaughteeDragon]

I vary back and forth, sometimes in the same story. I think it's only natural for authors who aren't writing by formula or to a very specific audience to vary. Some themes lend themselves to light hearted and fun. Some themes lend themselves to dark and brooding.

I'm writing a story about an incestuous poly threesome. It starts out pretty light and fun. There's a couple of intense moments when the MMC is struggling with the idea that his girlfriend is encouraging him to have sex with his sister. A little over halfway in, FMC1 and FMC2 have a major falling out because FMC2 is sexually attracted to FMC1, and FMC1 considers herself strictly hetero because of emotional trauma related to a lesbian attraction in her youth. When FMC1 goes too far in an argument with FMC2, a girl she considers closer than a sister and has been friends with most of her life, FMC1 finally has to confront that trauma. For a couple of chapters the story gets pretty dark; increasing tension, small arguments that are hiding larger issues, then actually confronting the trauma, finally coming out the other side with a new relationship that has a few dings in it.
A long time ago I wrote a story that was an HEA story, but in the middle of it a female character is forced to give herself to a rapist while under the effects of mind control magic. I had a few readers tell me that they would never read anything I wrote ever again. Evil has to be evil, and trauma has to be traumatic for it to mean anything.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

My tone has gone darker and darker, but there's always some silver lining in it. I'm more of making my dystopian work more like Sin City (pulpy) or VA-11 Hall-A (slice of life in a dystopian setting) rather than 1984 (a call to a revolution). That's because real life dystopias always do have a silver lining in them. Even the most oppresive ones. It's only a matter about finding them, or them finding you.

Nevertheless I like to close all of my threads in a story, but always keep the endings open-ended. That doesn't prevent me of doing a bittersweet ending or an earn your happy ending, as I am that type of girl, but it says that the story will continues. How does it continue? I don't know, and I don't care, it just continues... Life is uncertain, and even when you talk to people, the stories they tell you are just a chapter of their life.

Having a dark tone does help me towards it. I mean, those type of endings are part of the expected on a dark story. But the dark tone isn't because I want those endings in particular. I write neon-noir. The noir genre is pretty dark in its own. Now add the influence of movies like Thief and Drive, and you get the modern day noir, or neon-noir, which gets even darker and more oppressive.