This week: Embracing the Dark Edited by: Kit of House Lannister  
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Everyone's got a darker side. As the days darken and winter's settling in, you can use yours for good - in your writing.
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter is all about the dark, and about the healing power of the written word.
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The clocks have changed, apart from the one in my living room. I keep forgetting about it. Darkness descends upon us a little earlier every day... unless you live in a country where daylight's lighting the skies a little longer. Around here, though, the owls begin their rounds when it feels as though they should still be fast asleep, and there's some kind of unidentified (by me) bird of prey that screeches merrily through the night. Winter's coming, as Ned Stark would say. It's getting pretty cold here, anyway.
Halloween and its ghosts and ghouls may be safely behind us, but during the dark days ahead of us, isn't it nice to curl up in a comfy chair by the fireplace, and to wrap ourselves in a scary, or tense, or darker-in-general story than we may during the summer, safe in the knowledge that nothing worse will happen to us than the cat being so comfortable on our lap that it won't budge even when one of our legs falls asleep? I think so. I am currently reading The Institute by Stephen King, and so far it's really, really good. I believe it will definitely turn out to be a recommended read for me.
The novel is about a group of children – and one in particular, a boy named Luke – who go “missing”. In reality, they've been taken to a place called the Institute, where posters declare it to be paradise and smiling assistants are ever ready to cruelly punish the kids. Their life becomes a series of horrible tests and each of them knows that, one day, they'll end up in the Back Half and whoever goes there never returns...
There was a time when I could no longer read novels of a darker nature, nor watch movies of that kind, nor TV series. I still struggle with anything that's too graphic, too gory. I had to close my eyes on a regular basis when watching Game of Thrones. I am grateful for novels like the above which do not rely on gore in order to build tension. Sure, there have been a couple of scenes which are somewhat uncomfortable in that respect, but they are brief enough for me to cope with.
It's no bad thing to embrace the dark, to what is to each individual a safe extent. We all have a darker side to us and as long as we're sensible about what we do with it, we need not fear it.
I like the light and the fluffy, the sweet and the funny and yes, at times I will read or watch the romantic. As a writer, I enjoy writing pieces along those lines, too. Perhaps not so much pieces of a romantic nature, as those make me feel awkward for some reason, but writings of a lighter nature, definitely. Some of my best works, however, are of the darker kind. A few are really rather dark – these are to do with bad experiences I have had in my life. Once upon a time I believed that I could never open up about these experiences, but when I found a way, mostly through poetry, I learned that it can help to write about them. It's not completely a case of “better out than in” because there are experiences you never quite recover from, but it can help the healing process regardless, and anything that helps is welcome, and great.
It needn't be poetry where we express our darker side, of course. It needn't even be a direct expression of our life and experiences. We can channel these thoughts, these sentiments, that pain into fictional works – in the experiences of our characters, in the obstacles they overcome. Writing how they overcome them can be healing, too.
But it's not all about healing, either. Writing darker, spooky stuff can be fun! It can be enjoyable to think of how, when you put your work out there someone, somewhere, will be sat there by the fireplace, a cat on their lap, reading your work when the nights go dark. Someone who wanted something that sent their heart beating slightly faster, safe in the knowledge that nothing bad's going to happen. That is one of the joys of being both a reader and a writer, isn't it? We are a part of that cycle of entertainment, one that has lasted for many centuries and will hopefully last for evermore.
Kit of House Lannister
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Action/Adventure: November 13, 2019 Issue [#9871]
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