Finding My Niche...

I have always loved scary...always...

From The Uninvited to The Conjuring...if it's about ghosts and ghoulies and things that bump in the night, I am there...

I've read nearly every Stephen King book there is including the non-fiction. His books have a rhythm to them that beats in time with my own, swirling and tickling a brain that finds the same patterns in people and situation. I don't know how or why that is, it simply is.

It used to concern me. It no longer does.

I love Dean Koontz' Odd Thomas, the Mayfair Witches of Anne Rice, and the visitors in Shirley Jackson's Hill House. I adore the ghostly spirits of Peter Straub, Scott Nicholson, and Susan Hill, to name a few.

This is where I live and this is how I write.

And I write what I know.

I've written in various genres including erotica, romance, supernatural, and  paranormal, but it seems to be the combination of three or four of them where I fall the most. 

I have written stories that frightened myself. Even when I know what is going to happen, I still get a cold chill that stiffens my spine, calls forth goosebumps, and forces me to barricade myself in the house and turn on all the lights. And to me, those are the best.

I may have never have found my niche if it wasn't for the likes of Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Richard Matheson, all writing stories in the key of MY life long before I realized it...

The Devil is in the Details!!!

When it comes to writing, how much detail is too much? As writers, we struggle with this question every time we put pen to paper or fingers to keys.

We had a lively discussion on Facebook the other day, some authors like to write to rich details, others like me, prefer to give the basics and move along with character driven stories. Not that the others aren't character driven as well, but when it comes to description, do we really need to know what the room looks like unless it is essential to the story? If a character has a messy room or a very tidy abode, that would of course give you some insight into who they are and what makes them tick. But unfortunately for us, as writers, the readers out there will have their own opinion of what that little fact might suggest. To some people a tidy room might suggest someone is uptight or compulsive, I, on the other hand, would believe that they were well adjusted and have their ducks all in a row. So how much is too much? When does it become more than you need? 

Perhaps that is just one of the differences in readers preferences. As an avid reader, I don't enjoy every writer. It wouldn't make sense too but even the ones that I really enjoy, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Dean Koontz and Terry Pratchett, when they get a little long in the verse, I tend to fast read through it. Not that it isn't beautifully written, Anne Rice's descriptive passages regarding New Orleans can put you right there with the vampires and witches in the Big Easy. You can feel the oppressive heat and humidity of the city and smell the scent of the bougainvillea and suffocating wisteria as it grows untamed around the old southern plantation homes. And yes, I do love knowing that, once. And then my mind can take it from there. After that, I skim over it when the passages fall into the same descriptive mode.  (Plus, having lived in the Deep South I am very aware of the heat and humidity of the area and don't particularly enjoy being reminded of it.)

We all have our different ways of getting our point across and our stories told. Whether a reader or a writer, you simply have to find the place that you fit in the best.