Chiaroscuro (chizine)

Chia-what? I didn't know either, until another writer friend linked me the yearly contest they hold.

THE 14TH CHIAROSCURO SHORT STORY CONTEST

Dark fiction. I read through some of the entries and it made me shiver with anticipation. I felt that familiar thrill of dark reading, that nice sense of unease that creeps along my spine as I delve into the darker side of human imagination. It was a feeling I'd almost forgotten about. I've been reading a lot of humor-based thrills for years now, and it's mostly what I write. But at one point I was able to tap into the scarier stuff. I used to write similar things, darker things.

Which made me wonder... can I still write dark fiction?

Humor is a surprisingly hard habit to break. Understandably so. It's enjoyable. I've gotten the hang of it. Especially sarcasm. Dark fiction is enjoyable, but for entirely different reasons. It's like trying to compare apples and crabcakes. They're just too different, as is the mind set you need to be in to write either of them.

I probably won't submit anything to this contest, but I might challenge myself and try it anyway. I know I can write dark. I just need to find my (not so) happy place and dive into the abyss.

Now, if only I had a suitably dark character to write about...

Ponder of the day:

Is Santa so jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live?


~Sass~