What is Love…but darker

What is this Love…but Darker nonsense?

Well…

When I started publishing my stories two years ago, that was really all I had in mind.

Publishing my stories.

I didn’t really have a plan or think about marketing or any of that malarkey. Generally my game plan is a) have an idea, b) make the thing, c) send the thing out into the world…then hope for the best while steps a thru b are repeating themselves.

Which would be fine if all my story ideas had some sort of coherence or theme or genre. Except they don’t. And because I didn’t think about branding or whatever and because I published Gazes Into You under the same name as Home Is Where You Are, I feel like I’m a little bit…stuck.

I know now that most other authors who write in more than one sub-genre, have more than one pen name. Something for family drama, something for murder mysteries, something for erotica. Which is fun. And I may yet do that if I decide to write—I don’t know—YA or a children’s book or something. But after much hemming and hawing, I decided that rather than splitting myself in two again I would simply make a little section for the books that the readers of cute, mm, family feels, kidfic might not enjoy so much.

Because I’m afraid to say…I like violence. I like guts and screaming and Very Bad Things. Writing it, that is. A bit of this sort of thing creeps into most of my stories. If you’ve read Caleb and Jacob’s story then you know it’s not entirely bunnies and roses. Which is how Gazes falls into this category to an extent, as I like an anti-hero too. At the end of the day, John is a Bad Man™ and his relationship with Jay is very unhealthy. They joke about Stockholm Syndrome but that’s basically what their relationship is based on. Generally, I steer well clear of non-con and major character death and torture. But…I have written that. And worse. And I can’t guarantee it won’t creep into a story in the future.

Could I just not write any of that stuff? Stick to the fluffy stories?

Actually—no.

I tried that once and learned very quickly that if the Muse does not get what she wants, then I can’t write at all. And it sucked. For about six months. Not a word. So, no. No, thank you. As much as I would love to always write about sweet men making moo-eyes at each other over the breakfast table, a baby on the waistband of low slung sleep-pants talking about their family issues over the scent of coffee, I’m afraid if I’m taken by the urge to have a guy in an alleyway licking the blood off his knuckles as he steps away from a corpse to unzip and stick his dick in the mouth of his barely legal accomplice (whoa, actually that’s a bit much but never say never!), I’m just going to have to go with it for the sake of my sanity.

Hence, Love…but Darker.

So, what will it mean? It’ll mean—not much will be different actually.

MM, yes. HEA/HFN, yes. Probably the same amount of angst and sexytimes. Probably far too many characters called John.

Black and white covers, I thought. Because, yes, literal me is literal. Plus, I think it would look nice and easily identify them as a series of sorts.

It will mean trigger warnings. I know people have mixed feelings about these kinds of warnings but y’know what? I don’t see the harm used judiciously. I won’t list them in the books but there will be a hyperlink to a webpage where people can find the general gist of what the unpleasant content might be, and then a hidden section where people can find more detailed, potentially spoilery warnings. Is it pandering to the snowflake contingent? No. Anyone that gets “triggered” by characters smoking or using bad language should really hang out with a rape survivor and find out what triggering really is. Spoiler alert—its not all that much fun. And if people genuinely need them, I’m okay with that.

And tbh, in fanficland—at least the bit from whence I matriculated—we refer to warnings as “enticements”. One person’s hard limit, may be another’s go-to kink. So, it’s not a judgement thing. Just a ‘letting you know’ thing.

I’ll still be writing the sweet, fluffy, family times, for sure. I’m just putting something in place for my serial killers and unhealthy relationships. Because they’re coming. And really, what I come up with could hardly be called “dark erotica” or whatever. It’s really just that it’s sufficiantly different to the stuff that my current readers are familiar with to warrant a little separation, is all.