Placing my right toe out of the comfort zone

“Girl meets Boy; Boy is a supernatural schizophrenic manifesting magical powers and a significant evil ‘Other’; evil Other goes on a killing spree, and finally Boy kills evil Other before evil Other can kill Girl, but kills himself in the process.
So Girl loses Boy, but the town is saved...”

That’s pretty much my first book, The Forever Chain, summed up in a paragraph. It reveals some common themes in my writing: loss, death, darkness, miracles, and did I mention “death”?
In every book I’ve written, in every short story thrown down on the page from my fevered imagination, “death” is a constant. I have yet to write a whimsical story that doesn’t feature a visit from the Grim-reaper, which surprises me because, if you got to know me, you’d see that I’m a pretty cheerful guy. I don’t have any skeletons in my closet, or psychological booby-traps from childhood that could cause me to write about such things. I’m not a nihilist. I’m not religious. I’m what you might call a “contented writer”.
Yet in my short stories such as Splinters, the main characters are usually tragically flawed, and someone almost always loses their life or takes the life of another by the end. These motifs arise in my longer fictions too. In The Secret War, the main characters suffer untold pain and peril, and loss is prevalent throughout the heroes’ adventures. Sacrifices are made. Likewise with The Horde of Mhorrer.

Now I don’t mind that. I’m comfortable with it. Putting my characters through the metaphorical meat-grinder is something I get an oddly perverse pleasure out of. But it has dawned on me that my writing-comfort zone consists of dangerous adventures, and misadventures, laced with a certain amount of misery and revelation.
And monsters, both human and non-human.
Why this is, I have little idea. I have never met any monsters. I very rarely get into dangerous adventures. Nor misadventures. Yet, whatever I write tends to lean in that direction.

Recently a few people have asked why I am not writing The Fortress of Black Glass – the next book in The Secret War series - this year. And I think it’s for the precise reasons hinted at above. The Fortress of Black Glass is going to be a tough book to write. There’s going to be a lot of death. Much will be lost. And I don’t think all the main characters are going to reach the end. I expect the book to be emotionally draining, and a challenge to my writing skills. Sure, Fortress stays within that writing-comfort zone, but at times I’ll be reaching for an emotional gravitas that will be a) greater than anything I’ve written before, and b) beyond my current writing abilities.
I’ve always considered that I am an apprentice writer. I don’t think for a moment that I’ve served it yet; maybe with The Horde of Mhorrer and The Black Hours I will get closer to that goal – we’ll see. And part of that development will be writing out of the comfort-zone. The Black Hours is the first step, or rather the chance to dangle my toe beyond the zone into unfamiliar waters while Fortress of Black Glass might be a great leap.
For example, The Black Hours will be the most extensively researched book I’ve undertaken. I’m currently reading through a stack of books on late Victorian England (indeed, I think I’ve stripped bare the shelves of Sheffield City library on the subject of Victorian culture) and I reckon this will be the first book where I’ve spent several weeks researching the subject before I even embark on the plotting.

The Black Hours will feature death, oh yes (he say’s gleefully), but it’s not a horror book, nor will it be a fantasy novel. You won’t see tentacled monstrosities or beasties composed of fire walking these city streets. There will be an alternative history element to it, but that’s about it. The Black Hours will be explicitly a Victorian thriller, kinda like an 1890’s James Bond, if you like, but quite darker.

(Can you see that I’m moving out of my comfort zone yet? No?)

Okay, well there’s also the short stories. Sure, A Problem with Rats is bordering on a horror story, but I’d say it’s more Weird Fiction, than horror. The second short story, however - To the Scent of Lemons - will be a bigger step out of the zone. It’s a story about alcoholism, and while there are a few moments of fantasy within it, no one dies, no one is maimed, and they all survive the end of the story. Will it be uplifting? I’m not so sure, but you know, I’m getting there...

So I might be kidding myself that I am writing out of the comfort zone. And I think I’m many years away from attempting a full-blown Romance or chick-lit. I’m certain I’m a long way from writing about everyday people doing everyday things i.e. the banal. And apart from a single project on the horizon called The Forbidden World of the Dead, I don’t think I’m quite ready to write a full-blown comedy either.
But that won’t stop me from experimenting, one step at a time.
After all, The Secret War was written out of my comfort zone way back in 2001. Before then, my books were 20th century horror stories, more a hymn to the works of King and Barker than anything else. Before The Secret War I didn’t think I could write anything remotely like a historical fantasy.
I just took a deep breath, and jumped in.

Whether or not jumping in to The Black Hours will prove as successful, I’ll have to wait and see, but I guess it’s a good thing to get just a little uncomfortable while you write…