Horrifying Ideas

Life can be downright nasty at times.  Bringing some of that nasty into a story is how we pull the audience in sometimes.  Additionally, I've I've said before, it often takes darkness to justify a bright ending.

That said, in looking back at some of what I've written, and especially some of what I've published, it occurs to me that my mind can go to truly horrifying places if I let it.  In Homecoming, the human race has grown so large, and has become so focused on its mission to reclaim earth, that the deaths of a few million in pursuit of those objectives seems a bit like a rounding error.  Yes, it was done intentionally to show that callousness is a part of war, but a few folks have said that it was unfeeling to write it that way.

Even more so in my unpublished novel On Freedom's Wings.  On Freedom's Wings started out as kind of a fun jaunt through space combat, and it slipped into some real dark places really fast.  As I've stated previously, the novel is so cliché in many of its elements that I don't think I'll ever publish it(at least not without a major rewrite), but it went into a black hole that I still wonder how it emerged.  Not only does it involve an alien attack that renders nearly everyone on Earth sterile, but it sends the main character down the road of genocide.  The circumstances are complex, but, looking back, I wonder how I ever came up with something that horrific.  And it's not just a plot device, but rather a major element of the story.  I guess that our minds can go to Hell and back if we don't pull ourselves out and take a fresh look every so often. Thank God I pulled back.

Some of my other stories still have horrifying ideas, even if not as permanent.  Salvation Day deals with a man looking to kill God.  As one reviewer put it, "The detail was at times disturbing, but always germane to the story vice gratuitous; it was difficult to get through some passages."  Did I need to go so dark?  Does this say more about the story, or about my own mind?  And how many writers deal with just how disturbing some of the far recesses of their own minds are when they write?