Coffee With David

“Why must you always write so darkly?” I was asked a few weeks ago.
“What do you mean?”
“You write about horror, death and crime. Even when you write about the future, it is not a happy place.”

They had a point. I do not write stories that could be turned into Disney cartoons or that might be seen as a light hearted comedy. To quote an interview of one of my favorite crime writers, P.D. James, when asked something similar y her own mother: “If I was to write a hospital romance, I would start off with a doctor and a nurse in love. By the end of the third chapter, the doctor would have been murdered and it would turn out the nurse did it.” I may have slightly misquoted the current British Queen of Crime, but that is how I remember her describing her response. I remembered it because I was nodding my head in agreement with every word.

I write darkly for a few reasons. One is because I have a fascination with the dark and trying to understand it. I always have. I would find myself wondering what caused “bad people” to do the things they do. My eyes would look at all the popular and powerful “bad people” who have gained their power from less than honest means and people love them for it. Here is an example of what I mean: Hitler. Look at his charisma, his charm and how the people seemed to adore him. Look at how he rose to power. Look at the evil he did with that power, at the death and the destruction he brought not only on to those who loved him, but upon the world itself. When I look at people like him and see the depths of potential, I have to wonder “how did it go wrong?”

Another reason I write darkly walks holding hands with the reason I just gave. I firmly believe the philosophy of George Santayana who said, “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” When I look at the history of man, I see that this theme can be found in every fabric of human progress and recession. So I do not look at the future with the rose colored glasses of some, but rather with a jaundice eye and see where we might go. I then write that story with two things in mind: 1. Warn about the possibilities and 2. Remind the reader that there is hope, even in the darkest of days.

A third reason is one that I share with P.D. James: I like to bring order out of disorder. The darkness that surrounds most people in real life, the darkness of murder, or the darkness of any future or fantasy world is created in the chaos of disorder. It is in this disorder the people find themselves lost and that they feel the center of their world has collapsed. It is from there that order must be built. As it is built, it grows like the light of a candle to that of a torch and then to a bonfire. As it grows, the light pushes back the darkness further and further away from the heart of the flame. In order to write about the flame, one must be willing to explore the dark.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for information about the stories I am currently working on.