Today as I wrote in my horror romance, I realized why I have been stuck in a certain scene for the past week. I’m glad it didn’t take me longer to figure that out because it took me two full months to finally get unstuck in The Preacher’s Wife. In the case of The Preacher’s Wife, I had to transition the couple from having a platonic marriage to going over that hurdle. I knew the mechanics of what to do, but honestly, a sex scene is not just a sex scene. There are so many nuances involved in it. How does the relationship change? What do the characters learn about themselves? What do they learn about each other? How does this advance the plot? I’m learning that some need more description than others.

In The Preacher’s Wife, that scene is so emotion-heavy that I gloss over the actual physical aspects of it. Right now someone is probably wondering what this has to do with my horror romance. The part that had me stuck in this horror romance was that I was at the “first time the couple is in bed” scene. The circumstances are different. I am not writing The Preacher’s Wife this time. But I still had to figure out how to best go about writing it for this particular couple.

The way I approached this scene pretty much sets up the groundwork for what kind of horror romance writer I’m going to be. That probably sounds crazy since I’m at 28,000 words and have focused so much on the psychological horror vibes up to now. No one has died yet. It’s coming, but it can’t happen yet. I have to lay down the foundation first. There has to be motive when the hero starts killing people. (He kills to protect the heroine.) Before the hero can step out to protect her, he has to fall in love with her. That’s why their first time matters. It has to be there.

I have read quite a few dark romances, gothic romances, paranormal romances, urban fantasy romances, and horror books by now. I have been processing what makes them different and what makes them similar. I have been trying to figure out where I fit in with this pen name. I already figured out who I am with my general romances, though I recall that taking a couple of years to nail down. Given my experience, figuring out where I land in horror romance is easier. I came into this thinking I was going to have a completely different “voice”, but the more I wrote the story, the more I went back to rewrite scenes since I didn’t like how abrasive the characters were coming across.

The other day, Rami Ungar wrote a blog post about The Shining by Stephen King. I remember years ago when I learned that Stephen King didn’t like the way Stanley Kubrick directed it. Later on, there was a TV miniseries made for The Shining that was more in line with Stephen King’s vision for the book. While reading Rami’s blog post, I kept thinking about how a story can come off differently depending on how a person’s interpretation of it goes. Kubrick did amass praise for his vision. I actually enjoyed King’s vision more. The father was more relatable. The descent he took into madness was far more tragic in King’s version. King wasn’t as “abrasive” I guess with his approach to the father. Considering my taste as a reader, that makes sense.

Now, I am not writing a story like The Shining. But while I was writing in the horror romance today, I had to ask myself, “Which approach is best served for me as the writer? What is the voice that best suits me? I can’t approach this book as just the author. I need to look at it as someone who wants to read this story, too. This approach, by the way, is the opposite of writing to market. Writing the market is all about being the author who is delivering a story for a specific audience. You, the writer, do not need to agree with the vision in order to please the reader. If are you writing for passion, though, you are your own audience.

Once I removed the vision I had for what a dark romance reader seems to want, the scene came un-stuck. So I would say my book does not fall into “dark romance”. Those romances are more abrasive than what I like. They are like Kubrick’s version. And that doesn’t resonate with me like King’s version. I want more gentleness. More of a “conscience” I guess. I don’t want such a morally grey hero or heroine. I want there to be more of a sense of right and wrong, and I want the characters to struggle. I don’t want the hero to just go out and kill people. I want him to be cornered into a place where he has no choice. He eventually becomes a “monster”, but he’s also the good guy. I want people to be rooting for him. So he’s a sympathetic villain, maybe.

I wish there was an actual “Horror Romance” category, because this is what the story really is. I am learning how to blend horror and romance together. It’s been a lot of fun. I can feel the creative muscles working as I play around with different ways to go about the story. After a while of writing the same genre, a writer can feel stuck. By venturing into new territory, you get to come back to that same genre with fresh new eyes. I have found that taking on this horror romance has sparked my excitement for regular old historical romance. While lousy advice for writing-to-market authors, I think playing around with different types of stories is great advice for writing-for-passion authors. It’s fun where there’s something new to learn.