Last Week’s Story:

Well. That didn’t go well. About 2,600 words into “Waxwood”, I realized that the romance angle I’d tried to introduce into the fantasy story wasn’t going to work out, and there was no way the story could end well. No matter how it ended, it would be with the main character devaluing herself and bursting apart her own integrity. That’s not romance or love in my opinion.

Romance is HARD, you know. I never thought it would be this hard. Turns out, all I know about romance is that romance stories end with an HEA, Happily Ever After, or an HFN, Happy for Now.

I have written stories that have love in them. My NaNoWriMo novel Code Monkey: A Love Story with Occasional Monsters was exactly that. I had fun writing that one, and may dig it up again someday. But it wasn’t a true romance, I don’t think.

I posted a query with my dilemma into Mur Lafferty’s Discord server, and got a couple of recommendations. First, this website from 2012, which outlines the various beats and plot points that many romance stories share. And second, I checked out this book from the library:

These two resources might not be entirely applicable, since I’m working on short stories and not novels, but I’ll review them anyway. I’m sure they’re helpful.

This Week’s Prompt:

This week I rolled an 8 on the d8, so I drew from the Horror deck, and a 2 on the d6 which means… Romance. AGAIN! Well, I am determined to crack this to at least my satisfaction. Anyway, here’s the prompt:

A worshipper wants to uphold a family legacy involving a vision-inducing bite, but it will shatter a delusion they are depending on.

I’m not sure how to hand a horror/romance story. I mean sure, paranormal romance is certainly a thing, and has been popular for a long time. I’ve never read any, though, so I’m not sure what tropes and beats are required. I’ll hunt down some short stories and see what I can figure out.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll include a cemetery because cemeteries are cool.

This Week’s Recommendation:

This week’s I’m recommending this book:

I… confess I have not actually read this one yet, because my (signed!) copy has not yet been delivered. HOWEVER, the first two books in this series — Station Eternity and Chaos Vector — are brilliant. Mur Lafferty is a fantastic writer, you should go check her out. She won the Astounding Award for New Writers (back when it was called the Campbell, I think), and her podcast Ditch Diggers has won the Hugo. Her books have been nominated for all kinds of awards as well. This trilogy, collectively titled Midsolar Murders (I appreciate a good pun) is fantastic, billed as “Murder, She Wrote meets Babylon 5“, and has moments that are hysterical as well as moments that are deeply thought-provoking. They’re mysteries, after all.

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Anyway, that’s all for this week. Be safe, be kind, and have fun.