I’m not sure where I’m going right now, but I’m writing a mystery with a dark side from the point-of-view of an upbeat, even sunny, voice. The narrator is simply a breezy person, able to quickly assess the people she encounters and self-conscious enough to monitor her own responses without the mean streak associated with such narrators. She doesn’t seem to have a dark side! The more I write in her voice, the more the darkness tickles at the corners of the story but it does not spring from her, generally happy, lips.
What am I doing? Am I really attempting to write a mystery with a happy protagonist? Is the character padded with enough snarky insights to keep the truly wicked and nefarious machinations of other characters from changing her? Or should they, inevitably, alter her positive outlook?
In the meantime, I keep writing and when negative (distressing, deadly, criminal, or simply ‘pissy’ things happen) she wiggles out with a positive take or a polite nod to the dark. I started writing this on February 21. In a little less than a month, I’m closing in on the first 40-something pages of the first (rough) draft. The story is rolling along and still in a light voice.
Still wondering how this will play out… I’ll keep you posted.
Is it possible for a dark story to be centered around a sunny character?
Most people /are/ sunny, or at least not too downbeat, so the contrast between MC-just-like-me and the gradual realisation that something dark and horrible lurks just behind the door is…very powerful.
My guess is that your sub-conscious knows what it’s doing. Sit back and keep typing. 😉
I think my sub-conscious is having a great time!