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Great Balls Afire! My Happily Ever After Syndrome
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My Happily Ever After Syndrome
When I was first asked to contribute to THE STYGIAN SOUL anthology, I thought, "Hmm, dark fantasy, I can do this." But I soon discovered that no matter what I wrote, I always, ALWAYS, came back to the happily ever after ending, henceforth known as HEA. Now, don't get me wrong, I had no trouble editing the NSHEA (not so happily ever after) stories within the anthology. I've discovered my blue pencil has no such hang-ups, but my typing fingers seem to demand a HEA no matter what my muse wishes. It's a curse. I think dark and my fingers type light. I want the princess left alone in the damp, slimy, and might I add, dark tower while her prince decides it's just too much trouble to scale the wall and rescue her, our tarnished hero deciding there surely must be other damsels in distress he could save which would require far less effort on his part while still gaining him the rewards he craves. Definition of rewards: marry the princess; get land, title, and gold. Now, while not exactly dark (bear with me, I'm new at this), I sat down to type, sure it would be a "oh so not" HEA and what did I get? Prince manages to scale the wall while fighting off the evil, winged demons set to guard the tower, reaches the one lone window at the top, kisses the princess (oh, a very lovely princess, the most loveliest in the land), manages to break the spell of enchantment holding her there, scales back down the slimy, damp, and might I add, dark tower (so we compromise, this description was in my NSHEA plot), with the princess hanging from his back. (Sigh, what a hero.) Then, together they ride back to her kingdom, marry, and guess what? They live happily ever after! I couldn't even type an ending like: "After two years of marriage, one day, they looked at each other over their morning paper and wondered just what the heck they were thinking when they said they would! It's a curse, I tell you. I think bats and creeping, blood-sucking vines that impale their victims with sharp thorns and dank, musty caves inhabited by demons or dragons and I get bunnies and flowers and knights in shining armor, azure skies and can I have a hallelujah all around. So, after many attempts at trying to write a dark fantasy short for the anthology, I gave up and handed in a few dark poems. At least, they were dark for me. I had to satisfy myself with the fact that my HEA syndrome remained still, if not entirely quiet while I read through each deliciously dark twist and turn within THE STYGIAN SOUL. And I'm delighted to say, the authors, and the cover artist for that matter, of THE STYGIAN SOUL, don't seem to have the same syndrome that I do. © Copyright Sheri McGathy
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