Writing ‘dark fiction’: an autoethnographic reflection

Lee-Price, Simon (2021) Writing ‘dark fiction’: an autoethnographic reflection. New Writing, 20 (1). pp. 29-41. ISSN 1943-3107

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Abstract

An earlier version of this paper was presented at a multidisciplinary conference on ‘dark heritage’ in 2019. It describes and reflects on my experience of writing a short story for submission to a commercial ‘dark fiction’ anthology and discusses the social, personal, and linguistic factors which contribute to the production of a popular literary text. In particular, it examines to what extent negative connotations of ‘darkness’ as well as stereotypical representations of the monstrous can be avoided or subverted, while at the same time adhering to the genre requirements of a commercial publisher’s brief and writing to a deadline. The approach I take is broadly autoethnographic: my ‘data’ includes ‘field notes’ that I kept throughout the writing process and daily captures of the story as it progressed toward completion. By bringing to light the process through which a dark text is produced, I offer a means for thinking about the deployment and interpretation of tropes of darkness in scholarly and imaginative writing. It is hoped that the autoethnographic methods I employ could be suitably adapted for use in creative writing studies as a means of developing students’ and teachers’ writerly self-awareness.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	** From Crossref journal articles via Jisc Publications Router ** History: received 08-08-2021; revised 25-10-2021; accepted 04-11-2021; epub 29-11-2021; issued 29-11-2021; published 29-11-2021; ppub 02-01-2023.
Keywords:	Literature and Literary Theory
SWORD Depositor:	JISC Router
Depositing User:	JISC Router
Date Deposited:	22 Nov 2023 12:16
Last Modified:	22 Nov 2023 12:16
URI:	https://bnu.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/18928

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