Violence and the Blag

Certain of my readers have, of late, noted that a very large number of my stories have focused on violence. I will address this, but I'd like to note first that there have been stories not featuring undue violence: the greater part of the Awakening series was entirely pacifistic, and certain other short stories - off the top of my head, David's Exile (which did, admittedly, feature themes of suicide and madness), Rain, and the recent Motor-Cat. So I can write stories without violence.

There are several reasons that I do not do so often. Stories are necessarily about conflict. Unless you are going for strange experimental forms, it's a given! And when emotions run high, conflict has an unfortunate tendency to lead to violence. It's the way of the world! Another reason for the violence in my stories is the source of my inspiration. The books I read have violence. The games I play have violence. Sometimes there's more, sometimes there's less, but it's rare that there's none - that lattermost condition being more common in the games, actually. So the stories I write, inspired by the things I read, have violence.

Nonetheless, there are forms of conflict that do not involve violence. Man versus nature, man versus self, man versus time, man versus man (nonviolent variation!)... I do use these, but very often they're in the same stories that have violence, so it makes things messier. Still, in future, I may try to write less violent stories; just to avoid getting 'stuck in a rut'.

Now, back to our scheduled feature, as Jason Jeremiah Jones continues his fight in a world of crotch-kicks, automatic weapons, and invisible slicing monstrosities.