I thought I’d try something new here. I was doing some brainstorming and after one thing led to another, I got wondering just how many ghost stories have I written. How many about aliens & UFOs? How many about physic phenomena or dreams?
The majority of my short stories and my novel include some sort of paranormal or fantasy element, so I thought it would be fun to do a breakdown. This includes both published and non-published short stories, as long as I have at least a completed first draft.
So let’s see how it looks:
Werewolves and Vampires
It looks like I’ve published two vampire stories and one werewolf story, and have one unpublished vampire piece. That’s a bit of a surprise since I’m not a big werewolf guy (even though my first published story, Fresh Dirt, was a werewolf story) and vampire stories are a tough sell due to the over saturation from popular vampire tales and shows like Twilight and True Blood.
Paranormal Stories
I’m calling these “paranormal” but I don’t want to group in anything related to ghosts or monsters. Here I’m talking more about psychic stuff, dreams, magick… that sort of thing. I’ve had five short stories and a novel published in this loosely grouped together category. I’ve also got a YA Horror novel based on dreams outlined that maybe I’ll write someday.
Cryptozology and Legends
Next on the list is one of the coolest cryptozology legends out there: The Mothman. I’ve got two short stories about the mysterious beast floating around. One of them, The Guardian Angel, is one of my favorite short stories. It got accepted at one point by a magazine that shut down before it was published, so the story is still looking for a home. The other is Premonition, a piece of flash fiction published in the April 2017 issue of Blood Moon Rising.
I’ve also got a novel in the works with some Bigfoot (Bigfeet?) appearances, and every now and then, a reference to the beloved Loch Ness Monster will appear in my fiction 🙂
Zombies (or crazies)
I can’t believe I have three short stories about zombies. Two of them have even been published, although neither one of them are of the “dead walking the earth” variety. The third is a unpublished science fiction (ish) sort of zombies. It still needs some work, but it was fun to write that first draft.
Aliens and UFOs
You might have thought this would be the topic I write about more than anything else, but it’s the runner up. I’ve got four short stories about aliens and three of the four include the aliens of the Greys “Strieber” variety. Also, my first NaNoWriMo attempt was a novel about the global UFO Cover-up, but the less we say about that, the better.
Ghosts and Demons
And finally, the Number One topic of my short stories: Ghosts and Demons. I’ve got a whopping eight short stories involving spirits of the afterlife. I was a little surprised to see that I had written this much about them, but I suppose when you read a lot of horror, you tend to write a lot of horror, so that’s to be expected.
So to close out this post, I should mention that this breakdown isn’t complete, as it doesn’t include any science fiction, fantasy, or other non-paranormal stories I’ve written, but it does give a good feel of my which sub-genres I prefer to write.
This was kind of fun looking over my stuff to come up with this list. If you ever take inventory of your novels and short stories, feel free to share your stats in the comments section.
