We all know species in the animal kingdom are warm-blooded and cold-blooded. While it’s unfair to categorize warm-blooded mammals as nurturing and caring, and cold-blooded lizards as hard-hearted and vicious, we often fall into thinking this way.  As it happens, I often view my own stories in the same way.

My “warm” stories have all the feels. They have characters that will likely survive, or if they perish, will do so in a blaze of glory. My characters are tender-hearted and caring, placed in a threatening situation. I purposely pull on the heart strings. My Kingdom fantasies and my flash fiction, “The Extra,” published by everydayfiction.com are warm.

My “cold” stories are entirely different. The characters in them will likely not live to see “The End.” If they do, they are changed forever (maimed, insane). The characters are threatened. They often don’t see their fates sealed until the final few sentences. The plots are usually very dark; the atmosphere is brooding. I purposely run a literal finger down the reader’s spine. My flash fiction published in Havok (gohavok.com) up to this point, has been cold.

My latest Havok offering, The Wick of Anger, is a decent balance between the two. While it has the premise of a campfire tale of a young man raising the dead to exact revenge, the short fiction veers into warm territory before the final sentence. I enjoyed mixing these two approaches together. So while the idea of someone who rights wrongs by bringing corpses out of their graves may entice you, I hope you also enjoy the consequences such an act has on one’s soul. “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” they say. In my case, it’s served warm.