The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #352 -- Depressing Holiday Stories

Why are all of your Christmas-themed stories so depressing?

But my trees don't stand up again... usually.

Well, I don't actually think of them as depressing. Dour, yes, Downbeat, of course. Bittersweet, absolutely. But depressing, never!

I also think of them as redemptive, at least somewhat. Most of my stories that take place during this season tend to feature characters who are facing some sort of crisis of faith or some decision that threatens to make them less than who they are.

In the free story from Christmas Eve Day, "It's Christmas, Baby, Please Come Home," I present a mom who isn't physically or emotionally or financially capable of taking care of her new child who is born with super powers and tends to break out in fire in times of stress, something common to babies (only in this one's case, not crying but burning down your house).

In " The Ghost of Christmas Past," I give Boom Machine (my most intentionally bad hero name) his shot are redemption after staying off the grid because he accidently killed an innocent person in one of his early missions.

Now, in "Sin and Error Pining" on the other hand, I can't spin that one into redemption at all. It's pure tragedy. Poor, poor Ms. Futuru and her scatter packages. That one's depressing, but not totally, at least not to me. To me, that one is a story about a dying woman's strength, and she owns it till the proverbial (and literal) last breath.

So, there. You say potayto, I say potahto. You say depressing, I say redemptive. Potayto, potahto, depressing, redemptive, let's call the whole thing off. (Please forgive me. I'm a sucker of old musicals.)