It was 11:42pm and I’m sitting in mind with nothing but the dim hum of city traffic outside, a half-full glass of red wine beside my laptop, and a word doc blinking like a heartbeat that refuses to flatline. This is the quiet hour — the in-between space where the world finally shuts up and the muses either show up… or ghost you. Tonight, they’re flirting. Tonight, we’re talking about dark romance.

There’s a certain type of headspace you have to slip into when you write dark romance. It’s not exactly the cozy warmth of a rom-com or the slow burn of literary fiction. It’s sharp. Gothic. It’s velvet and razor blades. And the irony is, writing it feels more real to me than writing something “safe” ever has. Because let’s face it: love isn’t always tender. Sometimes it’s obsessive. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it’s messy and morally fucked and haunting. But it’s still love.

That contradiction is the marrow of dark romance.

I think most people misunderstand the genre. They see it as twisted fantasy, or mistake the intensity for glamorizing toxicity. And sure, sometimes the stories walk a line — but that’s exactly the point. We explore the line. We stretch it. We unravel what love looks like when it’s backed into a corner. When it fights dirty. When it wants something so badly it’ll burn the whole world down to get it.

I’m not writing dark romance to teach anyone about healthy relationships. I’m not a therapist. I’m an artist. I’m fascinated by the extreme, by the moments when people tip over the edge. I want to know what makes someone cross that line — and more importantly, what makes them stay there.

Writing this stuff isn’t about shock value. It’s about truth.

Even if the truth is buried in metaphor, in fiction, in characters with ice-cold eyes and bruised hearts. It’s still truth.

The Writer Life: A Controlled Descent into Madness

People think being a writer is about sipping espresso in Paris cafés or clacking away on a vintage typewriter by candlelight. Nah. For me, it’s pacing around my apartment in my third hoodie of the day, muttering plot points to myself like a lunatic, wondering why my villain suddenly developed a redemption arc I did not approve.

Dark romance writers live in a strange duality. By day, I can be running errands or doom-scrolling Twitter like a normal person. But at night? I’m orchestrating emotional warfare between characters who’ve suffered more in 80,000 words than most people do in a lifetime. And I love them for it.

There’s something raw and powerful about crafting characters who are both the villain and the victim. Who are capable of cruelty but also bleeding with vulnerability. That kind of complexity doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from you — the writer. From the parts of yourself you don’t always show at brunch. From the memories you don’t share. From the dark corners of your mind where you keep the “what ifs” and “what could’ve beens.”

Writing dark romance is emotional excavation. You dig into yourself, pull something out, put it on the page, and hope it bleeds enough to mean something to someone else.

Dark Romance Is Not a Phase — It’s a Mirror

Some people write dark romance and call it a guilty pleasure. I don’t. There’s nothing guilty about writing from your gut. I’m not afraid of the dark anymore — I work there. I’ve learned to light a match in the tunnels of jealousy, revenge, heartbreak, and passion, and write by that flickering flame.

And readers? They get it. The ones who stay. The ones who crave that blend of beauty and brutality. They don’t want a perfect love. They want a real one. One that’s earned. One that claws and conquers and refuses to fade.

So yeah, these are just my late-night thoughts. A little chaotic. A little romantic. A little dangerous. But that’s kind of the point, right?

If you’re writing dark romance, or thinking about it, don’t flinch. Don’t clean it up. Let your characters make bad decisions. Let them fall too hard, too fast. Let them fall for the wrong person. Because that’s what makes it art. That’s what makes it yours.

And if you’re like me — staring at a screen at midnight, trying to piece together the anatomy of a broken love — just know this:

You’re not alone in the dark. You’re building something there. Something worth reading.