The 30 year old fantasy addicted Duncan McGeary would be surprised.

Contemplating the short fiction market, with which I am unfamiliar. I never thought of myself as a short story writer, but since the first two stories I took seriously were actually published, and since I'm not yet ready to tackle another novel, maybe I could try a few more times.

Right away, the horror market looks more attractive to me. With SF and fantasy, my impression is that there are trends, that there are certain types of stories they are looking for and other stories the editors are avoiding, based on what's been selling, what's been overdone, and which is new.

Whereas, with horror, I have the feeling that anything goes, as long as it's good. I mean, I would have to tailor the story to the requested perimeters, but the field just seems more open to me.

I had the same impression about the novels when I started. It was more or less random that the first novel I wanted to write was a supernatural Donner Party with werewolves. The people I talked to in the horror field seemed really open to my efforts. Almost by accident, the next story that grabbed me was a vampire story, and then super-intelligent wild pigs on a rampage.

I'd always been a fantasy writer until this streak, but as soon as these stories were accepted--by three different publishers--I decided this was the genre to write.

I figured out that any good story can be turned into a horror novel. For instance, I had an idea for an unstoppable mobster: think Luca Brasi from The Godfather, only one that doesn't sleep with the fishes but keeps on killing.  So I mulled that over, trying to figure how to put in a supernatural element and thought of a Golem. 

Another example. Had an idea of a femme fatale who lured men into camping deep in the woods and then abandoned them to die. Which I turned into a succubus story. And so on.

After that, any idea I came up with had a tinge of horror attached. Even the thrillers I wrote started off that way and only later did I turn them into straight thrillers. 

I'm just not up to date on fantasy and SF. I'd even go so far as to say the my tastes are out of date. I've pretty much disliked most of the award winning books over the last 10 years of so in these fields. Lionized novels that I really didn't care for. 

I'm actually way more up to date on thrillers, since that has been the majority of my reading over the last 20 years of so.

The 30 year old fantasy addicted Duncan McGeary would be surprised.