Daring to Show My Dark Side

Inever planned to write my debut about the Devil. The characters who filled my short stories would be appalled: Annie, who blew kisses to her little brother during his difficult first day of school; Curley, a mail-carrying hedgehog whose uniform mishap helped him learn the freedom of flexibility; Freddy, who discovered his superpower of helping others. These gentle souls would look askance at my young adult protagonist, a teenage boy trained to burn those claimed by Lucifer, and wonder how I had strayed so far from my usual path. After all, my characters were meant to be kind and sweet, not lurking in the shadows with matches in their hands.

Let me rephrase: These were the types of characters I believed I was supposed to write.

The walls around my storytelling began quite innocently. As the second child of four, I was not the oldest, not the youngest, not the only boy. I became the quiet one who kept the peace, bringing home straight A’s and perfect attendance records. I graduated at the top of my high school class and behaved in my Stanford dorm, eschewing parties for midnight conversations and homework sessions. When I decided to pursue a career in education, it seemed the perfect fit. I would work with children, sharing the joy of learning and helping them grow into their best selves.

This perspective spilled into my stories, and I wanted my characters to be their best selves, too. Writing is such a personal experience they felt like reflections of pieces of me, and I made their mistakes small, the consequences reversible, their lives only gently ruffled. They always tried their best, and when they fell short, they learned their lessons, righted their wrongs, and moved on unscathed.

For a while, all went according to plan. I wrote stories focused on friendship and bravery and love, and my characters encountered no more struggles than scraped knees and hurt feelings that quickly mended. My voice improved, my plotlines tightened, and I published several poems and stories in children’s magazines. I sent copies to my parents, who proudly hung the pages on their walls. Then other characters began to stir. I had begun reading more young adult books at this time, and their protagonists tugged at something in me. Shadowy figures rose behind my sweet characters, looming darker and more dangerous, but I decided they weren’t mine to write. Their mistakes would hurt not only knees but hearts and lives, and they carried knives and

left behind bloody footprints they didn’t even bother to wipe up. Such characters didn’t fit my plan. They didn’t fit me.

But they wouldn’t leave me alone. At last, I decided to let one out. My impoverished teenage girl rebelled against an unjust society, fighting to save her sick brother in a world filled with fantastical creatures, lethal poisons, and valleys monitored by drones. By the time I finished, I liked her story enough that I sent it off to agents.

None seemed very interested. I thought, perhaps, I should return to the characters I was meant to write. Except I had another idea.

It was darker than the others, featuring a teenage boy raised by his father to hunt and burn those marked by Lucifer. He came to me in a splitsecond encounter, and then he sat in the back of my brain, staring like a goldfish starting to outgrow its tank.

So, I played with this new character. Not writing the words, not yet, but just thinking about him—as I washed dishes, drove to the grocery store, went running. He carried secrets and scars, and his mistakes shattered more than glass.

I liked that.

When I finally sat down at my laptop, I knew how his story began, where it led, and how it ended. There was much to fill in, but this character whispered to me in every scene, with all his failures and half-truths and broken promises. He asked questions to which I didn’t always have answers, and we found them together as I followed him through each mistake and betrayal. I wrote his story of friendship and bravery and love, but it came with mayhem and murder and lies.

A Crooked Mark was published last June, and my protagonist entered the world for all to see. I sent my mother and father a copy, with a hand-drawn heart in the acknowledgments where I had thanked them for their support. Then, despite being a full-grown adult, I worried, What will my parents think?

Would they be disappointed? Dismayed? Wonder how they had failed so miserably in my upbringing?

They texted at last: “Don’t know where you got such great imagination and storytelling skills … Love your writing.”

They sent copies to the East Coast and Hong Kong so my relatives could read it. They raved about it to their friends. They went into bookstores, where my mom would turn my book so the cover faced out.

They were proud. They always would have been proud, because the boundaries constraining my characters hadn’t been built by them.

I built them myself.

The walls I placed on my writing— on those characters whose stories I could tell—held me captive because I believed in their truth. It’s far easier to recognize when someone else has placed limits on us. There’s a heaviness there, an awareness that the ceiling set over our heads was designed by different hands. The limits we place on ourselves, however, are far harder to see. I built my boundaries with the very first character I created: a kind, sweet girl who could only tell kind, sweet stories.

Turns out I’m good at writing fiction.

Don’t get me wrong: A Crooked Mark features found family, first love, and friendship, all things I hold dear. It’s a story of hope and redemption, but it’s told through the eyes of a teenager who doesn’t shy away from knives and flames. He’s my sweet character wrapped in shadows, but he is one I am proud to call my own.

My advice to anyone hearing whispers from characters you might not recognize is to listen and see where they want to go, not where you think they should. The stories you have written neither define nor limit the ones to come, and stretching past any boundaries you might have unconsciously created could reveal some exciting new twists. When you expect your reliable protagonist to turn left, but she instead sprints for the cliff you thought you put in as scenery, don’t hit “Delete.”

Grab her hand, hold on tight, and jump.

I still love my uniformed hedgehog and superpowered kids, but they’re making room for some interesting neighbors. The newest addition comes from my current work-in-progress, a young adult manuscript filled with sisters and starlight and murder. My main character isn’t one I would have seen a decade ago, but she makes me excited to sit at my desk each day. She’s smart and loyal and learning that the deeper she cuts, the more they’ll bleed.

And she’s exactly the type of character I’m meant to write.

Linda Kao grew up in California and spent most weekends throughout elementary school hauling books home from the library to read on the living room rug. She has published short stories and poems in Highlights for Children, Ladybug, Fun for Kidz, and Boys’ Quest. Linda currently lives in Southern California with her family, where she enjoys reading, exploring new bakeries, and running in the sunshine. A Crooked Mark is her debut novel.