  Horror/Scary
This week: Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Welcome to this week's edition of the WDC Horror/Scary Newsletter!
All that I see or seem is but a dream within a dream
...quoth the Raven, nevermore
Edgar Alan Poe
Foremost in a work of horror, I believe, is the writer's ability to provoke fear or terror in readers - a sense of dread or anxiety from the opening image, a foreshadowing of impending doom. Let's explore some of the techniques by which we can make our readers feel this horror while absorbed for a time in the world we create prosaic or poetic.
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Greetings, let me ask a question ~
What scares you? What makes you cringe and shiver with a sudden need to get someplace safe, right away? Think about it for a minute, there has to be something – could be of this world, of another world, of your own mind (or loss thereof). Now believe it’s real, know it’s real for you. Then, write it out in all its visceral detail – show my eyes what you see, make me hear, smell, taste, feel everything you do at the moment of your greatest fear.
Make me know it as you do, that I too must be as scared or as horrified as you. Take those vivid details and give me the why – or the why not – and we’ve got the makings of a horror story or poem that will weave a link between your reality and mine for a time, a footprint in my personal space.
It was a dark, starless night, yet the wind made no sound as branches wept leaves and twigs, bending limbs in unison to encircle me. An arboreal wave hiding in autumn’s moldering musk, or perhaps the scent of fermenting rot was the signal, the welcome mat, for Axe. [now - Axe can be a chainsaw wielding eviscerator of flesh-bearing mammals (humans included), an android, a vampire, a dragon, a ghost, a stalker, a serial killer, a feral cat, … Whatever you imagine now, get past my learned skepticism to make me see it; make me know it as though I were there. Ask your character why the situation terrifies him/her. Then empathize with that character’s fear while you write the scene that shows your readers. You don’t need a litany of items, dates and places. Sometimes allusion is even more effecting, allowing your readers to form the image from their own experience or perception as you continue weaving the tale.
Suspending disbelief. I think, is paramount in writing horror. For a brief time, we give our readers an ‘otherworld’ whether today, in the past, future, alternate reality. Make your readers need to know what will happen, Make them know the story, but without relating a litany of 'facts,' but rather weaving them into the story or poem.
 Make it believable, with enough detail to convince your readers it can be real. Give your readers direct reference with relevant physical details in the premise. For example, you wouldn’t have oak trees bending sideways in a desert of 100-degree sand (but how about cacti shedding their outer spikes as the inner growth thrummed, its tempo increasing in sync with the trekker’s own heartbeat). Or does your character touch it, call for help, and why – related to a childhood memory or driven by present-day philosophy.
You can also indirectly allude to the nature or cause of the aberrant action or image. Mama said Susie was special. Susie didn’t want to be special. She didn’t want to have to take classes with kids who couldn’t compete just because she was guided by dragons. “But Susie, how come you were you the only biker who made it past that hairpin turn? We were watching the whole time, yet can’t see how, short of taking wing over the other bikers, you alone didn’t plunge over the cliff.”
I hope the above exploration makes sense ~ horror writing creates an ‘otherworld’ your reader can step into with either direct or indirect imagery that provokes your reader – making him/her want to read on to discover how he/she can avoid the horror (along with your character(s).
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Some offerings by members of our Community ~ do let them know if they've succeeded in suspending your disbelief, either direclty or indirectly, perhaps causing you to double-checked the locks after reading their 
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#1480782 by Not Available. |
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#1535611 by Not Available. |
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Some deals ARE too good to be true....3rd place winner storypassers short story contest
#1529424 by M. Kizer  |
| | | Maureen (13+)
...a mass of confused and anguished voices answered: “Not Maureen!”
#1436414 by BryanLee |
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#1242274 by Not Available. |
Have a scary 'otherworld' of yours to entice your readers ~ the 'Creepy Little Contest' here entices and invites the 'otherworld' of your very own Muse Creative'
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#1063687 by Not Available. |
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Thank you for this respite in the safety of your virtual home ~ until we next meet,
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Horror/Scary: March 18, 2009 Issue [#2949]
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