 Horror/Scary: February 15, 2012 Issue [#4878] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Romanticizing the Dark Side Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Words have no power to impress the mind
without the exquisite horror of their reality.
Edgar Allan Poe
Welcome to this week's WDC Horror/Scary Newsletter, where we journey into the 'dark' side of writing ~ prosaic and poetic ~ to create a reality that portends the horror to come. What makes us seek horror; what makes us desire to be frightened, mortified; what makes us want to embrace the darkness within ~ and without? Is it a modern-day phenomenon, or older than graveyard dirt? Come join the exploration.
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Greetings!
Have you ever been totally jealous of somebody? Admit it! Somebody who had the car, the outfit, the house, the grades, the money, the job, the breaks, oh, the breaks, the breaks. What did you do to deserve not getting the breaks? What if you got a break, could you see yourself ten, fifteen years from now? What if, just for a day, you could get a break, like you've wished everytime you got the bigger half of the wishbone?
Would you go back and snag a break from somebody else? Or would you slip into the future and savor the public recognition you know you will have in ten or so years after your book is published and you've won the Pulitzer, or maybe Nobel? You know you can go even farther back, or forward, just take your pen in hand, lead or diode, and weave yourself there.
But beware, because you may get what you wished for ~ some horror past or future. What if you slipped forward ten years to the Pulitzer awards, only to find that since you slipped forward, you never spent the years writing the book to earn the Pulitzer. Or go back, even farther, and find that your family tree holds a secret that will give you a break, but cost you your arm, your vision, or perhaps your sanity? Go back even farther and walk into the cave with the scratching noises you didn't dare explore as a kid, and you find...
You may get what you wish for, beware, and the horror will scare the lead out of your pencil or fade the letters off your keyboard. But, before it does, you will write it and take your readers along with you on your journey.
 Begin with the horror you (in character) encounter. No matter what form, human, animal, alien, natural, unnatural, make it seem invincible. Design a convincing way to defeat it, a believable flaw in the 'creature.'
Open with action. Encounter the 'beast' or the results of its action. The vacant house with bats and tattered clothing and a finger, bloodied, pointing towards the locked(?) basement door, for example. Make your reader want to discover where the bloodied finger belongs (and maybe put his/her hands safely in pockets while doing so).
Isolate your main character (protagonist), either physically or as the only one with the knowledge of the evil's existence. A kid nobody believes really saw a detatched bloodied finger (by the way, is it a human finger, that's for you and the kid to know) may not be physically alone, but alone in his knowledge and in figuring out how to prove, then best, the evil thing.
Torture your readers with tension. Raise and lower the stress level, offer anticipation with dialogue, action, and then moments of relief when your protagonist thinks he/she has found a solution, or perhaps wins a battle with the evil - but not yet the war. The stress rises after each breath of relief until the climax, at which point your reader has now clenched fists in pockets or perhaps is counting his/her own fingers (if it's a missing finger that started it all, that is).
Take your character into that cave, open the basement door, tiptoe down the rotty steps, until you find (and here is where you get creative - what do you find? - not the cliche slamming door, but ...) The tension in the investigation can really bring your readers to maybe sit on their hands to protect their own fingers.
Face off with the evil beast, mortal, animal, alien, nature, supernature. The climax that your reader is now near panting over pages to read. The battle, the confrontation, visual, active, and conclusive.
Your protagonist wins, finds the break he/she needed to best the beast (in whatever form it ultimately manifests), and is a stronger, better person for it. Everybody is now safe. However, the 'good' ending can be a ruse.
What if, there's something that intimates the bad thing may return, or still lurks in the shadows - do we have a fingernail still poking into a doorjamb, perhaps, as the protagonist passes through, closing the door on this journey?
Give it a shot - what if - one day, past, present or future, you happened to find in that cave/ room/ closet/ cabin/ alleyway/ .... a bloodied ..... and smelled .... (now you take it from there - and try the above pointers to battle and best what you encounter when you get what you wish for ?
While you're thinking just what you'd like to engage, where you'd like to travel, check out some of the journeys woven by members of our Community ~ with hands in pockets, and fingers counted
Write On
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Some good scary writing in prose and versefor your reading pleasure . Let the writers know if, perhaps, they made you double check the deadbolt, then engage your own dark journey
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