  Horror/Scary
This week: Looking for "What If?" Edited by: Satuawany  
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| You know a good place to find inspiration is to ask, "What if?" Here are some ideas on where the perfect "What if?" might live. |
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All genres draw from the great question of "What if?" but Horror gets to go down roads of fear like no other. "What if?" seems to be made for horror, in a lot of ways. "What if?" scares people on a daily basis, even if it amounts to nothing, most of the time.
Some searches for the great "What if?" are easy. There are a load of sites around the internet where people can share their scary stories, from encounters with ghosts to that creepy person who just stared at them from the street corner. If that's not enough, you have sites dedicated to conspiracy theories, disturbing discoveries, and strange news stories.
For the "personal encounters" kind of sites you can gain a lot of inspiration. You don't go stealing someone's personal story, but you can draw a "What if?" from tales of unexplained experiences. You can draw "What if?" from tales of explained experiences and twist them into horror.
For instance, about a year ago, I discovered that all the books on one shelf of a bookcase had been shoved all the way to the back. I'm one of those people who have their books lined up evenly about an inch from the front edge of the shelf. I'm not exactly anal about it (not exactly, okay?), but finding them the way I did made me wonder.
I asked my husband and he agreed that it was strange, but said he didn't do it---he didn't think. He speculated that he might have done it by accident, but I couldn't believe that. The edges of each book's covers firmly kissed the shelf's backing.
My next suspect was my son. I could imagine him pushing each book individually so that their spines made a jagged line rather than the uniform one they usually enjoyed. (Yes, they enjoy being in line, I just know it.)
I pointed the shelf out to my then-seven-year-old son and asked him if he'd done that.
My son studied the books for a second and then his eyes got wide. Looking up at me, he said in a near-whisper, "The ghost did it."
My son is basically a truthful child, with spurts of opportunistic imagination. The thing is, he hardly ever does it when he is in trouble (and he wouldn't have been in trouble for this; he knew that). I should be thankful for that, and I am. I'm even thankful for his imagination. Most of the time.
Trying to see just how far he was going to take this story, I questioned him further.
"What ghost?"
He gave me the seven-year-old's patented parents are so stupid look and said, "The ghost."
"Uh-huh. And you saw this ghost?"
He nodded gravely, though his eyes were still wide. "I heard something in the living room last night, and I thought it was you. I came to see, but it was a ghost and he was pushing the books back. I got scared, so I ran back to my room, got under the covers, and went to sleep."
"I..."
I'm not sure how I finished the conversation because my brain was stuck on the "What if?" of the situation. What would be such a ghost's motivation? What sort of horror-esque behavior might the shelf incident have built into next?
Your answers to those questions are almost certain to be vastly different from mine. If we all came up with three more questions, there'd be a lot of variety just in the questions. That's why you can take inspiration from someone's personal story. Copying the conversation and the details would be crossing the line, but the roads from "What if?" are all yours.
While we're here, I'll give you one more---a short one.
A friend of mine and I drove to an event a few years back. It was the middle of the night and we crossed bridges over various bodies of water. Fog rolled over the roads in drifts. Around water, it was as thick as cotton. It slowed us down quite a bit.
When we reached our destination, we realized the trip had taken us a lot longer than it should have. We spent a little time trying to decide if the slow-going miles through the fog really did make that much of a difference. Well, yes, it did, but what if it hadn't? What if we were sure we'd lost about an hour in there somewhere?
I like that one because even if we swore up and down we were still missing an hour, anyone else hearing the story would assume we just misjudged how much the fog delayed us. That kind of tension is awesome in a horror story when it's natural---and what's more natural that assuming my friend and I are bad at math?
The point is, personal experience stories with a "scary" element are great inspiration, but even the mundane experiences that gave you a moment of wonder are fodder for the attentive writer. A lot of times, your own fear manifests because you're already asking, "What if?" Pay attention to that, file it away, and let it inspire you.
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What if that claustrophobic dream wasn't a dream?
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What if that ticking in the ceiling isn't a rat?
What if a call light came on from an empty hospital room?
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What if those sounds aren't just the house settling?
What if your tattoo artist has his own goals for your appointment?
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Comments from the last time I was a guest editor, "WAKE UP" , in October of last year.
kirathekiller writes:
I just recently found out what creepypastas are, and I found that, like you said, if they're well-written, they can really stir some emotions! The only one that I've completely read is the Legend of Zelda: haunted Majora's Mask, with the BEN character. That one scared the crap out of me. So I loved this article!!
I've heard all about that one, but never got to see any of the videos. A very cool, creepy premise, though. I'm glad you enjoyed the newsletter!
Vann  writes:
Amazing! I read the "creepypastas" to my friend and she freaked out. T.T Never knew she was so gulible...Or is she? O.o
 ( That's an evil laugh.) Outstanding! Never miss an opportunity to freak out a friend, I say.
Lynn McKenzie writes:
Thanks for teaching me about creepypasta! Those are some intense examples. I need to try to write that. You're right--it's not easy.
I was glad to pass along the discovery! And how's it coming? I still haven't been able to finish one.
Michael Thomas-Knight writes:
The last five times I sat down to write a really short flash or a creepypasta (didn't know it had a name), I wound up with 40 pages each time and more to go until they're complete. It's not easy. Oh, and I have a real problem with tweeting ; )
Hey, but that's a win! Keep trying and even if you fail, you have these new stories. How awesome is that? (I really want to add that Tweeting is for the birds, but I'd feel bad about that pun, so I won't add it.)
mikeypugs0134 writes:
I guess you have to be a preferred member to get your story in the newsletter.... More greed~~~~~
It's a real shame that three of the seven items I had in my "Editor's Picks" last time have been deleted. Of the three deleted, two were by Registered Authors and one was by a Preferred Member, if memory serves (because I did check when I received this comment.) I admit, though, that my memory is sometimes like my son's imagination.
It wasn't until this comment that I actually started paying attention to "case colors" when I searched through stories for my "Editor's Picks." I focused on quality, entertainment value, potential and, when I could find them, how well they pertained to the article. A few other little things, depending, too, but all of them had to do with the stories rather than the ones who wrote them.
Not to worry, though; I still focus on those same things. These days, I just happen to notice the membership levels of the item owners in my "Editor's Picks" when I'm submitting my newsletters. I am now case sensitive! (I don't feel bad about that pun because I worked hard for it.)
LJPC - the tortoise
Hi Satuawany!
I really enjoyed your NL on Horror flash fiction; it's definitely underappreciated and not as easy as it looks. I liked the 'cabinet' creepypasta the best. Eek!
-- Laura
I love that one. And it is underappreciated, maybe because when someone works hard at it, it looks effortless. And because they are so short. Too many who haven't tried it think "short" equates to "easy to write." For many writers, it's just the opposite.
NickiD89 
Each of those creepypasta examples gave me goosebumps. Thanks!!
Glad to pass them along!
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Horror/Scary: June 13, 2012 Issue [#5091]
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