 Horror/Scary: September 04, 2019 Issue [#9734] |
This week: Write In Images Edited by: W.D.Wilcox  
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“You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
I’d say that what I do is like a crack in the mirror. If you go back over the books from Carrie on up, what you see is an observation of ordinary middle-class American life as it’s lived at the time that particular book was written. In every life you get to a point where you have to deal with something that’s inexplicable to you, whether it’s the doctor saying you have cancer or a prank phone call. So whether you talk about ghosts or vampires or Nazi war criminals living down the block, we’re still talking about the same thing, which is an intrusion of the extraordinary into ordinary life and how we deal with it. What that shows about our character and our interactions with others and the society we live in interests me a lot more than monsters and vampires and ghouls and ghosts.
-Stephen King
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Write In Images
As authors, we turn written words into images in reader's minds.
I call writers word painters because it's our job as a writer whether fiction or non-fiction to paint a picture for the reader. And the better picture you paint, the more the reader is going to get out of your work.
Writing is like watching a movie except it's little black squiggles on the page that have the power to reach another human being’s mind and light it up with imagery just as vivid as anything that person might experience in the real world.
In reading, all you see are words on paper. But think about one of your favorite books. The visual memory that returns to you is not one of black words on white paper, is it? What you see are images—recalled snapshots of an experience that, in your mind’s eye, looks almost as real as memories of your actual life. That is the marvelous power of written fiction.
As readers, we know this instinctively. But as writers, we can sometimes get so lost in the technical minutiae of the art form that we forget fiction’s visceral impact. To readers, a story is light and color, sensation and emotion. To writers, fiction is often words. Ideas. Themes. Plot. Structure. Scenes.
Although all those things are crucial to a solid story, they are ultimately just the framework for a reader’s sensory experience of your work. This is why it’s so important for writers to think visually when writing.
Writing in images is more than just telling a story. Your directing a movie on a plain piece of paper. When I write I imagine a scene. You've got to think what it would look like on the silver screen. It has to feel like a brick being thrown through your window. It has to be get in your face horror. Then when you write a scare pop-out, your reader feels it. Plus, when you write like your watching a movie it's easier to edit the scenes later.
The moments are what come to mind when I think about the books I like best—moments that stick in my mind as pictures. When you’re deep into reading a book that you’re very fond of, the images pass through your mind and leave a permanent impression. I don’t tend to remember the ideas as strongly. For me, a novel’s conceptual framework generally takes a backseat to the images that tell the story. Ultimately, these images are more important and enduring than what the writer believes.
People are afraid of change, chaos, disruption, outsiders. So your story can be about any small town America where something inexplicable happens. Your characters are just like you and me. How will they react? What will they do? Anytime you can throw a monkey-wrench into normal life, you're creating horror.
Until Next Time,
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