Category Archives: Horror

Apocalypse — Image Found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction

I’m going to write a story where the world is on the brink of destruction. Few people, if any, will survive.

Simple enough. And dark enough to fit this month’s theme of dark and pulpy fiction.

Or maybe not.

Even though the high-level setting is pretty dark, I get to choose where I drop the story on the Darkness Spectrum. That choice helps set the tone, which will impact everything from plot to character to conflict.

For example, I could take a popular route and make it a gritty, YA post-apocalyptic story, like Divergent, by Veronica Roth, or Suzanne Collins’ The Hunter Games.

Or I could engage afterburners and drive it all the way to the extreme end of the spectrum and make it Horror, like The Stand, by Stephen King.

I could dial back the gore a bit and choose a Dark Fantasy, like The Warded Man by Peter V Brett, or really Dark Fantasy like Joe Abercrombe’s The Way of Shadows.

Or I could make it Epic Fantasy with some cool horrific elements, like The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks.

Then again, I could go the other way entirely and make it a light-hearted humorous tale, like Douglas Adams’ hilarious Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

This fundamental choice of tone sets the stage for much of the book’s progression. This month we’re talking about pulpy, dark fiction. Those stories must generate the proper emotions, ranging from fear, to abject terror, to loathing, to revulsion.

Although all of my stories have dark elements, I generally soften those edges with a lighter tone. That was a conscious choice I made, based on which aspects of the adventure I wanted to focus on, and my target audience.

Set in Stone, and its sequels in my Petralist series are YA epic fantasy, with big magic, big adventure, and lots of humor. The humor makes the tales accessible to all ages and helps the readers laugh through what could have easily become very dark, desperate scenes.

In my Facetakers sci-fi/fantasy time travel thrillers, some elements, like the extraction of human souls by pulling of people’s faces, can be borderline horrific. There’s a lot of fast-paced action and some really high-stakes challenges. The tone of the book is more gritty and dark than the Petralist, fitting for New Adult thrillers.

So choose your tone as a conscious decision, as part of your story development, along with character, voice, setting, conflict, and plot, and it will help set the foundation those other elements build upon.

About the Author: Frank Morin

Frank Morin loves good stories in every form. When not writing or trying to keep up with his active family, he’s often found hiking, camping, Scuba diving, or enjoying other outdoor activities. For updates on upcoming releases of his popular Petralist YA fantasy novels, or his fast-paced Facetakers sci-fi time travel thrillers, check his website: www.frankmorin.org

The Darkness Within

October 12, 2016

David Heyman

THE DARKNESS WITHIN

Hello all! For my take on this month’s subject matter I will be focusing on internal darkness as a concept, and how that darkness has been used by a specific author I have been reading all of my life. Living as I do in Maine, the subject couldn’t be more appropriate as Maine is the home state of a man who for decades has reigned over America’s fear and anxieties with the authority of a King.

Stephen King is traditionally cited as a ‘horror’ writer, which is a genre as broad and multifaceted as fantasy or science fiction. When people think of King, they likely conjure up monstrous images such as the vampires of Salem’s Lot or the horrific creatures of in The Mist. As a young reader growing up in the 70s and 80s, this was the King that fascinated me. Horrifying demonic clowns (It), cemeteries that reanimated the dead (Pet Semetary) and possessed killer machines (Christine, Trucks, The Mangler). I could name countless more- -the short story collection Night Shift was particularly loaded with these wild monster stories.

As a kid, I ate it up. Great stuff, with more than a bit of pulp to it too.

As an adult though when I go back and read King, I see a different type of horror. One that is much more unsettling, because it is more familiar. It is one thing to look in the mirror and see a monster behind you, it is quite another to look in the mirror and see the monster in yourself. To me, the real potency of King’s work is not in the boogeymen, but rather in the darkness he would show in the average person.

Sometimes, he’d highlight people who were basically good, if damaged- -then force us to watch as they were slowly overcome by the darkness of some external force. A great instance of this is Jack Torrance in The Shining, his baser natures and fears preyed upon by the supernatural Overlook Hotel. Sure, a ghost in Room 217 is scary- -but looking at Jack’s slow transition from well-intentioned husband and father to family destroying monster? Horrifying. Another example could be Louis Creed from Pet Semetary, who allows grief to push him into incredibly dark places.

In other cases, a supernatural event allows people who were already dark an opportunity that had not presented itself. Big Jim from Under the Dome was a monster from page 1, with far more evil in his heart than the actual villains responsible for the town’s isolation. All he needed was that moment, that crack in the door that society normally kept shut. You can see this same dynamic in the short story The Mist, as well as multiple instances of it in Needful Things. There might be rage and evil inside anyone, just waiting for the right circumstances.

I feel these stories are so potent because they prey on a fear within all of us that is much darker than any skeleton or zombie could induce. The fear we have of each other, and ourselves. We wonder, could that be my neighbor? My spouse? Could that be me? Could I be driven to that dark a place? Could I do those horrible things?

What would it take? Not much, those dark whispers of King’s stories say. Maybe much less than you think.

Pardon me, I just felt a chill go up my spine.

I have found this a useful lesson for my own writing, when writing not just my villains but also my heroes. Darkness is a naturally occurring part of the human condition. Including a hint of it in any character makes them a bit more real, but also a bit more dangerous. Readers who care for you hero might worry that in his or her rage they might let that dark part take over, driving them to do something that is not in their best interests. It helps make bad choices believable, allowing for more opportunities for things to go wrong for your hero.

As writers, we all want things going wrong for our heroes, right?

As a fellow Mainer, I couldn’t be prouder to focus on Stephen King for my walk down the dark road as it were. In addition to his superlative On Writing, I recommend writers check out his lesser known Danse Macabre, which is an interesting discussion on what the master himself finds scary.

See you next month!

A Little Darkness Can Be a Good Thing

October 11, 2016

fictorians

Amanda Faith Horror World-building No Comments

Guest Post by Amanda Faith.

Writing is a tricky business. An author has to have just enough of various elements to keep a reader engaged in a story. Characters, as well as plot and setting, has to be believable enough that the reader becomes a part of the adventure they are experiencing. Nothing should be all good or all bad. Having darkness in your story makes for intriguing reading, if done correctly.

People generally have a habit of thinking something dark is horror. Not necessarily so. It could be darkness within a person. It could be a darkness that follows someone. The setting could be a dark place as in the struggles a town is facing and the good people trying to overcome their circumstances. Maybe Big Brother is watching or the character is invited to the Dark Side. Any of these elements make a story have a dark tendency.

Relatable characters make them believable. Plots that have ups and downs will be more entertaining. Nothing is perfect nor should it be. That would lead to a rather dull story. Adding a little darkness (or a lot of darkness) does instill fear and suspense. There are a few things to keep in mind when adding dark elements to your story.

You have to keep your audience in mind. If you are writing YA, then you do not want your dark elements so gruesome and disturbing it scares off your readers (and upset parents). If you are writing for adults, you may want to make sure there is an indication on the back cover as to how “dark” your tale is.
Does the darkness fit the genre? Although this one does tie in with the first one, there is a distinction. If you are writing horror, then great. Go for it. What about a dark mystery? Do you have your hard-boiled detective set in that urban underworld city with crime and moral ambiguity? How about the gothic dark fiction? You should have that sense of decay and ruin sprinkled with a touch of persecution. Action thriller? It’s that race against the clock that keeps the reader glued to the pages with of all of the twists and turns. With all of the various sub-genres, the writer needs to keep with the fiction of choice.
World building. This is a very important element. Depending on your story, you will have to make sure that your world fits your problem. It adds the dark tone of the story with all of the history and atmosphere you put in place. Getting the world right sets the mood, making the story more believable.
Don’t make a character too good or too bad. Remember, your audience has to be able to relate to this character. The reader needs to care about the characters. You want that emotional investment to keep your readers engaged. A bad guy can have a redeeming quality or two. The good guy will have some faults. Too perfect, either way, will lose a reader quickly.
Have a clean (or nearly clean) resolution. Sure, the bad guy will lose, but we really don’t want to give up hope for him. Maybe he will realize how bad he is and seek some sort of redemption in the end. He may not become “good.” He may, however, become better than he was. The good guy may lose some of his luster, but given his circumstances in the tale, he was not to come out of it totally unscathed.
Some of the best dark elements are not blood and guts. Sometimes the best dark tales are naked of all ickyness and gore. It can be done. Look at ghost stories, for example. It’s difficult to have a ghost be eviscerated – again.
Good is only good as compared next to evil. You have to have the bad to see the good – and back again.

Adding darkness to the mixture will add depth to your tale and make it seem realistic. There is no perfect world. There are no perfect people. The only perfect thing is to have a reader get lost in your world for a short time.

About the Author:

Award-winning author Amanda Faith may have been raised in Dayton, but her heart and home is in the South. With a lifelong love of teaching and writing, she had plenty of encouragement from teachers and friends along the way.

Teaching English and doing paranormal investigations doesn’t slow her down from having a great time with a plethora of hobbies. Her published credits include short stories, poetry, several journal articles, her doctoral dissertation, and her award-winning book Strength of Spirit. She is a staff writer for The Daily Dragon at Dragon Con and an intern for Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta at WordFire Press. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English, a Masters in Education-English, and a Doctorate in Education-Teacher Leadership. Check out her website at www.amandafaith.net.

The Difference Between Darkness and Murk

October 9, 2016

Frog Jones

Believability Frog Jones Horror No Comments

When I was in my sophomore year, we all had to write a short story about whatever we wanted. Now, I’m not sure what I wrote; the assignment didn’t stick in my head because of what I did.

No, the assignment stuck in my head because of what my buddy Jacob did.

See, Jacob went for the most gruesome splatter-based horror story he could. It was the sort of story you’d expect from a tenth-grader, badly written and dripping in gore. At one point a series of people got taken out by a snowplow. Amongst all our friends, it was generally agreed that Jacob had produced a work of pure genius, to rival those of Poe himself. He got a C-.

That story was so “awesome” to my tenth-grade self that I kept a copy of it. And while I was in college a couple of years later, I stumbled across it and re-read the stupid thing. I immediately concluded that “C-” had been generous. Grammar errors aside, the story structure had less cohesiveness than an average porn movie. Oh, the bodies were stacked up like cordwood, but that’s all the thing had going for it. That sanguine veneer covered exactly…nothing.

Now, none of this should come as a surprise to any readers here, save perhaps the fact that I’m talking about a writing assignment from High School at all. Of course it sucked-we were in the tenth grade.

But every time I sit down to try to write something dark, I remember that stupid story. I remember how fascinated I was by it, and then how terrible it was. Those two extreme reactions are interesting and paradoxical enough that they form the core of my thinking about writing dark. And they’re the reason I rarely do it.

Dark writing is often used as a way to cover up bad writing. And it should never, ever be.

There’s a lot of posts going on this month about pulpy fun. And that’s fine, so long as that’s the contract between the reader and the writer. Reader goes in expecting pulpy fun, reader gets pulpy fun, all is well in the world. But doing an intentionally pulpy story is one thing; being dark because it’s a substitute for being good is another.

Let’s take this to cinema for a second. You know why nobody liked Man of Steel? Because Grimdark Superman isn’t a thing. Zach Snyder took on the admittedly steep challenge of doing the Big Blue Boy Scout and completely muffed it. Superman’s a tough character to write specifically because you can’t simply go dark to get a serious edge to your story. You have to have a purely morally upright hero. It can be done–and done very, very well–but it pulls that crutch out from underneath you.

Which should only serve to point out that there is a crutch here.

So, writing good dark fiction requires that one be aware of the fact that going dark can be a crutch. Keep it in your head at all times, because every time you add to the body count there should be a purpose to it. Every murder, every horrible monster; you need to look at the thing you’re trying to evoke in your reader. If it’s pulpy, campy fun, then fine; be up front that you’re going to have pulpy, campy fun. But if you want a really good, dark, horrific story then the first thing you have to do is stop thinking of it as a dark story and just think of it as a story.

Your characters still need to be well-rounded. They still have to have real emotions, still have to think and be motivated realistically. If you have a villain–even one whose goal it is to go about gruesomely murdering people, then that villain needs to have reasons for what he or she is doing. Arguably one of the best horror villains written is Hannibal Lecter, and he’s not great because of his victims. He’s great because his murders stand out in stark contrast to his erudite intellectualism. He’s terrifying because we like him.

So, in short; the trick to writing good, dark fiction is to stop thinking of it as dark fiction. Write your characters. Give them a full life, and let the readers love them for who they are. Watching some random, faceless murdered commit atrocities is fun. Watching a character you love commit atrocities is terrifying.