Down the Rabbit Hole

Taste of Terror

I'm back at work on my supernatural horror novel for the time being...and I use the terms "at work" very liberally. A few days in and I'm already asking myself, am I really at home in this genre? I have also failed to come up with a title, a bad sign for me. I am beginning to wonder if the problem is that this story isn't organic? The most frightening elements of the story work because they are visually and physiologically disturbing and exist completely without rational explanation. I wonder, is that still what frightens the majority of people today? Are we more afraid of the reality of horrific things that could happen: a bio-toxin's accidental release or a deranged serial killer praying on innocents, than mysterious things that go bump in the night or an unexplained pattern of lights in the night sky? For me there is a difference with reading horror than watching horror movies, which I don't do. There is a real challenge in writing something scary, of telling a story that leaves a reader with such a sense of unease that they are forced to sleep with the light on. That's happened to me and it so impressed me, that I was hooked. Peter Straub remains one of my favorite writers. His "Ghost Story" was the last book to leave me sitting awake at night. I think what was most terrifying for me about "Ghost Story" and other works like it, was the fact that the characters are forced to acknowledge that what's happening to them defies reason. The concept that, "this simply can not be but yet it is still happening" is one that leaves them without defense and therefore no protection from the horror that invades their lives. For my character, the fact that the thing pursuing her can not exist by any natural laws also means that is can not be bound by them either. When the "monster" steps through the mirror and grabs her by the throat, she is terrified by the beast but also because the reality she knows has ultimately failed her. Time will tell if I get this all right in the end. It has been work in progress for some time. My "monster" and I use that term liberally as well, was born from casual outing during a business trip when I stumbled into a place that seemed soaked in bad juju. The residual evil I felt there spawned a nightmare and the nightmare gave birth to my creation. Now let's see if I can bring it all home and maybe if I'm tremendously lucky, my little tale with have them leaving the lights on one day.