 Horror/Scary: April 18, 2007 Issue [#1663] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Edited by: darkin
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Reading a horror story, one that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the last page, is what every horror fan dreams of. Being scared, to the point that sleep is almost impossible, makes the read all the more worthwhile. Does that make us crazy? You bet!!!
My name is Darkin, and I’m your guest editor this week for the Horror Newsletter.
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An Interview with a Starr.r
Horror is more than blood, guts and gore. It is stories that get under your skin and keep you up night after night after night. When I think of stories that get under my skin, I think of Starr* Rathburn 
I've known Starr* Rathburn for quite some time, at least 3 years now. We met on Writing.com and over the years become friends. So when I volunteered to do the horror newsletter this week, I though of her writing...and wanted to know more about what makes her tick  So, I asked her some questions, and she was gracious enough to answer them!
How would you describe yourself in 25 words or less?
Do I have to do a word-count? *g*
I'm a wife, a mom, and a writer, and I try to be a good friend, too. I'm shy except when talking to family & friends.
Have you been published? If so, where and when?
USAToday online accepted haiku in 2002; I was the horror editor at Dog-eared Ezine in 2003, where I wrote a monthly column, and I've had a poem and a short story at BeWrite.com.
What first drew you to the horror genre?
Mostly it was "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits." I liked the idea of poetic justice; the bad guys getting what they deserved.
There's so little of that in the real world. And I always liked that little twist at the end.
Is there a side of yourself that you didn’t know existed until you started writing?
Nope. :) Unless you count the fact that the more I write, and the more I LEARN about writing, the more I love it. Other than that...no. I've always been just a bit strange. *grin*
When you got started, did you have doubts with your writing ability? If so, what ways have you learned to overcome them?
When I first started, no... ha. I was just ten, so I thought I was doing pretty darn good. When I received rejection slips from the magazines, they were hand-written and encouraging. Of course, the fact that I'd written the submissions in long-hand might have tipped them off that I was just a kid, and they wanted to take it easy on me.
Nowadays, though, I rarely think that my work is "good enough." I edit and rewrite a hundred times. It seems like I have so much more to learn. I read a lot of books on writing, grammar, and style. I don't know if there's a way to overcome doubt...maybe when I finally sell a bunch of stories, I'll feel like I'm getting better.
Who has been your biggest author-influence?
I've read a lot of Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Dean Koontz, and Stephen King, of course, but my biggest influence hasn't been a writer of novels, but a writer of teleplays--Rod Sterling. I saw "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" when I was a kid and I was fascinated. It seemed to me that there were so many ways to explore the human mind, so many different ways evil could be shown. After seeing those shows, my writing turned from light fantasies of talking dragons to the darker side--things like stories of revenge (by then I was old enough to have had my first teenage broken heart) and evil people (high school bullies, of course) getting what they deserved. I'm sure many were clichés, but to me they were new.
Who has been your biggest influence outside of the writing world?
My grandfather, when he told me that there were other writers in our family, including a great-uncle of mine, and my grandfather himself. We wrote a story together when I was about 12, and I still have it somewhere. Perhaps predictably, it was about a man who had been poisoned, and a nurse who figured out how it had happened (arsenic in the old well).
What truly scares you, horror-wise?
I have vivid, distinct nightmares that seem to go on for hours. They're full stories, like watching a show on TV. I've been part of a wagon-train under siege, and felt arrows plunge into my heart; I've been hung; I've had dogs the size of the Hound of the Baskervilles bark at me from the edge of my bed (my mother found me on top of my headboard after that one). And each one feels like it's happening for real; I see the colors, smell the sounds, feel the pain or the cold.
When I finally decided to use these nightmares for my stories, I'd try to recall exactly how I felt at the time, and then put that into the most vivid words I could.
Do you have a favorite story you have written, one you think everyone who wants to know what your writing is like should read?
This one still needs some work, but it was fun to write:
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What piece of advice would you give to aspiring horror writers?
Read a lot, and don't forget the classics. You have to know what's been written before, so you can do something creative. If you don't know what's been done, you may think you have something new, when it's not. Imagine my surprise in high school when I discovered H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine", three years after I wrote a time-travel story of my own. And I thought I was so clever...but then, I was 15 at the time.
Writers can learn a lot from the classics--not to mention feeling "in the know" when you find a literary allusion in something contemporary you're reading. That's always fun.
For horror specifically, my advice is to start off with a world as real as you can make it, then fit the horror elements into this world. There have to be rules, you have to let the reader know what those rules are (subtly, of course), and then you can't break them. If you do, that's when you lose the reader.
The major thing, I think, is to find words that will rip into their emotions. When you get to an important scene, try to find something in your own experience that is familiar to what your character is going through. Concentrate on that, and pay attention to all your senses, what you really feel; what your own emotions and physical senses would be if you were in that situation. And then write it down, being as honest as you can. I've found that when there's a line that gives me a shiver or makes me cry, those are the ones that a reader most often points out as something that affected them strongly, too.
How would like your one-line epitaph to read?
I can't wait to see what's on the other side!
Thank you Starr* Rathburn for agreeing to be interviewed for this issue of the Horror Newsletter. To learn more about the kind of writing she does, check out | | | Invalid Item
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Thank you for taking the time to read. Happy Writing!
darkin
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To read more of Starr* Rathburn 's work, check out these items!!
Here are some items I found while traveling the highways and byways of Writing.Com!
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Thank you for allowing me to enter your world. Since I'm a guest editor, I don't have any feedback to share. If you have any comments, or questions, feel free to drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you!
darkin
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