  Horror/Scary
This week: Through the Veil ~ with Their Eyes Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Welcome to this week's edition of the WDC Horror/Scary Newsletter.
Writing horror opens a dialogue, interactive, between the writer and reader ~ and perhaps being that have been here all along ~ watching, and waiting. And the dialogue is as varied as the writers and readers who embrace this otherworld, be it supernatural or mundane.
All that I see or seem is but a dream within a dream...E.A. Poe
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Greetings, most writers of horror and speculative fiction have a tendency to include a non-human character or two in their novels these days.
But how many writers actually take the time to research their non-human counterparts?
Creating Non-Human Characters
Our human culture and physiology arose from our planet's ecology. Our basic survival instincts were formed according to the surroundings we were raised into. And our speech patterns evolved according to the region we were born into.
Why then, would a writer assume that an alien being, who looks different to the humans around him, would still walk and talk and think the same way, if he was raised in extremely different circumstances.
Consider the following when composing your non-human characters:
 What ecology spawned this life-form?
How hostile is the environment?
How do they reproduce?
Do they breath oxygen at all?
What is their economy based upon?
Is their history sprinkled with violence or oppression?
Is their culture flavored by their history?
We often use lush prose to describe magical worlds, to convey a sense of the arcane or the possibility thereof. Also, we may want to convey a heightened sense of aesthetics -- a majestic dragon, an imperious queen, a shimmering pendant, and so forth. In a story about physical or social science, on the other hand, we often use more precise, terse prose to convey a sense of practicality, to make our extrapolations feel possible.
Pay extra attention to the voice of your point-of- view character(s). Does their language arise from their world view and culture? Is it consistent through the story, only changing as the character undergoes deep change? Consistency of the characters' voices can bridge differences in the narrational voice. In the novel about the time-traveling shaman, for instance, the shaman's vocabulary and way of seeing the world could be the reader's touchstone as the narrational voice describes both shamanic rituals and bird-counting ecological studies.
Now that you see our world through the eyes of your faerie or dragon or undine or shaman, consider sharing your story in verse or prose this Halloween eve.
Write On!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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See the alternate realities that members of our Community share with us this Halloween Eve ~ oh they're not all superscary - there's even a bit of comic relief if you look far enough across the veil
| |  | Fangs for Nothing (E)
Something to sink your fangs into. A vampire wakes up on the wrong side of the coffin.
#1623033 by leeflan  |
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#1718930 by Not Available. |
| | | Oscar (E)
A new version of an old scary story about a Jersey Devil.
#1707403 by Onyx Wolf |
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#1718599 by Not Available. |
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#1689681 by Not Available. |
And there's still time to share one of your own encounters
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#1154716 by Not Available. |
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Horror/Scary: October 27, 2010 Issue [#4028]
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