 Horror/Scary: June 20, 2018 Issue [#8961] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: It May Not Scare You - Yet Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Words have no power to impress the mind
without the exquisite horror of their reality.
Edgar Allan Poe
Welcome to this week's Writing.Com Horror/Scary Newsletter, where we journey into the 'dark' side of writing ~ prosaic and poetic ~ to create a reality that portends the horror to come. What makes us look for horror; what makes us want to be frightened, mortified; what makes us want to embrace the darkness within ~ and without? Is it a modern-day phenomenon, or older than graveyard dirt? Come join the exploration. |
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Greetings, let me ask a question ~
What scares you? What makes you cringe and shiver with a sudden need to get someplace safe, right away! Think about it for a minute, there has to be something - could be of this world, of another world, of your own mind (or loss thereof). Now believe it's real, know it's real for you. Then, write it out in all its visceral detail - show my eyes what you see, make me hear, smell, taste, feel everything you do at the moment of your greatest fear.
 Make me know it as you do, that I too must be as scared or as horrified as you. Take those vivid details and give me the why - or the why not - and we've got the makings of a horror story or poem that will weave a link between your reality and mine for a time, a footprint in my personal space.
It was a dark, starless night, yet the wind made no sound as branches wept leaves and twigs, bending limbs in unison to encircle me. An arboreal wave hiding in autumn's moldering musk, or perhaps the scent of fermenting rot was the signal, the welcome mat, for Axe. [now - Axe can be a chainsaw wielding eviscerator of flesh-bearing mammals (humans included), an android, a vampire, a dragon, a ghost, a stalker, a serial killer, a feral cat, ... Whatever you imagine now, get past my learned skepticism to make me see it; make me know it as though I were there. Ask your character why the situation terrifies him/her. Then empathize with that character's fear while you write the scene that shows your readers. You don't need a litany of items, dates and places. Sometimes allusion is even more effecting, allowing your readers to form the image from their own experience or perception as you continue weaving the tale.
 Suspending disbelief. I think, is the key to writing horror. For a brief time, we give our readers an 'otherworld' whether today, in the past, future, alternate reality. We make our readers need to know what will happen, Make them know the story, but without relating a litany of 'facts,' instead weaving them, sewing them as stramds pf thread into the story or poem.
 Make it believable, with enough detail to convince your readers it can be real. Give your readers direct reference with relevant physical details in the premise. For example, you wouldn't have oak trees bending sideways in a desert of 100-degree sand (but how about cacti shedding their outer spikes as the inner growth thrummed, its tempo increasing in sync with the trekker's own heartbeat). Or does your character touch it, call for help, and why - related to a childhood memory or driven by present-day philosophy.
 You can also indirectly allude to the nature or cause of the aberrant action or image. Mama said Susie was special. Susie didn't want to be special. She didn't want to have to take classes with kids who couldn't compete just because she was guided by dragons. "But Susie, how come you were you the only biker who made it past that hairpin turn? We were watching the whole time, yet can't see how, short of taking wing over the other bikers, you alone didn't plunge over the cliff."
I hope the above exploration makes sense ~ writing tales of horror creates an 'otherworld' for the character and reader to step into. Provoke your reader - make him want to read on.
Write On 
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Scary Stuff as perceived and created by members of our Community ~ believe it or not 
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| | | The Oracle (13+)
She shut her ears with her fingers to rise above the electric drone
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See that bird, that leaf, that ant, that chair in the corner. It's really not scary, until you make it so - give me the key to the locked door before you do.
Have fun scaring me.
Write On 
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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