TECH: How to Write Horror Fiction 01
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writercisesOriginal Posting Oct. 2, 2017
Since it's Halloweenie season, I thought I'd poke around at horror a bit. And, at least to start, let me skim something I've got on my shelves – How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan. Writers Digest Book from 1990. Just looking at the table of contents…
Exploring the dark side, the roots and cellars in which horror ideas sprout. Take me to your monster! Horrible imaginings. Who – or what – goes there? Don't open that door… Building your house of horrors. Planting the hook: a fantasmagoria of spooky openings and ghastly one-liners. Masks, shadows, and surprises. The gory details… Drip, drip, drip? A dip in the pool. When the crypt is sealed.
There you go. A little shiver to start things off, right? So how about a quote from Stephen King, "We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."
So, in chapter 1, what do we have? Well, exploring the dark side… "Fear is fun. Being frightened is delicious. We tend to giggle when we're really scared – partly to expel the tension, partly because we're having such a good time."
It's facing fears and going beyond them. We've been brave! William starts off with a little reminiscence about his first book of horror stories. Boris Karloff's Tales of Terror. And pretty soon he was buying Weird Tales.
"Horror, in one form or another, has been with us since the dawn of civilization. The human animal has been, by nature, uncertain and apprehensive; we are in awe of a universe too vast for us to comprehend.…" The dark and tales of terror… Horror!
A little dab of history – Horace Walpole, 1764, with the Castle of Otranto. From which Ann Radcliffe in 1794 writes The Mysteries of Udolpho, a gothic horror. And then, of course, in 1839, we get to Edgar Allen Poe, with Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Oh!
And of course, now we have mass-market horror, movies, and plenty more.
Not to mention, of course, a little thing known as the Writers Halloween Contest!
Watch for monsters crossing… Okay, take me to your monster, coming soon!
tink
Since it's Halloweenie season, I thought I'd poke around at horror a bit. And, at least to start, let me skim something I've got on my shelves – How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan. Writers Digest Book from 1990. Just looking at the table of contents…
Exploring the dark side, the roots and cellars in which horror ideas sprout. Take me to your monster! Horrible imaginings. Who – or what – goes there? Don't open that door… Building your house of horrors. Planting the hook: a fantasmagoria of spooky openings and ghastly one-liners. Masks, shadows, and surprises. The gory details… Drip, drip, drip? A dip in the pool. When the crypt is sealed.
There you go. A little shiver to start things off, right? So how about a quote from Stephen King, "We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."
So, in chapter 1, what do we have? Well, exploring the dark side… "Fear is fun. Being frightened is delicious. We tend to giggle when we're really scared – partly to expel the tension, partly because we're having such a good time."
It's facing fears and going beyond them. We've been brave! William starts off with a little reminiscence about his first book of horror stories. Boris Karloff's Tales of Terror. And pretty soon he was buying Weird Tales.
"Horror, in one form or another, has been with us since the dawn of civilization. The human animal has been, by nature, uncertain and apprehensive; we are in awe of a universe too vast for us to comprehend.…" The dark and tales of terror… Horror!
A little dab of history – Horace Walpole, 1764, with the Castle of Otranto. From which Ann Radcliffe in 1794 writes The Mysteries of Udolpho, a gothic horror. And then, of course, in 1839, we get to Edgar Allen Poe, with Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Oh!
And of course, now we have mass-market horror, movies, and plenty more.
Not to mention, of course, a little thing known as the Writers Halloween Contest!
Watch for monsters crossing… Okay, take me to your monster, coming soon!
tink