The Place For My Writers Notes

original posting 4 September 2009

Writer's Digest, October 2006, pages 73 to 75, have an article by Mort Castle with the title, "A Waking Nightmare." The subtitle provides a little more context, "Scare readers with the perfect setting and characters in your horror fiction." What could be better with Halloween horror stories coming up?

The article starts with a short description of that common experience where we get wrapped up in a story and don't notice time passing and all the problems and pains of the real world. John Gardner called fiction a "waking dream." Or as Castle says, "when you enter the waking dream of a well-written short story or novel, it's just as real." Of course, for horror stories you want to create waking nightmares.

1. Start with reality

"It's reality's 'what is?' not imagination's 'what if?' that can transform horror premise into horror story. It takes reality -- heaps of it -- to create and populate a story realm that gives readers the frights royale." You need real settings, real characters, and real conflicts. Good fiction should feel credible -- believable. Even when it's incredible! Make the setting and the characters as realistic as you can. You're going to ask readers for a leap of imagination, some acceptance of the incredible. Make the rest of it very true to life.

2. Write what you know.

The most real settings are the ones that you know. Now you may have to do a little thinking and digging to make it interesting, but there is a lot of local color that you know better than anybody else in the world. Actually, for horror, prosaic, commonplace settings can help. Readers identify with the ordinary, and they find it realistic. Hohum, humdrum, until... "When the ordinary is invaded by the terrifying extraordinary, horror happens."

3. People like us

Fictional characters are unique, but they often take characteristics and bits and pieces from the people you know. Make the characters three-dimensional, well-rounded humans. Someone that you might meet around the corner. Make their reactions real, make their feelings deep.

So when horror invades real settings with real people, waking nightmares shake your readers. And keep them turning page after page.