They say you should never meet your heroes. But speaking with Stephen Graham Jones is a lot like speaking with your local theater nerd about the history of Broadway, except with a lot more goosebumps and nightmares. 

Known for his horror writing, Jones has won or been nominated for over 20 awards, including the Bram Stoker Award, Shirley Jackson Award, British Fantasy Awards, and Locus Awards. He has published more than 30 books and hundreds of short stories, in genres ranging from horror to science fiction to absurdist. You can find his work in well-known publications like Clarkesworld and Nightmare Magazine. On top of his writing career, Graham Jones is also the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English and a Professor of Distinction at the University of Colorado Boulder. But while some writers might let those accolades feed their egos, Jones is just like the rest of us—plagued with pre-publication anxiety. 

“I’m still in that stage where it could be a total flop and a failure and nobody’s going like it, you know?” he said, laughing, as we sat down to discuss his upcoming release, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. “Like, you and three other people have read it, so I’m scared. But you’re supposed to be scared, I think, too.” 

I assure you; he has nothing to be scared about. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a historical horror novel about a professor, Etsy, who, in the midst of a career crisis in 2012, is transcribing her great-great grandfather’s diary. Through entries from 1912, we learn that Arthur Beaucarne, a pastor, heard several confessionals by a Blackfeet man named Good Stab. These transcribed confessionals leave blood in their wake.  

We began our conversation by discussing the technicality behind this latest release. 

I would consider The Buffalo Hunter Hunter to be a story within a story within a story, but all three of those stories are told through first-person narration. Was it difficult to keep all of those voices distinct? 

I did have to keep all three of those voices, those narrators, distinct. I mean, they distinguish themselves a little bit just because they’re in different contexts and they have different histories, but that’s not quite enough, for me to do it, anyway. What I ended up having to do was give each of them different rules to follow that they didn’t know they were following. 

The outside narration, the frame—Etsy—she has access to anything she wants. She’s got semicolons. She could have footnotes if she wanted. It wouldn’t matter. She’s got everything. Arthur Beaucarne, he has those big old long dashes, and he’ll use however as a coordinating conjunction. And then when you get to the center of the nested narratives to Good Stab, he doesn’t have any dashes at all. And no semicolons, either. … I have somewhere a list of rules [that] each character will always default to using this when possible, and that when possible.  

And I wish I could say that that happened organically the first time through, but really, it just kind of expressed itself through their own voices. And then I had to codify it and go back through a few times and comb all the things that didn’t fit out of each character’s voice and sections. I made that little list of rules specifically for my editors and copy editors so they could help keep me on track. 

In 2011, you wrote an article for our blog in which you said, “If you keep having to dip into the story’s past to explain the present, then there’s a good chance your real story’s in the past, and you’re using the present as a vehicle to deliver us there.” Did tackling the storylines in The Buffalo Hunter Hunter complicate that for you? 

I did say that in 2011. I’ve been saying it since, like, 2000. I still subscribe to that completely. I think a lot of stories and novels and novellas and stuff I read, the past is simply there as a slippery ramp you fall down to get to 1942 or whatever. And I think, Why don’t we just go to 1942 and tell the story from there? But yes, this story is probably showcasing my infatuation with Philip K. Dick and how he always nests his narratives inside like Russian nesting dolls, you know? The trick is there are causal implications between each layer of those nests. And I really, really love that kind of narrative. I don’t know if I call it a framework, but I just love that delivery method. 

So, yeah, I wanted to try it this time. I’ve done it once before in a novel called Ledfeather that came out in ’07 or ’08. It goes back and forth between 1884 and a century later. And that was me testing myself, how would I handle delivering the past? And turns out epistolary was the trick I used in that novel. … 

But this did complicate it. And I think the way that I handled it—in my head anyway, maybe on the page—is I made Etsy be that outside frame of the past. 1912 was, of course, the past … and then Good Stab’s story from 1833 up to 1884 is even the deeper past. I did end up saying that this story happens in the past. I don’t think it actually happens in Good Stab’s past. I think it happens in 1912 … But I did want to have stairsteps to get there. I felt like I would’ve been losing some context had I just dropped us into Beaucarne’s Sunday sermon.  

This is not the first time you’ve played with multiple points of view. Even though Mongrels has a first-person narrator, some parts of the book are told from a third-person perspective. At what point in your writing or drafting process do you decide to include these layered points of view? 

With Mongrels specifically, I wasn’t even writing the novel. I had two weeks off, so I thought I would write a bunch of stories right fast, and then I decided, What if I name the characters the same and put them in the same world, and it can be a novel? But what I found out with Mongrels was if the first-person chapters touched each other, then the reader instantly was triggered to ask, “How did we get from here to here?” I realized I had to pad it with these little third-person interstitials …  

As for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter … I had just taught a vampire graduate course. I just had vampires all in my head. And a couple weeks before the course was over, I started writing The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. I just couldn’t help it, ’cause I had so many fangs in my dreams and everything. So, I sat down to start it, and I thought, Well, here we go. We’re dropping back into some past. Then Etsy just kind of raised her hand and said, “Wait, wait, I gotta go first.” It wasn’t anything strategic, and I didn’t plan it out. It’s just that I couldn’t figure out how to get back 100 years or so without some sort of person to hold [the reader’s] hand back to there. Then the person who was best at holding their hand I thought might be a professor. And then I had to ask myself, “What kind of crisis is that professor in?” She’s in a tenure crisis, a career crisis.  

To me, that’s just how novels develop. It’s all like mechanical problems that you provide a solution for, but then those solutions bloom out and become the story.  

With your Indian Lake Trilogy, you were exploring the expectations around the slasher subgenre and then how easily those expectations can be subverted. What were you exploring with The Buffalo Hunter Hunter? 

You know, I told myself I would never write a vampire novel until I could do it the same way I did the werewolves in Mongrels, which is to say, until I could put a creature on the page with a biology and a culture that felt real to me. I had tried to write werewolf novels twice before Mongrels, and both of them failed because I was just looking at pretty werewolves. [Laughs] Basically, I didn’t have a story. So, I knew not to just look at pretty vampires with The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, but also, I had to do a lot of swapping out of characteristics and traits to make the vampire something I could believe in.  

In a lot of vampire stories, the vampire will just up and fly across the town. And I’m like, “What in the world, is that Vampire Superman? I don’t understand this. How are they not beholden to gravity? How are they propelling themselves?” … There are a lot of things with the vampire that I think are story expediencies that have kind of accreted onto the vampire through so many [adaptations] of telling over the centuries … and then they become part of the code for vampires, and they don’t get interrogated quite enough, I don’t think.  

With The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, I wanted to interrogate all those. And what I want is for the vampire to keep on going. I don’t want it to fizzle out. I don’t want sparkly vampires to kill the vampire. [Laughs] For me to help the vampire thrive, I feel like it’s incumbent that I kind of burn off the fat, if that makes sense. So it can be a leaner … organism … I asked myself, “If somebody was infected with something that made them have to subsist on human blood, how would that function? And what are the ramifications?”  

You have tackled everything from short stories to novellas to full novels to graphic novels. When you sit down to write a story, do you have the length and format already in mind? Or do you figure that out once you’ve begun the project? 

You know, for a story, I generally have the length down. Like, an editor will call me and say, “I need something from you. I’m paying $.10/a word, up to 7,000 words. After that, you don’t get any money.” And I’m like, “Well, a 7,000-word story, then.” [Laughs] I can usually hit that, more or less.  

Flash fiction always stays flash fiction. Flash fiction never opens up to a story for me—so far, anyways. Only once have I had a novella open up to a novel, and that was Only Good Indians. Well, now I’m lying. I tried to write The Only Good Indians three times; the third time, I finally did it, but the first two also became novels—The Babysitter Lives and Killer on the Road. So, I screw up sometimes. I just misjudge the scope, you know? 

People always ask why I write and read so much horror when the real world is horrifying enough. Have people asked similar things about your work?  

Yeah, they do. I think that the response to the world being a dumpster fire is either to look deeper into the flames or to find a cute kitten to look at. Those are the two responses. [Laughs] Both are legitimate! Neither is better than the other. … But I think what gazing at the flames of the fire can do is when we engage horror media, whatever kind, we’re seeing characters struggling through a dark, violent, terrible, scary tunnel, the same way we are. The difference is those characters on screen, on the page … they get to the end. And that gives us here in the real world, in our own dark tunnels, hope that there is going to be an end to this horror story.  

I mean, there is a sense in which horror media is a funhouse mirror that distorts our current anxieties and fears and issues and all that stuff. … But really, I think the reason so many of us are watching, reading, engaging with horror lately is that it has an end. Stories have ends, whether they’re good or bad, and we want an end to this horror story we’re in. 

There seems to be this perpetuating idea that publishing is having a horror renaissance. Do you feel that that’s accurate? 

I do think that since probably Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom … the world has finally woken up and realized that we’re in dialogue with what’s happening. I think until then, people always thought, like, there’s a carnival, but we’re this far-out tent just doing blood gags for each other, putting on masks for each other and laughing and dancing around. But I think Get Out and Victor’s book both signaled to the world that, “Hey, we’re talking about things that matter.” And ever since then, horror has had a different velocity or momentum or something. It just feels more vital, I think. It’s got its finger on some sort of pulse for the moment. 

I do sometimes hesitate to say that horror is having a renaissance, or it’s a current fad, but the only reason for that is self-protection. It’s because fads go away, renaissances [blow] over, you know? I’d much rather horror just continue to be part of the conversation. However, my concern is that horror, we’ve gotten so much of our identity from the solidarity of being outsiders with each other. And so now that we’re in the big tent, now that we’re not outsiders, I wonder how that’s going to change the fabric of horror. 

It’ll be interesting to see. It’s one of those waiting games. 

Yeah. I totally agree. I’m excited, too. Because if horror had stayed the same, then it would die. Things can’t stay the same. They’ve got to keep adapting.  

I know quite a few people who would be upset if I invited them over to watch a monster movie and then put on John Carpenter’s Halloween. So, I want to ask you: Do you consider slashers to be monsters? 

I do. I’m teaching a monster lecture course in the spring here to, like, 250 sophomores. One of the monsters we process through is going to be the Jason Voorhees of the world, the Michael Myers of the world. My definition of monster is that which we have to use unconventional weapons to dispense with, like silver bullets or daylight and or headshots with the slasher, the unconventional weapon that gets used against it. [The slasher’s] silver bullet, its Achilles’ heel is the final girl, you know? … I think Jason Voorhees is as much a monster as Godzilla is. 

In your opinion, what makes a good monster? 

They have some sort of Achilles’ heel. That there’s something we can use our clever monkey brains to figure out and weaponize against them such that we can put them down. Because realistically, how can we ever stop Jason Voorhees or a werewolf? We’ve got to melt down our grandmother’s silver to shoot that werewolf. That kind of stuff. I love that. I think monsters need to be bulletproof, basically. That’s kind of part of the unconventional weapons.  

And monsters can’t be negotiated with. That’s really important as well. If you can ever come to a treaty table under a white tent and say to the monster, “You’ve been doing this a while, and this is really causing us some grief. Let’s see, if we give you this and this, can you stop doing that?” That’s not going to be a fun story. [Laughs] 

This issue of WD is all about pushing boundaries. Who are some authors you admire for how they push boundaries in their work? 

Oh, man. I like the way Jeff VanderMeer is always pushing the boundaries of both delivery and reality. Nicholson Baker, I like the weird stuff he does. … Paul Tremblay is pushing boundaries with form in a lot of his books. He’s always doing stuff in the margins, or he’ll pit two or three narratives against each other in his story, such that you kind of lose the thread of truth or trust.  

I love to read writers who are tinkering like that, because like with music, garage bands are what keep music vital. It’s not The Rolling Stones, you know, it’s not the monster bands. It’s the ones who are coming up with new sounds in the privacy of their garage. And we need people doing that. 

How do you think you push boundaries? 

I like to experiment—you know, actually maybe experiment’s the wrong verb. Brian Evenson, when people try to label him an experimental writer, he’s like, “I’m not experimenting, I’m innovating.” Because he’s not just pouring random test tubes into other test tubes and waiting to see what happens. He needs to get from here to there, and he comes up with a new way to get from here to there. And innovation is wonderful. I think random experimentation doesn’t always feel authentic or doesn’t come from an authentic place.  

But myself, if I am contributing anything in that regard, it’s that I only write novels that I think are bad ideas. Like, any novel I ever have that I think, Oh, I can do that, then I don’t write that novel. That is just super boring to me. I can’t imagine writing a novel that I think is going to work. I only want to write novels that are broken at the level of conception, that feel like bad ideas, because then I have to become a better writer and get extremely lucky to make it work. And when I get extremely lucky, and I somehow become a better writer, I feel like I went somewhere. I did something. … I like to write myself into a corner over and over, such that I have to become a better writer to get out. 

We would be remiss not to discuss that you are a distinguished professor. Do you feel that your approach to writing has changed at all since you began teaching writing? 

I signed on as a visiting assistant professor in 1999. My first novel came out in 2000. So, it’s really hard for me to disentangle those two. I feel like my professor career and my career as a novelist were birthed at the same moment.  

But I do think that being a professor helps me a whole lot with being a writer, because every day, like here in an hour and a half, I’m going to teach a workshop, and I’ll be telling the students things, techniques, precepts. What I’m trying to do is instill in them a sense of narrative ethics, basically. I want them to care about story in a new way, in a good way, in a responsible way. I hear myself telling them those things, and then, later on in the afternoon, I’ll be writing, and I’m like, “Oh man, I told them this. I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to adhere to that myself. I’ve got to set a good model.” I can’t just say it. I’ve got to live it.  

And so, saying these things to all these generations of students that I’ve been doing for 25 years now, it’s kept me on the straight and narrow. I mean, I’ve written stories about working the window at a drive-through urinal. I’ve written about giant time-traveling caterpillars. But to me, that’s all the straight and narrow in that I’m adhering really strictly to a sense of narrative ethics to something that I think actually matters.  

You know, content never matters, but how you care about the story and care about the story’s impact on the world, I think that that matters a lot. 

What words of advice do you have for our readers? 

I would say everyone has their chosen genre they like to write in—I’m a horror writer. I think of all the genres as different five-acre fields spread along a creek. They all have fences around them, sometimes really tall fences. But I think it’s really important to, when nobody’s looking, step across the fence into romance or into space opera or into paleoanthropology or into botany. There are endless fields to step in, endless bookshelves, and I walk around those wonderful fields. And then when the sun goes down, I come back to my own fence, I step over it, I get back into horror, and I stand there. What’s happened when I’ve been swishing through those other fields is that burrs have stuck to my pants legs. And then they fall off in the horror field, and their seeds, they grow up into strange plants. That’s how we keep a genre vital: We transpose different DNA into it, strange alien DNA. And I think that’s the most important [thing]. That’s a way to keep your genre active instead of just using your genre. 

The post The WD Interview: Stephen Graham Jones appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(6 Unique Editing Ideas That You’ve Probably Never Tried.)

Good writing isn’t just about what you put on the page—it’s about what you cut from it. The best horror stories don’t just creep under your skin because of their content, they burrow beneath the flesh because of their craft. Your first revision, the self-edit, is your post-draft exorcism.

Here are 10 practical steps to help make your writing sharper, scarier, and stronger, one bloody slash at a time.

#1: Kill the “Was”

Passive construction is the death knell of vivid writing; it dilutes dread. If you find your pages littered with “was,” “is,” “were,” or “had been,” it’s time to go full Van Helsing on your sentences.

Instead of: She was terrified by the sound behind her.
Consider: Terror jolted her spine.

Horror is built on urgency. Slicing through passive verbs to activate your draft puts your reader in the room with your protagonist, shoulder to shoulder in the dark.

Our modern master of horror, Stephen King puts it plainly in On Writing: “The adverb is not your friend.” The same could be said for passivity (worry not: we’ll talk about adverbs later). Slash those “was” zombies. Resurrect strong, specific action.

#2: Don’t Describe, Disturb

It’s not enough to say your character feels sick. Let us taste their sickness instead. After all, sensory language is the blood-pump of horror prose.

Instead of: He felt nauseated.
Consider: Bitter bubbles fizzed up his throat.

Paint the grotesque, the beautiful, and the uncanny with the same brush. Use metaphor, simile, imagery, and context that roots in sensation. When Shirley Jackson described the haunted house in The Haunting of Hill House, she didn’t just tell us it was scary but showed how the house wanted to be alone. The dread was part of the house’s architecture.

#3: Watch the Gerunds and Adverbs

Kin to passivity, words ending in -ing (gerunds) or ­-ly (adverbs) often signal weak verbs or over-explained actions.

Instead of: She was walking quickly toward the door.
Consider: She lunged for the door.

This isn’t a witch hunt: You don’t need to eliminate every gerund or adverb. But overuse muddies your prose, and horror needs clarity. In a foggy graveyard or darkened alley, we cling to what we can see. Make those images count.

#4: Submerge the “I”

This one’s critical for first-person POV, which is especially popular in horror because it creates intimacy. Even when writing from your protagonist’s POV, overusing “I” pulls your reader out of the character’s experience and reminds them they’re reading a character, not living a story.

Instead of: I watched the shadows crawl across the wall.
Consider: Shadows crawled across the wall.

You are the I. Trust your reader to follow you—strip away the filter and let them see through your eyes for cleaner, tighter prose that reads like a noose.

Click to continue.

#5: Don’t Just “Start to”—Just START

Phrases like “started to,” “began to,” “was going to”—or my favorite Southern starter, “fixin’ to”—only delay the inevitable. And in horror, delay only works when it’s deliberate.

Instead of: She started to scream.
Consider: She screamed.

Remember, put your reader directly in-scene. They don’t need the prelude. They need the punch.

#6: Avoid Redundant World-Building

Because you know your world inside and out, it’s easy to repeat facts or re-describe elements that feel important, but too much repetition slows the pace and drains the tension, and readers crave forward momentum. A sharp self-edit means reading outside yourself. Flip to a random page and ask: Do I still understand what’s happening? Am I reading the same thing I read three pages ago?

Paul Tremblay told Nightmare Magazine: “Horror works best when it’s grounded in the ordinary. You don’t need to build a castle of bones if a single door left ajar can keep us up at night.”

Focus on tension, not architecture. Horror thrives on emotional immediacy, not elaborate world-building (or encyclopedic exposition). One chilling image is more powerful than a repeated floor plan.

#7: Precision Beats Perfection

Emerging readers often fall into the trap of using precise measurements or directional cues to describe action, but unless the exact number matters (think: crime scene evidence) a “twenty-foot hallway” is less helpful than a “hallway long enough to lose a scream in.”

Likewise, we rarely need to know that a character picked up a knife with their left hand. It’s more important to know:

1. that they have a knife and
2. have a plan for its business end.

Save directionality for combat choreography. Otherwise, let the atmosphere lead.

#8: Anchor Dialogue in Action

Good dialogue is a blade: It cuts deep and clean. But even the sharpest dialogue loses its edge if it floats in space. Don’t just stack quote after quote. Stake your conversations with action beats or physical reaction.

Instead of:
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“I had no choice.”

Consider:
She didn’t look up from the blade. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I had no choice.” His voice cracked, but the door behind him stayed closed.

This doesn’t mean you need to attribute every sentence (and when you do, the research is overwhelmingly in favor of said rather than said-isms). Tag sparingly put purposefully. One attributed line per page is a solid guideline.

#9: Beware of Implied Context

Your reader is smart, but not psychic. Just because you know why the cemetery gate is rusted shut, or why your protagonist avoids mirrors, or gets that reference to that super deep-cut from an eighties’ B-flick, doesn’t mean your reader does. Horror thrives on mystery, but confusion is its enemy.

Ursula K. Le Guin said it well in Steering the Craft: “The reader cannot know what you do not tell. Even if it’s clear to you, it may not be clear to them.”

Consider referencing Pamela Voorhees to someone who’s never seen Friday the 13th. The horror falls flat if the context isn’t shared. Shared knowledge of cultural or genre references can add texture to your work but prioritize building context rather than relying on assumed references to do it for you.

#10: Let Your Voice Bleed

All the mechanics in the world won’t save a horror story without a pulse. Once you’ve killed the passives, sliced the filters, and tightened the prose, go back and listen to your voice. Does it still sound like you? Does it still skin crawl in the right places?

As Chuck Palahniuk puts it: “The truth is, you don’t need a big, complicated setup to write a story. You just need a moment that hurts.” That’s the rub of writing horror, really: Find your hurt, then cut deep enough for the reader to feel it.

If prose is the horror writer’s poison, then self-editing is the scalpel. It’s how we carve our stories into something readers can’t look away from. Don’t be afraid to be ruthless.

Check out Lindy Ryan’s Another Fine Mess here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post Final Cuts: 10 Self-Editing Tips for Writing Vivid, Visceral Horror Fiction appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Find more Killer Writers conversations here.)

“Eric, let’s talk about writing dark, troubled protagonists. What draws you as a writer to explore characters who are maybe fractured, morally ambiguous, or, some might say, beyond redemption? And what creative freedom do you personally find in writing them?”

“I’ve always been fascinated with the anti-hero, the morally gray, the complex, maybe even the problematic. I think that’s rich conflict—really rich drama. I spent so much of my life feeling like I was an outcast, feeling like I had no autonomy, that I was constantly on the outside, while others were doing things that I couldn’t access or achieve. Writing about people on the margins of society going through tragic loss, grieving, or doing questionable things feels freeing in many ways. It feels like putting an avatar on a Reddit profile and just saying whatever you want to say into the void. That, to me, is liberating. It’s cathartic, and I was able to release a lot of inner demons over the past 10 to 15 years by writing dark, complex characters. Writing these deeply flawed characters gives me an outlet to channel all that angst and anxiety that I’ve had since I was a teenager.”

“When you create a protagonist who may not be likable or even forgivable, what emotional anchor do you give the reader to stay invested in the journey?”

“It depends on the book. Each project has qualifications and things that you need to consider when writing. In At Dark, I Become Loathsome, I wanted to show Ashley at the beginning of the book trying to help people more than anything. I wanted to show that he was in a lot of ways wounding himself by reliving his trauma repeatedly, but there was selflessness to that. There was selflessness in burying these people alive and letting them experience a sort of rebirth in a way that he can never achieve. He’s able to give them a gift that they will never return to him, and I hope people come away from the book thinking that. I never like to direct people too much into thinking one thing or the other. I like to keep things ambiguous, but with this book, and he is self-centered in many ways, but I wanted to ground him as someone who’s been through so much trauma and loss, so I feel like it might be a bit excusable. But more than anything, I wanted to show him as a sort of conduit for transformation and rebirth for others that he will never know and savor.”

“Thematically, the whole book is about resurrection.”

“Yes.”

“People coming back out of the grave, the resurrection of his son, his wife.”

“It’s definitely about resurrection. It’s about fatherhood, identity, queerness, and fetishes. It’s about our obsession with unsavory and not easily digestible things. It’s a book about many things, and I wanted to explore all those in this book and be as unhinged as I possibly could be.”

Click to continue.

“Is there a difference in your mind between writing a character who’s just unlikable and one who’s irredeemable? And how do you decide which path you’re taking?”

“It depends on what kind of book I’m interested in writing. For instance, there is a little vignette in the middle section of the book At Dark, I Become Loathsome that was always threaded into this narrative. That was always purposefully inserted. I knew writing it, I could never write a full-length novel with this character—I’m referring to the ordeal of Tandy and Victor, the blog couple that one obsesses about the other’s terminal diagnosis—and I knew that I couldn’t dedicate myself to writing a full-length book with him as the narrator because so much of his internal monologue would turn people off. I find it fascinating, but I know most people will probably not feel the same way I do. When I sent pieces of this to my agent, my agent confirmed what I had suspected and said, ‘You’re probably right to not pursue this in any way other than just a story within a story.’ There are some things that people struggle with, and I know that people have had many issues with that section of the book in general. Thankfully, it’s not super long, but it is one of my favorite parts of the book, and I think it correlates a lot with Ashley’s obsession with death and his fixation on the inevitable.”

“Do you ever worry that by writing from the perspective of a deeply damaged or destructive character, you risk the reader misunderstanding your intent, or even identifying with the wrong things?”

“That happens quite a bit. I worry about it because I hope readers understand I’m not endorsing any of the things that happen in my books.”

“Let’s hope not. Your books carry a lot of darkness.”

“I promise I’m not. It stems from how we teach literature in the classroom and how, ‘What do you think the author meant by this?’ or ‘Is this a composite of the author and his life?’ It stems from that. People have difficulty separating the artist from what they are writing about, but I worry about it. There’s nothing I can do about it. I know what kind of person I am. I know I’m a complex human being. I’m capable of both good and bad things and everything in between. Some of these people who form these parasocial relationships online with other people think they’re entitled to aspects of you, and they don’t know you. That’s just the way it is. I say unequivocally that I do not endorse the things that occur in my books, but I can’t prevent people from thinking certain things about me. I think it comes down to a point where I need to move on and focus on creating, writing, and telling stories that are true to my heart and what I’m interested in writing about.”

“And your characters certainly reflect that. I can see where the backlash from some readers can come, which is one of the problems of writing irredeemable characters. What craft techniques do you use to give a dark protagonist this depth without offering them excuses?”

“I suppose reading a lot of the transgressive literature and pulling from my own experiences with trauma and grief. There were moments early on in my life when I experienced a lot of loss in a very short period. For this book, I tried to portray Ashley in a way that was as human as possible, without making him seem removed and foreign and alien to readers. By doing that, I strive to bring in this very lyrical, poetic sort of prose in the book, reminiscent of a book like Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite, one of my favorite books of all time. At least, I hope it’s lyrical, poetic prose. I think that sort of juxtaposition with the very graphic subject matter may be jarring for people at first, but then it becomes more digestible over the course of the narrative, and I think people are drawn to it. I know that I’m drawn to the work of Clive Barker and Kathe Koja, because those writers are portraying difficult subject matter, presenting it to me in a way that is a little bit more digestible because the prose is so flowery, and the writing is so sumptuous.”

“So, part of delivering dark characters can be the delivery method?”

“I tried to mirror that with this book, and I didn’t want this book to be so cold and unfeeling. I wanted a lot of emotion, and I think by filling the text with these rich descriptions, I livened it up a bit more. I feel like I brought out more emotion and paid homage to the Gothic literature I read at a very early age, which was sort of that expulsion, burst of energy, themes, repression, and all those beautiful things. I focused a lot on the actual prose and was methodical about what words I wanted to use to tell this story.”

“I felt empathetic towards just about all the characters that you created. How do you distinguish between empathy and accountability when dealing with such dark images?”

“Empathy’s more important than holding a character accountable for their actions. The author needs to understand their character and not look down on them. I’m turned off by books where I can tell the author is sneering at their characters, looking down at them, and almost inserting themselves and editorializing. It’s like, ‘Oh, I would never do this, but look at how disgusting and vile this particular character is.’”

“Hard to write those truthfully when you have that attitude.”

“It’s definitely hard to write truthfully and be as raw and vulnerable as possible. Great writing stems from vulnerability and being as unflinching as you can be on the page. I always say, write about your obsessions, what speaks to you, and what is constantly churning inside your head. I think so much of what this book talks about is that just because we have these very dark, explicit, intrusive thoughts doesn’t mean that we’re terrible people. I struggled with that for a long period, growing up with some very explicit, intrusive thoughts. I think what I want with this book is to explore that and showcase that these thoughts are normal. There’s empathy for these characters. These characters are not monstrous. We’re not monstrous. Ashley thinks of himself as vile and disgusting, but you want to hug him. He’s not as loathsome as he thinks he is, and I think I felt that way for a long time. Empathy is the root of writing exceptional transgressive fiction. If you have empathy, understanding, and compassion for your characters, it’ll show to your readers, making the narrative and the work in general just so much more explosive and impactful.”

“Have you ever written a character so disturbing or broken that the character disturbs you?”

“I’ve written several. I have a book coming out later this year with Titan Books. That’s the first novel of my Burnt Sparrow Trilogy, and one of the book’s characters is completely loathsome and vile and does some very unspeakable things. I tried to weave into the narrative explanations and context for why he’s so damaged and broken. We’ll see if it lands. We haven’t sent it out to many readers yet, but many authors who have read it to provide quotes have been positive, so that’s a good thing. As far as At Dark, I Become Loathsome, the section with Victor and Tandy disturbed me. I felt uncomfortable while writing it. I felt I was writing something that I shouldn’t be writing, which let me know that’s exactly what I should be writing, in a weird way. That’s what quality transgressive literature is to me. It’s forbidden. It feels like you’re reading something you should not be reading, or if you’re writing it, you should not. Like, please don’t look at my hard drive. You know what I mean? I’ve always been interested in the graphic nature of transgressive literature. I think that’s where quality, extreme novels stem from: that level of, should I be enjoying this? Should I hate this? What’s my reaction? There’s ambiguity around people’s reactions to books like these, but that’s fine. It takes a long time for people to process certain things, but I find it exhilarating.”

Check out Eric LaRocca’s At Dark, I Become Loathsome here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

“What do you think writers can learn by writing protagonists who cross these moral lines? And what have you learned about yourself through doing it?”

“Writers can learn much about themselves by writing deeply flawed, complex characters. They can unearth dormant things and finally poke around in those wounds and see how they’ve transformed and changed. Writing these characters and this book taught me that I’m not as flawed as I thought. I’m not as vile and monstrous as I originally thought I was when I was growing up, because I grew up in a very rural, isolated town. I was sheltered growing up, and I thought there was something wrong with me. So much of my existence was spent hating myself and wishing I wasn’t different, wishing I could be like everybody else. But now, writing this kind of transgressive extreme fiction, I am liberated. I feel excited and delighted to write as fearlessly as possible and express myself in ways I didn’t have the confidence to do originally.”

“Is redemption something you believe every character should be offered? Or do you sometimes write stories where the lack of redemption is the point?”

“Especially in a book like this, there is a lack of redemption, but there is a point to it. I’m inspired by the work of Albert Camus, a famous French novelist and philosopher who argued that life is meaningless and nihilistic. His novella, The Stranger, very much influences this book. I don’t think there’s redemption in place for every character in my books, but that’s the point sometimes. Redemption just doesn’t come, and that’s almost more horrifying and more upsetting for people to stomach. I do like to provoke, and I do like to unsettle and disturb, and my fiction is not meant to comfort. People can find comfort in it.”

“In the dark characters…”

“People have, which I’ve been so grateful for, but I don’t set out to comfort with any of my fiction. I set out to explore the human condition and, more importantly, stretch the line of what is acceptable to publish and what is not.”

“You’ve got some hurtful, manipulative, cruel characters here. When you write hurtful, manipulative, brutal characters, how do you make space for emotional truth without just turning the story into some spectacle of suffering or atrocities? You’ve done it well. You preserve that emotional truth. How do you make space for that?”

“It comes back to having empathy for the characters. It comes back to knowing your characters more than anything and letting them hold space in your heart and mind. Maybe they have conversations with you while you’re doing the dishes or the laundry. Understanding your characters and their motivations is supremely important for any fiction, especially transgressive fiction, where it can turn into just a litany of suffering and unfortunate things. That said, I do enjoy a little bit of punishment with fiction. I enjoy fiction that is nihilistic and bleak. I don’t go to that kind of fiction all the time because it’s not great for my mental health, but I think there are great excuses to savor that kind of fiction.”

“What do you hope writers understand about the value and the responsibility of letting their characters go to truly dark places on the page?”

“The value of being unabashedly free and truthful. Horror, especially, is a truthful genre. It’s the genre that forces us to confront the complexities of being alive, being human, suffering, and being subject to entropy and decay. Horror forces us to look at the car wreck as we pass it on the highway, and it tells us not to look away. There’s value in recognizing all the flaws of our humanity and our society’s flaws. I’m interested in horror with a point, a social purpose, or something to say. That’s when horror becomes more sophisticated than just the proverbial stalk and slash subgenre, which I enjoy. I enjoy slasher films now and then, but at the end of the day, I want something more elegant and sophisticated. I think readers appreciate that as well. So much horror is rooted in fascinating examinations and dissections of our current culture, and horror can shift the narrative in many ways and make people reconsider things, maybe reconsider how they treat people, interact, and react to certain things. I think horror and science fiction do that quite a bit. I’m honored to write every day and tell stories. I hope any writers reading this and encountering this piece come away from it inspired to be themselves, be complex, let themselves be as flawed and weird as possible, and explore, like the nether world of grotesquerie. Just be unabashedly you. I think that’s the most important thing any writer could do. Don’t label yourself as ‘the next’ anything. You’re the you. You should be proud to be who you are and write the visions only you can create.”

“And write as dark as you want to be.”

“Exactly.”

_____________________________

Eric LaRocca (he/they) is a 3x Bram Stoker Award finalist and Splatterpunk Award winner. He was named by Esquire as one of the “Writers Shaping Horror’s Next Golden Age” and praised by Locus as “one of strongest and most unique voices in contemporary horror fiction.” He currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, with his partner. https://ericlarocca.com/

The post A Conversation With Eric LaRocca on Writing Dark, Troubled Protagonists (Killer Writers) appeared first on Writer's Digest.

“That moment where you feel your book is the worst thing a human being has ever written? It’s a completely normal part of the process. Keep going.” –C. J. Cooke, author of A Haunting in the Attic (Berkley)

“(Editors, don’t read this:) It’s totally fine—in fact it’s really fun—to write a book that is absolutely nothing like your previous book!” –Dan Kois, author of Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Harper Perennial)

“A lot can be said for being stubborn! This is a tough, but beautiful business. Perfect your craft and don’t give up. Love it more than anything. Believe—foolishly, hopefully, endlessly, passionately. You only lose if you stop trying. I was once asked, after many years and many a rejection, why I didn’t just stop trying. My reply was fervent and fevered: ‘I will never quit. If I have to write 99 novels and do it until I’m 100 years old—I will do that. I will never quit.’ Keep your eyes on your own page and ink your pen. One foot in front of the other. One word before the next. Stories are built one character at a time. You’ve got this.” –Dawn Kurtagich, author of The Madness (Graydon House Books)

“I’m not one for practical writing advice because every writer is different, and what works for me probably won’t work for the next person. My one constant piece of advice is this: Write the next thing. Too many aspiring writers finish one novel then beat it to death, revising and revising, trying to sell it, then revising it again, flogging the proverbial dead horse. Rewriting is vitally important, of course, but it’s also important to keep moving forward. Write the next thing, because it’ll be better than the last, and the one before that, and the one before that, and…” –Stuart Neville, author of Blood Like Mine (Soho Press/Hell’s Hundred)

“Perseverance is key. There is nothing unique about that insight but, in any creative endeavor, it’s 100 percent true. Imagination is a muscle that needs strengthening, and the more regularly I sit down and write, the easier things become.” –Vincent Ralph, author of One House Left (Wednesday Books)

“If writing is what you love, don’t ever give up. Rejections are part of a writer’s life, but instead of viewing them as a reflection of you, remember that they’re a reflection of the subjectivity of the industry. So, keep going, keep improving, keep reading, and most of all, keep writing!” –Del Sandeen, author of This Cursed House (Berkley)

“I would say that if your traumatic events or otherwise very real microaggressions people face, always take a step back to properly assess whether or not also being affected by writing about it. Some things that I had written in We Came to Welcome You were fictionalized accounts of my own life and had to be talked over with a therapist before I felt it was truly necessary to the story. If you have someone you trust that you can talk over your emotions with, I would say to make time to process those emotions with them.” –Vincent Tirado, author of We Came to Welcome You (William Morrow)

____________________________

While there’s no shortage of writing advice, it’s often scattered around—a piece of advice here, words of wisdom there. And in the moments when you most need writing advice, what you find might not resonate with you or speak to the issue you’re dealing with. In A Year of Writing Advice, the editors of Writer’s Digest have gathered thoughts, musings, and yes, advice from 365 authors in dozens of genres to help you on your writing journey.

Click to continue.

The post One Piece of Advice From 7 Horror Authors in 2024 appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(21 Popular Horror Tropes for Writers.)

Every story is different and has different needs and goals, so some of this may not apply to you. But if you’re venturing into the world of paranormal fiction and you’re looking for a couple of well-intended pointers, here’s some good news: I’ve got 5 of them!

Take a trope and flip it

You’ve probably read a billion vampire stories and seen all the haunted house movies, so you’re no stranger to the tropes (those recurring plot devices that pop up over and over). Tropes are great because they’re familiar and help the audience feel comfortable. But when your story is stuffed full of the same tropes as every other novel, short story, and movie, it can feel stale and recycled.

So instead, take one trope, big or small, and come at it from a different angle. If the trope says, “a magical creature is always like this,” ask yourself, “but what if it was like that instead?”

My novel, The Ghost Rules, flips the trope of a ghost story by asking the question, “What if ghosts aren’t scary at all, but are annoying, goofy, and funny?”

Develop the rules of your world…and stick to them

Here’s the great thing: It’s your story, so you can do whatever you want! Do you want to write a short story about werewolves that only transform after eating broccoli during a full moon? Sure, why not. What about a novel where demons are all named Gary and hang out near water fountains? OK, that’s a little weird, but go for it. You do you!

Whatever rules you come up with for the world of your story, just make sure they’re consistent throughout. This can be brutal if you come up with a great plot twist that has to be tossed because it doesn’t fit within the overall rules of your story. Or if a careful review of your 10th draft points out a rule diversion and you have to disassemble half of it after months of work.

So be careful to stick to those rules once you establish them.

Make the paranormal parts as visual as possible, as soon as possible

What color are your ghosts? How do they move?

How big is the monster? What does its lair look like?

You don’t have to spell out everything all at once, especially if a slow reveal is part of the story. But the more you can help your reader establish a baseline, the easier it is for them to take over and imagine the rest on their own. And that’s where it gets really fun.

Specifics bring a sense of universality and make characters more memorable

Don’t be afraid to be specific when describing characters, especially the minor ones. There will always be a temptation to lean on what the audience already knows about fantastical creatures and skip ahead to the more exciting parts of your story. But don’t ever lose an opportunity to make something fun or memorable.

For example, you could reference, “the ghost of a woman who died on Halloween.” Or you could say, “the ghost of a woman who died in a freak boating accident while dressed in a giant bumble bee costume.” Which one is more memorable?

Ground your story

You can cram as many bizarro, magical characters and locations as you want into a story as long as there’s something to connect the audience to them in a believable, relatable way. Sometimes it’s as simple as describing the experience of a human character in a magical world or grounding a paranormal character with genuine human emotions.

The Ghost Rules is full of silly, obnoxious ghosts. So to ground my story and keep it believable, I told it through the eyes of a boy who lives a very normal life in a small Tennessee town and just happens to discover that he can see ghosts for the first time. The audience gets to experience everything through his eyes.

If you can make your fantastical story feel believable, even if it’s small and seemingly insignificant, the reader will follow wherever you lead them.

Check out Adam Rosenbaum’s The Ghost Rules here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post 5 Tips for Writing Paranormal Fiction appeared first on Writer's Digest.

“Are you a vampire?” she demanded, her owlish gaze pinned to mine.

(My Approach to Combining Romance and Comedy With Vampires.)

A hush fell over the class. The students exchanged nervous glances, wondering if I was, in fact, a vampire. I could see why they might think so: I have pitch dark hair, bone pale skin, and happened to be wearing a shade of lipstick labeled “blood red.” Concerned that I was in some way offended, the teacher let out an anxious, high-pitched giggle. She needn’t have worried…if anything, I was flattered! Vampires are among my favorite monsters—and I’m familiar with the whole lot. 

Well, I should be—I’ve been writing about monsters for nearly a decade. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.

1. Defining What a Monster Is…

The word monster conjures up specific if varying images: a fire-breathing dragon, a flesh-eating zombie, a werewolf howling at the moon. But the definition of the word—at least, as it applies to storytelling—is not limited to these more traditional examples. 

Instead, a monster can be defined as anything which interrupts the patterns of everyday life, creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear—creating chaos. The options are endless: a wild, rabid animal; a serial killer masquerading as a housewife, or even an unrequited love, callously stringing the protagonist along. 

Nor does a monster have to take the shape of a physical being: It could be a natural or man-made disaster, a disease. Regardless of type, including a monster ups the stakes in nearly any genre, forcing characters to make increasingly difficult decisions which not only deepen their characterization, but which also propel the plot forward.

2. …And Isn’t

Is the monster the story’s villain? It depends! Monsters have specific, but not necessarily intentional, motives: A flood doesn’t deliberately strive to cause drownings; these are simply unfortunate byproducts of its nature. 

On the other hand, villains have specific, intentional motives—think a wicked fairy choosing to imprison a princess like in Sleeping Beauty. In this instance, the monster is a sleeping-sickness sweeping across the kingdom, thwarting the prince’s rescue efforts. 

In other scenarios, the monster and the villain are one and the same, a single entity acting with intent to cause chaos. A good example is the shark in Jaws: While all great whites have the potential to be monsters, the (small!) threat they pose to human life is rooted in their most base instincts: There’s no intent. What makes the shark in Jaws both a monster and a villain is that it’s deliberately seeking out people to eat: There’s intent. 

Different combinations of the above will benefit different narratives. Whichever model you choose, clearly defining the role of your antagonist will help to clarify the story’s objectives, conflicts, and stakes.

3. How to Create Your Monster

Once you’ve chosen your monster’s type and role, the next step is to give it substance. To define its external characteristics, I like to consider: What kind of monster is it? What does it look, smell, and sound like? Can it communicate with humans—and if so, how? To define its internal characteristics, I reflect on: Why is the monster feared? What does it want? What are its strengths and weaknesses—how can it be defeated? Answering these questions will provide a basic character sketch upon which you can build. 

It’s also useful to think about the purpose the monster serves in furthering the plot. Why does this particular monster need to be included in this specific narrative? To that end, it’s of the utmost importance that the monster logically fits in with the story’s broader world-building. Readers will happily suspend disbelief—if the established “rules” are being followed.

4. Subverting Expectations

Once you’ve established the basics, consider what makes your monster unique. This is especially important if you’ve selected a more conventional monster with well-established lore. 

Take my favorite: vampires. The typical Western depiction is based upon Bram Stoker’s Dracula: a strong, seductive, soulless creature with pale skin, black hair, and fanged teeth used for draining the blood out of unsuspecting humans. We’ve seen this version of a vampire so many times that it’s officially a trope. And although any given trope can feel overdone, it can also add great value to a tale—especially if said trope is turned on its head. 

A great example is Stephanie Meyers’s Twilight: Edward Cullen, a vampire, shares many of Dracula’s traits: He’s strong, seductive, believes himself to be soulless, and has pale skin and fanged teeth. His introduction into the protagonist’s life also wrecks total chaos on multiple fronts. But unlike Dracula, Edward fights the impulse to kill humans, even falling in love with one; he does not want to be a monster. Subverting expectations gives readers a fresh take on old tropes.

5. Don’t Forget the Fear Factor

This might go without saying, but your monster must induce a level of fear. Even in the above vampire example, Edward is undoubtedly a dangerous predator despite his efforts to be good: If he were to lose control for even an instant, his human girlfriend would face a horrible, painful death. 

With creature-based monsters, provoking fear is a bit more straightforward. But any type of monster can achieve this: Cancer can’t typically be seen, but it’s presence and its unpredictability—any one of us can get sick at any time and may or may not recover—is terrifying to most people. Adding a healthy dose of fear ups the stakes and makes the reader root even harder for the protagonist.

6. Introducing Your Monster

Once your monster is fully realized, the next thing to consider is when to introduce it. There’s no right or wrong answer here; it will depend upon each narrative’s needs and nuances. 

Some tales—especially those aimed at young readers—might benefit from introducing the monster early on. Each interaction becomes increasingly tense, ultimately culminating in a spine-tingling climax. More complex narratives might be better served by first hinting at the danger to come, revealing the monster at a later time for an even greater payoff. 

Finally, a bait and switch—in which the protagonist thinks the monster is one thing, only to discover that it’s another—can also add a fun twist; Hitchcock’s Psycho is an excellent example.

And as for my response to the student’s query as to whether or not I’m a vampire?

I allowed my gaze to rove over each student’s face, all of which were shining in anticipation. “Well,” I said slowly, taking care to flash my canines at them. “Monsters are everywhere….”

Indeed. 

Check out Jordan Kopy’s Theodora Hendrix and the Monstrous League of Monsters here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

The post How to Write Monsters in Fiction appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(6 Tips for Writing Domestic Horror.)

Here I’ve collected one piece of advice from 12 horror authors who were featured in our author spotlight series in 2023. Be sure to click the author names if you’d like to read their full author spotlights from earlier this year. (And maybe don’t check out that noise in the basement.)

“Don’t listen to anyone’s advice about writing! (haha) I always felt I wasn’t a real writer because I didn’t sit down and write every day, or write at the same time every day, and that perception held me back. Write in your own way.” –Adriana Chartrand, author of An Ordinary Violence (House of Anansi)

“Don’t try to be perfect and don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Get that first draft down on paper. Type THE END. That’s the toughest task you will face. Then get to work revising and do your best to tell a good story with characters that readers will care about.” –Richard Chizmar, author of Becoming the Boogeyman (Gallery Books)

“Be patient and have faith in your process. Writing in the social media age leaves a lot of us feeling as if we’re not doing enough or not moving at the right speed. I think that can hurt writers in the long run. There’s no need to chase trends or emulate other successes. Do what you know you do best and be open to working on what needs the work. You’ll get there.” –Angel Luis Colón, author of Infested (MTV Books)

“NEVER GIVE UP. Even a seasoned writer like me can feel discouraged, but it’s important to realize that emotions are not Truth, they’re just emotions. It’s fine to be afraid or to feel overwhelmed, but keep writing. And for learning writers, I particularly suggest writing short stories as both a learning tool in beginning/middle/end and as a way of establishing IP (intellectual property) sooner than it takes to sell a novel.” –Tananarive Due, author of The Reformatory (Saga Press)

“Write what you know, but also don’t be afraid to leap into the great unknown! Taking that leap can feel daunting—even paralyzing. But it also offers unparalleled opportunities to learn, to challenge yourself and your readers, and to explore, exercise, and encourage the kind of empathy that is more crucial than ever in today’s world.” –Jennifer Cody Epstein, author of The Madwomen of Paris (Ballantine)

“At the risk of sounding like an inspirational poster in a guidance counselor’s office…you have to believe in yourself!” –Rachel Harrison, author of Black Sheep (Berkley)

“It’s OK not to know what you’re doing. That’s how we learn the most.” –Andrew Michael Hurley, author of Starve Acre (Penguin Random House)

“Read lots and read widely.” –Celia Krampien, author of The Bellwoods Game (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)

“Just write. Put words on a page. It doesn’t matter if they’re the right words or the wrong words, well-spoken words or barely-articulate words—just put them on the page. Writing is like playing a sport or learning a musical instrument—you only get better at it the more you do it. Besides, it’s much easier to go back and edit existing words than words that haven’t been written yet.” –Carissa Orlando, author of The September House (Berkley)

“Trust your gut! Defend what you like to the death. Read what brings you joy and tell those stories that bring you joy. I fought myself for a long time because I was trying to write ‘what I was supposed to write.’ I floundered between memoir, plays, poetry, etc., before I finally calmed down enough to write a fun, bloody adventure that I still get a kick out of, even after working on it for years.” –Sam Rebelein, author of Edenville (William Morrow)

“Don’t listen to writers who say writing is hard. Writing isn’t hard—it’s fun. If you start out thinking writing is hard, it will be hard for you. If you think about the fun you’re having creating characters, creating a world, your writing will go much more easily for you.” –R.L. Stine, author of There’s Something Strange About My Brain (Di Angelo Publications)

“Sometimes the only way out is through, and that applies to sticky, tormented novel rewrites just as it applies to so much else in life. It’s a truly daunting process to start tearing up something you’ve written, and looting it for parts, but you have to trust the process. Keep at it—even if it’s only a little at a time, so you don’t get overwhelmed—and sooner or later, the pieces will come together.” –Ally Wilkes, author of Where the Dead Wait (Atria/Emily Bestler Books)

____________________________

While there’s no shortage of writing advice, it’s often scattered around—a piece of advice here, words of wisdom there. And in the moments when you most need writing advice, what you find might not resonate with you or speak to the issue you’re dealing with. In A Year of Writing Advice, the editors of Writer’s Digest have gathered thoughts, musings, and yes, advice from 365 authors in dozens of genres to help you on your writing journey.

Click to continue.

The post One Piece of Advice From 12 Horror Authors in 2023 appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this post, Ally discusses writing her new historical horror novel, Where the Dead Wait, her advice for other writers, and more!

Name: Ally Wilkes
Literary agent: Oli Munson, AM Heath
Book title: Where the Dead Wait
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Release date: December 5, 2023
Genre/category: Historical horror
Previous titles: All the White Spaces
Elevator pitch: A Victorian Arctic explorer returns from a disastrous expedition in disgrace. Thirteen years later, he must return to this haunted landscape to rescue his former second-in-command, and dig up the secrets of his own cannibal past.

Bookshop | Amazon
[WD uses affiliate links.]

What prompted you to write this book?

I’ve always been fascinated by the history of Polar exploration: there’s just something about the thrilling tales of survival—and hubris—in the days when you could literally travel “off the edge of the map.”

My debut novel, All the White Spaces, dealt with a 1920s expedition to Antarctica, and whilst I was writing it, I was itching to take on the other side of the globe, with its lost expeditions and polar bears and ghastly history of survival cannibalism. I started dreaming about a sort of companion novel, where I could tell a very different type of story, but include all the elements I love to read about and couldn’t quite fit into All the White Spaces!

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

There’s a truism amongst writers that the second novel is “difficult,” and I hadn’t realized quite how difficult it was going to be! When I first met my agent in February 2020, I walked in with a printed version of what I thought would be my second novel. While the characters and setting were the same (the 1800s Arctic), the concept was wildly different. It dealt with an Area X-style zone of weird geographies and looping landscapes—and time—surrounding the North Pole, and more than once I had to construct elaborate 3D maps out of paper and sticky tape to try to understand the story I was telling. In retrospect, this was a sign that it wasn’t working at all.

I stripped the idea back to character and setting, and spent the next year rewriting the entire novel with a more eerie, gruesome, supernatural bent that would chime thematically with this tale of cannibal pasts and scattered bones. Thankfully my agent and editor (this was the second book of a two-book deal) couldn’t have been more patient and supportive throughout the process—and, of course, I had All the White Spaces to work on as it went through its own publication journey.

So, while I started writing my “difficult second novel” in the summer of 2019, Where the Dead Wait didn’t get sent off to my publisher in its current incarnation until July 2022!

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

At a fairly late stage in the process, when ARCs and covers were being put together, we realized that the book’s original title just didn’t quite work. It was too oblique, and didn’t really capture the reader’s interest. So, I spent an interesting few days brainstorming for a new title. I’m really pleased with Where the Dead Wait, as it conveys the story and has an excellent double meaning, but somewhere I have a notebook covered with pages and pages of titles that I hope find a good home someday …

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Apart from rewriting it from the ground up? (laughs)

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope that they feel the chills of the Arctic and the sense of creeping dread—of course, it’s a horror novel!

On a wider scale, it was important to me to talk about some of the ways in which colonialism impacted both the Arctic and its indigenous population. I was pleased to work with a sensitivity reader who specializes in historical Inuit-European encounters, and on a slightly different note, I was also fascinated to read about the history of Black whaling captains in the North American whaling trade. So, while recognizing my own privilege and position as a white British author, I hope I’ve done my best to shine a small light on these areas, too.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Sometimes the only way out is through, and that applies to sticky, tormented novel rewrites just as it applies to so much else in life. It’s a truly daunting process to start tearing up something you’ve written, and looting it for parts, but you have to trust the process. Keep at it—even if it’s only a little at a time, so you don’t get overwhelmed—and sooner or later, the pieces will come together.

The post Ally Wilkes: On the Difficulty of the Second Novel appeared first on Writer's Digest.

1. Do Your Research

Perhaps the biggest benefit—and the greatest risk—of writing about paranormal creatures is their popularity. Most readers will come to a story about vampires with some conception of what a “vampire” is, so writers can assume a certain level of familiarity and pique reader interest from the very beginning. On the other hand, that also means readers will have specific ideas about what a supernatural character should and should not be.

(21 Popular Horror Tropes for Writers.)

One of the best ways to prepare yourself is to understand the myths that underlie the paranormal elements of your story. You can find legends featuring paranormal events and creatures in cultures across the globe, from the oni of Japan to the jiangshi of China, from the Celtic selkie to the North American loup-garou. Creatures may share certain characteristics from country to country—shape-shifting, inducing humans to engage in bad behavior, blood-sucking—but their origins, strengths, and weaknesses can vary dramatically from culture to culture. I’m a firm believer that the more you know about how humans conceptualize the magical other, the better and more interesting your characters and story will be.

2. Know Your Strengths … And Your Limitations

It’s fun to create super strong paranormals—unbeatable fighters with great speed, great strength, and a dash of immortality. But be careful not to make your protagonist too powerful, or you’ll eliminate an important source of tension and conflict. If your heroine can easily beat every foe that comes her way, where’s the drama? What challenge must she overcome to give readers a satisfying rise and fall?

Perhaps your heroine’s remarkable strength is also her greatest weakness—like King Midas, she ruins everything she touches. Or she can only access her strength on Wednesday mornings. Or, like vampires, at night. Take time to think about the Kryptonite for your particular Kal-El, and how you can use it to create a plot with emotional resonance.

Check out Chloe Neill’s Cold Curses here:

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

3. Make Your Own Spin

While it’s important to understand the human foundations of supernatural stories, it’s equally important to think about what makes your supernaturals unique. The paranormal market—whether traditionally published, indie published, or self-published—is crowded. Paranormal and supernatural stories are often successful because an author creatively added their own twists to the foundation stones of folklore, history, and mythology.

You may have noticed that announcements about new book deals often describe the work as “X book meets Y book.” For example, a book might be described as “Twilight meets Pet Sematary,” or “Game of Thrones meets Captain Underpants.” In addition to giving readers (and book buyers, and librarians) an idea of genre and intended audience, these comparisons call out the author’s particular twist. In my Twilight example, our imaginary author started with concept X (high school vampire romance) and added concept Y (perhaps demonic reincarnated cats?).

There are many ways to approach this. You could consider changes to, for example, the typical setting (maybe your vampires live in space), or timeline (maybe your story is set in the 1970s or the 2070s), or your characters’ hobbies and interests (your elves make decisions over rounds of backgammon or, like my Chicagoland Vampires, are obsessed with food). Some writers use alternate history to craft unique stories in familiar places and periods, or use role-swapping to transform a familiar antagonist into a heroine. Maybe you have two (or six, or 20) ideas for interesting books or settings or plots. Can you combine them into a “thicker” story with additional elements?

4. Find the Humanity

Some of fiction’s most compelling paranormal characters share a common trait: While being supernatural, they’re also very human. They have human interests, obsessions, challenges, or weaknesses—whether physical or emotional—that help readers relate to them as characters. 

For example, your vampire may be able to fly, but is profoundly afraid of heights. Your werewolf may be physically invincible, but can’t get the permit he needs to howl in his own backyard. Your witch can kindle any spell, but can’t earn enough money selling potions to pay her mortgage. These small details can bring readers fully into the story.

5. Be Consistent

Whatever rules you choose, it’s worth the extra effort to ensure your creatures, setting, and magical system are consistent within and (if you’re writing a series) between books. Readers may be willing to accept the notion that vampires and dragons both exist, but if your dragon-riding vampire takes an action that’s inconsistent with her prior decisions, you risk throwing the reader out of the story. 

Similarly, an over-the-top emotional response to an inciting event can be very fun to write, but if the reaction doesn’t match the character’s personality, readers won’t buy it. That’s not to say characters—or their powers or attitudes—can’t change for plot-related reasons—whether curse, fairy godmother visit, or breakup—but those kind of changes should be built into the plot. You want readers to really feel for the character’s struggle and journey, and that’s easiest if the character’s behavior makes sense in context.

You also want to think about series consistency. Characters (and their skills, magic, unusual features) need to be consistent from book to book. If you’ve created a wholly new world, consider drafting a “world book” to help you keep track. Basically, it’s a record of all the important details about your world, from weather to geography, and from politics to paranormals. If you’re working in an existing world, you can use character sheets to note important details about individual characters. But don’t forget—the value of these tools depends entirely on how often you update them, so be sure to make changes as your characters and landscape evolve! 

The post 5 Key Tricks to Writing Paranormal Fiction appeared first on Writer's Digest.

She graduated from Belmont University with a degree in publishing and public relations, and now travels the country, speaking at conferences and writing full-time. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

In this post, Caroline talks about the need for balance in your writing life, her interesting family history, and more.

Name: Caroline George
Book title: Curses and Other Buried Things
Publisher: Thomas Nelson, HarperCollins
Release date: October 10, 2023
Genre/category: Young Adult, Southern Gothic
Previous titles: Dearest Josephine, The Summer We Forgot
Elevator pitch for the book: Seven generations of women in the Prather family have been lost to the Georgia swamp due to a generational curse, and Susana will be next unless she can figure out how to break it before the swamp becomes her grave too. As past and present collide, family secrets come to light, and new love emerges—can Susana do the impossible?

Bookshop | Amazon

(WD uses affiliate links)

What prompted you to write this book?

My dad is passionate about genealogy. Growing up, I visited graveyards with him, did rubbings of headstones, and listened to him talk about his experiences in the Deep South. He told me stories about my great-great-great-great grandmother Susana Godwin. She was Creek and ran a commissary for trappers in the Okefenokee Swamp of South Georgia. Locals referred to her as a witch. (Folktales about Susana are documented in Robert Latimer Hurst’s text This Magic Wilderness.)

A couple years ago, while visiting the swamp, I thought about generational trauma and family secrets. I contacted my editor and asked if she’d be interested in a book wholly inspired by my family’s history and folklore. Thus began the long process of digging up my own curses and other buried things.

I won’t give any spoilers. Just know . . . most of this book is either true or based off truth, which makes it incredibly personal and (I think) more compelling.

My hope is that readers see themselves in Curses and Other Buried Things and walk away from the book feeling understood and free.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Even though the book was under contract prior to me writing it, the drafting and editing process took a year and a half. I asked my publisher for an extension more than once. Not only did the book require a lot of research, but it was emotionally taxing and forced me to process my own generational trauma. Overall, the book took exactly two years to go from an idea to a published work.

The concept stayed true to its original design, but my editor and I tweaked a few timelines and details to make the story easier to read.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

With this book, I learned to give myself grace and prioritize storytelling over efficiency. Professional writing involves plenty of deadlines. I’ve always felt the need to perform above and beyond to prove I can handle the rigorous author life.

Curses and Other Buried Things challenged me to acknowledge when a story needs more time to properly come together. I am a healthier writer because of the book.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I did not expect Curses and Other Buried Things to change me as much as it did. Writing the book led me to ask my family questions, which sparked revelations. In many ways, I followed in Susana Prather’s footsteps to both tell her story and make peace with my own. I finished writing the book as a freer person with a deep appreciation for my heritage and empathy for those who came before me.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

Peace, healing, and broken curses! I hope this book encourages readers to reckon with their history and trauma and speak truth into lies they might believe.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Don’t let it be your everything. I know the temptation is there, to pour all your time and energy into a project, to allow it to fill your mind. The industry might tell you it’s good to hustle, and if you don’t, you probably aren’t cut out for publishing. I disagree.

I think balance is key to a healthy relationship with books, writing, and life in general. Live your own story, then write out of overflow.

The post Caroline George: Don’t Let Writing Be Your Everything appeared first on Writer's Digest.