‘Salem’s Lot: Illustrated Edition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do You Like Mystery Involved with Your Horror?

Traci Kenworth

In the horror stories you read, do you like a bit of mystery involved with who/what the monster/evil etc. is? Or do you like to know up front what’s involved (vampires, werewolves, clowns) so you can dig into who the characters are and what is going to happen to them instead? In other words, do you like what the gooey blob is to remain hidden until the climax, or would you prefer to know it’s something that escaped from a science experiment and how that experiment came about? I actually like both types, but I’m working on the mystery part with something I’m kicking around in the developmental stages right now.

There’s a story to be had in either case, whether you pick the traditional vampires (Salem’s Lot by Stephen King) or the mystery (The Heart-shaped Box by Joe Hill). Both are haunting but I read in a recent interview with Joe Hill (Yes, I know he’s Stephen King’s son) that the best “monster” in horror would be Jaws because the shark isn’t onscreen (or on the page) much. Twelve minutes total in the first movie’s version but each time it IS there, it’s terrifying. He also went on to say that we’re more afraid of something we’re not familiar with (exposed to constantly), and I think that’s true as well.

Look at the vampire. It’s become a bit less intimidating with all the recent press it’s gotten (Twilight). Werewolves, are in the same boat. Zombies are the current craze and I wonder if they’ll falter as well. Perhaps that’s why they pull in human “evil” as well on Walking Dead, so it’s not the creatures we shudder at all the time. So, I’m trying to leave my own monsters off the page as much as possible in my own stories. I want the reader to be conscious of them sure, but not pummeled by them. That way, when I do cut them loose on the pages, they can spill blood all over them. So what do you think? Would you like to see more of, or less of, the monster/evil/monstrosity you’re reading about?

Heart-Shaped Box (Photo credit: sweet mustache)

Magazine cover (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just a quick note about
more changes to my blog. Since I made the last ones in January as I mentioned
then, I was going to do some thinking on the state of things here. I love
blogging, I do but I’ve come to realize it subtracts from the time I have for
my stories and that’s not good. So, I’m going to cut back to blogging once a
week on Tuesdays and try to do topics that may interest readers as well as
writers. Most of the focus will still be on horror, so I hope that you’ll stop
in. It has been such a wonderful experience getting to know you all. I just
feel if I want to become a published writer, I need to concentrate on getting
my work out there.

The Clueless Hero or Heroine

Traci Kenworth

How many of you dislike the hapless hero or heroine
in horror stories? I know the clichés have been turned inside out many times
with different films but personally, I like my characters to have a bit more
smarts. Isn’t that what it takes to defeat evil, after all? Oh, yes, courage is
a definite plus when it comes to things that go bump in the night, but the
survivor/s usually have to figure out a way to get out of whatever they’ve
dropped into, unless it’s, of course, a changed world where they have to
recognize a path to take that will either save or end them. Every corner has
its openings, we just have to look for them and sometimes risk all.

Granted, not everyone is a fighter. There are just
those who will not defend themselves. Often, another character will fight for
them and try to keep them alive. I like to think, eventually that person will
see that they’re worth defending and begin the change necessary to make it in
the new world/situation at hand. Maybe, over the course of the tale, they’ll
even become heroic themselves. Most horror has characters that often don’t
really change at all. I find this boring and sad. Each of us would react to
things in a different way. Some who may have been lost in life, might find a
purpose. Others, will rocket toward destruction. These different types are what
make life up and exploring them is what I like to focus on in my own work: the
overcomer. Rather than fleeing from terror, they reach a point where they make
a stand. Because they have to, if only to go on.

So, for you readers out there, what do you
like/dislike about the characters in horror stories/films/etc.? What type of
personalities would you like to see more of?

And writers: do you strive to make your characters
stand out? “Breathe” on the pages? Or do you settle for the usual horror
formula?

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• #AtoZChallenge – Day 8 – Heroes and Heroines (spookymrsgreen.wordpress.com)

Mixing What You Know with Something You Don’t

Traci Kenworth

In writing horror, we sometimes mix something we know with something we don’t. For instance, we pick a town, any town (or city), and set some monstrosity upon it. This has happened since writers first took up ink pens. Stephen King knows Maine. I’m assuming, he doesn’t know any vampires (Salem’s Lot), girls with supernatural powers (Carrie and Firestarter), or evil clowns (although, okay, It’s representative could walk into our lives via a circus or carnival), but here’s the heart-and-soul of the matter: he makes us believe that he does. How? By convincing the reader of the authenticity of the character/horror in question.

This is what we want to do with our own stories. We want to make our creatures/the evil our characters are facing: plausible according to the rules of the story world we write in. The cast around them has to be both drawn to/and repelled by the monster. So we make them something we could see ourselves encountering: death of a beloved pet, our favorite writer, or an isolated hotel in winter. The normal meets the unnatural and things are never the same again. In horror, these possibilities overlap forever. Sometimes, it’s wanting to see a dead body to get a look at the thing that took your older brother away or discovering someone you thought you knew, you didn’t at all.

So take something real that you know (relationships, grief, high school) and send it on a tailspin with zombies, skin-walkers, etc. All it takes is a new twist on the old, telling your story your way. Happy writing.

Mixing 3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Traditional Versus the New

Traci Kenworth

Which do you prefer: traditional monsters or something brand new? I like both. Traditional are often easier to work with because the rules of their world have already been established. However, what we’ve never seen before is eye-popping. When it comes to traditional, adding your own spin helps: every zombie movie or book is different from one another in some small way, likewise for every monster/creature under the sun. Oh, and let’s not forget those that only come out a dark. Creating something new often takes many brainstorming sessions. I imagine it like a scientist in his/her lab determined to push the boundaries on the species. The results could be deadly.

So, what gets your heart pumping? The flash of fangs from the shadows? A gnarled hand snaking out to grab you as you open the front door to see why all the neighbors have gathered on your lawn and insist on joining you for dinner or perhaps you are the food? That old, haunted house? The green slime slithering across your basement? Reports that a disease developed for warfare has escaped its confines? Let’s open the comments to all.

Monsters! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Photograph of Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, Virginia. George Washington’s Home. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been tagged by YA Author, Vanessa Barger for The Leibster Award. It’s where I tell you 11 Fun Facts about myself, answer 11 questions, and come up with another 11 questions for the bloggers I choose. So let’s get started:

11 Fun Facts:

1. I used to LOVE coffee but it was bad for me, the doctor said, so I switched to the milder caffeine tea. Actually, tea was my first hot drink crush so it was kind of like coming home after being away for so long.

2. I LOVE animals. Tame or wild, though I don’t go out of my way to visit the wild, “up close and personal.” Lol.

3. Revising is the “It” thing for me. I just find it brings such promise, pulling together everything and making sure the vision works.

4. Worldbuilding often goes hand-in-hand with my stories. I think it’s a throw-back to all the fantasy books/stories I devoured when a youth.

5. Mystery is another favorite of mine. Although, I haven’t read much mystery lately. I’m fascinated by the puzzle of them, the truth behind all. Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew and The Three Investigators were a few I followed.

6. I’m gearing up to move into a bigger house as soon as I locate one that suits my family and I’ve been keeping busy packing, packing, packing. You never realize how much you accumulate over the years!

7. I am both repelled and fascinated by The Walking Dead series. At first, I couldn’t watch and then recently, I was drawn back in.

8. Cats are another thing that fascinates me. Their personalities, their actions, their way of life. I’m a cat at heart, I suppose. Lol.

9. During Christmas present opening, I’m more excited about what I’ve gotten others and watching them open it, hoping they like it, than I am about what I get myself.

10. I’ll be gearing up within the next 2-3 months to sub.

11. My writing process has gone from fevered pitch to slow as I concentrate on learning and practicing the lessons.

The 11 Questions Vanessa asked:

1. What is your favorite vacation you’ve ever taken? Washington D.C. with my son for his class trip a few years ago. I loved exploring George Washington’s home and learning about the ghost that lives there. There were other fascinating places we visited, but this one stood out the most to me. It’s simplicity and yet “homey” feel to it. Oh, and the goosebumps, wondering if the ghost would put in an appearance. It didn’t. But with that atmosphere, it’s not hard to imagine it being there.

2. What is your biggest pet peeve? Being late for something. I’m usually early to whatever I go to. I just think it’s better that way.

3. What is the scariest movie you’ve ever seen? I tried watching The Wrong Turn once. I had to turn it off after the first few scenes. It just made me sick. I like movies that don’t necessarily show the gore or don’t “dwell” on it anyway. I’ve seen my share of Jason, Freddy, and Michael Meyers believe me. What really “scared” me though was a television series I snuck down into the living room when I was little to watch: Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot.” I had nightmares about that cellar/basement scene for months. Lol. Mostly because the bed in my room was pushed up against the attic door at the time and I kept imagining vampires “breaking through.”

4. Name one food you cannot live without? Hmm. Tomatoes. Yep. LOVE them.

5. Pirates or ninjas? Pirates, I suppose. Though in reality, I wouldn’t have liked to experience the reality of them but ninjas–that’s just asking to be killed or seriously maimed.

6. What is your favorite childhood movie? Where the Red Fern Grows maybe. Oh! No! The Black Stallion. The friendship between Alec and the horse was truly memorable.

7. Do you have any pets? Yes. Three cats: Miss Socks, Midnight, and Miss Tinky. One dog: Bear.

8. What is the best piece of advice you’ve never taken? To do what makes me happy. It’s taken me forever to get that lesson home and now I am with writing. I encourage my children to pursue their dreams because let’s face it: “do something practical” makes you miserable.

9. Road trips. Good or bad? Depends on who you’re with and what you do to occupy your time. We used to take looong trips when I was a kid with three or four vehicles following one another. It was a blast to visit places we hadn’t planned on (my dad was spontaneous about stopping here or there). Nowadays, the trips have grown to 2-3 hours (still a long while) but the kids and I keep busy with songs, trivia questions, and I spy.

10. If you had to spend the night in the woods and could only bring one thing to entertain you, what would it be? Hmm. The woods at night is spooky to me, so that in itself would be entertaining enough. Some S’mores would be nice though and is always a conversation piece.

11. Do you have any writing rituals? Not really. I spend the “early” morning going through emails, blogs, etc. and then towards late morning get to the writing. Usually, I take a brief break between the “business” side of writing and the actuality of it. It kind of shrugs things off and helps me focus. Then I spend the first 5-10 minutes re-reading over the last scene and go on from there.

Okay. My bloggers to tag: Stina Lindenblatt, Julie Musil, Penny Randall, Kelbian Naidoo, Andie Russell, and Miranda Buchanan. Yes, I know that’s short of the 11 you’re supposed to, but most bloggers have already been tagged, I think. Good luck, ladies, here’s your 11 questions and play with it!

1. What’s your favorite thing about Spring?

2. Any big changes in your life coming up? A move, book coming out, etc?

3. Do you enjoy the indoors or the outdoors and why?

4. What creeps you out? Spiders or snakes?

5. Whose your favorite character on The Walking Dead?

6. Do you read in a wide variety of genres?

7. What has become the biggest “bore” for you when it comes to a book? Theme or character-wise?

8. If you had to do one thing different/over in your writing career, what would it be?

9. Best book you’ve read lately?

10. Dark Fairytales or light?

11. What unusual thing do you have hanging on your wall/s?

A Writing Kind of Day (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Are You Regulating Writing Time to the Background?

Traci Kenworth

It’s so easy to let time get away from us. Letting time slip away that’s reserved for writing here and there due to errands, appointments, life is hard to get back. I know I’ve been going through this for a while now and it’s like being stuck in a whirlwind. You promise yourself you’ll make that lost time up another day, another hour. The problem is, every day we face the risk of losing more. Soon, it becomes a pattern, dare I say, even a habit to skip? Surely when life stops being so complicated, we can get back to our Muse. If we don’t put up a stop sign—even for just ten minutes out of our day—writing becomes less important to us.

Now, I know there are days we can skip on occasion, but when it adds up to weeks or even months, we’re ultimately hurting ourselves. It’s tough enough to make it in the writing world without becoming our own worst enemy. Not spending time doing something you love (and I assume you love writing, why else would you do it?), makes it easier to let it slip to hobby status and then just fall by the way side. It’s hard to say, “No,” you can’t do something when you’re a writer. After all, the majority of people in your life assume it won’t be a bother to you to take care of something. Your writing doesn’t account for bosses, time cards, and set hours. So letting things slide shouldn’t matter.

Oh, if they only realized. Writing is a business. If you don’t do it, you don’t get a chance to be published, an opportunity to be paid by your bosses (the publishing house/s). So don’t feel guilty for scheduling time to write. More time writing also equals more growth in your work. Take the time. Stick to it. Schedule appointments around it as much as possible. Now, this is not to say, emergencies won’t come up and I’m not saying to ignore them when they do. Just don’t let your set time become less and less until there’s nothing there anymore. Because getting the Muse to work again, takes a long time. That’s time that could be spent moving on to the next level in your career. Lesson learned. Now, to get back to it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Building on What’s Come Before

Traci Kenworth

As a writer, I always want to build on what’s come before. I want to pull something new out of the hat when it comes to Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and Dracula. Otherwise, it’ll bore the reader. No two vampires are alike in the book world. Take for example: Stephanie Meyer’s sparkly/vegetarian Cullens versus Stephen King’s predatory lot. Love them or hate them, each author took the myth and made it unique to their stories. That’s what we need to do in our own. Create some aspect/twist to the monster that will thrill/awe/or send chills down reader’s backs.

To do so, we have to know the history of the creature we’ve decided on. There are so many tales about the three creatures above. Read wide and deep so you know what’s been done then compare that to where you want to take your audience. Do you want to focus on the vampire’s point-of-view or your human’s? We’ve seen vampire/human offspring (Blade) and we’ve witnessed Buffy’s (the Vampire Slayer) life. Each character brings something unique to the mix. It’s those differences that make them more compelling to the reader.

So whether we follow a whole town’s/country’s story or just one individual, the trick is to make the tale something new. Even if it’s just the mechanics of how the creature came about, what they eat, how they produce new ones, it’s up to us to dig deep into myth and scramble it about until we have the guts of our story. If we don’t know what’s come before, we risk producing something similar. Happy writing.

A classic fairy with a wand (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the Muse Strikes…

Traci Kenworth

Often, if you’re like me, the Muse strikes whenever it wants to. Sometimes, it’s convenient, sometimes not but if you’re a writer, you learn to deal. Do I lose some fragments of ideas when I’m driving or at the doctor’s office? Sure. It happens, but most of the time I can capture those clues with the help of the pens I keep in my purse and various post-its, scraps of notebook paper, even napkins. Hey, whatever works. This weekend I was recovering from surgery when I had some complications hit me. Needless to say, I spent a LOT of time resting and while I did so, who should show up? The Muse fairy. She tickled her wings and voila, the solution to some of my world’s problems rested in my palms.

Things that should have been obvious in my character’s universe suddenly clicked. Not only that, I discovered the title and plotline to how the 3^rd book (all of these written to be stand-alones) rocketed into place as well. Sometimes, it just takes a bit of quiet, a bit of reflection to uncover what will/or should be. I feel more on firm ground again and I’m ready to move forward. Happy writing, everyone.

Combat Gear (Photo credit: John Starfire)

Scary…to Me

Traci Kenworth

I considered many ways to write this blog but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what I wanted to say. We can define horror in many ways: evil, savage, beastly, to name a few. The fact of the matter is, the types are endless. When I write scary stories, it’s not to invite anyone over to the dark side, or gross someone out so that they lose their lunch. I’m interested in what scares you and me and finding a way to combat those fears. I can think of a lot in this world that terrifies me: the loss of freedom, safety, and loved ones. I’m horrified at some of the real life events that happen. In my stories, I want the reader to find hope, a reason to go on when everything is numb, and quite simply, when there are no words.

My heroes and heroines aren’t perfect. They have flaws just like you and me. They love, hate, and sometimes struggle to forgive. Life is difficult for us and fictional characters. I wish that weren’t true in our case but I’m glad it is in theirs because it forces our story people to come up higher. They find the strength, hope, and courage. With everything in them, they fight to save those they love. Sometimes they have to learn to let go too. Bitterness, anger, hatred, these can crush a person. It’s only when they overcome this darkness the light shines into the cave for them and all the bats rush outside. So, I suppose you could say, I like to bring my characters back from the brink of death, just to show them, it’s possible.

Over and over, we hear that those that do something horrible showed few signs of what they were capable of here on this Earth. In fiction, I sometimes smudge those gray areas as well. Villains love their wives, pets, even their dolls. They seem like us and yet, there is a pocket of pure evil within them that we can’t begin to understand. It forces us to confront them, ourselves, in an attempt to blot them from existence. We don’t want to see the cannibal living among us, the abuser, or the monster in the shadows. Somehow, we think if we don’t look, they aren’t there. Horror fiction to me, exposes that under seam of life, that certain nasty we want to ignore. It drives the protagonist to stab that vampire through the heart with a stake. Perhaps this same protagonist is attempting to atone for what he is himself: a bystander who takes no action against a savage act, until someone he cares about is harmed.

I don’t want to get all morally superior here and determine what is and isn’t good horror. There is certainly material out there that I find as objectionable as the next. But this is about what I write and why. Sometimes it’s because I’ve been the one in hiding, running for my life. Others, it’s because I want to show to that young girl or boy or even older reader, there is a future, a bright one, and you can triumph over evil. It’s not easy. But someday, someone will take your hand and lead you into the daylight. That’s why I write scary. So that, by doing so, I can shatter the demons around us.

Writer’s Stop (Photo credit: Stephh922)

Procrastinating…and the details

Traci Kenworth

Procrastination has been a serious wrench in my editing/rewriting as of late. Doubts sometimes creep in when we’re working on a project and this was no exception. Not misgivings about the story, but, well, me as a writer. Around me, I’ve watched others moving on with their books, getting published, receiving awards etc. while I’m still in the same place. Although, really, I’m not. In the same place. I’ve been learning, growing, coming to terms with things. I think it’s a path a lot of writers take in their journey, sort of losing that momentum, falling behind. The truth is, we need that to happen in order to re-focus on why we’re doing this, who we are, and to realize everything will fall into place when the time’s ready.

This is the time when some writers fall by the wayside, lose hope, and walk away. What’s more, I’m sure from what I’ve read on other author’s experiences, that it won’t be the last time something like this happens. You’ve got to decide whether you’re going to let circumstances make you or break you. I’ve decided to persevere. It hasn’t been my time yet, but one day, it will be. Since last fall, my writing has slid to a crawl in pace. Slowly, now, I’m picking up speed. It didn’t happen overnight. I’ve had to fight to get there but Spring is dawning. There is hope. Reading over my wip, I realize, I have something here. I have only to open myself up to the possibilities.

Ideas are brimming, popping up when least expected. Avenues that make sense, that excite the story. One day, I hope to be able to write as fast as I used to, but for now, I’m taking it one day at a time, knowing that I’m headed in the right direction. I may not get there as fast as I wanted to, but I’ll get there. How about you? Do you feel like giving up or have you walked away in the past, only to return anew? Hold on. You’ll reach where you’re going, it just takes time. I know that’s a pulling teeth answer, but it’s the truth. Juggling this life is tough in itself. That’s why we need each other’s support in this. Cheer your fellow authors on because in doing so, you’ll lift yourself up to the next level and soon, it’ll be your turn.