Do You Like Mystery in Your Horror?

‘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)

 

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Scary…to me

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.

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Beginnings…

English: Cain and Abel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Beginnings

 

Traci Kenworth

 

 

 

From a Biblical standpoint, horror entered existence with the story of Cain and Abel. Two brothers. No inherent conflict hinted at until—both made offerings to God. Abel’s was accepted and found good, Cain’s lacking. Why? Because Cain didn’t put his best effort into it. He held back. I imagine he did this with a lot of things in his life. Being secretive doesn’t just happen one day, it’s part of a person’s character. Can’t you just see Cain skulking around, upset that his parent’s paid more attention to his younger brother than him? Jealousy can run rampant and well, violence erupts. No one envisioned that one day Cain would slay his brother but the roots had to have been there since Day One of Abel’s birth. Perhaps Eve noticed this when the two siblings played some game, or Adam when he taught them each the job they would undertake (Abel—farming the land, Cain—taking care of the livestock).

 

You can be sure that tempting Eve in the garden with the fruit from The Tree of Life wasn’t the last time Lucifer entered the family’s lives. Can’t you just see him there, hiding, playing on Cain’s fears that Abel would take everything that he loved away? Pushing him, prodding him, planting the seed that would cause him to one day murder his brother? Evil lies in wait for good. It always has. That I think sums up why the genre is both appealing to its readers and repulsive to others. Those who are drawn to it want to confront this darkness in whatever form it comes in (clowns, terminators, corpses, etc.) and destroy it. We want to see The Mummy blown back into the tomb it came from, the silver bullet take down the fearsome werewolf, and the little girl freed from the devil’s possession. It’s a sense of closure for us, to know that the good guy/girl does win in the end which doesn’t always happen in real life.

 

Since the dawn of time, many people have sat around campfires telling stories. About ghosts. Monsters. Hitchhikers. We listen with bated breath because we’re all looking for a way to protect ourselves, to shine a light down into the pit to expose the evil that lies in wait. It’s about survival. Some of us are looking for a way to beat back the zombie apocalypse. Every country, every group of persons, every religion has its beliefs. To me, horror isn’t about fanning the flames and showcasing the grotesque. It’s about standing together when things go south, having a goal in common, and when everything’s said and done, killing the virus before it becomes airborne.

 

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Smoke and Bones

Second Campaigner Challenge

Traci Kenworth

 

I have decided to take Rache Harrie’s challenge and do a 200 word flash fiction piece with it based on the following prompt picture:

Smoke and Bones

The Iaeleter glanced at the bones, a gruesome twist to her lips. “Cremated,” she told my partner, Deid and I. Her gaze met mine. “Alive.”

I glanced around the cave, its mournful cry leftover from the wind pouring through its opening, caused goosebumps to rise along my flesh.

“You’re sure this happened during the Starburst?” Deid asked her.

She nodded.  “The remains tell the tale.”

We kept our backs low until we were free of what had become someone’s tomb.

“What do you think?” I flicked a piece of cobweb from my shoulder.

“I think we’ve got a Aspaileta on our hands.”

“An alien species?”

“It fits the profiles of our vics. They must like their meat really crispy.”

Deid grimaced. He thumbed back the way we’d come. “Think she’s in on it? She did locate the last five bodies.”

“She’s just attuned to their pain. I hear someone like her suffers along with the target.”

“Still makes you wonder,” he said.

“You’re just by nature suspicious.”

“Can’t argue with you there.”

I flipped open my notepad, “how you want to handle this? A visit to the President?”

“The press. They sometimes do our homework for us.”

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The Stage

Clarita from Morquefile.

The Stage

Traci Kenworth

 

My hand closed on the curtain leading to the stage. This was it. The big moment. Before I’d been a part of the audience, this time, the devue had come for me. At fourteen, I’d longed for the year I’d be chosen. My chance to escape from this nightmarish world. Death would be welcome, a gift from being a food for one of the hellish creatures, who roamed the American Republic. I shivered as a shove came from behind and literally tripped onto the theater floor.

A woman, most likely a pet of the Society that ran these auditions, dressed in an all-black costume that looked like something out of a long-ago, whispered fairytale. I’d been a first-grader when the third world war struck, two years later, the monsters had attacked.  Now the Society ran the 1/3 of the country not governed by the enemy factions. Slowly, they were working their way into the military areas as well.

I could hear the children in the cages below, begging, pleading to be me. I’d been in their shoes many a time. First when I watched my Momma and then my Daddy take that chair, draw their chance at a lottery to be free. No more feeding pigs to an army of darkness. I’d gazed at their broken, weary bodies and wished I were them. To have it all end. I couldn’t stand the sucking, the slurping, or the chewing. Most of all, looking into a face so—human—it was eerie.

Picking myself up from the platform, I staggered thanks to a twisted ankle, over to the chair in the center. Tears clung to my eyelashes. Would they turn me away? Repulsed by an offering not perfect? There came no warning bells, no whistles and I breathed a sigh of relief. I sat down, braced myself, and waited.

I heard the sound of ropes swaying above, imagining which of the creatures would descend on her. The dark lady in the costume introduced me. “Mereketh, everyone. She looks to be a fine morsel indeed.” She cued the buckets of blood to be dropped on me. Hisses and yowls came from around me in the faces of a human population gone wrong.

I waited for just the right moment, balling my fists, as they crept toward me. It would be so easy—to let go—but I continued to let them surround me. As they began to fight among one another to see who would be leader of the pack, I drew my hands forward and uncurled my fingers. The toxic fumes reached into their midst and slashed the flesh from their bones as they’d done to many of ours.

I heard the children cry out and then cheer, something they hadn’t done in forever. When I hobbled from the chair, not a monster was standing, they’d all succumbed to magic they’d long forgotten. A magic not always grown on the Akara Mountains, but sometimes, in the heart of people everywhere.

 

Check out the other yaff ladies’ stories:

Vanessa

Rebekah

 

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Still on Hiatus…

Still on hiatus…

Traci Kenworth

 

 

Well, the betas are off! For those of you who don’t know what betas are, they’re readers who take on the challenge of reading over your manuscript before its published to catch any glaring errors/plot holes etc. They’re invaluable to a writer and I’m grateful for each and every one of them. After they come back in, during which I’m taking a three week break, I will spit and polish it some more.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be catching up on my housework, writing short stories, and enjoying life in general. Oh, and getting those notes and lists of agents out and going over them again, to select possibilities. Each one has something unique to offer and I want to be sure to get one compatible with me. I’ve heard horror stories about bad relationships so I’m praying to avoid that. I’ve been doing my research for a while and just need to brush up on their rules/submission guidelines.

I’ve already picked out my next story and have the reverse outlines, notes, character sketches & photos, all set to go. Plus I’ll be editing a second book on the side. It’s going to be a merry-go-round but I think I can handle it. Besides, have to gear up for the day when I’ll have deadlines to adhere to. So it’s off to cleaning my desk off to get it ready for future endeavors, while retaining what I need of the story for when the betas come back.

So how about you? Where are you at in your work-in-progress? Are you querying? Starting a fresh project?

 

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The Three Faces of Death

Ardelfin at morquefile.com

The Three Faces of Death

Traci Kenworth

 

That summer came in early, wet and stormy. I danced in a few puddles, and then cringed at the thought of someone seeing me out here, acting so childish. Seventeen wasn’t an age to veer from your course, otherwise, you could end up backtracked to Antarctica when it came to the popular crowd. I’d just stepped into their midst, and wasn’t about to be banished again. All my life, I’d watched them, hated them, and envied them.

A horn beeped twice before the car pulled over, Jesse inside.

I smiled just the way any cheerleader had been taught. Models had nothing on us. We were the it deal and everybody knew it.

He patted the seat beside him. “Get in.”

“Sure,” I said as butterflies somersaulted inside my stomach. Jesse Andrews was the hot everything at Fairlawn High. I’d worked my way up through the chain of command to shine in a tiny yellow skirt beside him.

He took the curves fast, the open road even faster. Soon we’d left the city lights behind us headed for anywhere. Jesse ran his hand up my thigh and I giggled my encouragement. Everything was falling into place. This was the best time of my life. His fingers explored further. He swerved over into the other lane. We skirted another curve. The Neon appeared in the headlights moments before Jesse hit the brakes. He had time to curse and dig down into my skin and then the crunch of metal silenced all.

Everyone said I was lucky I escaped the crash without a scratch. At the funeral, I could see it all in my classmates’ gazes: the blame. It took me a good year to drown the sorrow and the pain. I mean, how do you get over something like that? I couldn’t bear to shut my eyes at night because the image of Jesse was always there. Except, now, he wore a black cape and visited others in my nightmares. At the end of every one, he’d swing around and wink at me. As if we shared some great secret.

Jenny Bartlett was the last of the popular crowd to stick by me. Mostly, I suppose, because she was the one who took pity on me in the first place and invited me into the circle. She was smart, funny, talented, an all-around loved girl. But her efforts to save those beneath her loosened her crown. Others whispered. Said it wasn’t right. They somehow convinced themselves that we were dragging her down into a pit she couldn’t crawl out of. The rumors began to prey on her. Her boyfriend convinced me to talk to her about getting help when the depression deepened.

Five months later, she committed suicide.

I was left alone for good. The hallways cleared when I walked down them, others spit on my tracks after I was gone. Cyber-stalking took on a new meaning when it came to me. I was nicknamed, “Death.” I transferred schools twice but the identity followed as did the dreams. Jenny had joined Jesse as a reaper. Both motioned to me to follow them but I didn’t know how. Until my Mom left.

What little was left of my world came crashing down. I tried drugs, drank harder liquor, shoved myself into danger again and again. One night I went so high, I was able to grasp their hands. They held on tight and wouldn’t let me fall again. Now, I walk through darkness, side by side with my friends. We are the haunts in your night terrors, the last faces you see before you die. We are everything perfect, and everything to be feared.

We are death. Three faces united, statues in the cemetery, sprung to life.

Rebekah Purdy

Kelbian Naidoo

Vanessa Barger

Miranda Buchanon

Jenn Fischetto

Kit Forbes

Joey Nichols

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Settings for Horror

Image via Wikipedia

Settings for Horror

Traci Kenworth

 

Settings for horror can happen anywhere. From basements to dining rooms, outdoors to in, present day to long ago. But you’re main concern here is what evokes terror for you? I’m talking: heart-pumping, sick to your stomach, ready to crawl through a narrow pipe to escape fear. It has to be something that terrifies you, so that you can convey that to your readers. Take a basement. A classic setting. The items in a basement tend to range from mildly curious to downright dangerous to have around. Old saws, bear traps, crow bars, and the likes. Any and all could be used for defense or torture.

Houses themselves have played a HUGE part in horror stories over the years. The Amityville Horror. Poltergeist. Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Anything from haunted mansions to devil traps, curses etc. You hold unlimited means as to what tools reside in the home. Again, for defense or torture. Imagine scenes of hungry zombies at your door as Carrie Ryan did in The Forest of Hands and Teeth. You can get trapped in houses, or the house itself becomes the trap.

The woods are a popular setting. Getting lost among them can become terror itself. Having someone or some thing chasing you through can be another driving force for fear. Or perhaps, the scare comes from within your character: someone who got lost in the woods as a little girl/boy and relives the nightmare as an adult. Weapons here are nature’s caveat: tree branches, trunks, rocks, dirt, etc. You could build an arsenal out of the things available and may need to do so to keep that creature from breathing down your neck.

You can also use different time periods. Present day happenings to glimpses of deaths of long-ago victims. A lot of writers apply this to their stories. Some tales even happen in an alternate world or apocalyptic setting. There’s a full range of possibilities here. They can add a dash of zest to your writing.

The point is: anywhere in life can barrage you with terrifying thoughts and ideas; you just need to pick from among them and decide which works best for you. I like the places and time periods listed above. I also like exploring new settings. Even those I haven’t been too. To write horror (or any story for that matter) it takes a certain suspension of belief. If you can dig down deep within you and imagine your worst fears (i.e. giant spiders, venomous snakes, an attacking dog, people gone insane, a distraught mother who mistakenly thinks you kidnapped her child), you can come up with a story worth telling.

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Eek, The Answer to Where I’d Go During Zombie Apocalypse

Image via Wikipedia

Eeek…The Answer to Where I’d Go During a Zombie Apocalypse(and Other Little Horrors)

Traci Kenworth

 

Okay, so me and the ladies we’re talking a bit about what we’d do if zombies suddenly occupied the streets. For me, living out in Amish country, I’d be a little late to the news. And I couldn’t rely on the absence of anything on the TV stations as the cable goes out here when the wind blows. I don’t listen to the radio except while in my car, so hopefully that would be the case. I don’t have access to an underground shelter or a refuge of weapons to maim and decapitate the undead ala Zombieland. The best I could do is run.

I always figured if Carrie Ryan’s world (The Forest of the Hands and Teeth) came to pass, I’d be safer out here in the country. But alas, I’m informed I’d be on their to-do meal list as they’d all be heading from the cities straight toward us. What’s a single mother to do? The first place I’d go, of course, is the school but then, their parking lots would probably be infested and I’d have to do some quick thinking (picture lots of screaming and running) to get my kids and me out of there. Oh, if only we lived nearby Sunnydale, California’s sewers—Uh, on second thought, that’d place me on another menu.

Having maneuvered my way past the stragglers, I’d have to find my family next. Which would mean, heading toward the more populated areas, right into zombie heartland. Eek. Can anyone say baseball bat? It’d be my trusty ally. Well, that and my car. Pray it doesn’t give out or become mass-attacked by all those bodies. No, it’s not looking good for me. And the last thing I need is to be one of those gooey, icky, scraggle-haired fiends out for brains, or flesh, or whatever the heck they eat nowadays.

I have enough of a hard time fitting in now, with my writerly ways. Lol.

Can you imagine with my zero fashion sense nowadays, how quickly I’d fall short of the pack?

No, definitely don’t want to end up a zombie.

Or one of the living dead.

I think I’ll stick with the lot the good Lord gave me and stay out of forests with any kind of hands and teeth—

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How to Choose Which Genre…

Choosing the Genre in Which to Write

Traci Kenworth

 

I’m going to divert from “How to Breathe Life into Your Characters” this week to discuss what genre you should think of putting your book in. There’s so many to choose from, and different shades of each. You have your Science Fiction-Fantasy that breaks up into “pure” strains of either Science Fiction or Fantasy. You have your Horror, Thrillers, Romance, and so on. So how do you decide?

Just as you had to figure out what character to begin with, this is your time to discover just “who” it is you’re writing to. The gentle reader, of course. But what age group? Yes, you have to break it down. There are no books from 5-100. So that means, you must choose between  pre-school, middle-grade, teen, and adult readers. All fun to write for, but only one selection can be pursued.

If you tried to write the 5-100, you wouldn’t be able to place the book. The agent wouldn’t know where to market it as well. So don’t be stubborn: let your characters speak. What voice do they use? Young or old? How youthful? I tried writing adult books(and who knows, someday maybe I will give it another shot), but my teenage characters keep reeling me in for their stories to be told. Not that I mind. They have some fascinating tales to tell.

For me, I remember not having much of a selection to read from in the YA market. Nowadays there are so many diverse slots for the books, it’s hard to know just where to go. That’s when you have to let the story point the direction. Is it paranormal? Chick-lit? Dystopian? Contemporary? On and on. I tend to write in the YA Supernatural Horror area. I have read a LOT of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, J.N. Williamson, Ray Bradbury etc. That’s where the horror background comes in. It’s funny, I can’t take the hard-core horror movies or TV shows, but I can read them, and write them. The supernatural is just is part of the way I look at things. Add to that my young adult characters and I know what genre I’m supposed to write in.

I tried comedy, contemporary, the funny and light, nothing fit my voice until I decided to stop fighting it and realize “dark, haunting tales,” are just a part of me. Growing up, the Apocalypse aspect of things always waited just out of reach. I think we’ve come back to those times, those fears. So I write about them, hoping to dispel some anxiety of the reader. What would be the worst that could happen? Could we stop it? What if we couldn’t? All this goes into the material.

Why young adults(ages 13-18), you ask? Because I believe it’s one of the best genres out there. And not only the market ability. I believe young minds are on the cusp of opening to a whole new world of possibilities, that they want stories that challenge them, give them hope, make them dare to take that leap. I don’t write these stories to make them fear life. I want them to embrace it, and live every moment to the fullest.

So decide which shelf it is that you want to pull your book down from. Each genre has it rewards. It’s up to you to decide what means the most to you. Perhaps try experimenting with the different ones, and let that settle your mind on where to write. If you love seeing the hero and heroine explore their relationship, and want to focus on them, choose romance. Love fantastical worlds ala The Hobbit? Fantasy’s your option. Spaceships and star destroyers? Science Fiction. Monsters and good defeating evil? Horror. Or blend them. Not all, of course, but a good Fantasy-Horror book is just waiting to be written.

And remember to break them off into age brackets. Your reader will thank you for choosing to express yourself in a genre you’ll most likely come to love. All that’s left then, is to settle down, open the pages, and begin the story.

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