If you’re a fan of horror and you’re looking for something scary to read this October, then you’re probably looking for something in the vein of the masters: Anne Rice, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft. If you’re a fan of horror and you’re looking for something scary to read this October and would like to check out something by a lesser known or independent author, then maybe I could persuade you to check out the first book I ever published, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones.
Over the year and three months since The Quiet Game has been published, people have checked out this creepy little tome, and judging by the reviews they’ve come away good and scared. Here are what readers have been saying:
This is the first time I’ve read any of Rami’s stories. I was very impressed with the wide variety of stories and the way he wove the paranormal into each piece. Paranormal is not something I usually read and I enjoyed this collection very much. The collection reminded me of the Twlight Zone. The descriptions were especially well developed. Keep on writing Rami!
–Arthur siegal
Imagine if you will a young Stephen King penning dark scenarios inspired by his youth, and what you get is this anthology. Through this collection of short stories, Rami Ungar brings us into the world of dark urges, childhood traumas, ghosts, phantoms, and dark psychological thrillers. An inspired creation, and definitely a good intro to this indie author’s world!
–Matthew Williams
5 wonderfully crafted tales! I purchased this as an eBook originally and put off reading it for quite a while, I really wish I hadn’t waited. Sometimes when one purchases a collection of short stories you expect some of them to be less entertaining or of lower quality than the others, but none of these disappoint. Well worth the money, especially considering after you read each story the author gives you creative insight into what inspired him to write each tale, which is really wonderful.
–Jeff D.
I’ve often mentioned that writing short stories is not my forte in the least, but at least with these stories people seem to really enjoy them. So if you’d like to see if these stories will spice up your October something frightening, check out The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, available in paperback and e-book from Amazon, Smashwords, and even Barnes & Noble.
And if you like what you read, or if you hate it, please let me know, either in a comment or in a review. Good or bad, I love feedback on my work. It encourages me to keep writing no matter what.
Hope you’re having a spooky month so far. I know I am, Followers of Fear.
I think you’ll notice that when I am able to post something new this month, it’s more likely than not because it’s related to Halloween. Why? Because Halloween is awesome! Anyway, I managed to somehow get through critiquing five short stories and a biology assignment, so before I attempt to finish a short story for class, I thought I’d take the time to write 2 or 3 blog posts. God knows I’ve been meaning to for days.
The first of these posts is dedicated to those who are still planning what to do for Halloween. And if you’re planning on giving out candy and have some time and funds on your hands, I would like to recommend you guys do this fun little attraction, which I call the Terror Home Theater. You can set this up outside your house, or if you’re able to, in your own garage. What you do is you create a four-sided structure big enough for a group of people to stand in. You have people line up outside and have them enter five or less at a time through the only door in the structure. Remember, the structure should not allow anyone from the outside to see inside, and they should only be aware of thedoor that everyone is entering and exiting through.
On the inside, you should have your computer and a projector that’s aimed at the far wall. Once people are inside, the computer will play a movie that the projector will show everyone. The movie should be no more than a minute or two, and should have plenty of scary imagery. Think the footage from the video in Ring if you’re looking for an example (see video below if you’re unfamiliar with the movie).
The idea of the Terror Home Theater is that while everyone is focused on the movie, someone wearing a really scary costume will sneak in, either from a hidden side entrance or from behind a curtain. When the group of people have finished the movie, they will most likely turn around, either a little unsettled or wondering why that movie was supposed to be scary. At that point they will notice the person in the scary costume standing behind them, who is hopefully doing their best to scare them. And hopefully they will scream.
This is the Terror Home Theater, and there are lots of ways you can go about creating it and/or customizing it. The way I outline it above is a basic version that I thought would be interesting to do, if only I had the supplies and the time to set it up, as well as a neighborhood that people trick or treat in to do it. If you can, you can set it up in your garage using nothing more than curtains and someone manning the entrance and/or the controls (how you get the movie to play is up to you).
If you get the chance and are able to create one, I hope you will do me the honor of filming it, posting the results on YouTube, and then sending it my way. I would love to see what you pull off.
I would’ve written this post earlier in the day, but…well, you probably can guess.
Anyway, today was my first critique day in my creative writing workshop. There were three others in the class getting their short stories critiqued, and mine was the third. And it was one of the best critiques I’ve ever had, because they pointed out numerous problems with “Evil Began in a Bar” and gave some really good suggestions on how to improve it. Yeah, the best way to judge a critique is not on how much they praise or hate a story, but on what the critics say that will help you better the story.
As I said, my classmates felt there was a lot that could be improved upon with “Evil Began in a Bar”, which is a retelling of the story of the Fall a la Milton (or a la Ungar, I guess) Some of the big ones were:
The tone seemed to shift wildly between dark and comical, serious and light.
They couldn’t tell whether this was a dystopia story or a religious fantasy.
People unfamiliar with the story of the Fall might be confused by this.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but short stories are not my greatest strength. I’m much better at novels.
Still, there’s a bright side to this. After hearing from my classmates and talking to my teacher after class (in which she agreed with me on my predilection for novels: “You seem to be very expansive in your writing”), I got a better idea of what I can do to modify this story. And like a lot of short stories I seem to be working with lately, this one is going to be rewritten entirely during the second phase. I’m fine with it, really. At this point I’m becoming very used to it, and I like where I could go with this short story on the second draft. I just hope I can keep it under five-thousand words, or it’ll be more difficult to get it published in a magazine.
But before I do any revisions, I’m going to work on the next short story I’m going to write for my creative writing class. That one’s due on the Wednesday before Halloween, so you know I’m going to be bringing the terror. And as the hint I gave a while back indicates, this time it’s going to be a werewolf story. Though if I’m able to pull it off, it’ll be a very unusual werewolf story.
Here’s what’s coming next from creepy ol’ me.
And after the werewolf story…well, I may resubmit “Evil Began in a Bar” for the third time around, when I submit a revision. I guess it’ll depend on how my classmates react to the werewolf story, and how much work I have going on then, among other things. In any case, wish me luck with this and all the other projects I’ve got going on at the moment. It’s because of your support that I’m able to keep working even when stressed out.
Oh, and before I forget, this evening starts Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. According to the Jewish calendar, the Earth is now 5775 years old. So for everyone out there, I hope you have a happy and healthy new year, and I hope you’re inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year. Also, if I did anything to upset or offend you this past year, I hope you’ll forgive me, because I’ve already forgiven you.
Before I started work on the next chapter of my thesis (or de-stressed with a shower, I can’t decide which at this point), I thought I’d take a moment to announce something that’s been in the works for a while. I’ve finally uploaded my most recent novel, Snake, onto Smashwords, where it is available as an e-book in a number of formats for only $2.99.
If you haven’t heard me mention Snake before, it’s a novel about a man who becomes a serial killer in order to save his girlfriend when she is kidnapped by the mafia. A dark, terrifying thriller with a running theme of romance, you’ll be terrified as well as entranced by this horrific lover, who is willing to become a monster himself if it means saving the love of his life from other monsters.
I had actually hesitated to put Snake on Smashwords for two reasons: 1. I wanted to try KDP Select through Amazon using Snake, and they don’t like authors distributing through other websites while their books are listed on KDP Select. 2. I don’t get that many sales through Smashwords. But I didn’t see much difference between sales on KDP Select and normal KDP, so I decided to give it a try. Who knows? Perhaps people on Smashwords will really cotton to Snake.
If you’d like to learn more about Snake, you can check out its page or go straight to Amazon (which also has the paperback version) or Smashwords to read about it. And if you decide to get Snake (which has been compared to Stephen King by one reviewer), please let me know what you think once you’ve read it, whether in a comment or in a review. I love feedback, positive or negative (though most of it seems to be positive, so I’ll let you make judgments about that).
I’ll write again if there’s time tonight. Have a good one, my Followers of Fear.
I was having a comment conversation the other day with another blogger Caitlin Kelly, a freelance journalist from New York who at the moment is teaching at the Pratt Institute. Her post, which you can read here (and I highly recommend you do), was about how the effect of all the horrors going on in the world and being reported to us by the media. I mentioned in my comments that after digesting all the real horrors, it’s not uncommon for me to immerse myself in fictional horrors. Caitlin replied that one of her students, who “has seen his fair share of horrors”, also prefers the genre of horror. I said that for some people, horror acts as a kind of therapy.
Now, some of you who are reading this will probably be thinking “Horror? As a kind of therapy? We’re still talking about the genre where serial killers can be heroes, what trait your character embodies can determine whether you’re killed or traumatized, and fans debate on how good a movie is based on use of suspense, special effects, and gore, right?” Yes, we are still talking about that genre, but just bear with me.
Look at a news feed, particularly one devoted to global events or major issues facing Americans today. This is probably what you’ll see:
ISIS murdering Shiites, Yazidis, journalists, and anyone else that they don’t like.
Ukraine fighting both its own people and Russian insurgents.
Hamas attacking Israel and Israel firing back (and it’s only a matter of time before that starts up again, mark my words).
Several cases where police have shot and killed unarmed black men, with the most recent and famous case in Ferguson, Missouri.
Congress’s constant squabbling and bickering
An immigration crisis that continues unabated
Ebola spreading throughout West Africa and father beyond
Kristen Gillibrand, a well-respected senator and possible 2016 presidential candidate, being sexually harassed by older, male senators
The suicide of Robin Williams and the hurtful responses from people and groups such as Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Gene Simmons (my article on that is here)
CeeLo Green making horrific remarks on the subject of rape on his Twitter account
Justin Beiber is in trouble with the law again.
Depressing to read, isn’t it? What’s worse is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. All over the world, people are facing discrimination, violence, poverty, illness, corruption, greed, incompetence, and just about every other horror under the sun. And these problems are huge, multifaceted, and difficult to resolve. In fact, there are many people who may have multiple opinions on how to resolve just one of these issues. And assuming that the people in positions of power are able to come to an agreement and implement some sort of solution, there’s no guarantee that the issue in question will be fully resolved or not or will leave lingering micro-issues that will eventually grow and become major issues in their own rights.
“It’s true, I got defeated by some snot-nosed brats. I don’t like talking about it, though.”
There’s that. And then there’s the stories told within a horror novel or the latest scary movie. Let’s take Stephen King’s IT, for instance. The antagonist is a shape-shifting demon that can take on the form of your greatest fear and prefers the form of a clown. Well, that looks tricky to defeat, but it isn’t as hard to pin down or as multifaceted as an insurgency group or a virus or children brought to this country illegally fleeing violence and poverty. And guess who defeats It? Seven kids. They face their fears, band together, and defeat the monster in its own lair as kids, and then most of them come back as adults to finish the job. And after they’ve fought It for the second time, It’s dead. It isn’t coming back in any form ever again. Sure, at the end of the book the characters start to lose their memories of their war with It, but the story ends on a happy note.
In this way, horror stories–fictional horror stories–can act as therapeutic. We see very real versions of hell unfolding at home and abroad, and then we dive into a story where the characters are fighting their own hell. And we know deep down it’s fiction, but we don’t care. We sympathize and empathize with the characters. Occasionally we even recognize ourselves and our own brutal, tortured pasts in one or two particular character. And we see them defeating demons, exorcising ghosts, kicking serial killer butt, solving murders, and sometimes even bringing back the dead! Sure, plenty of people die in these stories and a good number of them end up traumatized by their experiences. But they usually defeat the enemy, they come out of the conflict stronger, and they sometimes even find romance.
What a horror novel can do for us.
And that fills us with hope. We think to ourselves, “Sure it’s fictional, but I see myself in these characters and the problems they face. So if they can take on ultimate evil and defeat it, what can I do?” In essence, horror takes the feelings of depression and jaded cynicism out of us and fill us with possibility and optimism. Weird, I know. These are stories that aim to scare us and fill our dreams with terror. But horror can do that and lift up your spirits too.
Horror is certainly one of the things that can lift up my spirits when I’m feeling down.
Has horror ever made you feel better after you’ve been feeling down? What happened? Why do you think you felt better afterwards?
AAAAAH! That was the reaction of several people in the audience at various points during the movie. Ever since I heard of As Above, So Below, I’ve been dying to see it, and that desire only increased after visiting the Paris catacombs themselves. So when my friend Ramsey, who went on the study abroad trip with me back in May, suggested we go see a movie this weekend, I had just the movie in mind.
Written and directed by Drew and John Erick Dowdle and starring Perdita Weeks and Ben Feldman, As Above, So Below follows urban archaeologist who finds a clue to an old mystery during a covert trip to Iran. Heading then to Paris with a documentary student and teaming up with an old flame of hers, she ends up realizing that what she is looking for may be more than just a legend, and goes into the Paris catacombs themselves to find t. But in the process, she finds so, so much more and in her search for the truth, she may just find her death.
Apparently taking a lot of work to film and bring together, the Dowdle brothers can be assured their hard work was worth it. The film’s slow build up of suspense, couple with the claustrophobic feelings of being in dark, underground tunnels (and watching it in a dark movie theater), lends to a creepy atmosphere that only gets heightened in the last act of the film, where monstrous visions and creatures appear one after another, eliciting those screams from the audience that I mentioned. The brother also know how to insert a twist into their script, by taking the last couple minutes of the movie in a direction that other directors might not have gone down, and completely subverting the rules of found footage films (for more on those rules, check out my article on them). And Weeks and Feldman as the film’s leads manage to portray a romance that doesn’t seem contrived or sappy at all.
My one criticism of the film is that at times, things move a little too slowly so that the terror and suspense dies down a little. Luckily at the drop of a hat it can be ramped up again, but I think terror throughout would’ve done more for the film. Still, it was a good horror film, and later over drinks Ramsey, two friends of his that he’d brought along, and I enjoyed a good hour or so of dissecting the film and looking at all the aspects of it, whether symbolical, plot-wise, or what terrified us in our seats.
Grading this film was hard, and I’m still not sure I was able to give it a good grade. Nevertheless, a grade must be given, so I’m going to go with a 4.4 out of 5. Great film, plenty of scares, and no bad sequel. If you like scares, you shouldn’t be disappointed with As Above, So Below. I know I wasn’t.
I did say back when I surpassed 25,000 views that another milestone was on the horizon. And this one has come to pass: as of last night, I have passed 666 blog followers! You know what that means!
He’s coming for us all!
Actually, it doesn’t mean that. This is just a milestone I set up for myself. I don’t really think it has any relevance whatsoever to the demonic, especially since technically at this point I have 668 followers. And I don’t even believe in Satan as the Lord of Evil, so I don’t think I’ll be getting a visit from him any time soon.
Still, I’m happy that I’ve reached this milestone. It makes me feel like a seriously bad-ass horror novelist. And it just shows that I’m doing something right. Lately I’ve been getting a lot more views and followers on my blog, and there’s even been more people interested in checking out and buying my books, which makes me extremely happy. Thanks to all of you for helping me out and supporting me.
Well, that’s all for now. I just wanted to put that out there. You all have a wonderful day that’s hopefully free from demonic activity. And as it’s the first day of football season…GO BUCKS!
It’s been not even one full week into the new semester and there have been some interesting developments in the classes I’m taking. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m taking a creative writing course this semester. The course requires us to turn in two short stories and a revision of one of them at different points throughout the semester, though not necessarily in that order (I wanted to turn in a revision and two original short stories, but I don’t have anything to revise at the moment, so forget that). And as I’ve also mentioned in previous posts, Ohio State’s English and Creative Writing departments tend to focus on classic and literary fiction. Genre fiction doesn’t often get as much discussion in Denney Hall.
I came into class with the idea that we were going to be writing several literary short stories during the semester, and even had a list of ideas for stories I could write. Imagine my surprise when my teacher announced that we could turn in genre fiction, so long as it was interesting. Yes, she said that. As long as it’s interesting and doesn’t hold to time-honored (0r time-worn) conventions, I could turn in something from genre fiction. The following conversation then ensued:
Me: So I could write a terrifying horror story, and as long as it is interesting and doesn’t hold to conventions, I can turn it in?
My Professor: Of course.
Me: Party time.
You can probably tell I’m excited. I love writing horror stories, and with the focus on finishing the first draft of Laura Horn and editing Video Rage taking up most of my time this summer, there hasn’t been all that much time to seriously focus on writing a decent scary story or two. However, there’s been plenty of time to accumulate ideas for short stories, so at the next available opportunity, I plugged in my flash drive and started looking over the Word document that contains all my ideas for short stories.
So much to work with, so little time.
What a list that was, with 294 entries at last count. Yeah, I know. And no time to seriously work on them. One of these days I’m going to have to set aside a period of time where I won’t work on any novels and I’ll just work on reducing the amount of ideas on that list, maybe put out a couple more collections of short stories.
But the other night when I went over the list, remembering ideas I hadn’t thought of in a while (good thing I keep a list!) and trying to remember what I was thinking of when I wrote down the idea I had for certain stories, I was looking for particular stories. They had to be the right length (under 10,000 words), they had to be one of the more interesting ideas I’ve had (I like to think they’re all interesting, but I tried seeing it from the POV of someone who’s not me) and I had to look for a story that wouldn’t be tied down to the conventions of horror.
And as many of the horror fans know, that last one can be tough. As the Scream movies, Cabin in the Woods, and Behind the Mask so wonderfully point out, horror stories often work within a certain narrative framework. This gives the writers who create these stories more freedom than you’d think as we struggle to please our fans who are looking for a certain product in their story, but there has been criticism (some of it well-founded) that horror stories can get a little too predictable, to the point where you get useful advice videos like this:
He does bring up some good points. Actually, a slightly paranoid fear of a horror movie death is why I’ve never smoke weed, drink sparingly, and I’m not violent outside of the books I write (I’m not commenting on the sex and abstinence part). I don’t want to die like that. That would suck! Especially if somehow my soul gets trapped in the place where I was murdered or is digested by whatever killed me or something. That would suck even more!
So in the end, I managed to pick out about eight or ten short stories that I thought fit the bill for what I was looking for, and I selected two out of them. Neither of these stories have any particular reason as to why I chose them. I just thought they were very unique and that they would be choices my teacher and classmates wouldn’t find boring or stereotypical. In fact, I’m hoping to keep them on the edge of their seats with suspense.
And as for what those short stories are, I’ll give you some hints. This is the hint for the short story I’ll probably start work on sometime next week:
And here’s the hint for the one I’ll probably start in late September, early October:
Anyone want to hazard a guess at subject matter and plot line? There are wrong answers, but no consequences if you guess wrong.
Well, that’s all for now. I have some homework to do if I want to get any form of creative writing done, so I’m off to do that. Wish me luck, and have a good weekend, my Followers of Fear. I’ll let you know the progress of each of these short stories as there is news to report and maybe even let you know what my classmates think. Hopefully they will be terribly scared.
Last night while I was out seeing Guardians of the Galaxy (which was a great film, by the way), a new review of Snake was posted on Amazon. I’m very excited and happy for this review, because reviews let me know what the readers think of the book and gives me feedback on where I can improve with the next book.
Today’s review comes from Gefilte63, which means it’s from my dad. Now before you roll your eyes and think to yourself, “Obviously he gave his son a glowing review”, I think you’ll find my dad can be quite the book critic (and critic of a bunch of other things, but I’ll save that for my stand-up comedy act). His four-star review, which he entitled A great story, a real page turner, goes like this.
This novel is a much easier read than the author’s last effort. It is a great story that keeps you wanting to see what happens next; it reads like an action/thriller movie.
Areas for improvement would include better editing. At times there is too much conversation where it isn’t necessary. Also a few plausibility issues but overall a great read!
Okay, remember when I said reviews give me feedback on where I can improve? Well, apparently I need to do a better editing job next time around. And apparently there are plausibility issues (I’m thinking he’s talking about parts in the latter half of the book), so I’ll try and make sure that’s less of a problem in the future (though if I could point out, sometimes a lot of things in life are implausible but are reality nonetheless. I mean, have you seen our gun situation?).
Anyway, I would like to thank my dad, Rabbi Michael Ungar, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to not only read Snake but to write a review for it. I hope in the future you continue to read, enjoy, and review my books.
If you would like to learn more about Snake, you can check out the page for Snake or you can check it out on Amazon and Createspace. And by the way, this week until August 9th, all e-books of my work, Snake included, are only $0.99 when you download them. So now’s a great time to check them out!
And I’ll be seeing about getting my books onto other formats like NOOK and iTunes soon, so stay posted for information about that.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got some work to take care of, so I’m going to get on that. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear!
This morning I started work on my next book, which will double as my thesis for my senior year. Well, that’s not quite accurate. Truth be told, I came up with the idea for my thesis back in autumn last year, and then while searching for a thesis adviser, I fleshed it out a bit more, deciding what would happen in this or that scene or whether I wanted this or that event to happen at the beginning or ending of the story. And after I found my adviser, I had to make some decisions so I could know what books I would order for research and therefore why I was applying for a small grant to afford said books. And after I got said grant and returned from Europe, I worked hard on Laura Horn so I could get that done before I began work on my thesis.
Well, this morning I began in earnest to start researching and outlining my thesis. I stopped by the English Department to make sure everything was in order for the following year, stopped by another department so I could possibly do some more research for my main character, and then started on the first draft of the outline, of which I’ve made a little bit of progress on.
Now, some of you might be asking yourselves, “Is he going to tell us what his thesis is about?” Actually, I’ve decided to be cruel and not tell you at all. You’ll have to wait until the book comes out.
Just kidding! No, my book is called Rose, and follows the story of a grad student named Rose Taggert. On the night of Rose’s engagement party, she gets killed in a hit-and-run. This leads one of her students, who has an obsessive infatuation with Rose, to kidnap her body from the morgue and resurrect her using nature-based magic. The way he resurrects her though leaves Rose dependent on him for her survival, which causes the young man to believe they are in a relationship. With Rose trying to find a way out of her situation, she is set against impossible odds, and may not be able to overcome them.
How’s that for a setup?
Rose is the first full supernatural horror novel I’ve written in a while. Reborn City and Video Rage were sci-fi stories, while Snake and Laura Horn were thrillers, the former having some obvious horror undertones. I’m looking forward to diving into some full on horror. I know how the novel begins and I know where it’s going to end, and I know some of the things that’ll happen in this story, I just have to flesh out the rest. The thing about some horror stories, this one among them, the main character or characters have to face seemingly insurmountable obstacles in order to escape the evil plaguing them. Sometimes they do it successfully, other times they don’t. The thing is, you’ve got to make it about the protagonist dealing with the great evil at each and every turn and looking for ways to fight back against it. And sometimes fighting back will do more harm than good, leading the reader to wonder how they will continue on with the odds against them and read on.
So believe me when I say, I will be looking for some great ways to make Rose’s life difficult. Or second life, I guess. Either way, it’ll be very exciting for the reader (I hope).
I’ll be doing periodic updates on the progress of Rose, with the ultimate goal being finishing the first draft before the school year is up and I graduate (oh my God, I can’t believe how close it is! It’s sneaking up on me). Tonight, I hope to resume my work on the outline and get that done by the end of the week. First though, I’ve got some other things to take care of, including another blog post to write up. As usual, my life won’t slow down any time soon.
Rami Ungar The Writer 