Archive for the ‘Scary Stuff’ Category

“Travelers of the Loneliest Roads” Is Now On WattPad

Posted: April 24, 2014 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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A while back I wrote a short story called “Travelers of the Loneliest Roads,” a story of a young woman hitchhiking on the back roads of America who gets picked up by a very strange ride. I wasn’t having much success in finding a magazine to publish it in, so I thought I’d share it on WattPad, where short stories rejected by publishers have found some success.

I really like this story. It was my first experimentation with trying to make the story progressively more terrifying using techniques I’ve picked up from various novels and movies, and I thought I did a damn good job. I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone here who checks it out has to say though. After all, you know what they say: authors are often some of the worst judges of their own work.

Anyway, if you’d like to read “Travelers”, please click here. I hope you enjoy reading it and whatever your thoughts about it, please let me know what you think. As I’m fond of saying, I love feedback, whether it be positive or negative.

That’s all for now. I’m going to try to get some more writing done before my shows come on later tonight. So until next time, happy reading my Followers of Fear.

Ten Haunted Locations That I Want To Visit Before I Become A Ghost Myself

Posted: April 23, 2014 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
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For those of you who read the title and are thinking to yourselves, “He plans to become ghost?”, yes, I do. I plan to become a ghost and haunt people as I like. Nobody’s safe, too. I plan to haunt everyone and anyone! Mwha ha ha!

Anyway, most people who know me know that besides being a fan of horror stories, I’m also a believer in ghosts and have had a few experiences as well that terrified and excited me (though mostly terrified). I thought it’d be interesting if I did a list of ten places purported to be haunted that I want to visit and see if I can capture ghostly evidence. And it’s possible that I might be able to go to a few of those soon, so I’m super-excited for them!

The list isn’t in any real order, except my number one is last and I REALLY want to go there when I have the chance. The rest of the list is pretty random in order. I didn’t intend for that to happen, it just did. Or did it?…

So without further ado, let’s get this list started!

10. Longfellow’s Wayside Inn
Location: Sudbury, Massachusetts, USA

The oldest working inn in America, the Wayside Inn gained its name as it was the place that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his collection of poems, Tales of the Wayside Inn, back when it was the Howe Inn. There is another tale though of this historic inn: the inn is reportedly home to Jerusha Howe, the daughter of the inn’s original owner who fell in love with a sailor who disappeared at sea. She died pining away for her missing lover. Today, male guests at the inn report being visited by Jerusha in two adjoining rooms she is said to frequent, leading to some amorous ghost stories that have been collected in a trunk full of love letters in one of the rooms. You can see why I’d want to go there. It’s the making of a great supernatural romance story, among other things.

9. Lizzie Borden House
Location: Fall River, Massachusetts, USA

Lizzie Borden was a woman living in Fall River, MA with her family in 1892 when her family was brutally murdered with an axe. The violence of the massacre and Lizzie’s subsequent strange behavior afterwards made her seem like a prime suspect, but bungling on the part of the local investigators led to her acquittal at trial. The case gained quite a lot of attention in its day, making it one of the most infamous murders in American history. Today the house is a working bed and breakfast, and guests have reported being dragged from beds and other unpleasant happenings. Doesn’t that sound like it’s right up my alley?

*This location was visited July 6th-7th, 2017. Full report of that experience here.

8. Alcatraz
Location: Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, California, USA

America’s most famous federal prison, it held numerous famous criminals, including Al Capone, from 1934 to 1963. Today the prison is a landmark and a museum (and it was also a short-lived TV show), but it’s also reportedly haunted by former inmates who died here, sometimes under mysterious circumstances. Not only that, but the island was called by Native Americans “the Evil Island” and rumors of demonic activity continue to this day. I can imagine wanting to spend a night in the big house if it was this one!

7. Ohio State Reformatory
Location: Mansfield, Ohio, USA

I’m proud to say that this one is in my state, and haunted tours are regularly given there around Halloween, so I’m definitely going to visit it one of these days. During its heyday, this prison housed over 155,000 prisoners, and there were several mysterious deaths, murders, and suicides. Since it closed, it has been used by film crews for a variety of films, including the Shawshank Redemption, but it has also been the home of some very nasty spirits who are said to touch prisoners and even become violent. Maybe I should visit there this Halloween. Anyone care to come with?

*This location was visited August 5th, 2018. For full details, check out my post here. I visited a year later for an overnight ghost hunt. Click here for more details.

6. The Stanley Hotel
Location: Estes Park, Colorado, USA

The inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining, the Stanley Hotel has been the site of many paranormal experiences, with people becoming so frightened they’ve had panic attacks and have been sent to the hospital. Some of the most famous haunted rooms are the ballroom, where music is said to be heard, and Room 217 (any King lover knows why). There’s also a reported ghost thief that steals luggage, jewelry, and othe valuables from right under the guests’ noses, and there’s been no proof it might be a maid. They had me at Stephen King.

5. Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Location: Weston, West Virginia, USA

One of the most haunted sites in America, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was one of the busiest insane asylums in the nation, housing 2400 patients at its peak. It was forcibly closed in 1994 due to treatment of its patients, but popular belief states that some guests haven’t left. There have been screams, doors opening and closing, and a bunch of other weird happenings there, and it has been investigated by numerous paranormal investigators, including the Ghost Adventures Crew, who did a live seven-hour long lockdown during which viewers on the Travel Channel website could view and examine evidence in real time. And I think it’s about time I got committed there, don’t you think?

4. Pennhurst State School
Location: Spring City, Pennsylvania, USA

An asylum for the physically and mentally handicapped, Pennhurst was plagued by overcrowding and not enough staff members for all its years. There are reports of children five or six years old not being taught to walk because there weren’t enough staff members to teach them, and of patients lying in their own feces or delusions for hours on end. The facility was finally closed when an investigative news team exposed the overcrowding and abuse there, leading to a public outcry. Today the facility is reportedly haunted by patients who never left its walls, and tours and investigations there have yielded some interesting findings. As one of those investigations inspired a novel I plan to write someday, I hope to get a tour someday. Road trip!

3. Aokigahara
Location: Honshu Island, Japan

An ancient forest at the base of Mt. Fuji, the forest is nicknamed “Suicide Forest” due to its popularity as a place for suicides, despite official’s efforts to stop visitors from killing themselves. It is said that in addition to the suicides, the forest is haunted by demons and yurei, spirits who have been unable to move onto the afterlife. If I ever tour Japan, I’m making this place a sure location to visit. Only Godzilla could keep me away!

2. Hellfire Caves
Location: West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

A series of man-made caverns that extend very deep underground, the Hellfire Caves were once the stomping grounds of the Hellfire Club, a group of politically and socially affluent figures led by Sir Francis Dashwood, who reportedly held a number of pagan rituals in the caverns. Some accusations against the group say that these rituals were satanic in nature. To this day there are reports of dark spirits in the caves, as well as reports of Sukie, the ghost of a woman who was accidentally killed by three village boys who lured her to the cave and a rock fight broke out, as well as the ghost of Paul Whitehead, a friend of Dashwood’s who asked that his heart be put in an urn in the caverns upon his death. When the heart containing his urn was stolen in 1829, reports of a man in 18th century garb sighted in and around the caverns started to crop up. I wonder whose heart he’s looking for? Because these caves have certainly stolen mine.

1. The Paris catacombs
Location: Paris, Il-de-France, France

A series of underground ossuaries in the heart of Paris, the catacombs were once a series of ancient mines before becoming the homes of nearly six million corpses and skeletons when Paris officials needed to do something about the health problems caused by poor burial practices. Today certain sections of the catacombs are open to the public, and the legends about them never seem to cease, including that of the ghost of the man who oversaw the transfer of the bones below, of a man who got lost while going down to drink liquor and became a wandering ghost forevermore, and a bizarre tale of a woman who was kidnapped and tortured by a werewolf below, among others. I’ll be visiting France for my study abroad trip, so you can bet I’ll be making a visit to the catacombs before I leave the City of Light. And I’ll be taking plenty of photos.*

*This location was visited on May 21, 2014. For a full account of that experience, click here.

Have you ever been to these or other haunted locations? Has anything happened to you? If it did, could you give us some detail?

Why Ghosts Are The Scariest Monsters In Horror…After Demons

Posted: April 16, 2014 in Reflections, Scary Stuff
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Vampires are scary…but also kind of sexy and occasionally needy or envious of humans. Werewolves are scary…but in some cases they are cute and sometimes even sexy. Zombies…just walk a little faster and you’ll avoid them. Frankenstein’s monster…take the guy to a therapist to talk over his daddy issues. Witches….just tell them you have no intention of burning them at the stake and that you’re more interested in working with them and maybe using their powers to better mankind. Or leave them alone if they have Satanic leanings. Demons…well, they’re basically an incarnation of ultimate evil. Not even religion or faith can protect you sometimes.

But after demons, ghosts are probably the scariest of monsters, and they’re certainly my favorite. And I have some pretty good reasons why they should be your favorite as well. Let’s run through them, shall we?

1. There are plenty of people trying to prove their existence. Just go on TV, you’ll find shows dedicated to paranormal investigators who go to reportedly haunted locations (I’m a huge fan of Ghost Adventures, personally). And while some of what they find can be explained through science and reason, and while their methods may not exactly follow the scientific method, some of what they’ve found is pretty compelling and hard to explain rationally, which is more than I can say for some people who go hunting for Bigfoot or aliens. And plenty of paranormal investigators will take the time to show people who are skeptical that while the methods they use aren’t perfect, they will attempt to show you that their methods are as free from interference as possible.

2. Ghosts are found in nearly everywhere on Earth. Nearly every religion on Earth, every ethnic group, every cultural group and every philosophy has some conception of what the afterlife is like, and a good number have stories of the dead coming back to intervene in the lives of the living. Heck, even the Judeo-Christian tradition does (the witch of Endor, for example). Is it Jung’s collective unconscious at work? A human need to calm ourselves with beliefs of life after death, that we still exist in some form after our bodies begin to rot? Or maybe it’s something more.

3. Everyone believes in ghosts at some point. Don’t try and deny it. At some point everyone’s a believer. I’ve seen people discount werewolves or vampires or the Loch Ness monster right off the bat, but when it comes to ghosts they’ll admit that, if they don’t believe in them now, they certainly believe in the possibility or that they did in one point in their lives. And why not? After all…

4. The former victims of death are just as scary as death itself. Think about it. Death seems like the worst thing that could happen, but then there’s the possibility that something worse than just dying. And nobody wants to see a reminder of death, of how it can twist the soul and turn the spirit inside out, coming our way to do us harm. At least not most people I know.

5. There’s no set rules about ghosts. Minus that they’re the souls of the dead, of course. Vampires drink blood and are usually afraid of sunlight. Werewolves react to the cycles of the moon and are allergic to silver. Zombies are the undead and need a good beheading to kill them off. But ghosts are much more flexible than other monsters. They can be confined to one singular place, or they can be mobile spirits that can travel to various places as they are allowed. Everything from appearance to how they haunt to how they can mess with the living. It’s all pretty open, much to the delight of every horror author ever.

Now, I’m not trying to convince you that ghosts exist (though I do think ghosts are one of those things that skeptics can come to believe in much more easily than with other subjects and if I did somehow make you a believer, then welcome t the club). But I certainly think that ghosts are out there, and that they are honestly some of the scariest things out there…that aren’t the result of humans, I mean. So the next time you hear about a movie or a book featuring ghosts, take a moment and think about what that movie or book is tapping into. It’s more than just a primal fear of death, it’s something that could actually conceivably exist and do us harm. And that is one of the most terrifying thoughts of all.

Oh, and you know which culture has the scariest ghost legends of all? Japan! The yurei is a spirit that exists on the physical plane because of some lingering grudge or regret that keeps it from moving on. Yurei tend to wear white robes, have pale skin, long black hair and no legs. There are also subcategories of yurei, depending on how they died, what keeps them there, and who exactly has died. The most famous yurei is probably the onryo, a spirit that stays on this Earth out of a desire for revenge. And if you’ve ever seen The Ring or the Grudge (Japanese or English versions) you know what I’m talking about. Those things are Terrifying with a capital T!

Look at this thing! Can you blame me for being terrified?

Every Found Footage Horror Film Ever

Posted: April 16, 2014 in ideas, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Remember this famous scene?

Or close to that amount, anyway. And by the way, if you enjoy found footage horror movies and don’t want me to spoil them, you might want to just leave this post. Trust me, you’ll thank me in the long run.

The other day I had an idea for a found footage horror movie. There’s been a lot of them in theatres lately, including Paranormal Activity, The Blair Witch Project, Chronicle, and Entity, just to name a few. I remember when Paranormal Activity came out, how it was such a big deal and how even people who weren’t fans of horror were holding huge conversations and spirited debates on it. I saw the commercials of people lined up around theaters to see it, and I remember some friends of mine telling me how they went to see it, and near the end one of them got up and started shouting, “I’m a bitch! I’m a bitch! Get me out of here!” I was so mad that I had to wait till it came out on DVD to see it (those were the days when I had to rely on my parents if I wanted to go see a movie in theaters, and they only took us if it was a film the whole family could watch. Guess how many of those were horror films? That would be none).

Anyway, I realized then that there are a lot of similarities between found footage films, at least the popular ones that make it into the theatres. The most glaringly obvious (besides the method of filming, of course) is in terms of plot:

  1. Characters become aware that there is something supernatural going on and resolve to investigate. We may also be informed that the footage we are about to watch was found after a certain amount of time, usually after the deaths or disappearances of the characters.
  2. Characters investigate, and start to realize that there is something strange going on.
  3. The strange events escalate, becoming more and more sinister in nature.
  4. The characters start to get anxious or angry and start fighting among themselves.
  5. The strange events reach a zenith, during which time the terror is (hopefully) very high and most, if not all of the characters die off.
  6. The film ends, and we now know why the characters have disappeared and only the cameras and film were found.

In addition, most found footage films are made very cheaply (Paranormal Activity was made on $15K and Blair Witch Project was made on $20K to $25K, while major horror films like The Conjuring and Sinister were made for 20 million and 3 million, respectively). And for some reason, the characters always have their cameras on and holding them up to get the footage, even in awkward situations. We as the audience either forget that most people, even filmmakers, wouldn’t place such emphasis on getting everything while our lives are in danger or we just overlook it. Also, there tends to not be title cards or opening or end credits. None at all. Helps to make it seem like these events actually happened, I guess. Oh, and also the characters tend to be isolated somehow. Whether they’re trapped in their house or lost in the woods or in an abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere, they’re cut off and there’s no knight in shining armor to come to their rescue. They are alone, and it’ll be their undoing.

Look out behind you!

But yeah, that’s basically most found footage films out there.

So if these films are so similar, especially in terms of plot, why do horror filmmakers keep making them and why do horror fans keep going to see them? Well, I guess it has to do with the execution. These sort of films may be as predictable as your run-of-the-mill romance novel, but there’s so much room to experiment and try to new things. And even if you have a basic idea of how the plot is going to go, you don’t know what will be behind the corner or what will jump out and terrify you. You can’t know, so if the movie’s any good, you’ll sit on the edge of your seat wondering what the heck will happen next, and screaming when it does.

So with all that in mind, could I possibly make this found footage film I came up with myself? quite possibly. I plan on buying a video camera after I get back from my study abroad trip, so it wouldn’t be inconceivable to make a film. I’d just need a little funding, a cast and crew, and a location. Plus the time to do it and some marketing. It could possibly happen. I even have a title in mind: The Red Monk. Good title, right?

Well, if the opportunity comes along, I’d love to do it. And you never know what could happen. It could be a very big thing.

What do you think of found footage films? Love them or hate them? Do you think they’re a bit predictable?

If I did make a film, would you see it? Would you even want to be part of it?

Snake: Two Months Away

Posted: April 10, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Two months away.

Two months away.

It’s hard to believe. So much time has passed by, but you lose track of it and then these things just sneak up on you. I’m a little in shock. My youngest sister Liat is fourteen as of today. I remember when she was an itty-bitty baby, and now she’s a teenager with a really dark sense of humor. What happened in fourteen years?

But in all seriousness, two months from today my second novel Snake will hit the digital bookstores, where people can download it to their e-readers or order a print copy should they choose to do so. It’s been a very exciting process getting Snake ready for publication, and I’m looking forward to putting it out and hearing what people think of it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Snake, here’s the blurb I’m using to advertise it:

How far will you go for love and revenge? When a young man’s girlfriend is kidnapped by the powerful Camerlengo Family, he becomes the Snake, a serial killer who takes his methods from the worst of the Russian mafia. Tracking down members of the Camerlengo Family one by one for clues, the Snake will go to any lengths to see the love of his life again…even if it means becoming a worse monster than any of the monsters he is hunting.

Sounds interesting, right? Either that or kind of twisted and creepy. I’ve gotten both reactions before. Anyway, I hope you’re looking forward to reading Snake as much as I am looking forward to you reading it. And if you want to read an excerpt from Snake, you can click here and do so. Or you can scroll down a little and watch the book trailer for Snake. I promise you, it’s veeery creepy.

Have a good day, my Followers of Fear! I know I am, and so is probably my sister. Happy Birthday, Liat. Don’t go too wild on your birthday, okay?

The Quiet Game: Review #9

Posted: April 5, 2014 in Review, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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tqg cover

I received quite the pleasant surprise this morning. My collection of short stories, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, had received its ninth review, this one coming from author and friend Matt Williams. I’ve been waiting to hear Matt’s thoughts on that book since he told me he bought a copy, and I’m glad to see he finally got through the book, which he gave 4 stars. Entitling his review An inspired romp, this is what he had to say:

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!

Okay first, I love being compared to Stephen King. My mom did that when she read an early draft of one of the short stories in the collection, but I thought she was being nice! Glad to see someone agrees with her. He’s been such an influence on my work and I still hold him in high esteem. And second, I’m glad Matt enjoyed the book so much. I can’t wait to read your latest book, Papa Zulu, as well. I just need to get it.

If you’d like to check out The Quiet Game and read some of the other reviews, you can check it out on Amazon and Smashwords. It’s available in both ebook and print paperback, and it’s a quick read, so I promise it’ll be worth your time.

All for now. I’ve got a paper to work on, so I’m going to do that now. See you all later.

What Is The Worst Death Possible In Horror Fiction?

Posted: March 28, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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question has been bugging me for some time now. What is the worst possible death a character can receive in horror fiction? As death, mayhem and slaughter are common byproducts of the stories told in horror fiction, it’s a question that I think horror writers should consider deeply. And sadly we can’t use old Master Splinter’s opinion: “You die without honor”. Wise words from an anthropomorphic rat, but I’m not sure they can apply in this genre.

I’ve had plenty of possible answers, many of which I’ve discarded because I came up with a good reason why they shouldn’t be the answer or because the answers I came up with just didn’t feel right. A terrifying death? No, that’s too easy. A slow death? By then death is a release. A painful death? Same answer as the last one. A slow and painful death? Death would still be a release. A death that you can see coming from a mile away? As scary as that would be, at the end of it you’d just be relieved.

And then the answer hit me the other day: a death, whether it be slow, or fast, painful or quick, terrifying in its execution or just too unexpected to even process what’s happening, that offers the possibility that nothing happens beyond this world. I mean, isn’t that scary? Many world religions spend years trying to hammer out the details of the afterlife just to assure us of one. But what if all that hammering out was for naught? What if all those near-death experiences were just chemicals in the brain? What if an end to our existence was what came after this existence?

If you ask me, that is the worst sort of death you could have in a horror story, and all that leads up to it is just the beginning or an opening act. At the very least, it makes for some interesting food for thought. And it could help create a new story. Or even help improve one’s writing skills  You never know.

At the risk of being morbid, what is the worst sort of death you could imagine happening in a horror story?

The Day The Tigers Came To School: Finished

Posted: March 9, 2014 in ideas, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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This particular short story could also be called “My tribute to Stephen King’s Carrie without any psychic or telekinetic elements”. I basically took the idea of a girl getting revenge on the bullies in her life through supernatural means and wrote a dark and powerful story around it. And it involved tigers, too (my favorite animal), so I definitely had fun writing it.

The Day The Tigers Came To School is a story with a very interesting evolution. It merely started out as a story about a school being invaded by tigers and wolves with some sort of strange twist about how they got there. Then I dropped the wolves because that’s just too much for one short story and I like tigers more. Then I added the bullying/revenge theme. Then I played around with different ways the plot could go, even while I was writing the story. 4,159 words later I have a new short story that pushed boundaries even for me.

By boundaries, there were a couple of moments where things got incredibly graphic in detail. It was enough to make me wonder if I shouldn’t hold back a little in writing something so terrifying. But then I reasoned, if it makes me a little hesitant, it will probably scare the pants off of anyone who reads it. And that’s basically my goal in writing. So I relaxed the restraints and just went with it. I’m glad I did, because the story’s much better that way.

Well, I’m going to let a friend give me some feedback on it, and then I’ll…save it for my next short story collection. Yes, I’m doing another short story collection, which I’ve tentatively entitled Dead and Dying (it was going to be Dead and Dying Teens but I thought that since some of the stories might not involve teens, I dropped that part). I can’t confirm content or release date, but I can tell you that this time around I want at least eight short stories, this one and a couple of others among them. When it gets closer to me actually releasing the book, I’ll make sure everyone knows.

In the meantime, tomorrow evening (work and homework permitting, of course), I plan to start up again work on Laura Horn. It’s been put on hold long enough and I want to get it at least halfway done before I leave for my study abroad trip. Then this summer I can edit it along with Video Rage. Wish me luck on the project. I still have more than half the novel left to write! It’s not going to be easy.

Well, I’ve got work tomorrow, so I’m heading to bed. You all have a lovely evening and have pleasant nightmares. Goodnight, my Followers of Fear.

Creating That Dread Feeling

Posted: March 4, 2014 in Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Recently a fellow horror author and blogger I admire brought up a good point about horror, one that I’ve made in countless other posts. The point that he made was that a lot of horror out there is actually pretty terrible because of an over-reliance of gore and gross-out elements (blood, knives, etc.). Real horror is made not by grossing people out continuously over the course of a horror story, but by creating a feeling of dread, that feeling that something bad is going to happen and that it is going to get worse. That feeling builds and builds, until (hopefully) the reader is scared stiff by ensuing events.

Creating that dread feeling is difficult, to say the least. Like I’ve said in previous posts about terror (and I’m not yet convinced that they can’t be the same thing, depending on the circumstances), it’s one of the hardest parts of creating a good horror story. Creating that feeling takes time, precision, keen insight, and skill, cultivated over years and years of practice. It’s why plenty of would-be horror writers and filmmakers just opt out of trying to use terror in favor of just plain old blood and guts and gore as a so-so substitute. And when that doesn’t work so well, they add in sex as well (don’t believe me? Watch the Friday the 13th remake in all its crummy filmmaking and see how much dread there isn’t and how much sex and blood and gore there is. And no, I’ll never stop harping on how bad that film was).

Here’s an exercise that can help authors of all kinds visualize creating that dread feeling for your story: close your eyes and imagine yourself in a dark, dank, eerie hallway. This hallway goes on for some length, so far that you may not be able to see the very end. And it also takes many twists and turns, so that doesn’t help. As you walk down this hallway, you get the strange feeling that something horrible is going to happen just around the next corner or right behind that table or from that ceiling lamp with the crackling bulb. And as you get farther along, this feeling that something bad will happen grows and grows. Sometimes the places you think something will happen prove to be harmless, but other times you are correct and you’re only just able to get away with your head still on. Even so, you continue on, even though the feeling of ill-boding keeps growing, and you wish you could turn back or even just stop and stay where you are but you can’t, those aren’t options. The only option left is to continue on, reach the end with hopefully all your body parts still attached, and find a safe room located at the end of the hallway.

That hallway is your horror story. And it can be as long as it needs to be, have as much furniture under which monsters can hide as needs be, and have as many twists and turns as needs be. You just got to find a way to create that feeling of ill-boding, which is the feeling of dread that all the best horror stories are able to create. The exercise above is meant to help give people an idea of how creating that terror and dread can happen and to give them something to work with if they need help or practice creating that dread.

I hope that helps in some ways. Also, if you want to check out some books, TV shows, or movies that do a great job creating that feeling of dread, I highly recommend Stephen King’s IT, The Amityville Horror, and the first two seasons of American Horror Story. They do a very great job with creating dread in the reader/viewer. Trust me, I was afraid to go to sleep after I encountered one or two of these titles. They’re that scary.

All for now. I’m going to try to get some of my own fiction written and full of that dread feeling. Goodnight, Followers of Fear.

Two Models Of Using Terror

Posted: February 14, 2014 in Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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See also: The 3 Types of Terror

As a horror writer, one of the biggest challenges I face is building terror in a story. As Stephen King said on Facebook not too long ago, terror is “when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there…”

Creepy! Anyway, I’ve been thinking of different ways authors utilize terror in their stories, how they manage to insinuate that terror element into their work and look for patterns. Based on those observations, I think I’ve come up with some answers, and I’ve put those answers into two models for using terror, which I will talk about below.

The first model of using terror is called the Uphill Model. In this version, you slow ramp up the strangeness and terrifying aspects of the story, starting with small, subtle cues but gradually introducing more overt signals until the wrongness of the situation is so obvious that at this point you can introduce the horror aspect (aka the vampire or the demon or whatever’s meant to creep us out in the story) to the sound of terrified squeals and screams (especially if you’re in a movie theater). A good example of this model would be Samson Weiss’s Curse, one of the short stories from The Quiet Game. The story starts out with small things that are out of the ordinary (a stalker at a rally, maybe some trouble sleeping, a voice or two), but things escalate and become more obvious as the story goes on until the villain of the piece is revealed, in all his horrifying grandeur. I also used the Uphill Model in The Loneliest Roads, one of my more recent short stories, which is currently going through the editing process and may be submitted to magazines soon. This is a good method to use for short stories, especially since it requires a steady but quick escalation in order to keep the reader interested and scared. However, the method requires precision in measuring out how much terror you should use and in what ways. Too much or too little terror used too soon or too late will work against the story, and actually turn readers away. Writers need to be cognizant of this when using this model.

Bad movie. Great example.

The second model is called (quite appropriately) The Seismograph Model, because there are moments where there is intense moments of terror followed by lulls or smaller spikes of terrifying elements. A wonderful example of this is Stephen King’s IT, where there are moments where the strangeness of the situation is very high followed by moments where the amount of terror is low or non-existent. Usually during the spikes of terror there is also a lot of accompanying horror and Gross-out, the other two types of terror. During the lulls, authors generally use this time to work on character development and to expand on the situation the characters find themselves in, as well as to maybe show the characters in more casual settings or enjoying life without threat of something evil. This model is helpful for novels, especially longer ones where there are plenty of run-ins with the great evil of the story before the actual climax takes place and it requires a bit less precision than the Uphill Model, though it does require some skill to do it right.

Let me just say that these models are not perfect and that they don’t apply to every horror story out there. They are simply frameworks to examine a story and maybe to help shape your stories while you are writing them. There may be other models out there that I’m unaware of and have yet to discover, and if there are, I doubt any story out there fits any of these models perfectly. Like I said, the models are tools of examination and reference more than actual models to be followed.

Anyway, I hope as time goes on and I work on new short stories, I hope to be able to use both models to some degree and to use them effectively in my stories. I think that if I can, I might be able to write better stories and further my career as an author. That’s the hope, anyway.

Do you use any models when writing? If so, what?

Oh, and while I have your attention, I have some announcements to make. First, I’ve included links to the book trailers of my various books on the pages above. So if you want to see the book trailer for a novel or a collection of short stories, all you have to do is visit the appropriate page and click on the link. Makes more sense than having to scour YouTube or this blog for the correct video or post, right?

Second, I’d like to announce that I’m starting work on a new collection of short stories. By that, I mean I merely plan to write a new collection that includes some old, unreleased work and some new work that I’ve been looking forward to writing. I’m not sure when this collection will be ready, when it’ll be released, or what I’ll call it, but when I do get around to all that, everyone here will be the first to know.

And finally, I’ve created a new page on this blog, entitled Interviews. The page contains both interviews with other authors and interviews with characters from my novels. It doesn’t have much on it yet, but I plan to add more interviews for both authors and characters as time goes on. I’m especially looking forward to adding more interviews with other authors: those are a chance to help out friends with new books coming out, meet new authors and get a chance to know them, and to possibly expand the number of people reading my work. We’ll see what happens, but I hope only for good things.

Well, that’s all for now. Tonight’s Buckeyethon, so I’ll be offline until I get home after a 12-hour dance marathon, followed by a 6-12 hour nap to catch up on my sleep. See you guys Saturday evening, when I write a post about how awesome Buckeyethon was and what happened while I was at it. Happy Valentine’s Day, Followers of Fear.

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