Posts Tagged ‘ideas’

A Year Without A School Shooting

Posted: August 26, 2014 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Reflections, Social Activism
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Tonight is the last night of summer break, right before the new semester starts. Later I’ll be cracking open a beer and savoring what will most likely be the end of my last summer break before heading to bed. And all around Ohio State, all around Columbus, all around Central Ohio and even farther beyond, many OSU students will be doing the same or similar things, finding ways to relax and get mentally prepared for 16 weeks of classes, studying, part-time jobs, campus events, clubs, trying to eat healthy, not fall off the wagon, maybe talk to that special person you keep seeing around campus and maybe see if a romantic relationship is in the cards.

What none of us want to have to hope for though, is something that we should all be hoping and working actively towards: a year without school shootings.

I know that’s a somewhat silly thing to hope for. According to StopTheShootings.org, since 1992 we’ve had 387 school shootings in the United States since 1992, or about 17.6 a year. Most of the shooters tend to be between the ages of 10 and 19, the same age as a majority of victims. And children ages 5-14 are apparently thirteen times more likely than children from other industrialized nations to be murdered by guns. Statistically speaking, we’re up against some tough odds.

So what can we do to minimize shootings? I do not feel that making guns easier to get hold of is a very good option. Do we fight arsonists by lighting fires ourselves? Or do we stop thieves by stealing from them? Clearly not. Improving mental health is one option that has been advocated for (and is the only one Congress has actually gotten their lazy butts up to pass). Still, mental health won’t make the problem go away. We hear reports every day from Chicago of inner-city violence being committed with guns. In fact in the past twenty-four hours 2 people died and ten wounded from guns. Clearly, not everyone in Chicago who’s fired a gun is mentally unstable or challenged, so more must be done.

Clearly, no one wants to think of a campus like this as the possible scene of a shooting. But nevertheless, reality dictates we consider the possibility for our own safety and the safety of others.

Another option is placing some limitations on what is portrayed in the media. As much as I hate to admit it, there has been correlations between amount of violent content taken in while watching TV or playing video games and aggression. However, that is only showing the correlation between violent content and aggression, not gun violence. People who get aggressive playing games don’t necessarily become killers, and violent content doesn’t always lead to thoughts of murder, if it ever does. Or in short, correlation doesn’t mean causation. Not to mention that media is often a reflection of the society it is created in, so it seems unfair to artists who are trying o create a harmless representation of their worlds because it might contribute to real world problems. And if we were to police media that could cause violent conduct, we’d have to start with the Bible, because long before guns became an issue, the Bible was encouraging people to kill in the name of God, and in far greater numbers.

A third option is placing limits on guns, where they can be sold or distributed, what sort of guns are available, and where they can be openly carried or who can carry them. Studies show that states with stricter laws of this type have lower rates of murders or suicides because of guns than states without them. And a vast majority of Americans support laws like universal background checks, even within the NRA. And in Australia, the number of mass shootings fell steeply after they initiated a ban on automatic weapons. Clearly placing restrictions such as these might be helpful in reducing gun violence.

We don’t want to see any more memorials like this one created after Sandy Hook, do we?

Sadly, there’s a huge lobby against stricter gun regulations in the United States, and more laws seem to have been passed that have eased gun restrictions rather than tightening them. I don’t want to go into the arguments these lobbies have given against tighter regulations, but it is troubling that a lobby made up of companies that sell guns are advocating for laws that will increase their sales. The best way to combat this sort of lobbying might be in cutting corporate influence in elections and lobbying, but of course that is another difficult and controversy-fraught issue altogether, so I won’t delve into that either.

Finally, some have suggested training school officials in firearms or hiring full-time security guards. While I’m sure there are teachers who would be willing to be trained in firearms and keep them in the classroom, I’m sure there are plenty of teachers who would not feel comfortable with firearms in the same building as them, let alone in the same classroom. Some would even refused to be trained. And even if there were teachers or faculty willing to be trained and keep guns in the classroom or office, there are security risks to this method, especially if students were to get their hands on the guns. And while I like the idea of a trained officer or several on campus to protect students, some school districts do not have the funds to pay for a full-time security guard. And in overcrowded school districts, particularly ones with histories of gang violence, it’d be difficult to check students each and every day for firearms.

Perhaps the best option would be a combination of all of these. Sure, implementing any ofthem would require a lot of work, cooperation, dedication, and compromise on the parts of several people and parties, but in the end, a combined approach to a problem often yields more results than a singular approach (especially if that approach features some major logic flaws). And in the end, working together might bring together this highly fractured country and make it a bit more unified than it’s been in recent years.

So let us work together. Let’s stop the partisan and ideological bickering to start working on a solution to a horrific problem. Eighteen shootings are supposed to happen this year. That’s eighteen tragedies we can avoid. Even doing minor things like teaching children about gun safety or by forming neighborhood watches can do worlds of good. Because our children, and the nation at large, deserve so much better than another Virginia Tech, Columbine, or Sandy Hook. At least, that’s what I think, as I hope and pray for a school year without a shooting.

Please note that I will be screening comments for this post, so be aware that any comments that I find insulting, unacceptable, or off-topic will be deleted immediately. Thank you for your participation in this ongoing discussion.

Unreliable Narrators

Posted: August 1, 2014 in Reflections, Writing
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Every now and then I look to do a post musing on the mechanics or subtleties of writing fiction, and today is one of those days. And as you can tell from the title of this post, I want to talk about unreliable narrators, those strange voices in the books we read (and occasionally in the films and TV shows we watch) whom we can’t always trust.

According to that awesome source of usually-factual info that is Wikipedia, an unreliable narrator is a narrator, usually in some medium of fiction or another, whose veracity has been called into question. Usually this happens very early in the story, where the narrator may make a plainly false or delusional claim, or it may happen elsewhere in the story, perhaps near the end where a twist in the story turns everything we thought we knew upside down or slowly through hints that are given to us in the narration. Stories with unreliable narrators can feature a single narrator, or multiple narrators giving their own versions of events, or even a supporting or side character who tells a story in such a way that we question whether or not they’]re being entirely truthful about what happened.

A great example of an unreliable narrator is Patrick Bateman from the novel American Psycho. As a man suffering from psychoses and the occasional hallucinations, Bateman makes a great unreliable narrator. Other examples include Nell from Wuthering Heights, most of the characters from the Japanese movie Rashomon, and Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother (according to show creator Craig Thomas, anyway). Oh, and any story that has children narrating it could possibly have unreliable narrators, because kids sometimes remember things incorrectly.

(If you want to think about it though, every one is an unreliable narrator, because no matter how they see events, they are biased, they may mis-remember details, and they may cover things up in order to make themselves look good or to hide their own guilt. But let’s not get too philosophical about this. Otherwise we’ll be here all evening)

One of the characters in my thesis project, the antagonist, is an unreliable narrator. Because of his mental problems and his infatuation with protagonist Rose, he sees things through a very certain light, so when he tells a story it is often through that lens, which probably won’t reflect reality too well. As I’ve never written a story from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, so exploring the device through this character should be interesting. (Or have I used unreliable narrators before? Technically, any time I tell a story from the protagonist’s first-person point of view, it could be construed as unreliable, but i’m not sure if it counts. Oh darn it! Now I’m an unreliable narrator of my own writing career!)

But why are unreliable narrators used so much? And why do they appeal to readers and writers alike? It’s a very difficult question, and I’m not sure I have an answer. Perhaps for writers, it’s the chance to tell a warped version of events. When we tell a story, especially through the lens of an omniscient or almost-omniscient third-person narrator, it’s almost expected that the story being told is what actually happens, one-hundred-and-ten percent factual. Even when the story is limited to the viewpoint of a single character, that third-person narrator’s portrayal of events is assumed to be accurate. Heck, even when we read a novel told in the first-person, we tend to see the depiction of what happens as true. Especially if we like the character.

An unreliable narrator allows the writer to break from that, to tell a story that might not be accurate, and that the reader and maybe even the writer will have to guess how true the story is or how much we can trust the narrator to tell the truth. In fact, maybe that’s what the reader gets from these sort of storytellers: they have to figure out how trustworthy the storyteller is, or where the line between truth and the storyteller’s own delusions or beliefs is laid down. It’s like solving a mystery or a puzzle, in a way, and the only way to really solve it is to read on until you finish the story. And even then, you might not be able to tell how reliable the narrator is (which is why there are e-forums to discuss these issues).

In any case, I’m going to enjoy exploring the antagonist’s own unreliable stories and seeing how much we can or should believe him. It’ll make for an interesting discussion point when talking about my thesis with my adviser during the next semester.

What do you think of unreliable narrators?

Have you ever used them in your own writing? How did it go?

My Next Novel, My Thesis

Posted: July 28, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Scary Stuff, Writing
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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.

Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear!

Writing Is My Other Part-Time Job

Posted: July 20, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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When most people hear that I work, they ask me where I work. I inevitably reply, “I work part-time at the financial aid office at OSU.” What I often forget to add is, “I’m also a fiction writer in my spare time.” The reason I bring this up is because I recently read this article on the Huffington Post (which you can check out here) in which she learns that her friends don’t see her as working because she writes full-time, and reasons why writing full-time should be considered working (some of those reasons I will reiterate here).

The thing is, writing is work. Hard work. Some people envision writers as sitting on their butts with a notebook, typewriter, or a laptop and watching a story unfold before our eyes. In their minds, we might as well be playing video games or watching Netflix for all the energy we’re expending.

The reality is far from that image. Here’s my process for writing a novel, for example: I outline the story, which usually takes a couple of weeks depending on how crazy my life is. Then I do my preliminary research, which is usually done when I’m not working at the office or doing schoolwork (so summers make a great time to do research because I’m not in classes, but sometimes I’m not lucky enough to be in summer when I do research). Then I start to write. And there’s nothing more daunting than the blank page at the beginning of a project. My novels are usually upwards of eighty-thousand words, so seeing that first blank page is terrifying. I have to force myself to get the first words onto a page and from there try to get into a groove.

Usually I’m doing schoolwork and working part-time while I’m writing, so I often save my writing during the evenings, and usually during the commercial breaks when I have something on TV I really want to watch. So how much I get done is dependent on time, how distracted I am, if anything else comes up in my life, and a million other things. With this sort of schedule, writing a novel can take anywhere between six months (which was the case with Snake) to almost two years (as was the case with Reborn City). I’m in the final chapters of Laura Horn, and I’ve been working on that for over a year, taking breaks for all of life’s crazy moments.

And that’s another thing: sometimes I have to take a break from writing in order to work on school or anything else going on in my life. When that happens, it usually takes longer to get words down on the page. As was the case with RC and is the case with LH.

Your average writer.

And if I need to do some additional research? That takes a bite out of writing time too.

And after I finish a novel, it usually requires one to three more drafts before I’m ready to publish it. Even then I usually send it to someone (usually another author and a friend, though in the future I might be looking at professional beta reader/copy editor to help me with the technical stuff) to make sure I haven’t missed any plot holes or horrible typos. Then I design the interior and the cover, apply for a copyright, and set a release date.

And after the book comes out, there’s all the marketing to do. Heck, even before the book comes out, I’m advertising in every place I can so that as many people as possible will know about the book and maybe want to read it. I’m blogging, Facebooking, tweeting, updating business cards, e-mailing, slipping mentions of my new book into articles, updating my resume, telling people by word-of-mouth, and asking people who do end up buying the book that once they’re done, I’d really appreciate it if they’d write a review or do something else to let me know what they think. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the marketing I have to do in order to get word of my book out there.

Because let’s face it, I don’t have a team of advertising professionals. I’m self-published, so part of the territory is that I’m doing all my advertising on my own. It isn’t easy, but it’s something I take upon myself so that my book can sell well and people will read it.

Does that sound like sitting on my butt playing video games or watching Netflix? No, it’s work. We don’t have time cards or an office cube or water coolers, and very rarely anything like a regular paycheck. But yeah, we are working. It’s as grueling a job as working in the Sales Department or on an assembly line or going to a meeting with execs from another company. Our job just allows us the perks of setting our own hours and picking our own projects.

In summary.

So I think from now I’ll be adding that writing is my other part-time job when people ask me where I work. And I hope people who read this article who aren’t writers will realize we’re not just relaxing in our living rooms or home offices (if we’re lucky enough to have those) playing solitaire or watching funny cat videos on our computers. We’re working, and we’re working hard.

Still don’t believe me? Then go ahead and write your own novel that’s halfway decent, and then tell me it’s not work. I’ll wait.

How do you feel about writing as work?

Has anyone ever mistook what you do for free time? How did you respond?

The Hard Way For Me To Come Up With A Story

Posted: July 18, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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As any author can tell you, there’s no one way we get our ideas. In fact, we get our ideas from everything: stuff that goes on in our lives, the people we know, current events, books, TV shows, movies, video games, from a phrase, from a place, from something we like or something we hate, and from more things than I can list. It’s the actual spinning of the story that can be rather difficult. We have the start of an idea, but we need to build up the story around it. Who’s the protagonist, what’s going to happen, where and when is it going to happen, why is it happening, etc. And depending on the author, the idea, and where it came from or what it consists of, the story based on the idea can come either very quickly or take a while.

For me usually it doesn’t take too long to come up with a story once I have the idea. There’s one notable exception however, and that’s when the idea revolves around a character and nothing else. By this I mean a character pops into my head, maybe no more than just an image but still a character, and I want to write a story around that character. And it isn’t easy for me to come up with that idea.

Other inspirations don’t take that long. I saw the movie Schindler’s List and came up with a whole book series based around the idea of someone actually leading a rebellion against the Nazis. Remember when I went to the Sky Steele show a week back? I had an idea from something we talked about after the concert involving a supernatural crime story. And a creature featured in a fantasy TV series I watched last year inspired a story about how religion can actually kill you. All of this happened within minutes or hours of being inspired.

But starting out with an intriguing character and little to nothing else? It takes me days to come up with a story to match. In fact, of the last ten ideas for novels I’ve had, half of them were based around characters and took me days to actually come up with an idea I could write down on my list of feature-length ideas (I’m up to 145 of those, by the way. Unless I can become successful enough to write full-time, I’m not sure I’ll be able to write them all!). They all started with one or two characters, maybe a setting, but all of them took days to come up what they would be doing or what would happen to them. The most recent one, which I first started trying to brainstorm a story around on Tuesday, I finally got something today.

Sometimes, the gears in my head turn so loudly, you can hear them.

What happened was that I saw this Halloween-themed video (which I will have to post about when October rolls around) and I got a little scared by it. Not only that, but I also kind of fell in love with one of the characters in the video and decided to base an entire Halloween-based story around her. Just one question: what kind of story? Finally figured out today to base the story around ancient myths about Samhain, the holiday Halloween is based on, but up until then I could not think of a single thing to base the story around. Well I did, but none of them really worked for me. I couldn’t see myself writing something around those other story possibilities, let alone anything I thought would be good. I’m glad that I was able to finally come up with something though, or might have gone a little madder than usual.

You know, as much as I love getting ideas for stories, I hope that in the future these sort of ideas, the ones that take several days to form and usually start with a single character, pop into my head less often. And when they do, I hope it takes less time to come up with a story based around them.

What about you? What sort of ideas do you struggle to create stories around?

What do you do when you’re struggling with an idea and can’t think of anything?

The Quiet Game: One Year Since Publication

Posted: July 17, 2014 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Review, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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tqg cover

One year. I can’t believe it’s been exactly one year since my first book, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones was released. Maybe that’s because so much has happened in that year: I finished my third year of college, went on a study abroad trip to England, France, and Germany. I began and finished Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City, and I’m very close to finishing Laura Horn. And I also released two more books. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah, I moved into an apartment off-campus with a friend and I also turned 21, which causes certain members of my family endless worry about my drinking habits (though I usually only drink alcohol 1-3 times a week, and usually not that much).

Anyway, back on point. The Quiet Game emerged from an idea I had while the editing process of RC was going on. That process was going slower than I thought it would, so I thought to myself, Why not release a collection of original short stories? I ended up doing just that, writing all those stories during winter break and rewriting one of them during spring semester. I also included at the end of each story a little bit about how the story came about and what influenced me while writing it, which was fun because it gave me more ways to relate with my readers. And after many long months, I released it on July 17, 2013, not too long after the copyright process ended. And it’s been selling and scaring here and there ever since.

Besides also being my first published book, The Quiet Game is also my most popular book. I think that might be because it’s a lot shorter than the other two and it’s a lot cheaper. But that doesn’t mean people don’t like it. I’ve gotten ten reviews over the course of a year on The Quiet Game, and people have had some positive things to say:

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

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, author of Whiskey Delta

All of the stories were really diverse and fun to read. I also enjoyed the authors blurbs about each stories origination and development. Keep up the good work!

–kimberly broulliard

These and other reviews have lead to The Quiet Game gaining a 4.3 rating on Amazon, which I am very happy about. It also encourages me and makes me think that this and my other books will continue to do well and that I will be able to write very good and very scary stories for years to come.

To the people who helped me create The Quiet Game, thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me. You don’t know how much I appreciate it. To the people who have already read and/or reviewed The Quiet Game, thanks for your patronage and I hope in the years to come you’ll enjoy reading my books and getting scared by them. And to those who will read The Quiet Game and my other books, I hope you enjoy them. And whatever you think of my books, please let me know in a comment or a review. Bad or good, I love feedback.

If you’d like to know more about The Quiet Game, click here for its page here on the blog, or check it out for yourself on Amazon and Smashwords. It’s available in both print paperback and e-book, though the former is only available on Amazon.

That’s all for now. If I have anything else, I’ll let you know later in the day. Have a good one, my Followers of Fear.

Classic Who and Great Writing

Posted: July 16, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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Today during my lunch I started watching the Fourth Doctor serial The Sontaran Experiment. Later this week or next I’ll start watching the Fifth Doctor serial Arc of Infinity, and by the end of the summer I’ll probably have watched quite a few more serials. In short, I’ve been bingeing and will continue bingeing on Classic Doctor Who for a while.

Classic Who is pretty interesting. The show lasted for 26 seasons, usually around 20 or so episodes a season, and ran from 1963-1989. They went through seven different leads, at least fifty companions, and a whole host of supporting actors, cameos, writers, directors, producers, and other crew members during that time, becoming one of sci-fi’s biggest staples and was revived twice, once in a TV movie and again in a new TV series whose eighth season (or series, as they call it in the UK) will premiere in a month and a week. This is all quite amazing, considering that Classic Who had a fairly limited budget for special effects.

And I mean fairly limited budget. Like Star Trek in its early years, and occasionally even worse than that. The first couple of years under the Third Doctor, most serials were confined to defending the Earth because of budget cuts preventing the filming of stories taking place in fantastic and strange locales. And even at the best of times, the special effects weren’t that great. Check out this clip from the Third Doctor serial The Three Doctors (also the first serial ever to feature a former Doctor return to the role). Near the end, you’ll see what I mean:

Yeah, that stuff at the end was an anti-matter monster. And apparently it teleported them somewhere. Not exactly high tech, was it? You watch enough classic episodes, you see that they had to make do with not a lot of money, which sometimes made the monsters look very homemade and laughable, or they had to be filmed in certain ways so that the kids at home wouldn’t see an actor’s two feet sticking out of a monster’s butt. Occasionally that even led to criticism of the whole story: the Third Doctor serial Invasion of the Dinosaurs was derided by viewers because the stop motion dinosaurs weren’t very good and seemed to take away from the overall story.

But that just goes to show how amazing the stories the writers told were, both then and now. What they didn’t have in terms of budget, they made up for in telling compelling tales where the Doctor had to fight in order to save the world (or worlds). Stories like the First Doctor serial The Edge of Destruction or the Fourth Doctor serial The Horror of Fang Rock are very suspenseful stories that rely on very little special effects to instead tell very character-driven horror/suspense stories, and the Seventh Doctor serial The Curse of Fenric was actually so terrifying I was a little scared! Not bad for a story whose special effects were mostly make-up and costumes.

Just a glance at that photo is enough to unnerve me!

These old stories contained much more than special effects. They had mystery, pretty funny jokes, history and science, and compelling plots that kept viewers coming back for more and more each episode. Not to mention how these episodes could confront and tackle complex social issues so that even very small children could learn from them. Dalek stories, from the original First Doctor serial The Daleks to modern-day stories are rife with Nazi Germany metaphors, which have been mentioned by various characters over the years. The Green Death dealt with environmental themes by showing what can happen when you let corporations run rampant over natural resources without enough regulation. And American viewers probably squirmed a little when they saw The Power of Kroll and saw in the conflict between the colonists and the Swampies the fight between white Americans and the Native Americans. I’m surprised the Doctor hasn’t been used as a teaching tool for different causes or issues.

And it wasn’t just the stories that drew the viewers in. The characters the writers created were pretty amazing as well. Heck, it was the writers who managed to keep the show going after First Doctor William Hartnell had to leave the show for health reasons and was replaced by Patrick Troughton. In any other show, the main character being replaced by someone who was a completely different character (but still the same person) would’ve ruined the show. It says something about the writers that they could keep the show going after such a change.

And not just the changes in Doctors. The other characters were amazing as well, helping the viewers to connect with the Doctor and see him and the events surrounding him from a human perspective (literally). Yeah, some of them were annoying (Peri Brown got on my nerves), but for the most part they were all a pretty awesome group of characters. Some of my favorites include Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning, who learned much from the Doctor and became quite a heroine in her own right during her time as his assistant. Or Ace, the last companion of the classic series and played by Sophie Aldred, a punk teen from London who nicknamed the Doctor “Professor” and was in many ways his protege. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen, one of the longest running companions and by far the most popular. She even had her own spin-off show for a few years. God, we Whovians miss her.

Not just the stories, but the characters made this show amazing.

All in all, it’s not surprising that nearly fifty-one years after two teachers followed one of their students home and into a police box that was much bigger on the inside than on the outside, the show is still going on all these years later. Sure, ther have been hiatuses and breaks, but there’s been a fandom big enough that the show has gone on to become one of the most popular and probably the longest running sci-fi franchises in the world. And I believe the writers over the years, especially the writers in the classic series, have played a huge part in that.

Anyway, I’m certainly having fun watching the old Doctor Who serials. I just wish it was easier to get hold of them. Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got the first draft of a novel to finish up, so I’m going to get on that hopefully tonight, but first I need to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. Wish me luck with that.

Last Night At Sky Steele’s Show

Posted: July 12, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Writing
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Last night I didn’t feel like being cooped up in my apartment on a Friday night, so I went to this coffee shop near my place called Kafe Kerouac. Well, I say “coffee shop”, but it’s a bit more than that: it’s a cafe, a bar, a bookstore, a record shop, and a performance space. It’s a real cool place, sort of hipster-ish, and I felt going out and fishing for life there. I even brought my computer, in case I wanted to do the whole writer-in-a-coffee-shop thing. What I ended up doing was watching a small concert from singer Sky Steele, a singer who has been touring around the country before the release of his first album this winter.

It was actually quite fun. I’m not usually into the sort of music he plays (for samples of it, you can go onto his website with the link above), but he had some good songs, and I actually got lost in a few of them. And after the concert, I and a few people stuck around and talked with him. Sky was nice and very down-to-Earth, telling us about his goals and how he came to music.I even got an idea for a novel from something that was said during the conversation. And during the course of the talk, I had an opportunity to mention that I was a published author and that led to him and a few others showing interest in my books. One girl (I wish I could remember her name. Curse you, very poor memory for names and faces!), who styled herself as a big sci-fi enthusiast, said she’d check out Reborn City when she had the chance. It was definitely a good time, and I also said I’d check out Sky when I got the chance.

After the concert, I also went to the bookshelves, particularly the horror, suspense/thrillers, and sci-fi ones, and put my business cards in some of them. One of the readers on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors had suggested putting your business cards and bookmarks into books similar to yours, with the hope that anyone reading said books might be interested in reading yours. Since the books at Kafe Kerouac can be read in the store or bought and taken home, I decided to try and see if I could get anyone interested in my work that way (and the next time I get a library book that’s similar to what I write, I’ll definitely try it there as well. In the meantime, I hope the cards I left in the books will lead to at least one or two more people reading my work. Maybe even a review if I’m lucky.

To round the evening off, I ended up doing the whole writer-in-a-coffee-shop thing and finishing a chapter of Laura Horn, which got me really excited, as I’m close to finishing up the first draft of the book. After that was done, I said goodbye to Sky and some of the other people who’d been at the concert (they’d all decided to hang out at the bar for a drink), and went home, where I somehow managed to knock out another chapter of LH before going to bed.

All in all, it was a pretty good evening. I met some really awesome people, saw a concert by a musician I might not have even bothered to listen to under other circumstances, possibly sold some books, and made some headway on a book that, after a year, I’m nearly finished writing the first draft. Not a bad evening at all. I hope tonight I can have a similar sort of nigh: I’m going to a friend’s 21st birthday party, so if there’s any time afterwards I’d like to do some more writing ad see where I get.

In the meantime, I think I’ll have a late lunch, write, and then maybe go for a workout. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear.

4 Horror Films That Can Teach You About The Horror Genre Itself

Posted: July 5, 2014 in Reflections, Review, Scary Stuff, Writing
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This is a post I’ve been wanting to write for a while, but I had to find time (and enough films) to actually settle down and write an article worthy of this subject.

If you’ve seen movies like Scream or Cabin in the Woods, you realize they are not just really good scary movies, but they’re also great commentary on the horror genre itself. Scream was basically saying that, rather than restricting the creativity of film directors, the conventions of horror films, especially slashers, gave them considerable freedom to work with and explore new areas of fear, as well as being a sort of examination of slashers themselves. Cabin in the Woods gave you the impression that horror filmmakers were somewhat like slaves in the entertainment industry, having to abide by certain rules in order to please audiences or be ruined (occasionally that’s true).

These horror films below have their own lessons to teach on the genre, and I’ll try my best to convey them here (and possibly convince you, dear reader, to go and see them for yourself). Whether it’s on unique ways to tell a story, reinventing a familiar story, or even just finding a way to insert some philosophical musings into your movie, these movies all have something to share on the genre.

Urban Legend

The slashers that come after the classics of the eighties and the early nineties come in three categories: really bad sequels, movies that try to copy the classics and fail disastrously, and the ones that go above and beyond, often finding ways to redefine the slasher genre while they do it. Urban Legend is definitely part of the third category, and it shows how the slasher genre can change itself despite some critics’ claims of  “same story, different killer/kids/location/motive”. In this case, a killer begins attacking students and faculty at a remote college campus, but kills them in ways that mirror popular urban legends. Who is the killer, why are they killing like this, and what does all this have to do with one young student and her connection with the original victim? The answers will not only shock you, but it’ll make you appreciate adaptable slashers and those urban legends you all heard as kids and teens in new ways.

Devil

You know how in most horror films the audience knows there’s a supernatural explanation for why freaky stuff is happening and the characters in the film are looking for a rational explanation? In this movie, it’s different: you suspect there’s a supernatural explanation, but at the same time you look for ways it could be rationally explained. In this film based off an M. Night Shyamalan story, five people get stuck in an elevator and are murdered under mysterious circumstances while trapped inside. Who is the killer? Why are they killing? Is it a bizarre murder plot? A psychopath at work? Or maybe, as one security guard believes, it’s a mystical meeting between the damned and the Devil himself. A terrifying film, just watching how the filmmakers portray the unfolding events and make us wonder exactly what is happening is enough to give you some ideas on how to switch up your own stories. Or give you nightmares. That’s always a possibility.

Pulse

Known as Kairo in Japan, this supernatural horror film is as deeply philosophical as it is terrifying. In this movie, spirits manage to find a way into our world through the Internet, and start killing the living, though why they kill the living isn’t always clear. The movie follows several different people, particularly a young woman who is among the first to notice what is happening, and a college student who finds himself delving into the mysterious ghosts with a computer science co-ed he knows. The film besides being scary, offers great insight into our strange, modern world, which can be full of connections and isolating all at once, and why ghosts would want to return to this world in the first place. There’s an American remake of this film, but it loses some of its philosophical/psychological bite in favor of special effects and some more Western horror conventions. It’s not bad, but it’s not as good as the original. Anyway, check out both if you can. They’re both interesting takes on our Internet-obsessed society, if you ask me.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Our last entry is not even true horror, but horror-comedy and mockumentary. Behind the Mask follows a group of students filming a documentary in a world where famous killers like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kreuger, and Michael Myers are as real as you or I. The subject of their documentary is a man named Leslie Vernon, a would-be killer who is in training to become a famous killer himself and is preparing for his own night of carnage.  The film switches between documentary-style footage and the more traditional horror-movie footage, breaking down the conventions of the slasher genre as well as their philosophical and Freudian psychological meanings (particularly the role of the “survival girl” motif in these films). Not only is it a great story that examines, pokes fun of, and psychoanalyzes the slasher sub-genre, it also depicts a very doomed romance that is stll rather beautiful and lovely in a weird way. Whether or not you like horror, this is definitely not a film to be missed, because what you can learn from it is great.

Have you seen any of these films? What were your thoughts on them?

What are some great horror films you think can teach people about the genre itself? What is great about them?

How To Build A Haunted House

Posted: June 30, 2014 in Scary Stuff, Writing
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Not literally, of course. I mean how to make one for a horror novel, movie, or TV show.

Haunted houses are such a staple of horror, tales of them dating farther back than The Fall of the House of Usher, and have continued to terrify readers and viewers alike over the years, whether they be watching The Shining or American Horror Story or even that episode of Doctor Who with the haunted house. The question is, with so many famouse haunted houses out there, both real and fictional*, how do you construct one that stands out from the crowd (and once again, I mean metaphorically)? Here are some tips that might help.

*For those of you who don’t believe in ghosts or hauntings, you can interpret this as houses in the real world that have history of or are purported to be haunted. For those of you who believe in ghosts…well, I don’t need to finish that sentence, do I?

1. A haunted house doesn’t have to be old and dilapidated. I know the standard image in our minds of a haunted house is one that’s an old manor, with shingles falling out and holes in the porch and plenty of leaks in the pipes, or sometimes a castle with no glass windows and plenty of dungeons and hidden chambers.  That’s great if you want to market it to the Addams Family, but haunted houses don’t necessarily have to look like that. They can be only a few years old, very modern-looking, and in the middle of a nice neighborhood. Heck, you can even make the house a haunted apartment building if you so desired (there was a movie that did that a few years back. Would’ve been good if it hadn’t been a direct-to-DVD sequel).

Not your average haunted house, is it?

In this one novel I plan to write, I plan on the haunted house being only about three decades old, and without any sort of dilapidation or other trademarks to make it a haunted house. What makes it terrifying is its current occupant, as well as the atmosphere that hangs over the place.

For some good examples of haunted houses that don’t fit the standard mold, try the remake of When A Stranger Calls, the first season of American Horror Story, the Buffy episode Where the Wild Things Are, and (if you really want to) The Grudge 3 for that haunted apartment building. Oh, and Ghostbusters as well, that has a haunted apartment building. Or is that a doorway? You decide for yourself.

2. You don’t always need ghosts for a haunted house. For example, you can zombies, witches, a serial killer, vampires, werewolves, just something out of the ordinary. A haunted house doesn’t become haunted because it has ghosts in it, but when something (usually malevolent) is inside. That’s why the movie Cabin in the Woods is so genius: besides breaking down and exploring/philosophizing on the tropes of the horror genre, it also shows how much variety there is to the haunted house and what can haunt it. Anything from zombies to wraiths to werewolves to evil dolls to giant bats to merman to scarecrow people and everything in between, you can use.

3. Use plenty of description when describing the house. In a horror movie, you don’t need to describe the house, because you can see it just fine. But in a novel, the author has to supply the information. What does the outside look like? Is there a distinctive style of architecture involved? Is it painted in really ugly colors that don’t compliment one another? What’s inside? Accessories, knick-knacks, the odd little mirror that’s always in the northwest corner of a house? Is there a yard? What’s in the yard? Does a colony of rabbits live in the yard? Keep all this in mind the moment you introduce your characters (and by contrast, the readers) to your haunted house.

4. Don’t go all out as soon as the door’s closed. By this I mean one should use a subtle build-up in order to properly scare the reader. You can’t just come out with a ghost or an axe murderer showing up and attacking people the moment the door is closed and the character or characters are settled in. There should be a steady build-up. First small things go awry or weird things that can easily be explained but are still creepy nonetheless. Then weirder stuff happens: you might see a form out of the corner of your eye, or you walk into a room and the furniture is all moved or ruined. There might be voices you can’t explain, or perhaps something catches on fire inexplicably. You touch a certain section of the wall, and you feel intense pleasure or pain. And then finally, there’s no denying that weird stuff is going on: the ghost has appeared, the threat is revealed, you’re going to have to deal with it or die. Using the house to do all that and more can really ramp up the suspense and terror of the story and make your haunted house terrifying and distinctive.

Don’t reveal THIS too quickly.

A great example of this ramping up of the terror is the original Amityville Horror, as well as the movie Sinister.

5. Your house should have a history. Whether the house is ten, a hundred, or several hundred years old, it should have a history, and the author should know what it is, even if they won’t reveal all of it to the reader. What is the history of the house, or the land it sits on? Does it involve an Indian burial ground? Was there a really nasty murder there? Or was there something even darker than that lurking beneath the floorboards and behind the walls? This will help you flesh out the story, the haunting, and whatever is happening in your story. Also, often times one can figure out how to defeat the antagonist of the story through its history (like Jason Voorhees and water, or Goblin from Blackwood Manor by Anne Rice). And if this history involves certain people or objects, make sure to have that worked out as well.

There are many great examples of haunted houses with history, just watch any episode of a show for investigating haunted locations. If that isn’t your thing, try movies like The Conjuring, or the TV mini-series version of The Shining (not the movie though, that was a terrible adaptation).

6. Research common signs or symptoms of hauntings. I know some of you will be like, “What’s he talking about?” Well, besides sightings of ghosts or voices being heard, people often report certain things when experiencing a haunting: inexplicable areas where it is cold, electrical devices being drained, objects being moved, and even attacks, and each can happen for very different reasons. I like to include these things in my story because they seem to give my stories an air of authenticity (if you want to call it that). You don’t have to go this route with your haunted house, but if you do and you want to do some research, ghost-hunting shows or manuals on ghost-hunting can be great resources. Also do some research on why these signs and symptoms might not be caused by a haunting, because…

7. A little bit of uncertainty goes a long way. One of the scariest things with a haunted house is not knowing. Not knowing if you’re going crazy, not knowing if there’s actually a ghost in the house, not knowing what it wants or how you’re going to stop it. It’s scary not knowing, which is why a writer should exploit it for as long as they can in a story. It’ll make your story that much better. So knowing explainable ways for a “haunting” to occur can help to add to that uncertainty. Could it be electrical fields? Could it be a spirit? Or is it just the pipes and my new medication? It’s scary just not being sure.

Ultimately, it’s how the writer writes the story that makes the story scary. But if these tips have helped make your story scarier, then I’m glad to have helped and I hope that you have fun constructing your haunted house. I bet it’ll be very terrifying.

That’s all for now, I–that’s odd. My water bottle just fell off the counter. I could have sworn I put it farther back on the counter. Wait, what was that I just saw out of the corner of my mind. I must be working too hard or watching too many movies. I–oh my God! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

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He’ll be coming for you next.

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