Well, I finally got an email from my thesis advisor M on what he thought about my new thesis outline. Here’s what he had to say:
Very full chapter outline. You’ve sure thought it through. At this point, it looks solid. It’s going to be about execution, of course. But I say go ahead with your plan and keep writing.
He also signed it M. That’s kind of funny, considering that I keep forgetting to ask him if I can call him by something other than “M” on my blog.
But back on point, the new outline reduces the story by about six chapters from twenty-seven to twenty-one, making the story much simpler and allowing me to focus on the two main characters. And since I’m now eight chapters in, I’m now officially a little over a third of the way through the story! Woo-hoo! Only thirteen more to go!
As with my previous novels, I’ve counted out how many pages and words I’ve written so far. At the moment, Rose is about sixty pages in (that’s 8.5″ x 11″ pages), with an average of seven and a half pages per chapter. And at this moment, the word count is 17,546 words, with about 2,193 per chapter. So we’re around the length of a novelette at this point. At the rate I’m going though, it’s likely to be novel length (sixty-thousand words or higher) before long.
So next up is to, like M said, execute what I’ve written in the outline on the actual page. My next step is to slowly make the story much stranger than it already is (if you’re new here, Rose is about a woman who is resurrected through magic by her stalker, and that’s just the start of her problems), while also exploring the relationship between Rose and the antagonist. Hopefully by the end of this story it’ll be a very scary, very strange story that’ll be both moving and terrifying.
Well, I hope to start on Chapter Nine before long. I’ve got some homework to do, and I’m in the middle of editing something right now, so that might slow me down a little bit, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to catch up before the end of the month. By New Year’s I’d like to have at least gotten started on Chapter Fourteen. We’ll see what I do.
Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got a busy schedule these days, so I need all the luck I can get! I’m sure a lot of you can relate.
It’s been a while since I posted on my books that are in the process of getting written/edited/published/whatever, so I thought I’d write up a quick post to just let you all know about how those projects are going and when we can expect them to be in print. Spoiler: not any time soon.
Video Rage
The long-awaited sequel to Reborn City (especially by my sister and my stepmother). Last I was working on it, I’d made considerable progress on the book and had made it about halfway or so through the manuscript. Of course, senior year started, and I had to switch gears to work on Rose (more on that below). So I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back to that, but it’ll probably be when I don’t have classes, a thesis, and a job search to deal with all at once. So hopefully at some point next year. Yes, I know, it’s sad and frustrating. But when you’re working with my busy schedule, what can you do?
Actually, there is plenty you can do: offer me a job that matches my qualifications if you got one. Either that, or come by and do my homework for me. I’ve got an 8-10 page Shakespeare paper due December 9th. Any volunteers? No? Good, that’s cheating and I could get expelled for that.
Laura Horn
I’ve been thinking a lot about this novel lately. For those of you who haven’t seen me post about it before (it’s been a while), Laura Horn is a thriller about a teenage sexual assault victim who comes across information that threatens the United States and finds herself the only one who can stop it. At the same time, she must confront her demons and the man who assaulted her. The thing is, after I finished the first draft, I realized that certain parts of the story required too much suspension of disbelief. There was so much going on, some of it involved a stretch of the imagination to actually imagine happening, and at times I felt like there were glaring errors in the plot that I was missing. And then I found some of them!
All in all, the whole thing is unwieldy. But, I love the characters, especially my protagonist. I love the journey she goes on, and how it makes her go from a scared little girl to…well, she’s stronger. In a better place. And I liked the idea of the story very much.
So I think when the opportunity presents itself, I may try rewriting the story (because apparently a second draft for me is rewriting the whole damn thing, at least lately anyway). I’ve already got an idea for a new storyline that makes a lot more sense, it’ll be a bit shorter than the original version, and I think I’ll still get the story I want without facing those problems of believable storytelling. I just need the time to write it (what else is new?). So don’t expect LH to come out any time soon. I know, I know. It looks like nothing will be coming out soon, and that’s a fair opinion. But you never know. Something may change.
Rose
Last I updated you guys on my novel-that-doubles-as-my-thesis, I had to rewrite the outline again because the direction would’ve made the whole story a little crazy. So I sent the new outline to my advisor, and I was supposed to meet with him Friday. Sadly, the meeting got cancelled, so I’ll be emailing him this coming week to see if he would just send me his thoughts in an email. It might make it a bit easier since carving out a time for three busy people to meet up for even half an hour or more and just talk. If I hear anything, you guys will be among the first to know.
Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors
Hope to get a new article out some time soon. That’s all I’m saying on this.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got a bit of editing to do tonight, so I’m going to get on that. Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear. These days, I need all the luck I can get my hands on.
It’s the truth: authors want their families to read their work.
Whether it’s our first book or our thirtieth or higher. Whether we’ve just published a blog post we wrote during our lunch break yesterday or a short story we’ve been working months on appearing in a prestigious magazine. There’s one thing all us authors want when this sort of thing happens: we want our folks to pay attention to it. Hell, we want our folks to buy at least one copy, drop everything else to read it, and then call us up to comment on it, tell us how much they loved it or hated it, and then go on Amazon or whatever site they got it from and write a (hopefully) three star or higher review.
This isn’t just narcissism on our part (though I’m sure that plays a big role in it). Authors like vindication, it’s one of the reasons we write and publish. And praise from our families on something we toil away at for hours and hours at a time is at the same time both something we kind of expect and something we desperately want. It’s a big deal for authors, no matter what the relationships between us and our families, that they take a look at our work and let us know what they think (and hopefully they actually like it and aren’t just saying it’s the most awesome thing ever to make us happy).
Sadly, that’s not always going to happen. My folks love me and I love them. Sure, occasionally we get on each other’s nerves and more than once I’ve fantasized about Daleks chasing them down the street (or was that my TA who keeps assigning extra work for our recitation class?). But yeah, we care pretty deeply about each other. Still, I know there are certain members of my family who won’t read my books, or won’t read them immediately. And I have to accept that.
The latter is pretty easy to explain: my folks are busy. Everyone above the age of 18 in my immediate family has a job of some sort. Plus my sister has schoolwork, my parents all have kids to still take care of, and bills to pay, and pets to take care of, and chores to do…basically, a lot on their plates. Eventually they get around to it, but until then I just have to be patient. Do I like it? No. But I know I can’t do anything to change it, so I wait and I let those members of my family get around to it in their own time. Eventually they get it done.
For the former, it’s another matter entirely. Some of them just aren’t big readers. It isn’t how they relax in the evenings. And I won’t even pick that fight, so why even bother getting them to read it if I know it’s a losing battle? Others like to read, but they don’t enjoy anything with monsters. Or ghosts. Or murder. Or blood. Or missing limbs. Or the occasional hot and heavy sex scene. Or darkness. Or scares. In other words, what I write is the exact opposite of what they look for in a story. Well, you can try with these people, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work. For some, unless you’re writing comedy, romance, or a highfalutin coming-of-age literary novel, they just won’t read it.
Though if you still want a specific family member or friend to read your work, by all means go ahead and try. You can try by emphasizing to them the aspects of the story they would most likely enjoy (this worked with a friend of mine when I highlighted the romantic aspect of Snake). It’s better than cutting a deal with them or guilt-tripping them (though I think the latter worked for me one time).
And if that doesn’t work, don’t be too glum about it. There are always people out there willing to read your work. You just have to work hard and try to connect to them, wherever they may be. That’s part of the reason why I blog and post on Facebook and tweet and all that: because I know that by doing so it has the potential to open all sorts of doors. Maybe even allow me to find some people who would enjoy my work. You never know.
Does your family read your work?
How do you get your folks to read your work when it doesn’t necessarily appeal to them?
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the meme photos and where I got them, I made them. Yeah, I made them. I found this website that allows you to create your very own memes. It’s amazing! Now I can put hilarious memes in my stories whenever I want.
Oh dear. Maybe that’s not such a good thing after all…
I’ve been advertising my novel Reborn City a lot lately (and doubtless I’ll be doing some of that here too), but I thought this was interesting enough that it deserved a blog post.
Near the end of RC, I introduced hoverbikes, motorcycles that, instead of wheels, hover in the air much like the hoverboards seen in Back to the Future Parts II and III. The way they hover is through magnetic plates that act against the magnetic forces in the earth, allowing them to hover. The thing is, neither hoverboards or hoverbikes exist, so for now they’re still just science fiction.
Or are they?
Last month, tech company Arx Pax unveiled its own hoverboard, which does apparently hover a few inches off the ground. They are currently funding research and construction through a Kickstarter campaign which at this time has surpassed its original goal of two-hundred fifty-thousand dollars and made over four-hundred thirty-six thousand dollars. Backers have the option of getting their own Developers Kit or “White Box”, which allows them to create their own hover devices. Check out their campaign video.
Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Apparently the science behind it also revolves around magnetic forces, though not the same kind that the hoverbikes in Reborn City use. What the Hendo Hoverboard does is manipulate magnetic fields, which creates flux, or changing magnetic fields. In conductive surfaces like metals, it creates current, and according to a law known as Lenz’s Law, the current will create its own magnetic field which will act in opposition to the original flux. With enough flux, the magnetic fields will repel each other and, in the case of the Hendo Hoverboard, cause it to levitate (thanks to the Nerdist channel for explaining this to me. Click here for their video explaining the concept of the Hendo Hoverboard).
Now, the Hendo Hoverboard does have its limitations. It can only work on certain circumstances, it’s loud, and it has a short battery life. But part of the hopes of its creators, as expressed in the video above, is that people who buy a Developer Kit will be able to make breakthroughs and develop the technology further. With technology progressing in amazing new ways each and every day, and with people in high school developing amazing new programs or devices (like this kid who developed his own smart gun) we could be seeing new developments in this field within the next decade or so, enough that Wikipedia might stop calling hoverborads a”fictional device”.
And since Reborn City takes place in the year 2056, or about 41 years from when those first developer kits get shipped, there’s plenty of time to fine-tune the technology and find new applications for it, including in creating hoverbikes. Perhaps even utilizing the design that I made for the ones in Reborn City.
Below I’m including an excerpt from RC featuring the first appearance of the hoverbikes, which will also feature in the sequel Video Rage. If you’re interested in checking out RC, it’s on sale through Friday on Amazon and Smashwords, and there’s still a giveaway to participate in for a free copy. Hope you like what you read, Followers of Fear. And I’ll try to stop myself from talking anymore about RC till Friday, but I make no promises. HYDRAS!
When they were all safely inside, Harvey closed the door and pointed to a row of crates sitting under a single, unlit light bulb. The crates, five in all, were large and rectangular, and were marked with big red letters that read HEAVY BULK OBJECT.
“D’ya guys want help openin’ ‘em up?” asked Harvey.
“I got it.” said Rip. Extending his claws, he went to the crate closest to him and cut through the nails holding one of the sides to the rest of the crate. The wooden side fell with a loud clatter, revealing the hoverbike inside. It looked like a regular motorcycle, except it seemed more box-like and instead of wheels had two half-circle panels at each end. The entire thing had been painted black, even the handles and panels.
“Huh.” said Rip. “I thought it’d be mo’ showy.”
“Them rich kids prob’bly wanted to do the paint job,” said Fox. “Give it their own gang colors an’ shit.”
Iori scoffed. “Never say ‘gang’ an’ ‘rich kids’ in the same sentence.”
With Harvey’s help, Rip lifted the hoverbike up and out of the crate. The key, a small plastic rod with an electronic laser identification tag at the end, was wrapped around one of the handles with a small metal chain. Unwrapping the chain from the handle and setting the key in the ignition, Rip tried to start up the engine.
There was a loud rumbling sound from within and the hoverbike rose a foot and a half into the air, bobbing slightly where it stopped. From beneath the panels there was a faint blue glow, probably from the magnets, Zahara guessed. Everyone around Zahara gasped and stared at the hoverbike.
“Wow.” said Ilse. “’Kind of ‘em to put the gas in ‘fore we needed ‘em.”
“Y’all mind if I test it out fo’ ya guys?” asked Harvey.
“Be our guest.” said Rip, gesturing to the bike.
Harvey swung his foot over the hoverbike and sat in the seat. It dipped slightly but other than that did not react to the new weight that had been added to it.
Harvey sat there for a second, looking like he was trying to get his excitement under control. “Alright.” he said. “Now how the fuck d’ya drive this thing—?” Harvey twisted the throttle and the hoverbike sped forward. He lost his grip and fell off the bike, landing in Rip’s arms with a loud grunt. Both of them fell to the ground, neither really hurt but both looking shaken. A few yards away the hoverbike had come to a stop, hovering serenely as if nothing had happened.
“Shit.” said Harvey.
“That bastard’s gonna take some practice.” Rico observed, looking at the bike.
Zahara was still staring at it, not really listening to the others. She had seen what Harvey had done and thought that if he had just twisted the throttle slowly and hadn’t tried to move too quickly, he wouldn’t have fallen off the bike.
I have to try it out. she thought, feeling like she was being drawn to it. I just have to know if I’m right. Before she realized it, Zahara was striding towards the bike and swinging her leg over the seat.
“Zahara?” said Alto, and Zahara knew without looking that all the others were watching her. “What’re ya doin’?
“Babe, are ya crazy?” said Ilse. “Ya can’t just get on the bike an’ expect t’ get it right on the first try when we haven’t even tested it out—!”
But she ignored them. Bending over the handlebars, she twisted the throttle slowly. The bike sped forward, going at a pace that was slower than what had it had been going when Harvey had gotten on but still pretty fast. Feeling the air whipping around her, Zahara timed a turn and spun to the left as the wall neared. Navigating the maze of boxes and crates, she reappeared in front of the Hydras, braking with ease.
Only when she looked at the others and saw their mouths hanging open did she realize what she had done: she had ridden a hoverbike without any previous practice and made it look easy. She looked at all of them, then at the bike, then back to the rest of them again.
Finally Miguel closed his mouth and said, “Well, whaddya know? The chica’s a gangsta after all.”
“Yeah.” said Owl. “The riding-a-hoverbike-like-it’s-easy-as-pie type of gangsta.”
“Wow Zahara.” said Ilse, and Zahara felt herself glowing with pride and accomplishment.
Just a little over a week since the last review came up, a new one has been posted on Amazon. I guess it was only a matter of time before Snake started to catch up with Reborn City and The Quiet Game.
Snake is about a young man who becomes a serial killer in order to save the woman he loves. It’s definitely one of my darker works, and considering I’m a horror author that’s saying something. Anyway, this is the fourth review of Snake, and it was posted by Michele Kurland, who gave the book 4-stars (Michele also gave Reborn City and The Quiet Game pretty nice reviews as well. I guess I’ve got a fan). Her review is entitled This page-turning read was another great effort by Rami. Here’s what she had to say:
Well, I took yet another vacation where I made my family “just wait until I finish this chapter.” This page-turning read was another great effort by Rami. He is not afraid to take risks in plot twists and turns, character development and he takes the reader on quite the journey in this book. So looking forward to his next creation!
Well Michele, I have several new creations, I just have to find the time to get them edited and published! And I like it when I make it difficult to put the book down. It shows that I’m doing my job as a fiction writer.
If you would like to read Snake, you can find it in both paperback and e-book from Amazon and Smashwords. And if you do decide to read it, please let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love feedback, and you can leave it for me in a comment or you can leave a review online for me to find.
And as I keep reminding everyone, Reborn City is having a big sale and giveaway. You can find out details here if you wish to learn more.
That’s all for now. I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll get to it. Have a good evening, my Followers of Fear.
I would’ve written this yesterday when my last thesis meeting occurred, but I was pressed for time, and then I had homework up the wazoo, and then I got up late today, and then I still had homework, and then…what was I typing about? Oh yeah. Well yesterday I met with my advisor M and fellow thesis-writer P (he’s not working on Rose, of course. He’s got his own thing). I told them some of the changes I wanted to make with the story, and they liked some of my ideas once I’d taken the time to explain them.
But the conversation took a different turn when it came to the latest work I’d sent them. They began asking about all these fantastical elements I’d been adding to the story, wondering where I was going with the story and maybe if I was taking the focus off of Rose and the antagonist. Up until then, despite several offers to show them what I’d planned for the rest of the novel and even show them the outline I’d written, they’d said no. But today, in order to give them more of an idea of where I was going with this story, I gave them the basic idea of where Rose was going.
They had issues with the course of the story, to say the least and told me why.
Basically, the plot of the story would have gone with a powerful Japanese god joining the story and trying to kill Rose. They pointed out that my antagonist would’ve been relegated to barely secondary antagonist and that the story would’ve gotten too complicated for a single book. And I had to admit, they were right. It would’ve gotten pretty complicated, maybe unnecessarily so, if I went down that path.
So I took all that in, realized they had some definite points, and worried that maybe I still have a ton to learn as an author (good thing I’m still pretty early in my career). I’m now going to start a new outline for Rose (the fifth, by the way), and see where I go with it. I’ve got some ideas, so I’m going to brainstorm some more. However, I’m going to try and focus it on those two characters, Rose and the antagonist, and keep the focus on their topsy-turvy life. After I write the new outline, I plan on sending it to my advisor and getting his feedback on it. Hopefully he’ll like what he sees.
So for now, I’m off to read some manga, watch some TV, and see what comes to mind. Hopefully it’ll be something really great that will impress readers. Wish me luck, Followers of Fear.
And remember, there’s a huge sale on Reborn City and a giveaway going on right now. Click here for more details.
One whole year. One whole crazy, kooky, lovely, exciting, frustrating, magical, mystical, marvelous year. Can you believe how much time has passed since then?
Actually, yes I can. I’ve had that sort of crazy life. But yeah, it’s amazing that an entire year has passed since Reborn City was first published. It’s my first novel and I’m especially proud of it. And the reception to it has just been great. I’ve had a lot of people who’ve told me how much they’ve enjoyed reading RC, how they thought it was really original and that they couldn’t wait to read the sequel.*
For those of yo who are unfamiliar with RC, let me tell you about it. Reborn City is the first in a science fiction trilogy I started writing in high school, and that I’ve been working and polishing on and off since then. It follows Zahara Bakur, a Muslim teenager who lives in the titular city, a Las Vegas-like entertainment town in the year 2056. After the death of her parents, Zahara is forced by circumstance to join the Hydras, an interracial street gang whose leaders have special abilities and powers. Zahara finds a new home with the Hydras, despite the constant violence in her neighborhood and the discrimination she faces because of her religion. However, when tragedy strikes, Zahara learns that there are people in the government interested in the Hydras for very specific reasons, and the choices she makes will influence not only her life, but the lives of those she cares about.
Currently, Reborn City holds a 4.7 rating based on seven reviews on Amazon, and people have been mostly very positive with what they’ve had to say. Take a look:
This is an extremely commendable effort by a new young writer, whom I believe we will see much more of in the years ahead. Rami Ungar’s vision of a frightening dystopian future is peppered with those elements that make us all human. There are quite a few surprises in the book, and I am anxious for the next volume in the series to be released.
–Marc M. Neiwirth
This is not a genre I typically delve into, but I took this book on vacation and couldn’t put it down. The plot had me turning pages at quite the clip. The characters were unique and interesting and the imagery had me creating my own visual of what Rami’s interpretation of the future looked like. For first time novelist, Rami Ungar, this was an outstanding showing of talent and commitment to his passion of writing. Looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next!
–Michele Kurland
As a reader who does not read books in this genre, I must admit that I could not put down the book. I attribute this to the talent of the author. I am looking forward to reading the next books published by Ungar. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy action with features of supernatural powers and sci-fi.
–Enjie
And in honor of a full year since Reborn City was published, I’m doing a couple of special things to celebrate. First, I’m doing a two-week sale. All e-books of Reborn City will be only $0.99 and the print paperback will be $6.50, down from their usual prices from $2.99 and $8.99, respectively.
In addition, I’m holding a contest. From November 1st-November 14th, you have the opportunity to win an autographed copy of Reborn City, sent to wherever you may live. This contest is available to all, except to those who are closely related to me or had some hand in the creation of Reborn City. All you have to do is leave a comment below with your name, where you’re from, and a superpower you would like to have. Easier questions than what was asked at the Bridge of Death, right?
If you would like to check out Reborn City, you can buy a print or digital copy from Amazon and Smashwords (the latter only has the e-book version). And if you like (or hate) what you read, please let me know what you think, whether in a comment or in a review. Positive or negative, I love feedback, so please let me know your thoughts on the book.
Good luck to all contest participants and fun reading, my Followers of Fear. And thanks for a wonderful year, everyone. I couldn’t have done it without you.
*Speaking of which, I’m sorry editing and publishing Video Rage is taking so long. I’ve been busy with my thesis and school, so there hasn’t been any time to work on it. But I’m hoping that with a slightly easier next semester in the spring, I might be able to actually put in some time finishing up the second draft of VR. Of course, I’ll deep into the job search at that point, so that could get in the way.
It’s been a while since I’ve had anything to say about Snake, but it looks like something came up today. Snake, my second novel, got it’s third review today. It also doubles as its first five-star review, and it’s the shortest review I’ve ever gotten. Eight whole words! I don’t think I’ve ever had such a short review before.
Since it’s been such a long while since I devoted a post to Snake, let’s do a quick recap. Snake is about a young man whose girlfriend is kidnapped, and the subsequent events cause him to go mad and become a serial killer so that he may find her again and kill the monsters who took her. It’s a very dark thriller, and I’ve heard it compared to Stephen King once or twice.
Today’s review comes from Jyoti, who had this to say about Snake:
Quite gripping story. enjoyed a lot reading this.
I’m glad Jyoti liked it. Thanks for reading! Always happy to hear back from the people checking out the stuff I write. And if you’d be interested in reading Snake, you can check it out on Amazon or on Smashwords in paperback or e-book (though the latter only has it in digital version). And if you end up getting a copy and like what you read, or if you hate it, or if you’re ambivalent, let me know in a comment or a review. Positive or negative, I love feedback from readers, so please don’t be shy.
I’ll let everyone know if anything else comes up. Write to you later, my Followers of Fear.
It’s been a while since I updated everyone on my novel-that-also-doubles-as-my senior-thesis Rose, but I have the opportunity to do so now. Especially since I can’t do my job search without updating my resume, and I’m waiting to hear back from a couple of people on whether I can use them as references.
Well, if you’ll remember my post on my first thesis meeting, you know I ended up switching to first person and rewriting some of the early chapters to make them darker. Well, this past Wednesday there was another meeting with my advisor and the other student I’m working with (I keep meaning to ask if I can use their real names, but I keep forgetting. Oh well, I think I’ll stick to M, my advisor, and P, the other student I’m working with). They had a lot of suggestions for me:
Probably a hold over from writing Reborn City and Video Rage, but I have a tendency to explain the stranger elements of the story. Works great for science fiction, but terrible for horror. So I’m trying not to explain the stranger aspects and let the story tell it through what happens.
There are a few comedy elements that I’m trying to cut out. We’ll see how that goes.
There are some things I will need to change for the first couple chapters, but that’ll wait for the second draft.
Most importantly, I’ve switched to narrating in present tense.
That last one is a big one for me. In a previous post, I mentioned that I probably shouldn’t narrate in present tense because I’m not very good or familiar with it and because I have the tendency to switch back into past tense. I explained that to M, but he insisted that I at least try it. His reasoning was that since I’ve been narrating the story in past tense with a first person narrator this whole time, it’s pretty much assumed that things will turn out for the best (probably true). Putting the story in first person would probably serve to add a little mystery and uncertainty to the story.
So I thought, might as well give it a shot. I’d switched from third to first person already, and that had brought about a definite improvement, though I have to work harder to make sure that Rose’s constant state of terror doesn’t start to sound boring. On the other hand, I was already comfortable with writing in the first person. One of my early attempts at writing a novel was in the first person, and for a story written in my early-to-mid teens I did a pretty good job. Writing in the present tense was something I’d hardly ever done before.
So I rewrote parts of Chapter Three to start with, the parts that needed some holes to be plugged so that the story could continue to flow.Then I wrote Chapter Four, and over the past twenty-four hours or so I wrote Chapter Five. Both of those chapters and the parts of Chapter Three I rewrote were written in present tense. And it is weird for me. I don’t know many other authors who write that way, so I don’t have an example to refer back to. I’m basically feeling it out as I go.
But I somehow managed to do it. And it’s been a rather dramatic shift, like the DNA of the story has been altered. I keep thinking back to that scene from the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man film, when Peter Parker’s DNA gets rewritten by spider-DNA, causing his whole self to change. It’s that dramatic a shift, like the whole thing has changed in a very important way while still remaining the same basic story. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before.
Well, I’ll keep writing it in first-person present tense, hopefully gaining a knack for writing stories like this along the way (it could be useful for a future story). I just hope that when we meet again on Halloween, I don’t have to do another major change to the story. Writing this thing’s been hard enough as it is with just a busy schedule. Writing in unfamiliar styles and with so many new rules or ideas to incorporate certainly makes the job a bit tougher.
Well, it’s late, so I’m going to bed. Hopefully I’ll start Chapter Six tomorrow after classes and homework. Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear.
Before I start, I just want to make sure everyone is aware that I’m not actually showing you how to curse someone. I do know how to do that, but I don’t want to share the method lest someone use it on me. That would suck. No, I’m talking about creating a curse for a story, one that would terrify all who read your work.
The thing about curses is that they are relentless and awful. A curse doesn’t discriminate based on how nice you are, how much money you make, what religion you belong to, or any other factor. No, once a curse locks onto you, it’s like you have a target on your back that you can’t get off, and you won’t get that target off until the curse has run its course (usually this means death). That’s what makes them so scary.
So how do you create a curse? First you need to decide on this:
Person, place, and/or thing. A curse is usually associated with a specific object, location, or person, though sometimes a curse can be associated with more than one of these (such as with an entire family, multiple houses, or a person who lived in a house). In the movie The Conjuring and its spinoff/prequel Annabelle (which I just saw recently), a curse was placed on the doll, allowing a demon to possess it and make havoc for anyone who came into contact with the doll. That’s an example of a cursed object. The house in The Grudge is an example of a cursed location, as well as an example of a cursed person (Kayako, the woman who lived in the house, is the one who carries out the curse). Another example of a cursed person is simply someone who has a curse placed upon them, making interaction with others difficult, if not impossible. Boy, would that suck!
This brings me to my next point, though:
The well is essential to Samara’s curse and origin story.
The origin story. Every curse has its story of how it came to be, and often that the basis of how the curse can be warded off (more on that later). Generally this involves some horrific event happening, causing the curse to manifest or be cast. For example, in the Buffy universe Angel’s curse was caused when he killed the beloved child of a tribe of gypsies, who restored his soul to him through magic. Another example is when Samara/Sadako from the Ring movies was trapped in the well and died, her soul was filled with rage and she infected a blank video cassette. And in The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Freddy’s curse came into being when he was killed in a fire by the parents of the children he’d killed/molested (depending on if you’re going with the original movie series or the remake).
The trigger. For a curse to take hold of a target, something specific has to happen. For instance, in the popular Bloody Mary legend (which I’ve tested numerous times, by the way), you have to say Bloody Mary three times in the mirror in order to summon her. In the Stephen King story Bag of Bones, the curse was triggered when a child descended from one of any of the families involved in a gruesome murder, whose name usually began with a K, got to a certain age (in the TV miniseries, this was simplified to just the daughters). And in the popular story The Monkey’s Paw, one had to make a wish on the titular paw in order to start the curse. Which leads to the fun part:
How the curse manifests. A curse manifests after the trigger has been…well, triggered. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (yes, I’m pulling Harry Potter out), Katie Bell was put in unimaginable pain when she touched the cursed necklace. Touching the necklace was the trigger, and the pain was the manifestation. Another form of manifestation would be the Tecumseh curse, which was that any President elected in a year divisible by twenty would die in office (though Ronald Reagan and President Bush managed to get away). The election year is the trigger, while the death of the President is the manifestation.
How to ward it off. This is optional for literary curses, but it’s something you want to consider in creating a curse. In Jewish folklore, the demon Lilith tries to take the souls of newborns or eat them. However, if one has a mezuzah, a marker on one’s doorpost that has the name of three angels on it, Lilith cannot enter the home and attempt to take the child. The angels whose names are on the mezuzah were the same angels who tried to get Lilith to return to Adam when she was still his wife. When she refused, they cursed her to become a demon and made it that she could not enter a home with their names on it (that’s how the origin story relates to warding off the curse).
The hamsa, a symbol prevalent in Judaism and Islam, is also good at warding off evil. It’s no good at warding off taxes though.
In another example, there’s a curse among some actors about saying the name Macbeth in a theater which leads to bad luck. Depending on who you ask, there are different methods to dispelling the curse, a popular one being to leave the theater, walk around the building three times, spit over one’s left shoulder, say an obscenity, and then wait to be invited back into the theater.
Containing/canceling the curse. This is also optional in writing fiction, but it should be considered. Two things one should consider when figuring out how to cancel or seal a curse is that it should be difficult, and that it doesn’t necessarily have to do with the origin story. In the movie The Unborn, the dybbuk couldn’t be stopped until it was exorcised. A similar thing happened in the third movie in the American Grudge movies, in which case an exorcism that sealed Kayako into a little girl was needed before she could be stopped. In Japanese onryo legends, the spirit needs to have whatever is disturbing it resolved or it will continue to seek revenge.And in Bag of Bones, Sarah Tidwell did not end her curse until her bones were dissolved with lye, thereby releasing her from Earth.
That’s how you create a curse. As for creating a terrifying story involving that curse…well, that’s up to you. I’m not going to give you directions on that. Not in this post, anyway.
Oh, and one more thing: I saw Dracula Untold and Annabelle at the movies today with a friend. Both were excellent, getting 4.5 out of 5 from me. But something in the latter film really stuck with me: near the end, the priest character says that evil can only be contained, it’s not created or destroyed (or something like that). I think that when you’re writing a scary story, especially one involving curses, that’s some pretty good stuff to keep in mind. True evil is not something you can easily be rid of. At least, not in my experience.
What advice do you have for creating curses?
Have you written anything with curses recently?
Are there any stories of curses that are your favorite or that I didn’t include? Tell me a bit about them.
