Posts Tagged ‘scary stuff’

The Black Dragon Award

Posted: April 14, 2013 in ideas, Living and Life, Scary Stuff, Writing
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I know what you’re thinking: He got another award? But that’s not the case. You see, I made up my own award! I thought it’d be interesting if I created my own Internet meme and saw how far I went. Hence, the Black Dragon Award, an award for any author who has written any form of fiction that’s got something scary in it.

So here are the rules for the Black Dragon Award:

1. You must have written something scary or featuring something scary in the past year. (This can range from being a simple murder mystery to a full-on zombie novel with a wizard and serial killers mixed in for variety). Note that whatever work you’ve created will be the subject of several of the questions below.

2. You must thank the person who nominated you and then link back to their  blog.

3. You must answer the 10 questions below on your own blog post.

4. Finally, you must nominate at least 5 other authors for the award and then notify them of it.

Okay, time for the questions. Enjoy:

1. What is the premise of the novel you’ve written? My novel Snake, which I spent half of 2012 writing, is about a serial killer hunting down members of a certain Mafia family in New York. Why is he doing this is for the reader to discover as they read. It’s pretty scary.

2. How long did it take you to write it? I spent six months from June to December 2012 working on Snake. It was a lot of fun, but I’m still on the editing phase, and that can be a pain in the ass sometimes. I’m about to start on the third draft (God help me) and I’m going to be adding a lot of material for character history and character development. It’s going to be hard work.

3. Which character(s) are you most like? I think I’m most like the Snake (he’s somewhat based on me, after all). But at times I wish I was like the female lead, Allison. She’s a tough girl, but she’s got her nice side to her. I can’t help but fall for her.

4. What’s the scariest thing you’ve read/seen lately? Honestly, it was that ghost I saw the other night. That was freaky! I wish I could show what I saw to the Ghost Adventures crew.

5. What’s something you’re reluctant to write about? I’m not sure. Perhaps rape scenes. Those are tough, and they really touch a chord that even veteran writers don’t want to touch. If I ever do write a rape scene though, it’ll probably be for the purpose of showing the horrors of rape and the attitudes around it.

6. If you could take characters from other works and insert them into an original story of your own design, who would you take and what would you have them do? I’d like to take Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Jason Voorhees and have them become reluctant allies. I’d probably kill off Clarice Starling early, though (I prefer Will Graham to Clarice Starling). Hey, that’d be the impetus for the events of the story. Jason could fall in love with Starling, and when she dies, Lecter and Jason could go on a revenge-fueled killing spree. That’d be interesting…and fun to write.

7. Do you envision a sequel to your novel? I’d like to write a sequel for Snake, but not for a long while. I like to take breaks when I’m working on a series, put some time between each book in the series. It’s good for my noggin that way.

8. What first got you into writing? And what got you writing scary subject matter? I think Harry Potter got me into writing, but it was Stephen King and Anne Rice who got me into writing scary stuff. I think my mother was happy that I loved those writers so much (we read a lot of the same things) but I think my dad was (and still is) probably worried about some of the subjects I write about.

9. What scares you personally? Spiders. Not the tiny ones, but the ones where you can make out the details on their faces. Close-ups of spider faces I saw back in 4th grade gave me nightmares for ages.

10. What are your future plans? Finish editing Snake, release my collection of short stories The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, and also finish editing and release Reborn City. After that, I’d like to work on RC‘s sequel, if you don’t mind.

Okay, and now for the nominees:

1. Stories by Williams.

2. A Portia Adams adventure

3. nightmirrors

4. Pat Bertram’s Blog

5. self-publish bible

Let’s hope this award takes off–with your help, anyway. Congratulations to the winners and good luck with your own posts.

Last Night’s Spooky Experience

Posted: April 10, 2013 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
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I’ve had spooky experiences with ghosts before. One time I got a visit from my deceased cat on Halloween. Another time I woke up to a presence in my room and a horrible pain from my teeth that only went away when I said a Jewish prayer (exorcisms work when you say them in Hebrew, apparently). But last night I had my spookiest experience of all, and I’d like to tell you about it.

I was just falling asleep last night when it happened. This was about 12:30 in the morning, I’d been having a little trouble falling asleep but now it looked like I could get to sleep. However as I was drifting off, I suddenly felt unable to breathe and woke up, sucking in lungfuls of air. At the foot of my bed was a translucent form that said “Vietnam.” It moved to my dresser and then towards me, and as it did I saw a little old man wearing a dark sweater saying “Vietnam” to me. I could see right through him, but I could make out all of his details, and I still remember the sound of his voice in my head.

Now naturally I was freaked out. I love ghosts, but I prefer seeking them out rather than them finding me.  Imagine waking up and finding one right in your room saying something about Vietnam (maybe he fought in the war?). It’s a little disconcerting, to say the least. So I said, “Go away!” in a clear voice.  The ghost just looked at me like it was surprised. Then I said, “In the name of God, go away!” In times of fear or crisis I like to fall back on my faith in God, which shows how big my faith is a part of my life. And it seemed to do the trick, because the old man just faded away before my eyes and disappeared. A moment later I had the strangest sensation of something moving over and across my bed and then I was alone. I lay there for about five minutes letting the adrenaline and fear work its way out of my system before I attempted to go back to sleep.

And while I waited for my body to calm down, the significiance of what I’d just experienced came over me. What I’d experienced was a full-bodied apparition, as ghost enthusiasts call any spirit able to fully materialize itself. It’s the rarest of all ghost phenomena, largely due to the amount of energy a spirit would need to fully materialize like that, and it’s the hardest to capture on film as evidence of the paranormal. This wasn’t lost on me, especially since I watch ghost-hunting shows on TV. I realized though that people would have to go on my word of what I saw, because I don’t have a roommate in my dorm room to verify the story and I certainly wasn’t recording what was happening while I slept. Still, the fact that I witnessed that was pretty amazing, though still pretty scary at thte time.

I’m not sure why all this happened, why the ghost appeared to me, or why I suddenly had trouble breathing, and don’t ask me what Vietnam had to do with anything, because I’m not sure. However I still think this is probably one of the more significant paranormal events to happen to me, and there are a few. You are free to doubt me and what I saw and I’m okay with that. But this is still an amazing thing, and even though I was scared at the time, I’m happy I got to experience it.

Have you ever experienced anything rational explanations couldn’t explain? What happened?

Review: Evil Dead

Posted: April 7, 2013 in Review, Scary Stuff
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I swear, it’s so hard to find a good scary movie that doesn’t rely on obscene amounts of gore these days. However, the remake/sequel of 1981’s The Evil Dead does do the original justice, even with the amount of gore involved. Throughout the film we see both homages to the original, and we see it made anew with much better special effects (which apparently never relied on CGI, though at times I find that really hard to believe, especially during that first scene and the scene with the meat cutter). Plus there’s a bit more substance to this film in terms of character motivations and what-not, but like I said, just a bit.

For those of you not familiar with the original film, these films revolve around a magic book that summons sleeping demons that possess human bodies in order to resurrect something much worse. As five teens get possessed and become bloody and disgusting, it’s up to the one normal dude (or gal, in this case) to kill them all to save their souls. The original films were DIYers, so they didn’t have much in the way of special effects and they were simplistic in nature. However the odd camera angles and filming techniques were what made this indie project a classic, spawning sequels, comic books, video games, and now a new line of films meant to bring the old and the new films together.

I warn you, if you’re not easily scared, you may only receive minimum scares to satisfy your morbid self. If you scare easily though, you will not be disappointed by this film. I would’ve preferred a lot less gore and more focus on building suspense and causing terror, but what’re you going to do, except either not see the film or show the world how you make a scary film?

On the whole, I’ll give this film a 3.6 out of 5. Not bad, but still room for improvement.

My First Writing Experiences: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Posted: April 7, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Writing
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I woke up yesterday morning and was filled with memories of some of my old attempts at writing, the first fiction stories I ever wrote, and how they shaped and defined me over the years, and how I got to this point in my writing.. I wanted to write a post about them, but with all that was going on yesterday, I didn’t have the time. Well, better now than never, right?

The first time I tried to write anything, I must’ve been five or six, eight at the most. I had just seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the first time and then read the book, which was infinitely better. My mind was blown, and I could only think to myself, “I want to write something like that”. So I did, creating a similar story to HP1 except with the genders of the characters switched (even then, I had a thing for strong female leads, I guess). I called this obvious copyright violation Amanda Robinson, I gave her a cat instead of an owl, and I planned that the cat was a prince in cat form who would be my main character’s love interest at the end of the book, but beyond that same basic plot as HP1. I didn’t finish this work, either because I had the good sense to stop before I got sued or because at that point in my life I couldn’t keep my focus on any one project for very long. But it did spark my interest in writing, which only grew as time went by.

My next major project was a pirate adventure story called Bane Nycroft and the Maelstrom Pirates (I’m not sure if this one was inspired in any way by Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s a possibility). That story featured a lycanthropic teenage pirate with a stolen Navy ship, leading a band of fellow orphans on the high seas and stealing from rich government banks and fighting monsters and demons. Along the way the pirate picks up a rebellious princess and they discover an island where all sorts of strange and magical creatures reside, and eventually they take on a prince who’s actually a demon in disguise. This one went through several rewrites, each rewrite growing more supernatural as time went by. Eventually I lost interest, but more than Amanda Robinson, Bane Nycroft gave me a taste of what professional fiction writing was like.

After that came the Davis trilogy, a couple of vampire novels that were inspired by the movie Van Helsing. In those novels, which fused a lot of the Buffy mythology to Van Helsing and my own twisted imagination, a teenager commits suicide after seeing his crush with her boyfriend. The teenager makes a deal with the Devil to become a vampire and take over the world and make the girl his vampiric bride. The girl, on her way to becoming a vampire, must band with her boyfriend, her older brother, and her best friend, who happens to be a witch, to stop this horrible vampire from turning the world into permanent darkness. I actually got to the third book with this one, but at that time the slow realization that nobody would want to publish such a confusing story that ripped off so many works came over me. Plus as I got further along the story got more and more sexualized, which sort of corresponded with where I was at that point in my teenage years.

I wasn’t entirely finished with the vampire mythology though, and almost immediately afterward I began work on Mahiro, which in my opinion had the first inklings of the style of writing I have today. In it a teenage boy travels to an alternate universe inhabited by vampires. While there, he is found by Mahiro, the queen of vampires, who takes a liking to him and turns him into a vampire. But before she can finish the ritual and take his soul, he escapes and finds the human resistance, where he assembles a team of crack fighters to help him take on Mahiro and perhaps find a cure for vampirism. At the same time, he must deal with a romantic triangle, being drawn both to his girlfriend, whom he left on the other side of a dimensional portal, and an equipment tech with some terrific sharp-shooting skills. It was promising, but at that point Twilight was hugely popular and was gaining more fans everyday. As a consequence the number of vampire books out there was astronomical, and I didn’t want to compete with that. With that in mind, I shelved Mahiro until a time I could bring out the characters again and rewrite the story. Until then, no vampires for me.

There was also a poorly-researched caveman story and a Frankenstein-esque horror story I wrote in between Bane Nycroft and the Davis trilogy, plus some attempts at zombie literature. Other than that, those were the main works that preceded the creation of Reborn City, which I’ve stuck with up until now and I’m happy to say will be published as soon as the beta reading period is over, I can create a cover, format the whole darn thing, and get a copyright.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot. My writing style’s changed drastically since I started writing fiction, and I’ve incorporated new elements to my work with every author I’ve read and every experience I’ve gone through. I wonder what the kid who sat in front of the old Windows 97 computer hen-pecking out a Harry Potter rip-off would say if he saw me now and what my writing’s like (probably “Why aren’t you living in a mansion yet?”). I hope to continue to grow in my writing and to create awesome and scary works. And perhaps, unlike my previous work, the characters will be college students or even full adults instead of teenagers. That’d be a break from the past!

The New Carrie Trailer

Posted: April 7, 2013 in Scary Stuff
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I’ve been wanting to post about this since Thursday, but like I said in my last post…I’ve been busy.

Now, some people think that this’ll just be a remake with nothing new to add to the story of Carrie White. I’d like to disagree (though I do acknowledge their point). I think the trailer offers plenty of room to say otherwise. We can see Chloe Grace Moretz as Carrie disagreeing with her mother, something that Carrie doesn’t usually do without her psychic powers. Not to mention that Carrie might use her powers to…have a little fun. I mean, look at her smile when she manipulates the flag! That’s a girl who knows she going to go a little bad and have a wild time with her powers.

Plus Carrie’s mother does some head-banging  early in the commercial, an indication that we may see just how crazy she is. And the special effects…should…be…AWESOME! I mean, look at the trailer. This is more than just lifting stuff, this is causing the whole house to go crazy with your power.

Don’t believe me? Watch the trailer, you’ll see. I cannot wait till October.

It’s Lonely Sometimes When You’re Into Horror

Posted: April 7, 2013 in Reflections, Scary Stuff
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I’ve been so busy lately, that the ideas for blog posts have been piling up. I wanted to write two or three yesterday, but Shabbat came in before I could, and I had to put any post-writing plans on hold. Now that Shabbat is over and I’ve done some homework and I’ve watched last night’s episode of Grimm, so I’m good to start writing a few posts. And to start with, I’d like to bring up a topic that’s been on my mind for the past couple of days:

I’m one of the few horror fans I know. In fact, I only know one other fan of scary movies on campus, but his schedule is so different from mine that we can’t always just sit down and talk to each other about horror movies and the qualities of originals versus remakes…or in fact, talk about anything. In fact, I only found out about his love for horror films tonight! How whack is that?!

Thing is, I feel a little lonely sometimes. I can’t help but feel a little down when I see people debating the Game of Thrones‘ books versus the TV show or see Trekkies go crazy over the new movie coming out. But are there a ton of people going crazy over Stephen King adaptations coming out soon? Um…me and quite possibly my mother, I know that much. Anyone getting nuts for the third season of AHS, American Horror Story: Coven? Me and…the sister who lives on the other end of campus and whom I only see on vacations or at family or holiday events. You see how sad this is?

The thing is, I want to have conversations that are like comic book fans debating how to beat the Hulk if you don’t have superpowers or debates about whether Kirk or Picard is the better captain, only in more of the vein of horror. But there’s not a lot of people who are into that sort of stuff, at least not on my blog. The posts I do write that are devoted to horror subjects don’t always get a lot of reads or likes and rarely any comments, so I don’t always write them. And it…it makes me wish more fans of horror were on my blog.

I’m not complaining or anything about the conversations  I’ve had up to this point or the friends I’ve made not being fans of scary stuff. But I do wish that I could find some more people interested in the horror scene, who go crazy for the same things I’m into or at least show some enthusiasm for those things.

Well, it’s the Internet age. I may just not be looking hard enough. Does anyone know any Facebook groups? I’m on that now, so I better get to work searching. And I’d like to say, if you ever want to discuss horror subjects, I’m always game. I love to talk about horror. So much that I scare normal people.

Okay, I’m going to stop ranting now. I just want to say, I’m going to start writing more horror posts from now on. I’m sorry if that scares you. But I must say, I want to talk about horror more often, so that’s what I’m going to do. Hope you’re okay with that. Maybe I’ll meet a few people who go crazy for ghosts and slashers like I do.

One can only hope.

Review: Hannibal Pilot Episode

Posted: April 4, 2013 in Review, Scary Stuff
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I’ve got a thing for serial killers–the fictional kind, not the ones that actually kill people. And with The Following, Bates Motel, and the second season of AHS, you’d think I’d be pretty satisfied right now. But no, I’m more excited for Hannibal, the prequel TV series to the first Hannibal Lecter novel, Red Dragon (with all the prequel TV series based on famous fictional killers these days, I’m hoping someone will do a prequel to Nightmare on Elm Street, but I digress). In fact, I’ve been geeking out about this show since I heard it was being made. And tonight, I made some popcorn, sat down in front of the TV, rocking back and forth like a hyperactive kid who had too much ice cream.

I walked away very intrigued, similar to the feeling I get when I’m working with an interesting story and an interesting main character. Here’s why:

First off, there’s Will Graham, the profiler who tackled Lecter before Clarice Starling was even out of high school, and there’s Hannibal the Cannibal himself. Hugh Dancy plays Graham, the third actor to play the character. This incarnation though is different: whereas other versions have only hinted at how troubled they are by their gifts to find and figure out serial killers, Dancy’s Graham is almost reminiscent of Sheldon Cooper, brilliant, but with annoying quirks that help him keep strangers away but force him to struggle to keep the people he likes close to him. As he himself states early in the pilot episode, “I’m more Asperger’s and autism than narcissistic and psychopathic.” Instead of being a physics genius in love with himself, Graham is gifted and cursed with the ability to emphasize with any person, even killers, and the degree to which he does that scares him.

Contrast that with Dr. Lecter, played this time by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen. This incarnation of the man-eating doctor shows him as a stoic, detached gentlemen, soft-spoken and not one bit creepy…unless we see him cooking or eating. We already know that he’s a cannibal and active at it too, as opposed to the other characters of the show, who believe he’s just a brilliant psychiatrist, and Mikkelsen does a damn good job of making us almost believe that. In fact, I think it’s going to be a long wait before we see any definitive proof that the doctor is the killer, and while we wait, we’ll be preoccupied with Graham and Lecter’s relationship. You see despite a rocky start, both men are connecting to each other on some level…and that’s where this show’s emotional conflict will come from.

There’s no music in this show except during very drama-filled moments, giving the show a very life-like quality. The special effects mostly come from Graham seeing what he thinks as he reconstructs crime scenes and solves puzzles in his head, mostly in the form of a neon-green light rewinding the crime scene to its pre-crime state, and dreams he has that reveal the killer’s thinking to him. And there’s an air to the show that mystifies me, an air created by the show’s creators. It’s saying, “We’re not trying to entertain you…we’re trying to tell you a story that’s never been told before.” Which is the truth, and it all in turn intrigues me.

I’m giving this episode a 4.6 out of 5. Let’s hope they can keep this going, keep me intrigued, and maybe we’ll see not only the stunning but inevitable conclusion to this first season, but we’ll see the appearance of another famous killer as well…

The Importance of Build-Up And Mystery

Posted: April 3, 2013 in Reflections, Scary Stuff
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What is in that fog? Something wicked this way comes.

I’ve often used this blog to rail against horror movies where filmmakers have spent a ton of money on CGI and making a top-notch movie, and yet the most exciting aspect of the movie is the trailer. I’ve even done lists of what you should and shouldn’t do when making a horror movie (for that post, please refer here: https://ramiungarthewriter.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/what-not-to-do-when-making-a-horror-movie/). Now I think I’ve identified two more factors in horror films that could separate a good scare from a boring waste of $6.50. Those factors are build-up and mystery.

For the first one, I’d like to call attention to the beter films in the Friday the 13th franchise versus the remake, the latter of hich I never get tired of ripping for how really bad it was. In the better films, the filmmakers had a way with building suspense that terrified audiences and made them want more at the same time. The best way to illustrate this technique, if you ask me (and I’m assuming you are, you’re reading this blog post after all), is through stream-of-consciousness from the POV of a moviegoer:

“Oh, she’s going out to that shed. Will Jason kill her there? She’s in and the light’s on. She bends over–I can’t see what’s behind her! Oh, Jason’s not there. Good. Oh, she’s bending over again! I can’t see behind her! Oh, Jason’s not there. Oh, how many lightbulbs does she need? Oh, Jason’s still not there. Okay, she’s heading back to the house. Will Jason get her now? Opening the door…OMG! What was that? Oh, it was just the cat. God, I feel as silly as the actress in that close-up–OMG there’s a machete poking out her front! She’s being lifted up! Yikes it’s Jason! AAAH!”

Somedays his writers do great with him. Other days…you know. All depends on how the suspense is added to the story.

You see there? Through visual dynamics and waiting until the least expected moment, they get the tension really high, make us think that we’ve seen everything to get scared of, and then WHAM! They scare us when we least expect it. In the better Friday the 13th films, this technique would scare the bejeezus out of people, and made the films famous and box-office smashes. Now contrast this with the reaction of me when I watched the remake:

“Okay, the naked chick with the bump on the head is hidden under the dock on the bad side of the lake. Jason’s probably seen her. She’s so dead. He’s on the dock. She’s looking up like he might get her. He steps away from her. Machete through the roof of her head! We see her bare breasts. She’s dead and in the water. Wow, so scary. NOT!”

No surprises in that film. We knew when a character was going to die, and there was no build-up of suspense to make us terrified. There was a reason that fans and critics hated that film. The only reason it did well was because people went hoping that the reviews were just by people who were overly critical and hard to please.

This is why it’s important to get a feel for building suspense like in the better of the Friday the 13th films. it makes the movies that much better, and if you’re really good at it you can keep it going throughout an entire film and even afterwards without letting the suspense and terror abate. And if you do become good at it, you can hopefully become someone in the horror movie industry.

Another aspect of making horor movies that can make a horror movie great is mystery. To illustrate that, I’d like to use The Amityville Horror and its remake (I love showing how bad remakes can be. Maybe people will learn something from it). In the original Amityville Horror, we never get a sense of what exactly is haunting the house. We see flies and hear masculine voices shouting “GET OUT” at priests. Things move on their own, and anyone of a religious nature gets horribly sick near the house. We know the little girl is playing with an imaginary friend named Jodie, who somehow locks the babysitter in a closet (that’s scary as it is), and there’s a room painted red under the basement stairs that causes the very-spiritual family friend to go into hysterics and scream “It’s the gateway to hell!” Later, the male lead sees a pig with glowing eyes in the window, which we assume tells him to kill his family, and later the same guy falls through the stairs into the hidden room and falls through the floor of that into a pit of blood.

Beware this room: its darkness is only rivaled by so little we know about it.

But do we really understand what’s haunting the house? NO! We know that the murder of the preivious residents of the house were killed by their crazy son, but we’re not sure if they’re causing the haunting or if they’re just one small piece of the puzzle. We also hear something of a satanic preacher living on that land many years ago, but it’s not assumed that he’s behind it in any way. At the end of the movie, we’re left thinking: “Oh mygod, I’m so scared! What was with that house? What was in it? And where did all that blood come from? And the pig in the window…what the f*** was with the pig in the window!” You see how awesome the amount of mystery in that movie makes it?

Contrast that with the remake, which is utilizing the whole mythology from all the films based on The Amityville Horror. Right away, we’re made very aware of what’s causing everything. Messages through TV, little ghost girls that manifest themselves in front of everyone and are held by mysterious arms against the ceiling. Messages in blood on the mirror…need I go on? There’s no mystery, except for a supposed-to-be startling revelation about the satanic preacher. At the end, we understand too well what’s causing the haunting, and we’re left very not scared. The mystery of the first film made it awesome, while the lack of mystery stripped the second film of any scariness.

At least that’s what’s happening with this film.

Is that all that is needed to make a scary film? Heck no! A lot goes into scaring anyone with anything, be it a story, a movie, or even a silly prank for Halloween or April Fool’s Day (I speak from personal experience on all but one of these). But these two factors–a build-up of suspense and an air of ever-present mystery–can create a terrifying experience that leaves those doing the experiencing chilled for the rest of the night. So keep these factors in mind when creating your own story (and it doesn’t necessarily need to be a scary story). You might end up creating a wonderful work of art that’ll be remade in thirty years by a high-powered team of filmmakers and debated about by fans in chat rooms for years to come.

A Summary of My Twisted Imagination

Posted: March 31, 2013 in ideas, Reflections, Writing
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This morning I woke up with a memory and an idea: I remembered one time I let a friend of mine, whom I knew would not steal any of my ideas, look at the list of ideas for novels and other assorted creative endeavors. This was midway through high school and I’d probably just started the first draft of Reborn City. He sent it back to me with one note: Interesting.  A lot of ideas using magic here.

That was several years ago, like I said, and that Ideas List couldn’t have had more than 15 ideas on it at the time. Now it’s at 51 ideas and counting, and I thought I’d take inventory again. I went over the ideas, and I found some interesting numbers here. I share them with you now because they give insight into not only the sort of stories I like to write and create, but also gives an idea of who I am, and what my imagination gives birth to.

I’ll list these ideas, occasionally giving some information on why I gave these stats, and then I’ll tell you what I think of all these sorts of story ideas. You’re welcome to draw your own conclusions as well and tell me what you think. Also, please excuse the randomness of some of these stats. I listed them as they came to me. Also be aware that several of these ideas cross over with each other in terms of elements, such as serial killers crossing over with demons, science gone wrong featuring monsters, and so on and so forth.

Number of stories dealing with the supernatural: 29
–Number with ghosts: 6
–Number with monsters/demons: 26
–Number with magic: 24
–Number featuring God(s): 9

Trust me, plenty of stories featuring this sort of creepy stuff.

Number of science fiction stories: 9
–Number with science gone wrong as the main theme/driving force: 7

Number of crime/thriller stories: 17

Number featuring human antagonists: 33
–Number featuring serial killers/rapists/etc.: 25

Number of stories with strong female protagonists: 25

Number of ideas that aren’t for novels: 13
–Number of films: 3
–Number of TV shows: 2
–Number of comic books/mangas: 7
–Number of video games: 1

Number of ideas that are suitable for younger audiences: 1

As I said, I’d provide a little feedback on some of the numbers listed above. The first I’d like to draw your attention to is that most of my science-fiction ideas feature science gone wrong. Why? Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that I sometimes wonder that our society, which is getting more technologically dependent with every passing day is going to find itself in a lot of trouble because of how much we rely on our technology. Although none of these stories feature Terminator-like elements, where the tech actually rises up to get us, I do think the stories do illustrate just how dangerous technology can be if we let it be the center of our existences, and shows just how paranoid I am about that happening. It may also explain why I always wait to try out new technology and social media until everybody else is using it. Makes it safer, I guess, at least in my strange mind.

Also, why did I emphasize stories with strong female protagonists? Because even in the year 2013, there are many novels/TV shows/movies/whatever where the female characters just fill a postition, often times to draw in male readers. And there are plenty of times when the female characters could be replaced by male characters and there wouldn’t be much change to the overall story. Imagine for one second that Hermione Granger from Harry Potter was a boy. How much would it change? The Ron/Hermione subplot would be taken out, but beyond that, there’d still be a smarty-pants character helping Harry figure out important stuff that’ll save his life later. Perhaps the readership, particularly the female readership, would be less, but it might still be a popular story.

Imagine how different this story would be if Katniss were a normal girl or if she were even a bad-ass boy? Not too fun to think about, is it?

So I write a lot of stories where female protagonists are like Katniss Everdeen: they’re indispensable to the plot. Change their gender or make them more meek or in a more traditional role, and you have by far a much less interesting story. Katniss is so popular not because she has two dreamy guys after her affections, but because she’s a kick-ass female with sharp-shooting skills and the determination to fight against a very corrupt system. All without showing off her boobs and butt as well. She’s something female readers want to be, and something male readers can fall for because of how different she is. So many of my female characters become like that, indispensable and not allowed to change or they would change the story for the worse.

By the way, I think that part of me that likes those characters might be due to my childhood, where I had a lot of women and girls around me all the time and where I had a lot of strong female role models in my life, including but not limited to my mother. In addition, a lot of the shows I watched when I was younger involved strong female main characters, most notably Sailor Moon (not afraid to put that out there, by the way). It’s no wonder i have so many strong female characters.

And finally, there’s the fact that one of my ideas is suitable for children. Unusual for a horror writer, right? But I recently discovered some of the old cartoons I used to watch when I was younger, and one of them I relly enjoyed watching again. I hope someday to reboot that as a movie, if I should ever have the money, power and influence to be able to do that. So I list it there, with the hope that I can someday be able to create a fun little movie reboot with jokes for both kids and adults and a plot that’ll draw in any viewer.

I sometimes think my subconscious looks a little something like this. Eerie to behold, right?

So what does all this say about me? Well, without the actual list it’s difficult to pull up any sort of psychological profile about me. But I think it does give you an idea of what sort of stories I’ll put out in the future, and what you can expect from some of them. So either you are either very psyched to read my work or you’ll never pick up a Rami Ungar book as long as you live. Either way, it gives you some idea of who I am and what I like to write. And I think that’s what I want people to get from this post.

Got any questions? Feel free to ask, and I’ll make up an answer as best I can.

Fiction Becoming More Horrifying? I’m Not So Sure

Posted: March 25, 2013 in Reflections, Scary Stuff
Tags: , , ,
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A friend of mine sent me a link on Facebook. The link led me to an article about a study that suggested in a one-sentence introduction and three slightly-longer but very neat paragraphs that fiction books are becoming scarier. What did the study base this assessment on? The leaders of the study perused a Google book database for words relating to six human emotions: anger, disgust, fear, joy and sadness. One of the interesting things they found in the data set they got was that words relating to fear seemed to be on the rise, while disgust fell sharply and the other four emotions leveled off.

The obvious conclusion, according to these researchers, is that fiction is becoming much more horrifying.

I disagree. Here’s why:

First off, that Google database only represents 4% of books published between 1900 and 2000, and that’s not including self-published books or books published as serials in magazines. If you’re only including 4% of any population, even a collection of books, it’s not very representative of it. Second, the study was based on words signifying emotions. Just because a type of emotion shows up in a story more and more often doesn’t mean you can classify it as horror or romance or whatever. Perhaps the story in question might be a novel about a guy with agoraphobia who feels all sorts of fear when it comes to leaving his apartment. That’s more literary than horror, mind you.

And third, my own personal experience tells me that horror is not necessarily on the rise. Even today, there are many publishing houses, agencies, and magazines that refuse to deal in horror, even when they deal in science fiction or fantasy, horror’s friendlier and kinder genre sisters. Those that do deal in horror, particularly magazines, are either exclusively into horror, or they only deal with a certain type of horror, one that either crosses over into sci-fi or fantasy or, while still scary, is tame enough that readers won’t be turned off by reading it. If horror’s on the rise, there should be a response in the publishing industry towards it, but I’m still waiting to see this response.

And yes, there’s been a rise in TV shows catering to horror fans, so one in literature may seem only logical. Not so much: contrary to the opinion of some, I don’t believe that a love of horror stories just arose out of the television-watching audience. Those horror fans were always there, they just had to content themselves with books or movies (bad or good, you take what you can get with these films), simply because horror wasn’t really available on TV. Ryan Falchuk, creator of American Horror Story, said he was taking a monumental risk, bigger than what he’d been taking with Glee, by trying to put a horror show on TV, even if it was on a cable channel like FX. Luckily the investment paid off, but there was always the chance things could’ve gone sideways, and that chance might’ve put off some producers. The creation of shows like The Following or Bates Motel are mostly trying to capitalize on the success of AHS, and other shows with supernatural/horror themes that came before AHS–Vampire Diaries, True Blood, or Teen Wolf–may have horror elements, but they have plenty of measures of comedy and romance and drama to keep more mainstream viewers interested in the show, just like with Buffy and Angel of ages past.

So while a rise in words evoking the emotion fear might mean a rise in scary literature, I’m more suspicious based on all the evidence I’ve listed above. If there happens to be a rise in horror though, and I’m just not seeing it, then splendid! I hope people buy my books when they come out.

Oh, and before I include a link to the article about the study below, I’d like to mention one line of the article that really annoyed me. The author of the article said that terrifying people is easy. Ex-squeeze me? Terrifying people is damn hard! Look at all the movies out there that rely on jumps and nudity to thrill and terrify audiences, and see how they fail miserably. It’s dificult to really scare people, and there’s an art to it that even I haven’t fully mastered. Keep that in mind the next time you find yourself watching or reading a very chilling tale and you think about they make these sorts of stories so terrifying.

Anyway, here’s the link to the article. Enjoy:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/03/22/study_finds_more_fear_words_in_books_now_than_ever_before.html

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