Man, am I in a good mood lately. Semester’s going well, work hasn’t been too difficult lately, and…oh yeah. I finished the first of two short stories for my creative writing class today. This one, called Evil Began in a Bar, involves a meeting in a dive bar in a magnificent city about certain decisions the city’s leader, known as Father, has made recently. As you get further along in the story, something extraordinary is revealed about the protagonist Luca, and the rest of the characters as well. That something extraordinary has a lot to do with this picture, which was the hint I used when I talked about my creative writing class the other day:
Can you guess what it is?
I’m actually pretty amazed at how quickly I finished this short story. It usually takes me a week or so to finish a short story, usually longer. I got this one done in three days, a record by my standards. The last time this happened was back when I was writing Addict for The Quiet Game, which I finished in a single day. I’m thinking that’s not just because I found the story exciting to write, but because of changes I’ve been making to my diet these days. I’ve noticed I’m a bit less twitchy and easily distracted, and feeling a lot more energetic too. Maybe I’ll be able to significantly speed up my writing process in the future. Who knows?
I’m really interested to hear what my class will say when they read this story. Like I’ve explained before, my teacher is looking for fiction that is interesting and doesn’t conform to conventions, and I think this story fulfills both of those requirements. It’s that little twist near the middle of the story that explains everything and throws it all into perspective that I think will really get them, but I wonder how many of them will figure it out beforehand.
Anyway, that’s all I have for now. I’ll hopefully have a chance to write a blog post tomorrow, but right now I’ve got to get ready for bed. Goodnight, my Followers of Fear. Have some pleasant nightmares tonight.
I was having a comment conversation the other day with another blogger Caitlin Kelly, a freelance journalist from New York who at the moment is teaching at the Pratt Institute. Her post, which you can read here (and I highly recommend you do), was about how the effect of all the horrors going on in the world and being reported to us by the media. I mentioned in my comments that after digesting all the real horrors, it’s not uncommon for me to immerse myself in fictional horrors. Caitlin replied that one of her students, who “has seen his fair share of horrors”, also prefers the genre of horror. I said that for some people, horror acts as a kind of therapy.
Now, some of you who are reading this will probably be thinking “Horror? As a kind of therapy? We’re still talking about the genre where serial killers can be heroes, what trait your character embodies can determine whether you’re killed or traumatized, and fans debate on how good a movie is based on use of suspense, special effects, and gore, right?” Yes, we are still talking about that genre, but just bear with me.
Look at a news feed, particularly one devoted to global events or major issues facing Americans today. This is probably what you’ll see:
ISIS murdering Shiites, Yazidis, journalists, and anyone else that they don’t like.
Ukraine fighting both its own people and Russian insurgents.
Hamas attacking Israel and Israel firing back (and it’s only a matter of time before that starts up again, mark my words).
Several cases where police have shot and killed unarmed black men, with the most recent and famous case in Ferguson, Missouri.
Congress’s constant squabbling and bickering
An immigration crisis that continues unabated
Ebola spreading throughout West Africa and father beyond
Kristen Gillibrand, a well-respected senator and possible 2016 presidential candidate, being sexually harassed by older, male senators
The suicide of Robin Williams and the hurtful responses from people and groups such as Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Gene Simmons (my article on that is here)
CeeLo Green making horrific remarks on the subject of rape on his Twitter account
Justin Beiber is in trouble with the law again.
Depressing to read, isn’t it? What’s worse is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. All over the world, people are facing discrimination, violence, poverty, illness, corruption, greed, incompetence, and just about every other horror under the sun. And these problems are huge, multifaceted, and difficult to resolve. In fact, there are many people who may have multiple opinions on how to resolve just one of these issues. And assuming that the people in positions of power are able to come to an agreement and implement some sort of solution, there’s no guarantee that the issue in question will be fully resolved or not or will leave lingering micro-issues that will eventually grow and become major issues in their own rights.
“It’s true, I got defeated by some snot-nosed brats. I don’t like talking about it, though.”
There’s that. And then there’s the stories told within a horror novel or the latest scary movie. Let’s take Stephen King’s IT, for instance. The antagonist is a shape-shifting demon that can take on the form of your greatest fear and prefers the form of a clown. Well, that looks tricky to defeat, but it isn’t as hard to pin down or as multifaceted as an insurgency group or a virus or children brought to this country illegally fleeing violence and poverty. And guess who defeats It? Seven kids. They face their fears, band together, and defeat the monster in its own lair as kids, and then most of them come back as adults to finish the job. And after they’ve fought It for the second time, It’s dead. It isn’t coming back in any form ever again. Sure, at the end of the book the characters start to lose their memories of their war with It, but the story ends on a happy note.
In this way, horror stories–fictional horror stories–can act as therapeutic. We see very real versions of hell unfolding at home and abroad, and then we dive into a story where the characters are fighting their own hell. And we know deep down it’s fiction, but we don’t care. We sympathize and empathize with the characters. Occasionally we even recognize ourselves and our own brutal, tortured pasts in one or two particular character. And we see them defeating demons, exorcising ghosts, kicking serial killer butt, solving murders, and sometimes even bringing back the dead! Sure, plenty of people die in these stories and a good number of them end up traumatized by their experiences. But they usually defeat the enemy, they come out of the conflict stronger, and they sometimes even find romance.
What a horror novel can do for us.
And that fills us with hope. We think to ourselves, “Sure it’s fictional, but I see myself in these characters and the problems they face. So if they can take on ultimate evil and defeat it, what can I do?” In essence, horror takes the feelings of depression and jaded cynicism out of us and fill us with possibility and optimism. Weird, I know. These are stories that aim to scare us and fill our dreams with terror. But horror can do that and lift up your spirits too.
Horror is certainly one of the things that can lift up my spirits when I’m feeling down.
Has horror ever made you feel better after you’ve been feeling down? What happened? Why do you think you felt better afterwards?
AAAAAH! That was the reaction of several people in the audience at various points during the movie. Ever since I heard of As Above, So Below, I’ve been dying to see it, and that desire only increased after visiting the Paris catacombs themselves. So when my friend Ramsey, who went on the study abroad trip with me back in May, suggested we go see a movie this weekend, I had just the movie in mind.
Written and directed by Drew and John Erick Dowdle and starring Perdita Weeks and Ben Feldman, As Above, So Below follows urban archaeologist who finds a clue to an old mystery during a covert trip to Iran. Heading then to Paris with a documentary student and teaming up with an old flame of hers, she ends up realizing that what she is looking for may be more than just a legend, and goes into the Paris catacombs themselves to find t. But in the process, she finds so, so much more and in her search for the truth, she may just find her death.
Apparently taking a lot of work to film and bring together, the Dowdle brothers can be assured their hard work was worth it. The film’s slow build up of suspense, couple with the claustrophobic feelings of being in dark, underground tunnels (and watching it in a dark movie theater), lends to a creepy atmosphere that only gets heightened in the last act of the film, where monstrous visions and creatures appear one after another, eliciting those screams from the audience that I mentioned. The brother also know how to insert a twist into their script, by taking the last couple minutes of the movie in a direction that other directors might not have gone down, and completely subverting the rules of found footage films (for more on those rules, check out my article on them). And Weeks and Feldman as the film’s leads manage to portray a romance that doesn’t seem contrived or sappy at all.
My one criticism of the film is that at times, things move a little too slowly so that the terror and suspense dies down a little. Luckily at the drop of a hat it can be ramped up again, but I think terror throughout would’ve done more for the film. Still, it was a good horror film, and later over drinks Ramsey, two friends of his that he’d brought along, and I enjoyed a good hour or so of dissecting the film and looking at all the aspects of it, whether symbolical, plot-wise, or what terrified us in our seats.
Grading this film was hard, and I’m still not sure I was able to give it a good grade. Nevertheless, a grade must be given, so I’m going to go with a 4.4 out of 5. Great film, plenty of scares, and no bad sequel. If you like scares, you shouldn’t be disappointed with As Above, So Below. I know I wasn’t.
I did say back when I surpassed 25,000 views that another milestone was on the horizon. And this one has come to pass: as of last night, I have passed 666 blog followers! You know what that means!
He’s coming for us all!
Actually, it doesn’t mean that. This is just a milestone I set up for myself. I don’t really think it has any relevance whatsoever to the demonic, especially since technically at this point I have 668 followers. And I don’t even believe in Satan as the Lord of Evil, so I don’t think I’ll be getting a visit from him any time soon.
Still, I’m happy that I’ve reached this milestone. It makes me feel like a seriously bad-ass horror novelist. And it just shows that I’m doing something right. Lately I’ve been getting a lot more views and followers on my blog, and there’s even been more people interested in checking out and buying my books, which makes me extremely happy. Thanks to all of you for helping me out and supporting me.
Well, that’s all for now. I just wanted to put that out there. You all have a wonderful day that’s hopefully free from demonic activity. And as it’s the first day of football season…GO BUCKS!
It’s been not even one full week into the new semester and there have been some interesting developments in the classes I’m taking. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m taking a creative writing course this semester. The course requires us to turn in two short stories and a revision of one of them at different points throughout the semester, though not necessarily in that order (I wanted to turn in a revision and two original short stories, but I don’t have anything to revise at the moment, so forget that). And as I’ve also mentioned in previous posts, Ohio State’s English and Creative Writing departments tend to focus on classic and literary fiction. Genre fiction doesn’t often get as much discussion in Denney Hall.
I came into class with the idea that we were going to be writing several literary short stories during the semester, and even had a list of ideas for stories I could write. Imagine my surprise when my teacher announced that we could turn in genre fiction, so long as it was interesting. Yes, she said that. As long as it’s interesting and doesn’t hold to time-honored (0r time-worn) conventions, I could turn in something from genre fiction. The following conversation then ensued:
Me: So I could write a terrifying horror story, and as long as it is interesting and doesn’t hold to conventions, I can turn it in?
My Professor: Of course.
Me: Party time.
You can probably tell I’m excited. I love writing horror stories, and with the focus on finishing the first draft of Laura Horn and editing Video Rage taking up most of my time this summer, there hasn’t been all that much time to seriously focus on writing a decent scary story or two. However, there’s been plenty of time to accumulate ideas for short stories, so at the next available opportunity, I plugged in my flash drive and started looking over the Word document that contains all my ideas for short stories.
So much to work with, so little time.
What a list that was, with 294 entries at last count. Yeah, I know. And no time to seriously work on them. One of these days I’m going to have to set aside a period of time where I won’t work on any novels and I’ll just work on reducing the amount of ideas on that list, maybe put out a couple more collections of short stories.
But the other night when I went over the list, remembering ideas I hadn’t thought of in a while (good thing I keep a list!) and trying to remember what I was thinking of when I wrote down the idea I had for certain stories, I was looking for particular stories. They had to be the right length (under 10,000 words), they had to be one of the more interesting ideas I’ve had (I like to think they’re all interesting, but I tried seeing it from the POV of someone who’s not me) and I had to look for a story that wouldn’t be tied down to the conventions of horror.
And as many of the horror fans know, that last one can be tough. As the Scream movies, Cabin in the Woods, and Behind the Mask so wonderfully point out, horror stories often work within a certain narrative framework. This gives the writers who create these stories more freedom than you’d think as we struggle to please our fans who are looking for a certain product in their story, but there has been criticism (some of it well-founded) that horror stories can get a little too predictable, to the point where you get useful advice videos like this:
He does bring up some good points. Actually, a slightly paranoid fear of a horror movie death is why I’ve never smoke weed, drink sparingly, and I’m not violent outside of the books I write (I’m not commenting on the sex and abstinence part). I don’t want to die like that. That would suck! Especially if somehow my soul gets trapped in the place where I was murdered or is digested by whatever killed me or something. That would suck even more!
So in the end, I managed to pick out about eight or ten short stories that I thought fit the bill for what I was looking for, and I selected two out of them. Neither of these stories have any particular reason as to why I chose them. I just thought they were very unique and that they would be choices my teacher and classmates wouldn’t find boring or stereotypical. In fact, I’m hoping to keep them on the edge of their seats with suspense.
And as for what those short stories are, I’ll give you some hints. This is the hint for the short story I’ll probably start work on sometime next week:
And here’s the hint for the one I’ll probably start in late September, early October:
Anyone want to hazard a guess at subject matter and plot line? There are wrong answers, but no consequences if you guess wrong.
Well, that’s all for now. I have some homework to do if I want to get any form of creative writing done, so I’m off to do that. Wish me luck, and have a good weekend, my Followers of Fear. I’ll let you know the progress of each of these short stories as there is news to report and maybe even let you know what my classmates think. Hopefully they will be terribly scared.
Last week, I marked three years of blogging on WordPress, and decided to hold a sale: all e-books of Snake, Reborn City and The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones cost only $0.99 to download from Amazon or Smashwords. Today is the last day to download those books, so if you’re looking for something new to read and have an e-reader and you don’t mind a little terror or some violence, now’s a good time to check out my books.
And if you decide to check out my books and you find the time to read them, please take the time to let me know what you think of them. You can leave a comment on a related post, or you can write a review on the book’s page on Amazon or Smashwords (whichever you downloaded the book from). Positive or negative, it doesn’t matter, I love getting feedback on my books. So please, let me know.
That’s all for now. I’ve got a big day ahead of me, so I’m going to get right to it. Have a wonderful weekend, my Followers of Fear.
Or at least the first draft is. There’s always a chance that my adviser will make me rewrite certain parts of it, but I hope to keep it like it is.
Anyway, late last night I went about finishing the outline, and somehow I managed to do it before it was too far past midnight. This outline gave me more problems than outlines usually do, because up until I started writing the outline I had only a few scenes planned out, so I had to come up with the rest as I was writing. Once or twice I had to actually go back and erase what I’d written before because I didn’t like which direction the story was going. Around the third attempt though I managed to get this story going in the right direction and from there it was just a matter of figuring out where I wanted to go, what would be the logical step to get there, and what sort of events could happen without stretching the limit of credulity.
In the end, I think this story will turn out very well. It’s about twenty-eight chapters, and will probably be around the normal length for one of my books, between eighty-five thousand and one-hundred thousand words. I often wrote the outline looking for plot holes and trying to find good ways to plug them up (I hope I succeeded). And I hope I create an interesting and somewhat scary story about a woman who dies but is resurrected by her stalker through magic and finds herself trapped in his house with not only him, but very malevolent supernatural forces. Thank goodness I have an adviser who will be helping me out with that part. He’s a published writer himself, so odds are he’ll have a few lessons to help me.
And while I’m waiting for my research books to arrive in the mail and for the new semester to start (three weeks from today, by the way), I think I’ll edit Video Rage. God knows it’s about time, and I have time to do it now before things get really crazy! In fact, I’ll start it today! But first I need to run an errand, then I need to vacuum the apartment, then I need to run the dishwasher, then I need to have lunch before I go to work, then I have work, and later tonight I’m supposed to be at a friend’s birthday party…life’s crazy sometimes.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll keep you updated on Rose, Video Rage, and other projects as time goes on and I have news to give. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.
Part of my research for my thesis/new novel Rose was that I had to look into the life of a sociology grad student, because my protagonist Rose Taggert is one. Well, was one. I mentioned when I first announced what I was working on that Rose died and was resurrected by her stalker, didn’t I?
Anyway, since my knowledge of sociology was limited to the introductory course I took last year, I decided to contact the sociology department at Ohio State to see if they could maybe help me. After first heading to their main office, and then getting redirected to their undergraduate advising office, I talked over email with one of the advisers, who then told me to email their graduate adviser Kelly Hopkins (boy, was that a little roundabout). After a couple of emails to determine when was a good time to meet, we finally agreed to meet at nine this morning, and I made the trip onto campus. Once back in the same office I started in, I was taken to Ms. Hopkins room (no idea if she’s married, so I’ll just go with “Ms.” for now), where she was all too happy to give me an explanation of what the sociology grad program was like after I explained to her about my protagonist Rose.
We spoke for a little under a half hour, Ms. Hopkins doing most of the talking while I asked a question here and there. Turns out that sociology grads at Ohio State spend their first two years earning their Masters degrees, after which they take very intense candidacy exams to enter the PhD program. At that point they start taking specialized courses for PhD students, as well as taking specialized courses for their area of specialization and working on their dissertation. The grad students spend a lot of time together in classes and in their offices together, usually becoming lifelong friends by the time they graduate. They also develop close relationship with their faculty advisers, and many of them have the chance to teach during their tenure as grads.
Based on this information, I was able to get a clearer picture of who Rose will be and what her grad life was like prior to the events of the novel. She’s probably in her third year of grad school, so she’s about six months into the PhD program. She is specializing in criminology and community studies, particularly studies involving gun violence, and was probably either a GTA working underneath a professor in an introductory course or already a PhD student teaching a class of her own when she met the student who would become her stalker, depending on how long ago I end up wanting them to meet and the latter becoming fixated on her.
I’m glad I was able to meet with Ms. Hopkins and speak with her today. I know Rose’s life as a grad student isn’t the most important part of the novel, but it’s one I wanted to seem authentic to readers. Besides, it’d be a little bit embarrassing if a sociologist or sociology student read Rose when it came out and was like, “What the heck sort of program is this girl in?” Always glad to have the details right.
I also learned something interesting from Ms. Hopkins: when I told her that my work was heavily influenced by Stephen King, she mentioned that she had a friend who was a make-up artist for horror movies and had worked on a few Stephen King adaptations of King’s work, including The Shining, and knew King personally. Apparently King’s a very nice, sweet guy in person (doesn’t surprise me; we horror authors usually are, though at one point I thought I needed to be a little bit creepier in order to be a better author). I ended up handing Ms. Hopkins two of my business cards so that she could pass them onto her friend (and maybe even King. Do I dare dream of it?). Hopefully at least one of them will go online and check out my work.
Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to do some more work on my thesis outline later today. At this point I think I might be done by the end of the week, with about thirty or so chapters. I’m still not sure where eactly this novel is going, but so far I like what I’ve come up with and I think my adviser might as well. I’ll keep you guys updated.
Last night while I was out seeing Guardians of the Galaxy (which was a great film, by the way), a new review of Snake was posted on Amazon. I’m very excited and happy for this review, because reviews let me know what the readers think of the book and gives me feedback on where I can improve with the next book.
Today’s review comes from Gefilte63, which means it’s from my dad. Now before you roll your eyes and think to yourself, “Obviously he gave his son a glowing review”, I think you’ll find my dad can be quite the book critic (and critic of a bunch of other things, but I’ll save that for my stand-up comedy act). His four-star review, which he entitled A great story, a real page turner, goes like this.
This novel is a much easier read than the author’s last effort. It is a great story that keeps you wanting to see what happens next; it reads like an action/thriller movie.
Areas for improvement would include better editing. At times there is too much conversation where it isn’t necessary. Also a few plausibility issues but overall a great read!
Okay, remember when I said reviews give me feedback on where I can improve? Well, apparently I need to do a better editing job next time around. And apparently there are plausibility issues (I’m thinking he’s talking about parts in the latter half of the book), so I’ll try and make sure that’s less of a problem in the future (though if I could point out, sometimes a lot of things in life are implausible but are reality nonetheless. I mean, have you seen our gun situation?).
Anyway, I would like to thank my dad, Rabbi Michael Ungar, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to not only read Snake but to write a review for it. I hope in the future you continue to read, enjoy, and review my books.
If you would like to learn more about Snake, you can check out the page for Snake or you can check it out on Amazon and Createspace. And by the way, this week until August 9th, all e-books of my work, Snake included, are only $0.99 when you download them. So now’s a great time to check them out!
And I’ll be seeing about getting my books onto other formats like NOOK and iTunes soon, so stay posted for information about that.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got some work to take care of, so I’m going to get on that. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear!
This morning I started work on my next book, which will double as my thesis for my senior year. Well, that’s not quite accurate. Truth be told, I came up with the idea for my thesis back in autumn last year, and then while searching for a thesis adviser, I fleshed it out a bit more, deciding what would happen in this or that scene or whether I wanted this or that event to happen at the beginning or ending of the story. And after I found my adviser, I had to make some decisions so I could know what books I would order for research and therefore why I was applying for a small grant to afford said books. And after I got said grant and returned from Europe, I worked hard on Laura Horn so I could get that done before I began work on my thesis.
Well, this morning I began in earnest to start researching and outlining my thesis. I stopped by the English Department to make sure everything was in order for the following year, stopped by another department so I could possibly do some more research for my main character, and then started on the first draft of the outline, of which I’ve made a little bit of progress on.
Now, some of you might be asking yourselves, “Is he going to tell us what his thesis is about?” Actually, I’ve decided to be cruel and not tell you at all. You’ll have to wait until the book comes out.
Just kidding! No, my book is called Rose, and follows the story of a grad student named Rose Taggert. On the night of Rose’s engagement party, she gets killed in a hit-and-run. This leads one of her students, who has an obsessive infatuation with Rose, to kidnap her body from the morgue and resurrect her using nature-based magic. The way he resurrects her though leaves Rose dependent on him for her survival, which causes the young man to believe they are in a relationship. With Rose trying to find a way out of her situation, she is set against impossible odds, and may not be able to overcome them.
How’s that for a setup?
Rose is the first full supernatural horror novel I’ve written in a while. Reborn City and Video Rage were sci-fi stories, while Snake and Laura Horn were thrillers, the former having some obvious horror undertones. I’m looking forward to diving into some full on horror. I know how the novel begins and I know where it’s going to end, and I know some of the things that’ll happen in this story, I just have to flesh out the rest. The thing about some horror stories, this one among them, the main character or characters have to face seemingly insurmountable obstacles in order to escape the evil plaguing them. Sometimes they do it successfully, other times they don’t. The thing is, you’ve got to make it about the protagonist dealing with the great evil at each and every turn and looking for ways to fight back against it. And sometimes fighting back will do more harm than good, leading the reader to wonder how they will continue on with the odds against them and read on.
So believe me when I say, I will be looking for some great ways to make Rose’s life difficult. Or second life, I guess. Either way, it’ll be very exciting for the reader (I hope).
I’ll be doing periodic updates on the progress of Rose, with the ultimate goal being finishing the first draft before the school year is up and I graduate (oh my God, I can’t believe how close it is! It’s sneaking up on me). Tonight, I hope to resume my work on the outline and get that done by the end of the week. First though, I’ve got some other things to take care of, including another blog post to write up. As usual, my life won’t slow down any time soon.
