Posts Tagged ‘The Shape of Evil’

The 3D Printer from Hell Story is Complete!!!

Posted: August 22, 2024 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Shoot off the fireworks! Summon the party demons! Sing praises to the gods for protection! I have completed the first draft of The Shape of Evil, AKA the 3D Printer from Hell story!

So, if you were unaware, I’ve been working on a story about a possessed 3D printer since March. It was originally supposed to be only a novelette or a short novella, but before I knew it, I’d devoted several thousand words to the first two sections of the story and was like, “Okay, this one’s going to be a novel. Why do I do this to myself?”

(This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, by the way. My Gothic horror novel The Pure World Comes was supposed to be a novelette. Boy, did that plan backfire in my face!)

Anyway, I’ve been working on this story since March, and the writing process was lengthened by how damn busy my life has been since spring. However, around halfway through the story, which was back in June, things started to speed up. I even managed to finish the last three chapters in single sittings, with the last one being written late last night after I met with my horror critique group!

If you’re curious, the story is 273 pages long (8.5 x 11, double spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font), and the word count is about 72,500 words. For context, the first Harry Potter novel was about forty-five hundred words longer. So, not a long novel, but a good length for a novel, to be sure.

Honestly, I’m really happy about finally finishing the story. Not only did it take longer than I thought to write, but I feel like this story has a lot of potential. Now, I feel like every one of my stories have potential, but I feel like this one’s going to be different. The story’s concept is a fun one and one I haven’t seen tackled in this or any other genre yet, and I feel like readers are going to empathize a lot with some of these characters.

So, some of you are probably wondering, “What’s next? And when can I read it?” Calm down, calm down, all in good time.

As many of you know, I like to give my stories a bit of time off after I finish the first draft before I edit them. In the case of The Shape of Evil, I plan to edit it in December, and hopefully finish the second draft by New Year’s. Afterwards, I’m going to try and find one or two beta readers who can act as sensitivity readers (my main character is nonbinary, so I want to ensure I wrote them well). After I get feedback from the readers back, I will do one more draft, and then try to find a home for the book. And from there, we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, I’m going to take a couple of days to celebrate with good food, good drink, and good movies/anime. Then I’m going to write one or two non-fiction articles, and get started on some new stories I want to write. With three months and a few days till December, I think I can get plenty done (provided none of these stories want to become novels as well).

After all this work, I’m looking forward to a break.

And that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. If you want to support me while I’m working to get The Shape of Evil and other stories published, you can check out my already published work. From plant/human hybrids and strange gods to Mafia-hunting serial killers and carnivorous horses, I have something for every horror fan. And with spooky season starting up, now is the perfect time to read some of these stories. I’ll be sure to leave a link below if you want to check them out. Be sure to leave a review if you do end up reading them.

And until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and only 70 days till Halloween. Have you started doing your spooky dances yet?

Book Links and Excerpts

I’m Halfway Through The 3D Printer from Hell Story

Posted: June 18, 2024 in Progress Report, Writing
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So, if you’re unaware, I’ve been working on a new story about a 3D Printer from Hell. It’s been a crazy work in progress, which I’m currently calling The Shape of Evil. And, after a lot more time working on this story than I normally like (I started this story in March, and it’s now June), I’m now halfway through the first draft.

Honestly, I’m glad I finally got this far. My life has been super busy since I got back from my vacation in March, and so I haven’t been able to make as much progress as I had hoped to by this point. Plus, this story was originally planned to be a novelette or novella. But, like The Pure World Comes, the story had other ideas and decided it wanted to be a novel. And a novel is what it’s become, at 163 pages (8.5 x 11, double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font) and 44,584 words.

For the record, the first Harry Potter novel, which is also the shortest, is about seventy-seven thousand words. So yeah, since I’m only halfway through the story, this novel could end up around ninety-thousand words when it’s done. Which will hopefully be by the end of August, if I can get some free time to work on it. The story takes place over summer vacation, so I would like it finished before summer ends.

Then again, you know what they say: “man plans and God laughs.”

Still, I’m excited to tackle the second half of this novel. I’m not sure it’ll be any good (is any author sure of that?), but it’ll be great to get this story finished and then see if I can find it a home. In fact, I’ve already made plans on how I’m going to go about doing that. I won’t say anything now about those plans (see what I said in the last paragraph), but I think a story like this has a good chance of finding a home and maybe even getting a strong following.

I’ll be sure to keep you all updated on the progress and how things go.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a spooky story, or if you just want to support me, why not check out one of my works that are already published? I’ve got quite a few, and they’re all quite unique. I mean, how many other authors write about carnivorous horses?

Anyway, if you’re interested, head to my Book Links & Excerpts page using the button below. You’ll find all my published works, including some free stories available to download. (Though this month, I highly recommend checking out my novel Rose and my collection Hannah and Other Stories. I think they’re both some of my best work.) And if you like what you read, please leave a review online. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback, and it helps me and other readers in the long run.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night and pleasant nightmares.

Book Links & Excerpts

Is This Story Scary Enough? Thoughts About What Makes a Strong Horror Story.

Posted: May 29, 2024 in Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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The other day, I posted about my frustrations with the progress I was making in my career and how ParaPsyCon helped me realize what successes I was having and what progress I was actually making (you can check it out here). Now, I want to post about a revelation I had regarding one of my writer anxieties.

Every writer wonders about their work and worries the same thing: am I good enough? For fantasy writers, they’re wondering, is my work fantastical and exciting enough? For the romance writers, it’s something like, is my work enough to make your chest flutter and make you root for my characters? For the literary types, they wonder, is my work saying something profound about the human condition? (At least, I think that’s what they think. I could be wrong.)

And for horror writers, the majority of us wonder if our work is scary enough. And sometimes, that thought can be crippling enough to make us wonder if what we’re working on is even worth continuing with.

I almost had a moment like that last night. I’d just finished making excellent progress on the 3D Printer from Hell story* and was thinking of the scenes that were to come later. And then I had a thought: is this really that scary?

That thought made me pause. And yeah, I wondered if maybe it wasn’t scary enough. That maybe as I had it planned, it would be really weak sauce. That’s what I thought at that moment: could this story be weak sauce? Will it really leave a reader afraid like my early brushes with horror left me?

That thought scared me. But then I remembered something: horror isn’t just about scaring the pants off your reader. Sometimes, it’s about what you include in the story that makes it horror.

For example, there’s this one story I read in an anthology about a year or two ago. I can’t remember the title, but let’s call it “The Worst Vacation.” The story follows a family who go to this island for vacation, and just about every horrible thing imaginable happens while they’re there: they get ticketed for something rather minor, they watch a waiter get arrested because some blowhard didn’t like how he was being served and then have to watch the waiter’s kid, the daughter loses her eyeball when she tries to feed the local animals at the beach, etc. It’s just an escalation of bad events, and not once was I as a reader ever scared. I’m not sure many readers would be, though they might be appalled and grossed out at certain points.

However, it was still horror. The family was experiencing all these terrible things, and their reaction was definitely one of horror. A strong sauce horror story that was quite memorable to me. And this one tale isn’t the only example. Hell, there are entire subgenres like this! Quiet horror and grief horror, for example, don’t always aim to scare people, but to explore really dark issues of human life. And cozy horror, while it is a subject of debate, is still horror, even if it is keeping the horror at a safe distance from the reader.

So maybe my 3D Printer from Hell story won’t leave people shaking in their shoes. Maybe it will. However it turns out, it can still be strong sauce if the tropes are used right and the horror is conveyed in the right way. And while I’m writing it, I’ll be aiming to make it both entertaining and maybe even very scary. So long as people enjoy it and think at the end of the day, “Damn, that was a good horror story,” I’ll be satisfied.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I hope you’re having a wonderful day, and I’ll be seeing you all again very soon. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!

*Which, BTW, I’m now calling The Shape of Evil on the suggestion of another writer. Given the subject matter, it fits. And it’s going to look awesome on a book cover someday!

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