Category: Guest Post

The sympathetic portrayal of Dracula as pining for a lost love, and finding her in the reincarnated form of Mina Murray, is so embedded in our culture that it may come as a surprise that this is an invention of screenwriters and not Bram Stoker.

The culmination of this theme is in Francis Ford Coppola’s remarkably unscary Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).  Despite Dracula (Gary Oldman, who does what he can with the script) appearing in numerous terrifying forms—a werewolf, a wingless bat creature—the horror is undercut by the Count’s Victorian gentlemen persona who chastely courts Winona Ryder’s character, Mina Harker.

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The Noble Art of Scaring People For Their Own Good

by Ben Monroe

“There is no delight the equal of dread…” – Clive Barker

When I was a teenager in the 80s, the neighborhood video stores and scifi book shop were two of my favorite haunts. While I read a little scifi and fantasy from time to time, by the time I was a teen I was mostly just looking for the horror titles. Of course, back then, that store didn’t segregate based on marketing categories. Everything was just lumped in together, alphabetized by author, and I had to either know exactly what author I wanted to read, or more frequently would just go browsing until I found something that looked interesting, and go with that.

The mainstream bookstores (Waldenbooks and Crown Books) were a little better organized. At least there was a distinction between Horror and Science Fiction. That made it a little easier to find whatever I was looking for.

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Let us say you’re writing a post-postapocalyptic gothic horror novel set in a frozen barony. It is approximately -40°C outside, and the cold has already killed your car battery. Dawn comes late and dusk early; at high noon, the sun struggles unseen behind the jagged peaks. You have not heard the sound of your own voice for about a week. You are the happiest you have been for a long time.

Every day the dog wakes you by sliding out from under the covers and whining like an ungreased hinge. The windows are frosted over, and it’s still dark; you’re not sure how late you’ve slept, and mercifully, you don’t really care. You pull on your long johns and take the dog out to the meadow by the river, where you find yourselves stuck between two halves of an elk herd. They are slow-moving but impossibly huge, lumbering like sinister afterthoughts in the needly underbrush. You slip behind a safe palisade of tree trunks and stop in the clearing where you had once found a large spiral pattern of stones—it is buried under a few feet of snow, but you have no doubt it’s still there. You’re unsure of its origin, but like the elk, you know better than to disturb it. 

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5 Tips for Writing a Horror Weird Western

By KC Grifant

There’s no doubt about it: there has been a recent surge in historical horror fiction, especially in the “Weird West” category. Maybe you’ve read a recent anthology featuring horror tales that take place in the Old West or come across “splatter westerns.” Whatever the case, the Weird West genre is making a comeback. Read on for more about this fascinating genre as well as tips for writing your own weird western.

What is the Weird West?

The term “Weird West” emerged around the 1970s with the debut of DC’s Weird Western Tales. Since then, Weird West stories have appeared in popular culture mediums, like Deadlands, The Wild Wild West, Preacher, Jonah Hex and many more.

Very generally, the Weird West fuses elements of the American West—including folklore, settings and aesthetics—with genres like horror, science fiction and/or fantasy. Horror is one of the most common fusions, featuring tales of haunted lands, monsters and brutal encounters that reflect some of the darker violence of the times. The subgenre sometimes also crosses over to—or is often used synonymously with—gothic westerns, historic fantasies, alternate histories, and splatter westerns (more on that below).

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At every book signing, writing event, or anywhere a reader can corner an author, one question finds its way off the tongue. Where do your horror ideas come from? The question itself doesn’t appear as anything more than a simple curiosity. The same asker might mention the weather to their friends or talk about their next meal with a partner. But for an author, the inevitable request requires a much deeper gaze into their soul. And as the thoughts swim through the brain to find an appropriate way to answer, the writer must navigate back to the furthest reaches of their past to unravel the most complicated enigma ever. Where does divine inspiration come from?

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How to Be a Witch

By Kelly Florence & Meg Hafdahl

So, you want to be a witch? Well gather round our cauldron, ghoulies, and we’ll explain everything you need to know to get you into the witchy spirit! From garments and decor to making your dreams a reality, we will leave nothing to chance. Who are we? Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl, goth girls and co-authors of The Science of Witchcraft, who love nothing more than a powerful witch who asserts her independence. 

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The thing about writing is, you have to actually do it to get anywhere with it. 

There’s no cheat code, shortcut, or cheese method to being a writer. 

You have to sit down, put one word in front of another and go until the end, whenever or wherever that is.

I’m a distance runner, so I think of the two as being very similar.

Want to be a runner? You don’t need much except a pair of shoes and an area to put one foot in front of another at a pace that’s faster than a walk. 

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Scaring Children for a Living: Writing Horror for Middle Grade and Young Adult

By Ty Drago

The release of my novel RAGS through eSpec Books in the coming weeks marks my fifth published horror novel targeted to YA or Middle Grade readers. RAGS tells its story through the eyes of 16-year-old Abby Lowell, who must navigate through one supernatural terror after another in order to save the people she loves. Her journey is harrowing, suspenseful, and often a bit gory. But that’s horror in the nutshell, isn’t it?

The challenge arises when the writer has to balance traditional horror elements with the demands of a younger audience. Miss the former and the story comes off as more of an adventure than true horror. Miss the latter and readers will shy away. 

Let me elaborate.

Traditional horror novels are paced slow. Don’t believe me? Have a gander at Stephen King (back when he was still penning the scary stuff). Then check out Joe Hill, Dean R. Koontz, and even H.P. Lovecraft. In horror, one builds tension by “filling in the reader’s blanks,” describing the texture of the air, the nuance of a thrumming heart, the bitter coppery tang of blood. Every sensory experience of the character in the thick of things drags the reader from scene to scene. Anticipation is the order of the day—and all else, including action, takes a back seat to it.

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