The Horror Project: Finding the Road

In the past, I’ve discussed how much I love horror fiction. It was as much a part of me growing up as SF and Fantasy. My gateway was John Bellairs, who wrote gothic terror for middle-school kids (and, yes, I loved the Edward Gorey covers). From there I went to Tanith Lee, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, Lucy Taylor, Poppy Z. Brite, Caitlin R. Kiernan and my mandatory Stephen King intake.

Seriously – you grew up in the 80’s, you were getting Stephen King.

I also remember going to a sundries store in Ocean City as a kid. It was right across from our condo at Century 21 in a mall, and filled with used books. Horror paperbacks. The kind others would call “Paperbacks from Hell!” They fascinated and repulsed me, mostly because of the covers.

It’s a shame I couldn’t write it.  And I’ve gone over my reasons why before. It’s hard enough to write in this atmosphere, much less write horror and have it mean something. Maybe this is my ambition. It’s not enough for me to write something quick and gory. Otherwise I’d write a series of short stories called “Stupid Gringos in the Jungle” about tourists ignoring the Maya and their warnings about the flesh-eating plants they finally trapped in a temple and were trying to starve to death over generations.

No, I wanted to write real horror. Weird and uncanny fiction which left a tingle along the back of the neck.

Thus, The Horror Project. This entry – and a series of Video blogs – would be a journey to creating and writing horror short stories. Let’s break this down:

Goal: Learn to write horror effective, publishable horror stories.

Problem: See previous entries on the subject

Process: Every journey needs pit stops. I need steps and milestones

1. Define Horror – What terrifies me? What do I find horrific? What grosses me out? What do I dread?
2. Study Horror – I need to research the subject
   1. Fiction – Read short stories. Not just my Books of Blood but also get into the two Gemma Files collections I’ve just gotten
   2. Non-Fiction – Time to dig into books I’ve read (On Writing Horror and Where Nightmares Come From) and ones I’ve meant to read (It’s Alive: Bringing your Nightmares to Life and Horror 101: The Way Forward)
3. Break Horror Down – Go through a short story (selected ones from Foundations of Fear perhaps?) and break down why it’s scary, what beats it uses, and how it uses language.
4. Brainstorm – Using what I’ve learned, come up with ideas for short stories
5. Write – Get a few of those stories on paper
6. Revise – Sharpen the knife and see what we can get.

I’ll get to work on step one here, and with a video.