http://www.writers-online.co.uk^67FANTASTIC REALMS
NOVEMBER 2019this moment right is pivotal. Before you even
start writing word one it’s well worth considering
how you can introduce the ‘element of fear’ into
the story for maximum impact. It might be
visual, or more about sound, or smell, or some
combination of all these things that can stay with
the reader. Ghost stories in particular tend to be
a masterclass of how the supernatural element
is shown. You may also want to think carefully
about when. Are you bringing the ‘monstrous’
into the story early on to be an adversary for your
protagonists, or are you holding it back until later
on as a shocking surprise to close on?4
Veer away from the obvious
While there does remain a market for
traditional monster stories – werewolves,
vampires, zombies, etc – you can see a definite
trend moving away from those things and into
more unusual and ambiguous monsters, or
indeed stories that take something that is well-
known within the field and put a new spin on it.
To take two very notable horror releases of recent
years, Josh Malerman’s Bird Box presents a new
sort of entity that we haven’t seen before, and
does it with plenty hidden to boot. Equally Paul
Tremblay’s The Cabin At The End of the World
is a fascinating blend of the old tropes of home
invasion and the end of the world story, but in
combining these two in a way that hasn’t been
seen before it becomes something new, fresh and
exciting.5
Play with metaphor and simile
We’ve already spoken a little about the use of
adjectives in horror fiction, and their importance
to atmosphere, but one thing that can sometimes
happen is that the adjectives become redundant
or are simply drawn from the same word pool.
As much as I love Edgar Allan Poe, in classes I
sometimes talk about the opening of The Fall Of
The House of Usher and the huge list of adjectives
it uses in one paragraph alone, with most boiling
down to it being ‘dark’. Fiction has moved away
from this sort of thing, and using metaphor and
simile in your stories will give you the chance
to get away from those old favourites. After all,
saying that something is ‘terrifying’, ‘horrifying’
‘horrific’, ‘scary’ and ‘ghastly’ is sort of saying the
same thing five times, especially when there is
more originality and variety to be had with more
thought and effort.6
Don’t be hostage to the
happy ending
Another trend I have noticed – not just in horror
books, but also in a small but growing percentage
of movies – is that more stories are offering
endings that are either ambiguous or flat-out
dark and unpleasant. Don’t feel as though your
protagonists have to overcome ‘the big evil’, oreven that you have to give a hard and fast ending- if you feel that the creative risk in doing so will
work out for your narrative. Gimmickry or doing
something just for the sake of being different very
rarely works out in any creative endeavour.
7
To sequel or not to sequel?
In our fantasy in particular, there’s a
prevalence of series and many volumes in that
genre run to three books or more. That doesn’t
quite hold as firm for science-fiction, but the
series is still a relatively common thing in that
field. Where it comes to horror, that rule is rather
different. Most books tend to be stand-alone
offerings, and it’s extremely rare that the series
that exist push beyond that ‘rule of three’. So
in the instance of horror it’s probably best to
consider one book at a time rather than the vast,
epic storyscapes that often exist in SF and fantasy.8
Short stories can be a
good route
While you might hear from many places the
concept of the ‘death’ of the short story, I would
say the rumours of that death have been greatly
exaggerated. And this is especially true for horror
short stories. There’s a reasonably strong scene of
magazines and a very strong range of anthologiesfrom a host of different publishers, taking in small
presses, indies, and even some of the mainstream
publishers. This can provide meaningful
opportunities for publication alongside some
well-known names in the field, and when you
combine that with the active market for single-
author collections then horror shorts can be a
better route to a career in the field than in many
other genres. Of course nothing is a banker, and
writers follow all sorts of routes to success, but
horror is not one of those fields where I would
say ‘you have to be writing novels’ in order to
ultimately succeed.9
Be aware of your subgenres
While fantasy and science-fiction both
have their subgenres, in horror these can have
an added significance. What I mean by this is
that in fantasy and science-fiction there are one
or two subgenres that are particularly dominantwithin the field, But successful horror titles in the
mainstream can cover a broad range of ground- ghost stories, folk horror, cosmic horror, body
horror, psychological horror – and that’s before
reminding you about the active short story
scene, which might also be looking for stories in
particular subgenres. Read about them, read from
them, watch movies in the field and know what
these terms mean before you get stuck into them,
because there can be notable differences.
10
Remember – the small press
is your friend
We’ve discussed in previous articles the ‘arc’ of
horror in publishing terms, from its peak in the
70s and 80s through to its hard fall from grace
in the 1990s and 2000s. We are now starting
to see the ‘resurrection’ of horror fiction within
the mainstream, but what has been constant
throughout all those years has been the quality
and contribution of the small and independent
press. There are a lot of very highly regarded
publishers with a good following that are well
worth your consideration, especially if you do
think your book is somewhat off the beaten
track in terms of content or potentially bringing
different genres together.Anybody who has spent more than five minutes
with me will tell you just how much I care
about horror in all its forms, and that’s because
I think it’s a genre that has real power and can
tell us a lot about ourselves and individuals as a
society. While all fiction is in a way a response
to our times, horror takes a look at it through
that darkest lens, and in that way offers a sort
of catharsis, a way for us to safely look at what
we might prefer to ignore. I’d encourage anyone
who hasn’t had a try at it yet to tackle it at least
once, just to see what it might do for you, and
I hope that some of the advice above will prove
useful for those authors tackling it for the first
time as well as those not long started out in the
field. And most of all I would say try and enjoy
it – while you might think that creating a horror
story would be an unpleasant experience, you
might be surprised at just how enjoyable and
creative it can feel.successful horror titles in the
mainstream can cover a broad
range of ground – ghost stories,
folk horror, cosmic horror, body
horror, psychological horror