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Re: Writing about fear (or scary things)
Writing About Fear
Start with what you know, or at least what you think you know. Is that a fear of spiders or snakes? Is it constant dread that you will be left alone? Is it something in the news media that particularly disturbs you?
Maybe it's a smell you remember from early childhood, like the first time you smelled a pie crust burning and then saw your great-grandfather beating your Me-Ma with a leather strap until she lay on the kitchen floor, peeing and puking up the morning's biscuits. He turns to you in the baby's high chair he handmade just for you, sweating from the exertion, and says, "Well, she earned that one didn't she, my boy?"
And maybe it's you, fearing yourself, knowing that you would kill him right then if you had the ability to do so.
Maybe it's that first arpeggiated chord from The Eagles' "Hotel California' that makes the crowd go wild but makes you hide in shame.
But writing "fear," well, that's different. You have to get at least one reader involved with a character, get interested in that character, and make them be scared about that character's circumstances.
"It was a dark and stormy night and Fred Mermalschmidtz got pulped by a train." Mother Theresa would not have cringed at that, even if I had vividly described said pulping.
I don't think you can popularly sell a Pop-Horror novel anymore for a world that would rather watch "Saw XII." I'll probably watch it and enjoy it for what it is, but I hope you understand my opinion. My simple opinion is just that, simple. Most people who still read don't just want the ooey and gooey. They want a getaway, and they want characters as friends or arch-enemies...or a fast story they can zip through in regular chunks while they make their own morning chunks.
LONG LIVE THE WRITERS (Sorry Mr. Herbert, had to do it!)
BJS
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