Thursday 21 June 2012

Mirrror, mirror...

Mirror, mirror on the Wall…
Mirrors have always fascinated me a little for there is often a discrepancy between what I think I am/look like and what I see in the mirror. It’s a little like hearing your own voice recorded and swearing that you don’t really sound like that – do you???
But I digress. Back to mirrors.
I actually used mirrors as a horror element in my first full novel “Insight”. I was in the bathroom one day and looked up to see the mirror so clouded with steam that you couldn’t see anything clearly and I started imagining a creature was in the mirror. Yes, I know I do have a peculiar mindset… But anyway it gave me the idea of using a mirror for a ghostly experience. I also realised that you could write with a greasy-ish finger on a mirror and it could not be seen but as soon as it became steamed up the writing appeared. Oh, I had fun with that book! Water and mist eventually became a major motif for the story as the character had a kind of phobia about water anyway. The possibilities really opened up then as the fear went right back to her childhood and… Well you’d have to read the book to know the rest! No spoilers on here…
But it did make me realise you could take something quite mundane and turn it into something – well, a lot less mundane!
Have you ever thought of using ordinary household items and turning them into fearful phobic elements in a thriller story?

5 comments:

  1. Only basements. Who knows what evil lurks in the bowels of your house? Great post. Now you got me thinking of what could be used as a fearful phobic element. Hmm?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, I think of things all the time... A brush, a chair, an egg flip... Perhaps I should, write thriller....

    ReplyDelete
  3. This reminds me of a takeoff from the Bloody Mary story where if you call the name of the deceased to a mirror in a darkened room, they appear. Eek.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes! I was just about to write what Maria did! Mirrors freak me out now, and all because of that game...

    ReplyDelete