How to make the Supernatural into Natural Thrillers

Making the Supernatural seem Natural?

Turning the supernatural into the super-believable? That, as I see it, is the challenge to all paranormal thriller writers. Making supernatural elements fit into a thriller story so seamlessly that the reader accepts them without question, is not easy.

After all the vast majority of readers who enjoy this kind of fiction are perfectly reasonable sane individuals who do not necessarily believe in ghosts, spirits and things that go ‘whooo’ in the night. But just like sci-fi readers, they want to wonder and ponder the unanswerable questions. Just for the time it takes to engage with the story readers will willingly believe if we give them a good reason to.

That’s not to say that once the book is read the reader will believe any of it but just for that book the reader suspends disbelief. This, of course must happen with all stories but it is so much more difficult when dealing with the paranormal.

Of course, making the world the characters inhabit detailed and colourful and having the characters themselves rich in human traits and emotions (even if they are spirits or whatever) helps. If the people in the story believe in the other-worldly elements and do so right from the beginning as a matter of course, then the reader will too. Events follow in a normal and accepted way and lo! - the supernatural becomes the natural for that story.

For me the furthest I will go into using the supernatural is to introduce elements of ‘what if’ into a story. What if someone’s soul/spirit does not die with them but carries on in someone else’s body? What if a spirit wilfully inhabits someone else’s body and makes them do things they would never normally do? What if someone has the power to read certain people’s minds? What if this power is hereditary and a child is unaware they have it? What if someone believes that if they preserve a person’s body after death they will gain power over life and death and eventually become immortal themselves? (See The Afterlife of Darkmares ). What if a person really does have a double and the double/doppelganger bends the person’s will to make them murder their own child?

I know, I know. All of these have been done before but not by me and my imagination. I had fun with these stories and will continue to use similar scenarios in my writing. But apart from the paranormal additions my plots have conflict, suspense and follow normal storytelling rules and my imagination, with the help of my muse, adds width, depth and a sprinkling of magic – at least I hope it does…

Happy Writing!

Do you read paranormal thrillers?

 

Raising Hell or Raising the Stakes?

To the Max

One thing that all thriller writers should have in common is the ability to take the suspense to the ultimate level. This is the difference between a suspenseful tale and a damn good thriller.

 I always associate reading a thriller with the experience of riding a roller coaster. The ride is full of scary ups and downs …

First we toil steadily upwards whilst the suspense builds. We giggle nervously because we know what will happen when we get to the top… Or do we?  We know (and expect) we will experience a rush of adrenalin but until we actually get there we do not know exactly what it will be like.  The anticipation is enough to get your pulse racing and your palms sweating as you hold onto the safety bar and stare upwards at the sky ( best not to look downwards…)

When finally we get to the top we hold our breath… Prepare for the downward whoosh… Then we are plunging downwards and most of us cannot help but let out a terrified scream! Yes, scary… We asked for it and we got it! But fear is not pleasant, you say… But it is when you finally get back to earth, realise it is all over and, crucially, you are still in one piece.  This is the thrill that many live for – the intense emotion of having survived.

For most ordinary people the roller coaster is a harmless way of experiencing that thrill. For readers of good thrillers that is what they too expect – perhaps in not such a dramatic way but the highs of a thriller story must be towering and the lows… Well, low...  The ride up must be full of incident and the tension and suspense should mount up as the plot gathers pace. Then, in my opinion, the suspense should be taken to the max and not wimped out on. When you think your character cannot take any more ( or things could not be more deadly )that’s when you need to up the stakes and max it.  You can always toss in the kitchen sink!

 

 

Do you think in terms of raising the stakes higher and higher in your novel writing?

 

Learn From the Best

Lessons from the Masters

Every now and then I am reminded why I love reading so much and why I still aspire to being a better writer than I am!

One of my all time favourite horror writers is Stephen King and I am sure there is not a single person who loves books who has not at least heard of him.  Dennis Wheatly before him and then Mr. King were the two authors (in my misspent youth) responsible for my fascination with tales of the supernatural and paranormal. Later I also became a huge fan of many of Dean Koontz’s books too. Ah, but that was when I was younger and more impressionable…

No, wait, I am still impressionable if the right kind of story comes along!

The reason I am reminiscing about my early sojourns with Stephen King and horror writing is that I recently read his latest offering. And what a delight it is too. I have to admit that one or two of his books over the last few years have been rather too rambling for me and did wonder if this would be the same. But, no – this is King at his best! The main thing for me is the absolute attention to detail and the quirky bits of imagery that transport the reader back to an age that has long since gone. I was around in the late fifties and sixties but only as a child so the detail has me totally hooked.  For those not familiar with this book it is all about time travel and changing the course of history. Fascinating stuff, anyway, but Mr King handles it so well… But then he would – he has many years of successful writing under his belt and the largest number of best sellers so he should know what he is talking about.

I am just about to decamp to one of Mr Koontz' books too - not visited his stories for some time. So I will see how or if he has changed. One thing I do know, he is still one of the biggest sellers of the genre so still has much to say to someone like me...

I only wish I could write the same!!

Oh well, onwards and upwards!

Who do you aspire to as a writer?

Scary Dolls and Creepy Trolls

Creepy Toys

I was reading the ’Save the cat’ books by Blake Snyder the other day (and a brilliant read it is too!)

But what surprised me - and stuck in my peanut brain – was that there was much mention of the film Toy Story and how the script was written. It was held up as a good example of how to write a riveting screenplay that raises the stakes steadily until the crescendo of the action stuns the readers and makes them gasp with relief as all is resolved. And this is a children’s story…

But what, you may ask, has that got to do with thriller writing? Well, I think it is a thriller in lot’s of ways. It moves fairly fast and is full of incident and drama that makes you relate to the toys and really feel for these inanimate objects. The action rises as Woody and Buzz get deeper and deeper into trouble…

But more to the point for me is that I also felt a thrill of a chill when looking at some of the broken toys and for some reason they made me think of horror stories. They seem almost more lifelike than the other toys but unlike the other toys they were also slightly scary. I know of more than one child who thought the doll was plain frightening.

Which brings me to my point really - that even mundane harmless things can be made to feel scary! I I am put in mind of the number of people who are scared of clowns… They are meant to be fun characters that make us laugh but for some people they are just plain terrifying.

Dolls are symbolic of babies and are meant to be looked after by young children so when they are mutilated and/or broken they seem to change into something else entirely.  So when I am searching to put a frightening element into my stories I try to look for something mundane and imbue it with a sense of something different or even something evil. It horrifies us all the more.  The more harmless an object seems the more awful it is when it turns out to be not harmless at all…

Do you use normal everyday things and turn them into something else?

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?

The Afterlife of Darkmares

Nightmares, Darkmares and Demons

What a wonderful, fascinating  place the world of dreams appears to be. But an even more extraordinary place is the world of nightmares.

For the stuff of nightmares - or night terrors, as they are often called in children - is where many horror/supernatural stories appear to emanate from.  Of course, the scientists amongst us know perfectly well that nightmares or bad dreams are simply the subconscious mind making sense of scary, worrying things that happen to us. They are no more a precursor of bad things to come nor an evil sign of impending doom than dreams about fairies or paradise are harbingers of marvellous happenings. Ah, but here’s the rub – no one can actually prove that and so the workings of the subconscious mind remain a wonderful fertile ground for paranormal thrillers.

Nightmares in and of themselves are basically bad dreams that often can and do cause much distress. But the nightmare has it’s origins in folklore. The night part is easily explained but what of the other word mare? What is that? In Norway the Mare is a female shape shifter who can take the form of an animal or dwarf and who can change into a wind that can slip through windows and keyholes to get to intended victims whilst they are sleeping. By day the Mare is a normal woman but at night the urge to find and control victims is strong. The Mare enters a person’s bedroom and sits on their chests, causing tightness, troubled breathing and horrible dreams. In American folklore this Mare spirit eventually became the nightmare of which we are all familiar.

For myself, I used this motif in my latest book but called the nightmare a ‘darkmare’ as the character was not only troubled at nighttime.  My book - "The Afterlife of Darkmares" by PJ Newcombe - is now available from http://www.lulu.com/

Have you ever used folklore/mythology to garnish or deepen your stories? Have you ever used nightmares as a major part of your story?



Zombies or Vampires?

Hi folks!
I've been away from blogland for the last week - a much needed break away from home, lying on a sunbed!!! But now I'm ready to get going again... My last a-z post is beckoning...

Z – Zombie

I find Zombie to be a strange word… My dictionary defines it as “a person appearing lifeless or apathetic”. Or in the case of horror stories “a corpse supposedly brought to life by supernatural means”.

A Zombie appears to be first mentioned in voodoo culture in Haiti and does refer to someone coming back from the dead. In popular culture zombies have been used to great effect in many horror movies. They are traditionally half rotted corpses with physical resemblance to people and ability to physically move but their brains and therefore any emotions or cognisance has gone. I think this may be why they are so scary when used in films and books. There is just no reasoning with them so they might as well be aliens!

I think nowadays, they are monsters who have become so caricatured that, in and of themselves, they do not scare so much, rather like Frankenstein. We are rather more sophisticated today and know that there are much scarier things than zombies. Besides, they have been overtaken by vampires, in this day and age…

But despite falling out of fashion, all monsters and superhuman beings can be scary if used in the right way, and as part of a rollicking good story, they can still be useful scaremongerers.

Do you think Zombies are past their sell by date? Do they scare you?

Fight, Flight or Freeze!

T – Terror

Terror, according to my dictionary is the feeling/emotion of great fear. I imagine it to be fear almost at the point of paralysis… A frightening place indeed. ..

No one word sums up the aim of thriller/horror writing as this one word does. All horror stories aim to engender this feeling of fear in the reader and the most successful stories do just that.  

Fear is one of the strongest emotions and it creates a powerful response; it is a fail safe for humans to alert them to danger and ready their bodies for ‘fight, flight or freeze’. You can see where this comes from in prehistoric man, when faced with a threat they either had to run for their lives, stood and fought, or froze to make themselves invisible to predators (rather like rabbits in the headlights).

The hormone responsible for this mechanism is adrenalin and we produce it whenever we feel scared or afraid. It readies our muscles for action (wobbly legs and shaking), it revs up our heart pump (pounding pulse) and increases our breathing rate ready to supply extra oxygen to the large muscles of the legs. Our eyes open wide ready spot the danger and our brains and senses become extra sharp. Skin tightens and pales as blood is diverted away to the major muscles and our stomachs contract down so as to not interfere with the process. All major organs of survival go on high alert. Adrenalin can even make the bowel and bladder muscles relax involuntarily. Fear is so powerful that it can be totally disabling in the wrong circumstance i.e when the body is not under threat but nevertheless the emotion is running amok and irrational fears/terrors are born. (Terrified people are generally those who are so disabled by fear that they literally freeze.)

It is also true that people can become addicted to adrenalin. They love the ‘high’ it produces and search for ways to initiate this response, for example, putting one’s life at risk by participating in dangerous sports.

But for most people, the way they get their thrills is by watching a high action/scary/ movie or reading a book that’s full of jeopardy and danger. They can imagine themselves in the risky situation and that is enough to produce the adrenalin response. This is why people watch and read thrillers – that is the thrill – but in a safe way. In other words people want to be scared!! Then, when they come out of the reading experience, they can feel relief that what they read was not real and return to their everyday world feeling safe and secure.

The way I see it, the fiction writer’s (or thriller writer’s) job is to increase suspense and ratchet up the tension to produce that feeling of fear, usually empathising with the main character. So the reader is in a steady state of fight or flight waiting for…. Whatever!

As Alfred Hitchcock said, “There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

So, what do you think? Are you scared reading thrillers? Do you feel ‘terror’ or is your emotional response a little less scary?

"Any horror element is as much psychological as special effects."    Christopher Eccleston

Horror Fiction or Psychological Terror?

H - Horror

“Any horror element is as much psychological as special effects.” Christopher Eccleston

The above quote is probably as true a statement as one is likely to find regarding the finer points of writing horror thrillers, or indeed producing films.

For myself, I believe the psychological effect of the fear which is engendered in the reader, is what makes a horror thriller horrible! And scary…

It is when the everyday things that we are all familiar with turn to something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. It takes lots of real, normal, everyday detail to write good horror fiction – and then the horror comes when something doesn’t quite gel. When ordinary life is infiltrated by the extraordinary or inexplicable, that is when horror happens.

I think that is what makes horror and/or supernatural thriller writing so fascinating and so rewarding. We can (or at least we ought to) generate that psychological effect in the reader – i.e. make he/she feel scared when just one single mundane thing turns into something unexplicable. Stephen King and Dean Koontz are the masters of this style of horror story. Although, that is not to say there is no blood and guts in their stories... Just that they do not rely on the gore and mayhem to make their stories scary.

Blood and guts and so-called ‘slasher’ stories are all well and good - and many people love reading and watching that kind of thing - but they do not make me feel scared. Most of them simply make me wince.

The true horror story for me is the one where the psychological element is elevated to fearful heights; where the tension is ratcheted up to unbearable levels because the reader is waiting with bated breath for the really scary part - made all the more scary because the setting is a normal every day one.  

Of course it is all in the imagination of the reader – or is it?

 So, do you think horror is scarier when it is set in the ordinary, everyday world?

Scary - or what? Ghosts and Other Entities

G – Ghosts (and other entities)

“Now, about those ghosts... I'm sure they're here and I'm not half so alarmed at meeting up with any of them as I am at having to meet the live nuts I have to see every day.”
Bess Truman

As a writer of paranormal thrillers, the world of the occult fascinates me.  On looking at the dictionary definition of the word occult, I can see that it can mean esoteric knowledge, secretive mystery and supernatural.
To me the world of occult is mainly associated with the supernatural. It can include such things as Extra sensory perception, spirits, special powers, demons and devils, doppelgangers, possession and special powers ( such as telekinesis, telepathy etc). All these things are great fodder for the supernatural thriller writer. However one thing that is uppermost in my mind when I write is that, irrespective of the supernatural elements, the story must still hold together as a well plotted tale with good, believable characters. It must have the elements of a thriller with rising tension, conflict and suspense and a character in jeopardy.
I also do believe that stories centred on the occult world should grip readers and the supernatural element should be unnerving, scary and even a little terrible. Readers of these kinds of stories expect to be transported to an alternate reality where supernatural abound and yet are still pretty scary.
In the readers mind a little voice poses the question, at least for the duration of the story,”could this possibly happen?”
Suspension of disbelief is what keeps horror and supernatural writers going, as well as the enjoyment of heightened sensations if the story scares as much as it should. The fear, I believe comes from the not knowing.
After all, we really don’t know what awaits us in the afterlife and the possibility of spirits, ghosts etc is not that unbelievable to many people. And lots of perfectly rational folk do indeed believe in the Devil and Demons (for that matter many religions do too). I guess it is this notion of belief and the outside possibility of these things actually happening that captures the imagination of so many supernatural thriller readers – including me!

 

 So, does the occult world scare you? Or are you more scared of the nuts you meet every day?

Be Afraid - be Very Afraid...

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself”.

This was said by F D Roosevelt and it is never a truer saying.

Fear is one of the strongest emotions and it creates a powerful response; it is a fail safe for humans to alert them to danger and ready their bodies for ‘fight, flight or freeze’. You can see where this comes from in prehistoric man, when faced with a threat they either had to run for their lives, stood and fought, or froze to make themselves invisible to predators (rather like rabbits in the headlights).

The hormone responsible for this mechanism is adrenalin and we produce it whenever we feel scared or afraid. It readies our muscles for action (wobbly legs and shaking), it revs up our heart pump (pounding pulse) and increases our breathing rate ready to supply extra oxygen to the large muscles of the legs. Our eyes open wide ready spot the danger and our brains and senses become extra sharp. Skin tightens and pales as blood is diverted away to the major muscles and our stomachs contract down so as to not interfere with the process. All major organs of survival go on high alert. Adrenalin can even make the bowel and bladder muscles relax involuntarily.

Fear is so powerful that it can be totally disabling in the wrong circumstance i.e when the body is not under threat but nevertheless the emotion is running amok and irrational fears are born.

It is also true that people can become addicted to adrenalin. They love the ‘high’ it produces and search for ways to initiate this response, for example, putting one’s life at risk by participating in dangerous sports.

But for most people, the way they get their thrills is by watching a high action/scary/ movie or reading a book that’s full of jeopardy and danger. They can imagine themselves in the risky situation and that is enough to produce the adrenalin response. This is why people watch and read thrillers – that is the thrill – but in a safe way. In other words people want to be scared!! Then, when they come out of the reading experience, they can feel relief that what they read was not real and return to their everyday world feeling safe and secure.

The fiction writer’s (or thriller writer’s) job is to increase suspense and ratchet up the tension to produce that feeling of fear, usually empathising with the main character. So the reader is in a steady state of fight or flight waiting for…. Whatever!

As Alfred Hitchcock said, “There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

So, what do you think? Are you scared reading thrillers? Do you feel the fear?

The Best Lie Ever told to Children!

The best lie ever...

The origins of Santa and the stories surrounding Christmas are buried beneath layers of popular cultural belief. I am, of course, for the moment, putting aside the religious meanings of Christmas – it’s not that I am anti Christian or anything, simply that the notion of telling children the story of Santa and his reindeer has got to be one of the greatest and most enduring stories of all time ( next to the bible and religious teachings). It is also the biggest lie that parents happily enthral their children with.

I mean, when you think about it the image of a big fat man in a bright red suit sliding down your chimney (breaking into your house), eating your food and drinking your wine and then going into a child’s bedroom when they are asleep, ought to be pretty scary for most children. But, hey, it’s okay for this intruder because he’s bringing a sack full of presents! Right!

It just struck me that in other circumstances you could possible write a reasonable paranormal thriller story around the notion of this superman character who can get his reindeer to pull a sledge around the heavens and visit every child in the world in the space of just one night!

But hey, who am I to spoil the kiddies’ fun? I believed it myself for a fair few years… And enduring and endearing it still is – especially when you watch their little faces light up with the wonder and the thrill of it all because they’ve listened hard on Christmas Eve and heard the sleighbells…

A very Merry Christmas to one and all and here’s hoping we all have a peaceful 2012!

A ghostly Christmas...

Bah Humbug!

Christmas is almost upon us and the frenzy of shopping and socialising is building day to day like a good, page turning, suspense novel!

But before I get into my post proper I need to apologise for my ‘no show’. My blog has been on hold for the last two weeks because I have been away on holiday and not within reach of a decent internet connection. BUT now I’m back - so it’s full steam ahead from here on in!

So, back to a Christmas Carol, of sorts…

At this time of year I always enjoy reading (or watching an adaptation) of Dickens Christmas Carol. As ghost stories go, it’s got to be THE classic. I often wonder if writers like Dickens ever had any idea just how time-honoured their writing would become. Every school child has heard of the story and most have watched a version of it on TV. If you ask people who Bob Cratchett was, I think most would associate the name as synonymous with a poor working class family man who was bullied mercilessly by his penny-pinching employer. And the word ‘scrooge’ (from Ebenezer Scrooge) came into common parlance after Dickens wrote his story. The word has come to be used to describe someone who is mean and miserly.

The story is of course a morality tale and Dickens meant it as such. But the scenes with the ghosts must have been pretty scary to readers and listeners of the day and even today it ranks with many as an all time favourite and goes with Christmas tide nicely as we should all be more aware of those less fortunate than ourselves. I know it made a lasting impression on me when I first heard it as a child and alongside believing in Santa Claus, I also believed in the ghosts of Dickens tale.

Since Dickens’s time many have tried to write similar stories but none, in my opinion, come close to capturing the sense of fear about the hereafter that “A Christmas Carol” did.

Happy Christmas and happy writing everyone!

Do you have a favourite Christmas story?

Are You Scared Yet?

“There is no fear in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.” Alfred Hitchcock.

That is sooo true! But how do you build that anticipation?

How indeed...

Why, by creating the best suspense and page turning quality that you can. This is the basic ingredient of all good thriller stories and certainly the foundation for any scary story.

I have to say that scaring people is one of the satisfying aspects of my writing life!!

Sorry about that uncivil statement but it is true… I get a real kick when people tell me they were scared reading my stories. It is such a difficult thing to get right, I think. After all you want definitely want readers to be scared a little - but not so much that it overcomes their inclination to read on.

Raising the hairs on the back of my neck or causing me to break out in goosebumps is scary enough for me. Blood and guts kind of scary is not my cup of tea – although I know it does it for plenty of other readers… So how scary is scary for readers of paranormal thrillers?

For me, it is setting the imagination in play. A few well placed suggestions can get readers wondering and if they wonder then all things are possible. Witness a group of people quietly playing cards late at night. One says, “shush - did you hear that?” Everyone stops and listens carefully. Then another person hears a noise and someone else says it sounds like the creak a coffin lid opening might make…. Suddenly everyone’s heart beats a little faster. Then the lights go out… Now one of the players screams as he imagines something touched him…

But what has actually happened here? A fuse has blown and a door creaked slightly as it moved in a draught. But what has really happened is the imagination has exerted its full force and - as perceptive as we humans are – such things as atmosphere and sensing fear from another person is as infectious as laughing and yawning. We are all victims of our own imaginations in the right circumstances. It is this fact that all paranormal thriller writers trade in and has given rise to some of the scariest stories ever without spilling a single drop of blood!

I must apologise for the clichéd scenario but I’m sure you get my drift…

Do you use fear subliminally? Without being as clichéd as this, of course…

Can you be scared by the use of suggestions and atmosphere?

Things that go bump in the night!

The Occult Story World

As a writer of paranormal thrillers, the world of the occult fascinates me.  On looking at the dictionary definition of the word occult, I can see that it can mean esoteric knowledge, secretive mystery and supernatural.

To me the world of occult is mainly associated with the supernatural. It can include such things as Extra sensory perception, spirits, special powers, demons and devils, doppelgangers, possession and special powers ( such as telekinesis, telepathy etc). All these things are great fodder for the supernatural thriller writer. However one thing that is uppermost in my mind when I write is that, irrespective of the supernatural elements, the story must still hold together as a well plotted tale with good, believable characters. It must have the elements of a thriller with rising tension, conflict and suspense and a character in jeopardy.

I also do believe that stories centred on the occult world should grip readers and the supernatural element should be unnerving, scary and even a little terrible. Readers of these kinds of stories expect to be transported to an alternate reality where supernatural abound and yet are still pretty scary.

In the readers mind a little voice poses the question, at least for the duration of the story,”could this possibly happen?” Suspension of disbelief is what keeps horror and supernatural writers going, as well as the enjoyment of heightened sensations if the story scares as much as it should. The fear, I believe comes from the not knowing.

After all, we really don’t know what awaits us in the afterlife and the possibility of spirits, ghosts etc is not that unbelievable to many people. And lots of perfectly rational folk do indeed believe in the Devil and Demons (for that matter many religions do too). I guess it is this notion of belief and the outside possibility of these things actually happening that captures the imagination of so many supernatural thriller readers – including me!

So can you suspend disbelief to read a supernatural thriller? Does the occult world scare you?

"I wants to make your flesh creep!"

“I wants to make your flesh creep”

(From Charles Dickens – Pickwick Papers)

The world of horror writing is tied up stoutly with the world of suspense writing. And, for me, every tale of horror should ultimately be about the struggle between the forces of good and evil. This struggle can be outside ourselves, as in the fight between the Devil and God (or whatever your beliefs deem him/her to be), or inside ourselves as in the fight between the good and bad in all of us.

In my opinion, this Manichean (between good and evil) tussle is the essence of all supernatural thrillers and not the gore and senseless bloodlust you see with many ‘horror’ tales.

Some of the best horror writers in the modern era have used fear and suspense so skilfully that readers go to bed with one eye on the curtains! And yet they use no actual violence. Because ultimately fear (emotion), is in the mind of the reader. 

Horror writing, I believe, is more than mindless violence based on screams and monsters. It is the human experience woven into fear of the unknown and fetched up from the darkest corners of our minds. The world of horror writing for me is essentially the world of the everyday but with twists (maybe paranormal?) thrown in that seamlessly take the reader on a journey of ‘what if’s’ and hopefully scare the pants off them because somewhere in the deep primal subconscious we wonder ‘could it be possible?’ 

First of all horror writers must aspire to produce good fiction with all the requirements that entails, i.e. conflict, suspense, good characters, rising tension, meaningful settings, and proper resolution. Then the curtain can go up and the terror can start…

So what do you think? Do you prefer blood and guts or more subtle tales of terror?