‘Tis the Season for the Creepy and the Crawly, the Spooky and the Ooky (Penny Rader)

http://bit.ly/RuGTJp

Happy Halloween!  ‘Tis the season for spooky stuff so I trolled the net for tips on creeping out our readers.  I hope you’ll click and read the posts.  I’ve given a few snippets to whet your appetite because even though we write romance you never know when you might want to push your readers to the very edge of their seats.

How to write a scary scene (Susan Dennard)

…a few things I think are needed to make an edge-of-the-seat scene:

1. The reader/viewer must know more than the character and be forced to wait for the Big Scare.
2. The reader/viewer must be focused entirely on the scene with introspection absolutely restricted to reaction to surroundings.
3. The reader must not know when the Big Scare will strike.
4. When it does strike, it must not be what the reader expects.

http://bit.ly/ShcDSe

How to Write a Scary Story (Maggie Hammand)

We don't like things that are in the wrong place. Things that are too big, things that are too small, things that look like they ought to be something, but they're not quite - they're something slightly different - are very scary. Also remember when you're writing something scary, you want to engage your reader's imagination.


How to Write Horror: Writing Tips for Scary Stories (By Ashley Sinatra)

Write about what scares you: One of the most important writing tips for a horror story is that you cannot produce a good horror book or short story if you are not willing to confront your own fears. To write a scary story, you must be willing to dig deep down inside of yourself. You also have to force yourself to daydream and imagine yourself in a frightening situation.

Three Tips for Scary Scenes (Rayne Hall)

• Darkness
• Sound 
• Chill

http://bit.ly/T3rfEJ

Vocabulary Words for Writing Scary Stories (Nadine Smith)

Check out the post for (and maybe start your lists?):

• Words that set the mood
• Words that evoke the five senses
• Words that heighten suspense
• Words that show fear

Write a Scary Scene (Cynthia Light Brown)

1. Write what scares you.
2. Tap into the lizard brain.
3. Start slow, then build.
4. Keep us in the moment.

~~~

Wanna play?  I found a few horror writing prompts here and here

If you’re game, choose one of these and share what you come up with in the Comments:

• There is a glass scratching sound on your house's windows and you get up out of bed to check it out. You look toward the windows and don't see anything. All of the sudden the glass breaks and something jumps in! What is it and what do you do next?
• A friend of yours has had an ancient curse levied upon him. What do you do to help and what happens to him throughout the curse?
• Begin with the words, “Yes, it’s true.”
• You're walking around a dark corridor when you turn around. You soon discover turning around may have been the worst decision of your life...
• Write about a witch, a wizard, and their four kids.

Need pictures to get really creeped out and write a super scary scene or story?  Check out these Scary Photo Prompts.

It's Creepy and It's Kooky, and Altogether Spooky (Penny Rader)

Happy Halloween!

Want to add a bit of a thrill or a chill or touch of suspense to your writing? Check out these links:

Foreshadowing and Suspense (Anne Marble)

Keep in mind that not all characters will react to anxiety and crises in the same way. Spend some time figuring out how characters react to suspense, anxiety, and fear. Try to avoid the usual descriptions, such as "her pulse raced..." If you're at a loss for descriptions, remember the last time something scary happened to you. What happened the last time you stepped on the breaks and your car tried to skid? Did your stomach feel like a brick? Did you shriek, or swear? Or did you steer yourself out of the skid and only respond to the stress after you were safe? Use those experiences to color your characters' reactions.

How Do I Captivate the Reader in My Scary Story? (Elizabeth Burns)

Omit excessive detail. Some of the best scary stories skillfully leave it to the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks. It is often what is hidden, or merely hinted at, that sends chills down the spine.

How to Succeed at Writing Romantic Suspense (Shannon Reynolds)

Craft a tense and suspenseful tone. Focus on more than just the scary abandoned buildings or creepy old mansions. Characters reflect tone by how they react to events as they unfold: if the characters are convincingly tense and uncertain of what's around the next corner, chances are your readers will be as well. Throw some twists and turns into your story, surprises that your readers will not see coming.

Ten Tips on Pace and Structure of a Thriller (Jordan Dane)

Hitchcock believed suspense didn’t have much to do with fear, but was more the anticipation of something about to happen.

And we’ve all heard the phrase “Write what you know.” It should be “Write what you fear…what you love…what you hate.” Writing what you fear conveys human emotion that will resonate with readers. Tapping into what makes you afraid will translate into a trigger for the reader as well. And this goes for other emotions too. Drawing on a reader’s emotions will pull them into the story.

Tips for Writing Fiction (Robert Gannon)

What is scary is very subjective, so it's best to write something that scares you.

Try writing about an actual event that scared you in your life. My first horror story I ever felt comfortable sharing (long since lost, of course), involved a string of events that I'm still convinced were caused by a ghost in my house. The genuine nature of the story to me allowed me to effectively tell it to other people. Since I thought it was real, I wrote it like it was real, and that is what scared people.


Writing Horror Literature (Justin Daniel Davis)

What scares people? And how do I tap into it?Well, a good place to start as a source of fear would be the most logical and often overlooked one: yourself. Face it...you’re rarely going to get anywhere by trying to capitalize on what you THINK scares people. Start with yourself...not only is this your most reliable source, but your writing will come across as more genuine, less artificial. What scares you? Monsters under your bed? Loss of control? Ghosts? Goblins? Chores?

~~

So...what scares you? Do you have any tips to share to add a touch of creepiness to stories, maybe just enough to have your reader on the edge of her seat?

Snakes and Snails and...Shovels!

Like many others, I'm not a spider fan.  I don't scream, I don't jump, but I just plain don't like them, but I do understand that they have a purpose.  No, that purpose isn't scary the life out of us, but as part of the chain in insect life aka they eat bugs.  I don't like them, either.

But what I really, really don't like is snakes.  I lived on a farm for 24 years, and there were several occasions when a snake got in the house.  Not little garter snakes.  Big.  Fat.  Long.  Bull snakes.  During the first memorable visit by a slithering reptile and my reaction to it, my best friend called.  I told her what was happening, and she laughed.  And laughed.  I informed her that someday in the future, I would include the story in a book.  The following is an excerpt from A Saddle Made for Two, Silhouette Romance, July 2001; my second book.

Sticking the key in the lock and turning the knob, she pulled open the door and stepped inside.  She growped in the dark to switch on the light while she yanked her hat from her head.  The hat fell to the counter, and her gaze dropped to the floor.

Her blood-curdling scream, at the sight of the snake curled on the floor, bounced off the thin camper walls.

Thoughts skittered through her mind, but none made sense.  Without taking her attention from the cold-blooded invader, Ellie acted on instinct and eased open the door of the small closet to her right.  After carefully pulling out a newly purchased, flat-bottomed shovel, intended for her horse trailer, she jabbed the edge onto the snake as close to its head as possible.  Praying the critter would stay put, she gripped the wooden handle with both hands and jumped atop the metal.  The snake flipped and writhed beneath the blade, and Ellie realized what she'd just done.  Frozen to the spot in shock and unable to move, except to brace herself with one hand against the cabinet for balance, a shudder shook her body.

Now what? she thought, when the snake slowed its wriggling.  If she got off and it came after her, she'd die of fright.  Mercy, she hated snakes!  But staying propped on the shovel for eternity wasn't an option, either.

All true, I swear.  Except the grain shovel (flat-bottomed and new) was around the corner in the entry that led outside.  It had been (thankfully) left there by my husband, who was, of course, nowhere around.  And I didn't scream.  I was standing on that shovel, the snake beneath the blade and still moving, when the phone rang and my friend called.  The rest, as they say, is history.

From Frankenstein to Ghosts to Witches by J Vincent

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, a novel Mary Shelley started writing when she was 18. It was published anonymously in London in 1818 when she was 19. While horror stories existed in regency times, the period my characters live in, I have never been a fan of it. I refuse to see or read anything remotely related to horror because my mind has the uncanny and extremely uncomfortable tendency to replay scenes I desperately want to forget! But I digress.

Today mention of Frankenstein does not immediately bring to mind Lon Chaney but rather Mel Brooks. The only kind of “horror movies” I ever watched were made in the 1920-30’s. Lon Chaney’s Quasimodo (1923) and Boris Karloff’s Bride of Frankenstein (1935) were ones I did watch and was deeply touched by. These movies however are nothing like today’s Dracula or Chain Saw. They wanted to elicit sympathy and pity and did not overwhelmingly terrify or repulse despite the gross disfigurement of the characters who were victims of fate. To quote form Lon Chaney, “I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity may have within them the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice. The dwarfed, misshapen beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals. Most of my roles since The Hunchback, such as The Phantom of the Opera, He Who Gets Slapped, The Unholy Three, etc., have carried the theme of self-sacrifice or renunciation. These are the stories which I wish to do."

Another quote from Ray Bradbury that I found really hit the mark: "He was someone who acted out our psyches. He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen. The history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from.”

Beside ancient horror movies I like what some call comedy/horror though not of the Mel Brooks mold. My early introduction to this class of movie was the hilarious Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein released in 1948. They did several more of these involving Dracula, Wolf Man etc.

Another kind of movie I like is the ghost story—the old Casper films also from the 1930’s (not the friendly ghost but the man who can only be seen by the couple who accidentally hit him with a car) and who doesn’t love The Ghost and Mrs. Muir?

Then there are the witch movies among which one of my favorites is Bell,Book, and Candle released in 1958 starring Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, and Hermione Gingold.

An average, modern-day witch (Kim Novak), lives in a New York apartment with her Siamese familiar, Pyewacket. Oone day a handsome publisher (Jimmy Stewart) walks into her building and Gillian decides she wants him--especially as it turns out he's marrying an old poison penpal from the witch’s college days. She casts a spell over the publisher. But her powers are in danger of being exorcised by something stronger than the bell-book-and-candle routine: Love. She loses her powers but does she lose the publisher?

Hocus Pocus (1993) with Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy is another one I liked. Bedknob and Broomsticks (1971) with Angela Lansbury. Definitely lighter fare but my kind of Halloween enjoyment.

But then there is Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane . . . . almost too scary for me but then the more I thought about this topic the less simple it became!