#Horror Author

[museofthepyre]

The Novem Woods

(Audio drama project I’m writing with friends… I’ll be posting teaser-ish art with no context. What does this art mean, I hear you asking? Well… you’ll have to find out ;] )

[sanityshorror]

PLEASE give us some tips on writing horror, PLEASE

Honestly, I might do a video about this, as I get asked this/things along the lines of this rather often lol. Off the top of my head though, the most simple but important tips I can give:

Have an actual plot. It doesn't need to be super complex, it doesn't need to build an entire universe, it doesn't need to be ‘orignal’ (literally all artistic expressions are inspired by art that came before, it's impossible to create something truly original), and it doesn't even have to be unique. It just needs to be very solid and it should not be convoluted. And no, the horror of the story is not the plot of the story. The basic plot should be able to work in different genres. The story you tell with the plot and the execution is where you bring the horror.

Don't let your book become overly convoluted. You can tell a complex and rich story without adding every single detail about every single thing. Some things might seem a bit out of place without you including excessive lore, but it's better to just focus on the story you're telling in your book rather than try to explain every single aspect. Also, it adds much more mystery when you don't explain everything!

What is the villain's motive? What are the reasons for the villain's actions? And most importantly, what is your reason for telling the story? Do you have one? (Because you need to have one.)

Show, don't tell. This is off the top of my head without editing so it's not great, but as a general example of what not to write vs what to write: “He smacked the butt of his gun against her head and knocked her unconscious.” [❌] VS “Steel violently collided into bone creating an earsplitting, nasty, unmistakable cracking sound of a skull breaking. The woman's unconscious body thudded to the ground in an unceremonious manner. Blood poured from her head, pooling on the polished, hardwood floor on which she laid crumpled.” [✅] Same scene, but I don't think I need to explain the difference of why the first sucks and why the second is compelling.

If you aren't making yourself uncomfortable and horrified, you aren't going to horrify your readers. Push the limits.

Pacing: don't rush the story and gloss over important aspects of it because you want to get it done or you feel like it's just 'too much effort.' That does not mean adding filler to lengthen the story, either. All scenes and events should be relevant to the conclusion, if it's not relevant, then leave it out. If it is relevant, focus on writing it and doing it as well as you can. I would say for a short story, aim for a minimum of 4k words. For a book, a minimum of 25k words.

Bonus tip: over the top, excessive angst is not horror. Don't confuse the two and don't replace horror with angst. Yes, there may be a lot of overlap at times BUT you cannot write horror without the majority of the story being horror. I add this because I've seen a lot of new horror writers confuse the two and it just comes off as rather goofy when it's executed.

[loveguts]

boything – an introduction

GENRE: southern gothic horror POV: third person limited, present tense STATUS: ongoing wip, very early stage LENGTH: roughly planning on a novella but may become longer THEMES: transmasculine main character with an exploration of (repressed) identity being a focal point of the plot / oppressive christianity and the religious horror surrounding it / trauma and grief / social isolation / horror within the family unit / psychological horror and subtle body horror / primal dormant rage / set during the summer WARNINGS: abusive and controlling parent / religious abuse, psychological and emotional abuse, physical abuse / transphobia and transphobic abuse against the main character, primarily under the lens of christianity / detailed explorations of gender dysphoria from the point of view of the person experiencing it, including negative perceptions of body parts / death of a (non-abusive) parent / suicide / gore and blood / body horror / vomit / self harm / potentially more tbd

summary

in the wake of a familial tragedy that leaves him completely alone with his tyrannical father, twenty year old eden abernathy finds himself grappling with grief, his identity, and the desire for independence in his blossoming adulthood. with his sense of self deviating drastically from his father's strict expectations more and more over time, eden begins to wonder when – not if – he'll snap under the constant strain.

notes

I'M SO EXCITED TO BE SHARING THIS, eden's story has undergone so many revisions and rough drafts and rewrites since 2021. it originally began as a victorian gothic setting with vampires, but after never being satisfied with it and constantly trying to make it into something that i actually liked, i've finally found what i want to do with his character after three years of work and completely rehauling everything. it means a lot to me and i'm genuinely so excited to finish this and share it with you all !!

tag / previews and snippets to be posted / absolutely feel free to give me a reply, message, or ask if you'd like to be added to a taglist for future previews and the eventual full release!!

[spern-awel]

Thorngale by Phoenix Mendoza

In their neglected, decaying family estate on the cliffs of the northern Cornish coast, two Anglo-Catholic brothers grow up in parasitic isolation during a time marked by the decay of English nobility. The elder, Alexander, is equal parts devout and sadistic, lording over Francis, the younger, as his tormentor and God. Oscillating between dreamlike fragments from their insular childhood to their final, sharp descent to madness in 1928, Thorngale is a chilling gothic horror tale of obsessive love and fatal devotion, written with the cutting, claustrophobic spiral of an ever tightening concertina wire.

Available October 25th

[kaedynce-is-a-writer]

reader: hey uh kaedynce can you please stop traumatizing your characters

me, a horror writer: so you have spoken blasphemy

[abalonetea]

Consider joining my mailing list, mayhaps?

You can subscribe to it HERE!

I've never run a mailing list before so it's just a little bit of bi-monthly news, but it would mean a lot to me if you considered checking it out!

[wolfehorror]

A Guide To Wolfe

Hi I'm H.S. Wolfe and I write queer horror, romance, erotica and urban fantasy. I have two books and three shorts published currently, as well as an anthology on the way.

In The Garden Of Echo - Genesis 1 Echo and I have been around almost as long as the earth itself. We’re indestructible, in love, and hungry. For centuries we’ve wandered across continents, just the two of us, devouring an invasive species: humans. But the mess we’ve left in our wake has its consequences. Forced to curb our feeding and go into hiding has put Echo and me at risk of exposure, and I’d die before I let anything happen to her. In The Garden Of Echo is a T4T erotic horromance novella, and the first book of the Genesis trilogy. Full content warnings are listed in the author’s note and can be found on the author’s website.

Tales Of Genesis The TOG shorts are erotic one-offs best read after In The Garden Of Echo on itchio only

ROTGUT All I want to do is play drums in Cluster Headache, but I can’t even get that right. Between my on-again off-again shituationship with one of my band mates, the drinking problem-I-don’t-really-have and losing my job along with my will to live... I’ve kind of botched up my life.

As if things weren’t crummy enough I’m being followed by strange creatures that no one else seems to notice. Right before a big show too, that can’t be a good sign.

I've got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach about it.

ROTGUT is an 18k psychological thriller / paranormal horror novella about music, mental health, and aliens.

COVER ART BY YUNE (@heavenlyystar on social media) I'm also part of this huge project I've been running alongside author Mars Adler, a Queer Weird West Anthology feature 17 authors and artists, which was fully funded on kickstarter in 11 days! The kickstarter is running until the end of June 2024

Dead Cowpoke's Don't Wrangle With more queers, weirds, and steers than you can shake a stick at, DEAD COWPOKES DON'T WRANGLE collects original weird west tales and art and will take you to the strangest plains over yonder, then further still. So tie up your horse, settle in to wet your whistle 'round the fire, and prepare to be amazed. When shape-shifters, duels, gunslingers, and strangers come to town, you best be saddling up for a hootin' hollerin' good time. You can find all my links to the left of my blog or here

[roadkill-dreaming]

ARE YOU HUNGRY?

A story about those who revel in the grotesque- about the inherent contradictory nature of dogma- about the red string of fate being pulled so tightly that it strangles. Nothing but meat and candy.

My debut novel- AVAILABLE NOW

[schlock-luster-video]

Wishing a happy birthday to horror icon Stephen King.

[ladyofthevalley]

I’m meeting Stephen Graham Jones this weekend…. I hope he’ll sign my book

[museofthepyre]

Did a fun Q&A thing on insta about my ocs, here are the highlights, lore and shit! For context I am writing this into a horror-ish book as we speak. Brewing my dastardly schemes (gay tragedy).

Q: Is Eden also a cannibal?

A: Eden isn't a cannibal in the way Harlow is. I mean he eats people but only because Harlow's cooking is too good to turn down /hj. Eden's thing is... kinda the opposite.

He's slowly being consumed by the rot that's festering within him, a manifestation of hatred and shame. To him love is consumption, and he is inedible. Insert vulture metaphor here w Harlow. For every rotting corpse there is a very greatful vulture who will look past the decay, and see your worth. Eden is ultimately finished off by something that loves him, a consumptive love, unconditional and indiscriminate.

Q: ABOUT THE ROT, HOW DOES IT WORK? HOW IS IT AFFECTING HIM??

A: This rot is really the only story element that isn't totally grounded in reality. It's an illness that's a manifestation of his self hatred/ repression/ internalized shame- not an actual condition.

It appears at first like it just affects his chest- but it’s been slowly burrowing deep into his body. Its spreading like roots/ mycillium through his flesh and will finish him off in one foul swoop once it's finished spreading.

In the meantime, it manifests like a chronic illness- his muscles are all atrophied and he feels constantly drained of life. It's taking small pieces of flesh to sustain itself while it spreads (the chest cavity is the result of that-though the REAL damage is invisible. It's the ticking time bomb roots beneath the seemingly unaffected surface). It functions like a slow acting Chronic Wasting Disease (aka zombie deer disease, humans can't get it in reality, but it was the inspiration)

Q: What happened when Harlow discovered Eden was a guy

A: Eden is trans, and closeted in his life. Harlow is the first person he ever discusses his truth with.

At first, Harlow was just kinda... confused? Transness is not a concept he was familiar with. At ALL. The idea alone was completely unheard of to him. Again this is the Bible Belt in the 8os, the area so rarely encountered visible transness- trans people existed of course, but so many stayed hidden to survive. The roaring tre of bigotry did not have much tuel in that regard... no trans people to propagandize against. It was not on the public's vitriolic radar. In that way, Harlow hadn't developed the knee-jerk reaction of hatred... he was more fascinated than anything, but it did challenge him to understand at first.

Unlike his journey with accepting homosexuality this was not so much a task of unlearning as it was just... learning.

Also Eden's whole rotting thing adds another layer to this Harlow is stupid and takes everything VERY literally- he thought Eden's condition must be divinely brought.

Harlow saw a gift from God, a rare flower planted in inhospitable soil, wilting before it ever got the chance to bloom. Like the angels sent to Sodom and Gamorrah in human disguises, to test the townspeople's virtue. To present them with something foreign yet beautiful, to judge their inherent goodness based on how they treat it. Like in the biblical story, the townspeople were so vile and inhospitable that it endangered the angels and forced them to leave, burning down the town behind them. Harlow saw this as prophecy. He was eager to get to the “burning down the town” part.

Part of my motivation for incorporating that specific biblical story is SPITE btw since so many people use it to justify homophobia. Reverse uno idiots. I'm putting you in my GAY BOOK as a metaphor for hateful queerphobic societies.HA!

Q: Describe the rot in Eden's chest in sensory detail (texture smell “cause" etc) I want rot details!!

A: I used CWD and necrotizing fasciitis as building blocks for this thing... starts in the brain, spreads like roots through the body, eating away at muscle and skin as it does. Once it's fully spread, it'd rapidly worsten and bring death within a matter of hours.

In the meantime it sustains itself off of non-fatal bits of flesh (his chest here, since it's a manifestation of self hatred and all, and dysphoria is a bitch). It is an open wound so it'd feel scabby and it is perpetually weeping... which is how Harlow finds out about it so quickly (seeps through white nightgown after being left unbandaged for a few nights). He would also have to take care to hide the smell of decay

It advances throughout the story and by the end there's barely any soft tissue left on his chest, nothing alive anyways. The final overtake begins, and his organs enter the early stages of consumption (which happens very rapidly in one foul swoop). That's when they decide it's time for boy dinner!

Q: How smart are they

A: GREAT QUESTION! HARLOW IS FUCKING STUPID. LIKE not only does he lack emotional intelligence entirely, but he's also very impulsive and reckless. The ONLY reason he's getting away with his murders is because the society around him has shot itself in the foot with its homophobia. Noooobody is suspicious of him for the string of missing attractive dudes. They're looking for a "vengeful woman" profile, or possibly a "debt collector with many social connections" or something. Not some solitary redneck who barely shows his face in town and is very polite and quiet when he does. He appears, in all respects, like a normal guy in public.

Once they have mutual blackmail (and also start caring about each other)... Eden realizes that if Harlow gets caught, he's fucked too. So partially for the sake of self-preservation, and... partially out of pity for this stupid stupid man... Eden starts to help him cover up.

Harlow is pretty disillusioned as to how society functions as a whole, since he grew up pretty far from it. Eden is the opposite, he was suffocated by it and learned how to be sneaky as a result. Eden is very good at getting people to trust him, he's good at lying, he's good at acting. Thing is, he's overly trusting to his own detriment. He's desperate for genuine connection and easily deceived himself. He's bad at reading people.

Q: What happened to Harlow's mom?

A: Harlow's mother died due to complications during childbirth. He never had a maternal figure in his life, he was raised as an only child by his father, who had become calloused and would never remarry. Harlow dropped out of high school and kept to himself at his house/ in nature after that very isolated from society. Considering all this... he not only lacked a maternal figure, but any female influence... at all. Which manifested as this warped and idolized understanding of women as a whole

He thought of women in a very high and almost mystified regard- like how a child would imagine a mythical creature. One massive blank filled in by a clueless imagination. He respected them greatly, he feared them like gods, and he felt a need to repent to them as such. He never properly processed the guilt he felt over his mothers death-largely thanks to his father's handling of it. This guilt left him feeling indebted, like he owed the world for what he “took", like if he ever so much as inconvenienced another woman it would be an irredeemable sin.

This all sounds like it comes from a good place, but it's really all just deluded naivety this is not a positive trait of Harlow's. It contributed a lot to his toxic masculinity, the pressure he put on himself to "be a man", etc.

He's not a white knight, he's a cowardly dog.

This is why he didn't just kill Eden on the spot after being caught, he needed to make sure...)

MORE TO COME IM SURE I LOVE GETTING QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE FREAKS IF ANYONE HERE HAS ANY

[beaujuniperbooks]

The sun was setting as Sarah and Jack stood hand in hand outside the old abandoned church. The crumbling stone walls loomed over them, casting eerie shadows in the fading light. They had always been drawn to the macabre, the mysterious, and this abandoned church seemed like the perfect place for their twisted love to be sealed in marriage.

Inside, a small group of their closest family and friends had gathered, along with the old pastor who had agreed to officiate the ceremony. As the ceremony began, the air grew colder, and whispers seemed to fill the empty church.

But Sarah and Jack were unfazed. They were in love, and nothing could stop them from being together. As they exchanged vows, a strange mist began to swirl around them, and the candles flickered ominously.

Suddenly, a loud crash echoed through the church, causing everyone to jump in surprise. The old pastor looked visibly shaken, but he continued with the ceremony, determined to see the couple wed.

As they exchanged rings, a low growling sound filled the church, sending shivers down everyone's spine. Sarah and Jack smiled at each other, oblivious to the growing sense of unease around them.

But as they leaned in for their first kiss as husband and wife, a spectral figure appeared behind them, its eyes burning with rage. The pastor gasped and recoiled in horror, but Sarah and Jack remained blissfully unaware.

The figure lunged forward, its claws outstretched, and in a flash of darkness, Sarah and Jack were gone. The old pastor fell to his knees, praying for their souls as the rest of the group fled in terror.

The abandoned church stood silent once more, its dark secrets swallowing the love that had dared to enter its haunted walls. And as the moon rose high in the sky, a chilling howl could be heard in the distance, a reminder of the price of trespassing in the realm of the supernatural.

[loveguts]

writeblr (re)introduction

hi i’m oliver. 23, he/him, bi and trans, neurodivergent. i made my last intro in 2021 and then took a massive break from writing so i’m making a new one <3

this is primarily a personal blog but i post a lot of writing related stuff in general. im currently setting up a twitter where i’ll focus more on writing promo things.

i’m autistically obsessed with horror and pretty much exclusively write it. horror is also probably like 98% of all stories i read/movies i watch as well. besides writing it i post about a lot of horror stuff in general.

more specific themes and sub-genres i tend to explore are: american gothic (especially focusing on the midwest and the south), everything lgbtq, psychological horror, body horror, cosmic horror, sacrilegious themes, trauma, and animal motifs

my current main (and only) wip is boything, a novella exploring my main character’s transmasculine identity in an extremely oppressive, abusive, isolating christian household. you can read more about it in the linked wip intro!!

i’m always looking for new mutuals so absolutely feel free to like or reblog, especially if you post horror content or if you’re a horror writer yourself!!

[remedyxtragedy]

Important conversation to be had up ahead--

There are plenty of absurd things in this world I've long since stopping caring about because it is my understanding that there is only so much that can come from fretting over things that are beyond our control, however still I must reiterate that there are equally as many absurd things even I absolutely have to recognize and address because too often do they just fly under the radar. Such things including the romanticization of murderers, serial killers, and literally any disgusting degenerate who we should unconditionally deplore and reject.

Why, why in good God's name is this even an issue? Why must people like this further taint my perceptions of humanity? Frequently, I try to remind myself that this world is still worth living in, that out there exists a vast sea of good, benevolent people who make the experience all the more tolerable and that I shouldn't let a few bad eggs ruin the joyride of life, but then...when I go on the internet and stumble upon yet another case of some fatherless disgrace sympathizing with, simping for, and sometimes even flat out idolizing a serial killer, whether they're real or fictional, instantly I want to leap out the nearest window because I just cannot fathom for the life of me how these people are even real and how on a daily basis, I am coexisting with them.

I don't know why some people think that just because they're folding over a fictional serial killer it's trivial next to the fans of real life shit stains on the cloth of humanity, but I will gladly take them by the hand, sit their ignorant asses down, and explain in vivid detail why that is an abhorrently unsound mindset. I can't help but glare at my own sister in disgust every time she goes on about how she like's Ghost Face; my scorn is not exclusive to people outside my family--I either hate or love everyone, no one is spared.

There's a stark contrast between admiring how these characters are written and incorporating them into your work innocuously, as I too can resonate with, and just straight up finding them attractive regardless of the profoundly disgusting things they've done. I don't know what the psychology behind this looks like, I'm obviously in so such way educated in that regard, but maybe It's really easy for me to not fall head over heels for legit menaces to law and order because in my time I've read a good few encyclopedias on these kinds of people and am now cursed with the knowledge of how life can, has, and always will be horrifically desecrated by these monsters. It's just one of the few things I just cannot stomach.

Confidently, I can declare that we as a species are regressing, and it's evident in the good-for-nothings who spew nothing but parochial, myopic bullshit and are ever so sneakily infiltrating the public scene. As I'm a Christian, I trust in Jesus's return and the rapture, but as an individually intuitive girl with a wild imagination and dark thoughts that ceaselessly loom over me no matter how badly I want them to go away, a funny thought I quite like entertaining is that every effort humans make to consolidate our presence here on Earth only brings us closer to our inevitable demise, at some point we will outstay our welcome in this world, try and bush barriers we were not mean to, and the outcome is gonna be ugly. It all starts with little oddities here and there, little creases and cracks being formed in our design, and those things amass into a bigger formidable issue composed of all the fissures we've failed to patch, and that happens over and over all gain until it balloons far out of our control into a permanent fracture that we're just gonna have to learn how to mold around and coexist with. Perhaps one day, and one day soon, they become too much for the scaffolds of our civilizations to bear, which at that point causes the creeds and views we've founded our homes, hospitals, economy, society, and government upon to come toppling over until finally we find ourselves descending into a downward incline towards total catastrophe. Let it be known, that Idiosyncratic is founded upon this random notion I threw together during a more darker period in my life. I never would've thought such misanthropic thinking would culminate into the best premise I've ever come up with, obviously in my personal person.

Imma be working on a series of artworks showcasing what the Whitman propaganda in my book is gonna look like, and an idea I have for one of them is a visual displaying the human evolution chart except after the Homo Sapien stage we start regressing all the way back to whatever the hell the first stage is, until again they continue to evolve but iat the end of this series instead of there being a human it's Whitman himself, who is by the by no way shape or form human. It's like, we rose, we fell, then rose again--but no longer are we what we were before. I probably sound mad right now, but I promise it'll make a lot more sense once I actually make it.

Anyways, that's all I got to say right now, but just as a final comment--why is it that people are so adamant that it's either science or religion? Why can't everything be perfectly and meticulously intertwined? The way I see it, faith is not founded upon having absolute definitive proof of a a higher omnipotent being, it's believing in them and trusting in them unconditionally and wholeheartedly, you needn't know that they're there to know that they're there, if that makes sense. For me, it was never a matter of whether or not God is real--that much is practically innate to my being--it was always, why does he work in such esoteric ways? When I was younger, the answer was far beyond me, but now I know better--and I am endlessly astounded by God's work. That's my take, though.

[grady-hendrix-the-cat]

Raise your hand if you feel this way sometimes

[theboarsbride]

Looking for Writeblrs!

Hey hey!! Just looking for more writers to connect with on here!!

I work mostly with Gothic, psychological, and body horror (but mostly Gothic!), monster romance, historical fiction, very, VERY loose fairytale retellings, and light fantasy. You can learn more about my various WIPs in my pinned post, but if any of these interest you or you write similar stuff, feel free to interact w/ this post or check out my blog!💛