Tuesday 29 July 2014

An exercise... because exercise is good for you

Courtesy of the brilliantly talented author Sarah Dobbs and her Creative Writing the Artist's Way programme...

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Perhaps you're not seeing everything, ever

I mostly try to write unsettling stories, psychological horror, the horror of the everyday and the things that people do. That's because, if I can quote Mark Kilner (who you will like reading, by the way), the whole "horror as in werewolves and goblins or horror as in psychopaths running around with knives" doesn't really do it for me.

What makes a story scary, horrific or just plain unnerving for you? I recently read an excellent view on this in Eva Wiseman's Observer column; I think you should read it too (here's a link) but even if you don't, here are a few paragraphs from it that make some fine points.

Walking home after seeing the Blair Witch Project at the local lido multiplex, a thing ran across the pavement in front of me and maybe it was a massive cat or maybe it was a deathly monster. I suppose I'll never know. But this is the joy of horror. That the stories never tie up neatly, and that perhaps you're not seeing everything, ever.

...

At times, it seems that every story suggests blockbuster horror. Like, for instance, these recent regional news reports about a fox that returns to the same woman's garden in suburban Leeds every night, to make an offering of another single shoe. I mean. Or the woman accused of murdering her elderly parents, alleged to have buried them on top of each other in the garden in Nottingham one bank holiday 15 years ago, but who it's claimed continued to send Christmas cards to the extended family, saying she and her husband were travelling in Ireland "because of the good air". The good air.

All these stories are fascinating because they're creepy, and they're creepy because they're thrilling, and they're thrilling because we don't understand them, and because hopefully we never will. That rich combination of tragedy and fear, and sadness, too, that fresh scent of mourning that we can examine from afar. The difference between jumping off a building and riding a rollercoaster. We feel the feeling, the shudder, and then we get to go home and put the kettle on and maybe have a bath.

The idea that perhaps you're not seeing everything, ever, is what keeps me awake at night. How about you?