Hello, friends.
My Halloween events have come to an end and it’s a beautiful autumn day outside. I’ll need to go for a walk at some point. The Day Job was somewhat hellish this week, almost more so than usual. The kids had their moments but the adults…my god, the adults…. Anyway, here I am and here you are and let’s talk.
Welcome to the 196th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and musings about making things scary. If you’re a reader who subscribes via Substack, my website, or Patreon, your encouragement helps motivate me. I’m thankful to have any audience.
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This week the Day Job was crazy. Monday had something happen that’s gone into a less-than-stellar place because of toxic masculinity. It doesn’t involve me, luckily, but it may affect me, which is not so great. Wednesday I had the bi-annual meeting that lasted to 9 PM. The exhaustion and loss of time from these happenings meant no work on Four Moons happened. I’m a little pissed off but that’s how it goes.
The Day Job wasn’t the only distraction from working on Four Moons, but I had two events for the Night Job that also took up time. In this case, though, they were more welcome. I took part in a panel about cosmic horror at Once Upon A Bookstore on Friday night. Ricardo D. Rebelo, Edward Guimont, and I talked about cosmic and all things horror related for a couple of hours. I met some cool people and had a good time. Special thanks to Serena Dupuis for hosting and having me. Support from booksellers (and bookstore owners) are so important to writers.
Speaking of which, Luke from Barnes & Noble in Smithfield, Rhode Island, once again acts as a Number One Fan and champion of writers of the dark and creepy by hosting me, Brennan LeFaro, and Barry Lee Dejasu yesterday for a few hours.
I got to meet Tamra of Tamra’s Killer Bookshelf, who was so cool and funny! A definite high point of an already great day.
So much thinking about writing, so little actual writing. I’m hoping this week will prove different.
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Halloween is less than a week away and all things spooky are still at the top of my mind. I mean, spooky shit is always at the top of my mind but it’s even more so because everywhere I look, there’s horror and horror-adjacent items to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve. I even got to do a few events as a horror writer where I was celebrated and lauded. Well, maybe I’ve gone a little too far on that last one. I was respected and treated well, which is all anyone has a right to and all one should expect, which was good enough for me. A question that came up from time to time was, “How do you write something scary?”
That wasn’t asked the way some normies ask—with a trifle of disdain, grotesque curiosity, and even a little disrespect—but with actual curiosity. In some cases it was because the person asking the question wanted to attempt to do it themselves, in other cases it was genuine curiosity in wanting to peek behind the curtain to see how the sausage is made.
My gut response to “How do you write something scary?” (or perhaps, “How do you write a scary scene?”) is: I don’t know.
It’s probably my most honest answer because I’m not sure I really know. I write what feels right, and then edit and revise accordingly, also with what feels right. Most of the time, I don’t think what I’ve written is scary or even particularly dark. It’s not until I hear from people who’ve read the story that I find out that I achieved what I’d hoped.
But I don’t know is also a kind of bullshit answer. If someone comes to an event, or summons the courage to ask you the question, you need more. I will say, “I don’t know,” to get a laugh (because I’m needy and like to make people laugh) but I have to follow it up somehow.
I think that it goes back to a quote from Stephen King I saw when I first started writing around the age of 13. There was a Stephen King Library that was a part of the Book of the Month Club. You sign up and every six weeks (I think) they sent a Stephen King hardcover to you. You kept it and bought it or sent it back. I believe the welcome literature that came with it had a quote where King says, “I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monster loose.”
I mean, it’s an obvious thing for a storyteller of dark and scary stories. Try to get the audience to like the characters before you put them through hell. And it’s great as a quote, but the question still remains…how?
I’ve always felt King was a master at introducing a character and giving the reader a peek through the window into their lives in a fairly short time. The opening chapter of his novel Under the Dome is a perfect representation of that. He introduces many characters in the first 50 pages of the novel and some of them meet terrible fates right away (I believe a gopher is one of them) and you feel for each of them (even the gopher). The Stand is another great example of how he immediately gets the reader to care about the characters.
Details are the key, I think. Some readers (and writers) take issue with having the characters lives displayed unless it has something to do with the immediate action or situation. But people have lives before the situation. That’s what makes real life tragedies so terrible. Hearing about something like 9/11 is horrible in itself, but when you start to learn around the people who died as a result of it, the people who were hurt as a result, it becomes much more. We’re exposed to terrible things all the time, from war to school shootings to the rise of fascism to the everyday accidents and traumas that befall people to the point where it almost becomes noise; images and numbers that signify next to nothing. But when we hear about the individual, like Rhoam Summer, the five-year-old who was murdered in Oregon last week at school, who apparently loved drawing and art and being creative, it breaks your heart.
In a horror story, adding brief details about the character’s life, thoughts, needs, desires, happiness, sadness all help in creating a character that the reader cares about. What are the things that stand out in their environment that makes them them? One would miss a big part of my writing workspace if they didn’t mention the action figures and toys that were on it, especially adding the details that they’re mainly superhero- and Star Wars-related, with a few horror-related thrown in as well. There’s also a drawing tablet on my desk. Those are details that create a picture of who I am as a person. One doesn’t need to explain each figure, spaceship, and tchotchke that exists—that would be boring, which is the cardinal sin of writing—but a mention in a line or two of a paragraph isn’t terrible. What are the items that makes the character and their environment real? That helps with raising the suspense when you unleash the bad things.
Finally, I think the rhythm of the sentences and the words add a lot to the feeling. The correct verb and adjective can really help get the reader there. When I’m writing, I try to use the best word at the time but I really feel like when I’m editing/revising is where this comes in. Sometimes the right word comes in the heat of the moment and it’s magical, but most times it’s when I’m sitting at my kitchen table with the manuscript in front of me and my blue pen in my hand that I’m finding that right word. I hope.
In the end, I actually don’t really care if I scare a reader. It’s nice to, but that’s not what really turns me on about writing and storytelling. I care that the reader has enjoyed the characters and have felt something, that they’ve enjoyed the story. That’s why I write. To tell myself a story, and, hopefully, to tell you a story.
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That’s this week’s newsletter. Thank you so much for subscribing, reading, and for your support. Be safe out there, friends.
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