Horror Writing

I found what you write interesting, but I feel it could benefit from a bit more at the ending. It feels a little abrupt, but maybe that's the effect your going for.

Here's the intro to a story with horror elements im working on, critique appreciated

For the first time in a long time, people began to discover magic again. At first, it was like the air was a different color or thickness or something. Slowly, normalcy was transformed into oddity, which soon enough came to rest like fog trapped beneath the tunneled trees of wide suburban avenues. Things stirred in dark alleys, under ivy, and out of crawl spaces. The night became somehow less lonely alone, and teemed with ancient mystery. Birds began to hatch elaborate schemes for the relocation of a large bag of birdseed from under one old woman’s awning to an undisclosed location, perhaps deep in the forest or in the attic of the old abandoned warehouse (which was rumored to be the meeting place of some form of demonic cult). People danced wildly in the streets, as if possessed by ancient ancestors from unknown lands. All parties were planned in accordance with the alignment of the stars, sun, and moon—with constellations used to determine theme, location, what brand of beer to buy. Smoke offerings to deities long (and still) asleep began to drift skyward, and even the busiest of businessmen covertly wore crystal pennants under their suits. My neighbor purchased several geese, named them, raised them in their backyard, explained to them that they must be eaten, then sang them Celtic songs while snapping their necks. I received a tupperware container filled with a delightful goose-noodle-soup, which possessed extraordinary healing properties. Anyway, it was a strange time.

But then this stirring or whatever began to coalesce into something more imminent, and wholly out of our control. Besides the ever-growing number of paranormal encounters reported by acquaintances, shop-keepers etc., I began to notice some very concrete changes. On my morning commute (a mile’s walk through my old neighborhood of professors, students, charlatans, and hippies) I saw nine cats gathered in a wide circle, seemingly in silent conference. The clocks in my home began to run at different rates, even my phone skipped or repeated whole minutes, sometimes reporting “TODAY” as the weekday. While I am neither punctual or particularly invested in the doings of cats, it was becoming increasingly hard to ignore the mounting supernatural crisis.

the only thing that can give me the shivers is stories about the human abyss.
iow, don't write about something supernatural. that's boring and won't scare anybody.
write about how completely disgusting humans can be. that'll scare the reader because he's human too. it opens his eyes for the monster inside.
you don't need all those howling winds, flickering lights and dark corners. you need to cut open the mind and soul of a person who has lost all empathy.

if you need inspiration read the tape transcripts of david parker ray, some guy who kept sex slaves in a "toybox" and tortured them till he drugged them and released them again. the transcript is his first instructions for new prey.
some more inspo could be found by reading into the pizzagate theory, especially about podesta who keeps atatues that replicate poses of victims of jeffrey dahmer in his house. or google biljana djurdjevic. an artist that was a victim of human trafficking. very insightful. pic related.

some other (fictional) story would be the "russian sleep experiment". especially interesting after some research on my side revealed that all the big mean guys (hitler, stalin, mao, etc) had suffered from bad sleep issues, mostly since childhood.

Overall I found this excerpt pretty interesting. The weird stuff going on intrigued me and made me want to read more. It also seems to foreshadow future problems, so that’s good.

Here are some more specific thoughts:

>The night became somehow less lonely alone
I think you probably just forgot to remove one of lonely or alone.

>ancient ancestors from unknown lands
I don’t know if ancient is necessary here. Ancestors already implies old. On second thought I kind of like the alliteration. Think about it, but it’s probably fine either way.

>All parties were planned in accordance with the alignment…
All parties were planned according to the alignment…

>wore crystal pennants
wore crystal pendants, maybe? Pennants are usually flags.
Oh, I just looked it up and I guess in nautical terms it functions as a synonym for pendant.
Take your pick I guess, I think I prefer pendants.

>Anyway, it was a strange time.
I don’t think “anyway” is necessary here. I prefer it without, but that might just be me.

>this stirring or whatever began
Again, might just be my preference, but I’d remove the “or whatever”.

>more imminent
I don’t know if imminent is the correct adjective here. Or maybe I’m too dumb to get what you’re saying. But I do feel like there could be a better descriptor.

I tend to prefer human horror too, but I'm alright with the occasional supernatural elements.

Those are some good sources of inspiration. Some fucked up shit in there. Thanks

What I like about a lot of Ligotti's stories is that they foreground the disturbing aspects of what we see every day. I think This Degenerate Little Town and The Town Manager stick with you a lot longer than his straight supernatural stuff like Nethescurial or The Bungalow House because they make you look at yourself and your surroundings in a different light, like said. It's the gradual but forceful shift in perspective from your own to that of a severely anhedonic depressive

I see. I'm trying to do that with one of my stories. The main character is tormented by himself and everyday life, which allows outside forces to prey on him. I'm hoping that if I do it right, there'll be a lingering question of what had a worse effect on the guy.

Thanks for the critique, I appreciate it and plan to develop this into an actual story. Good catch on pennants, I just flat used the wrong word and wouldnt have caught it myself. I will consider the changes which are your 'prefrence' too. Also yeah more imminent isnt quite what I want, will have to do something else there.

if it's not weird horror (preferable cosmic) i'm not interested

All my problems started when I twitted the girl who broke that story. I had no idea her connections except for the fact that she was just another one of them who help break some crazy fake news. Then I tweeted to her that I sympathised with her situation and suddenly all these weird things started happening with my computer. For months I had been receiving texts from unknown sources but thought knowing of them until my computer started malfunctioning. Then I realised all the texts were Russian, and that there was information embedded in them pointing me various tech companies in Texas and Vancouver. I was at this time getting off my medication and so thought I was just being paranoid. But then I started to notice the same woman showing up in different places. The same woman who had introduced herself to me on a beach one day. She was there in another, waiting for a bus just as I was. Then people started tracking me, and following me. I started to wonder if my tweet had created this problem or if it had been my own utter incompetence. Did I do something to deserve to be tracked like an animal. Why did they all wear such clean, light brown army boot? Why had I said what I said to Pizzagate woman? Had I just made a subtle flirty hint that I would like to get to know Pizzagate girl with the intention to shame her internally for spreading fake news, or had my consciousness suddenly been co-opted by highly organised sect? What if I could route my consciousness back against them in an attempt to protect myself, would that save me? Well, I suppose now, after all the horror has settled down, at least the daemon has drifted off and I have some peace of mind.

>At first, it was like the air was a different color or thickness or something.

The last "or" is too much and that "something" is vague and ugly. You can use repetition but it has to create a positive effect in the tale, may it be by sound or meaning.

>The night became somehow less lonely alone

This is odd but I really like it. Makes the point emphatic and has a nice sound.

>as if possessed by ancient ancestors

This one is plainly wrong.

>which was rumored to be the meeting place of some form of demonic cult

Cliché

>, what brand of beer to buy

This just feels out of place. It'd be nice if you expanded on those party themes, but please don't go by "Taurus, so everybody dress like bulls" or something like that. It would be awesome if you could build a twist in there. Also, as is the third phrase strung together maybe you should use "and".

>My neighbor purchased several geese, named them, raised them in their backyard

There's a concordance error. It's your neighbor's backyard not the geese's one.

Over all is musical, curious and with a nice rhythm. Awesome.

Clive Barker's Books of Blood were good.

This is the first hundred words or so from a ~3,000 word short story I wrote. Let me know if you want to hear more.

Hot Six, by Janet Evanovich is my favorite book. It’s not my favorite story, or even my favorite “novel,” but it is my favorite book. You’d never believe how many copies I have. Just guess. Guess! Seriously. I want you to. Hold that number in your head and I’ll try to pluck it out. I’m good at that. I can take things if I want to, even thoughts.
32.
I’m right, aren’t I?
Well, you’re not. Not even close. If you counted all your fingers and toes and then all your family’s fingers and toes you wouldn’t even be close to the right number. You should try that sometime, by the way. It’s always fun to find out whether people are keeping track of their digits.

Holy fuck this is painful to read.

ABORT.

>getting scared by reading
what
people do this

When it comes to short horror fiction, one thing that can make or break it is explanation.

If you over explain it then you may be faces with possible plot holes, and the mystique of the fear you are trying to evoke can be lost.

However, if you leave to little than you may leave your reader confused and frustrated about what they read.

It depends on you to decide how much explanation to add or leave out. Just remember that some stories work better with more, and others with less.

I'm going to post the rest of it now, just for you.
I started buying Hot Six two years ago at the Barnes and Noble in Minot, North Dakota, roughly sixteen hours away from where I live. I left on a lark. Well, I drove there in my truck. I have a large truck. You’ll learn that about me, I have large things. Big house. Big hands.
Big truck.
I’d never been to Minot and I loved the way it sounded in my head. French, like Minnow. But, nope. Those North Dakotans can’t do anything right, and they pronounce the town Mine-Ought. What a bunch of chuckle ups. Real goofs, the whole place.
So, I stepped into the Barnes and Noble and there I saw it in the bargain bin. Hot Six. Doesn’t that just fire you up when you hear it? It makes me feel … hot just saying it. Hot Six. Hot. Six. Mmmm. You’ll like the way I say that eventually.
Hot. Six.
The first time I saw it, the cover had big yellow type on a cerulean blue cover. That’s the kind of blue that looks hot itself, like the base of an acetylene flame. My mouth broke out in a hot sweat and I had to swallow a lot. Haha. Don’t get that look on your face. I’m not the one who swallows.
So, I pick this book up and it feels like sex in my hand. Cool blue cover, nearly seamless but for the gentle embossing and the subtle creasing where the covers meet the spine. I ran my thumb over the pages and let them snap against each other with all the crisp snap of a fresh deck of cards. I’m ashamed to say this. Don’t tell anybody. I got a … a boner. Right there in the bargain section.
I know, right?

The checkout girl gave me the sweetest look when I went up to the counter. She wore a simple pink top with flashy faux-gold jewelry that didn’t do much for her complexion, but God. GOD. You should have seen her eyes. Sky blue, cerulean, just like my new book. Hot Six. I stared into her eyes and she gave me the second feminine stare. You know the one.
I brought Hot Six home and just stared at it a long time before, you know, cracking open the cover. Feeling the delicate edges of the paper against my fingertips, hearing the whispered rasp of my skin against the fiber of the page. Jesus. Erotic doesn’t even cut it.
I kept that copy of Hot Six for months, just playing with it. God, the memory alone is more than enough to get me … well, you know. But, all good things come to an end, and soon the cerulean had run to a dull brown and the pages got all dog-eared. I just needed another copy, of course.
I found the next at a swap meet of sorts in a Mississippi Podunk just hours from my house. My big rig takes me all over, you see. I’m here, then I’m there. Boom. You’d never see me coming if I didn’t make so much noise. But then again, when you see something like me bearing down on you like an avalanche of steel, you might just sit there and take it.
But like I was saying.

The swap meet spread out over a hillside by a dying farm town in the middle of nowhere. Silos gone to rust, fields gone to weed, you know the place even if you don’t know it. I found my second copy of Hot Six sitting on the edge of a table there, sunlight glowing dully off the dog-eared cover. This copy had one of the variant covers, with a patterned purple background and the title in sunburst orange.
I picked it up and fluttered the pages beneath my nose, drinking in that yellow-brown smell of a well-aged book. I relished, relished, the feel of the creases in the spine, including the particularly deep one toward the back third of the book, where it had clearly been left out on a table or maybe even packed still-open into a purse to preserve the reader’s page. That book had character.
Refinement.
The woman running the table came around and smiled at me. That kind of smile, you know the one. The kind women give you when they’re playing at being salesmen. But I admit, she took me in. Her feathered grey-brown hair fell over tan shoulders dappled with dark brown freckles. A few of those same freckles splashed across her chest over the top of the embroidered lavender sundress she wore.
She told me the price and I paid it. I brought Hot Six home with me and read it hard for two weeks straight, over and over again until the pages came loose from the glue in the binding. It was a shame, watching that fine old book fall to pieces in my hands, grey pages slipping to the floor and sliding away between the floorboards. Beneath all the locked doors of the second story, where I only go when I need to do my reading.

But that second copy breathed a new and ferocious life into my little hobby. To my shame, and I’m always the first to admit to one of my faults, it’s one of my better qualities, I became something of a hoarder. My whore mother left me a large and sprawling estate of sorts, really nothing more than a large house on a hill in the country. She’d slept with the former owner, who’d raised me as his own until his death of a heart attack in my late teens.
Ugh. Sad and boring.
The big house and the surrounding tobacco fields, now defunct, I wouldn’t carry on anybody’s legacy of growing that … poison, gave me ample space in which to pursue my collectorship. I acquired stacks of Hot Six. I piled Hot Six in the living room. I left Hot Six laying open beneath the sun in the north field. I once lost track of an authentic, signed copy of Hot Six I bought from a pretty blonde literary agent in Chicago. It’d slipped off its bookshelf on the second floor and somehow made its way all the way down to the basement.
I found that Hot Six in a dank, dark corner of the old concrete cellar beside the remnants of one of my late mother’s old rotary telephones. One of the many in her collection I had to clear out when I finally found the key to the basement’s sturdy padlock all those years ago. If it isn’t all too obvious, I get my proclivities from her. I wonder if my biological father was a lepidopterist.
Either way, that copy of Hot Six hadn’t faired well in the basement and had to go in the furnace. A shame, obviously. A collector is always loath to part with any piece of his collection, especially rare pieces. But you know all about that, don’t you?
You collect things, too, don’t you? Of course you do. I know that because you know that. I can slip your thoughts out of your head just the same way you slip a tissue out of its box. Box. What a dirty word. Haha. Haha. Haha.
But I know what you collect. You don’t seem typical to me, you wouldn’t confine your tastes to something so blasé as shoes or clothes or jewelry. No. You collect people, don’t you? I mean, you tried to collect me, right? Haha. Haha. Haha.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame you. In fact, I’ve let my own obsessions carry me away from time to time. You know it got so bad, my little Hot Six collection, that I started picking up Hot Six wherever I found it?

One time, and I swear this is true, I found a copy just laying on a wet stretch of pavement inside an alley. Moisture had swelled the pages, warping the book until it grew fat and out of shape like a bloated corpse. The cover, my least favorite variant, the yellow one with the picture of the woman dressed like a whore. There are two versions of that one, one where she’s in silhouette and one where she’s not and, of all fucking things, has a dog, a fucking dog, handcuffed to her wrist.
It’s my least favorite by far, but there it was, just sitting there for the taking. The sheen had gone almost entirely out of the cover and something slimy and black had formed a hair-encrusted carbuncle on it, but I knelt and picked it up anyway. A homeless woman sat beside the book, peering at me — with that hungry look poor women get — over the dingy yellow scarf wrapped around her face. Without standing, I’d turned to her and asked if the book belonged to her.
She let me have it for free.
That old, wet book lasted for three months. I wonder if the time in the alley had strengthened it somehow, you know? Maybe all that exposure had some positive effects, but it certainly had some ill effects for me. I got this … I dunno … skin condition from that book that still hasn’t cleared up one hundred percent. But that’s neither here nor there, and it’s long since found its way to the furnace, so the contagion stops, I suppose, with me.
But that’s all beside the point. What you should really take away from that last story is that my collecting had hit rock bottom. Rock fucking bottom. But of all my personality traits, I’m most proud of my sense of introspection. I told myself that this was a learning experience and that maybe, just maybe, it was time to slow down the collecting, if not stop altogether.

And that’s what I did! Honest! You know, it’s been almost half a year since I indulged in my habit. I took a trip up through Illinois to clear my head and saw this beautiful old copy in a library near Parkersburg that I just had to have. Usually driving helps. I bought the truck for just that, to cruise the highways with that unassailable power only the big trucks have. I don’t even haul freight, but you know that, don’t you?
You don’t have to shake your head. I know because you know. That’s all there is to it. But you know, I was really thinking about calling it quits on this whole thing, the collecting. I really do love Hot Six, but a man can only take so much of the same old before it gets boring. And when you called me up to your office? Boy howdy, there’s your sign, huh?
But when I got up there, into the hustle and bustle of your office, all those lawmen pushing and pulling on criminals. Yeah. I felt something powerful stirring, almost like a voice on the wind. I sat down in that uncomfortable metal chair opposite your desk and watched you pore over my file. You knew I was there, but you didn’t know I was watching.
You didn’t notice yourself biting, no, sucking on your lower lip while you studied my file. That way you have of licking your teeth when you’re thinking, like you don’t know every man in the office is looking. Like you don’t know what they’re thinking when they see you.
But what really got me was what was sitting on your desk, just … resting there in its own little beam of light, glowing as blue as the ID card lanyard wrapped around your neck.
Hot Six.

Back in 9th grade my English teacher gave the class a creative writing assignment. One of my friends, being a huge fucking nerd, decided to write Dead Space fanfiction. He inserted himself into the story as the heroic and badass main character and put our friends in as characters who would get messily killed by necromorphs. That shitty fanfiction written by a 14 year old with no writing experience was legitimately better in every way than this abortion of a "story".

In intermediate school I also wrote in a weekly writing journal about Master Chief from Halo. Covenant attacked and a kid at school was rescued by him as he escorted him to a shelter over the course of a few chapters. It ended with him leaving the kid there and saying that they all waited for him to come back. Teacher said it was cool.

Can anyone give me recs for comfy old school horror like Carmilla?

needs more
>thumping heart
>trembling hands
>heavy breathing
biological descriptions of terror to elicit sympathetic responses

>For the first time in a long time, people began to discover magic again
ugh

> At first, it was like the air was a different color or thickness or something
valley-girl tier

Bro this would be 1000x more interesting if you showed the transition from normalcy to oddity in vignettes - scenes of happenings. Establish normalcy and then disrupt it and plunge your characters into chaos.

Your intro reads more like an over-inflated elevator pitch than an actual story.

"Foucoult's Pendulum" while not generally recognized as horror, is, to my mind, quite disturbing.

It's a very very good book, especially if you're into the occult and conspiracy.

I want to tell you why it's so disturbing and a good source of inspiration for horror writers, especially psychological horror, but I don't want to spoil it so spoilers:

the narrative deals with a conspiracy to control some occult powers, however throughout the book the narrative flips back and forth from treating the source of that occult power as real or fake in a very clever way that tends to bleed out of the book and infect one's ideas of the real world. I think this undermining of certainty can be very useful to the horror writer.

>Here's something from the first draft of my novel:

The Thing climbed out of the swamp water onto the bed of grass. Skeletal thin. Skin coarse and black as if once burnt alive but the grim reaper had yet to rob the bodily vessel of its animation.

The Thing cries out a hoarse guttural scream. Desperate. Reaching. Coarse black hands twisted and raised. The sound of water splashing hypnotises Meadow in place. The slippery black human corpse wriggled and came gasping with its hole for a mouth for crisp Shanton air; Meadow stood and watched for a moment longer than she knew she should. The world ceased to make any kind of sense; Meadow spun away and ran as the cries of the creature rattled in her ears. She ran as hard as her constitution would allow.

At some distance Meadow felt the mildew grass; and yet still even from a greater distance Meadow could hear the curse'd Thing cry out in agony.

Meadow knew she could have ran in that moment. Whatever gave the abysmal creature life was surely the work of a demonic evil, and if such a thing could be in such a horrid state and yet still cling to life, then what black forces governed its existence could also grant it unnatural speed and the thing could be in her mind's eye: bright lights, brilliant gleaming chandeliers, waltzes, dances, elegant women in gorgeous fabrics engorged red faces imbibed with wine.

Clarity of mind came to Meadow, her body becoming stiff as greek marble...

>(And so on)

I've been meaning to read it, but had it low down on my to read list. Maybe I'll have to bump it up.

From your description it sounds like the type of thing I'd like to read and hope to write.