Sci-Fi Weekender Discussion Panel - Life as a Writer

 

SciFi Weekender Discussion Panel -

Last weekend I attended the SciFi Weekender in Pwllheli in Wales to try and promote and sell some of my Beyond Series books. So, I was thrilled to be asked by Author Sam Stone to sit on a couple of discussion panels. As this is quite a long blog (for me), I decided to break it into two parts.

Graham Guy, Me, Sam Stone and Austin Chambers on first panel.

Horror Writing

Visceral Versus Psychological

Horror to me is defined as stepping into a fantasy world that you normally wouldn’t entertain in everyday life. For instance you wouldn’t court a mad psychopath who is so unpredictable that you could potentially become their next victim, whether rape, murder or cannibalised! Nor would you really meet a person or a mythological creature that frightens the life out of you and disturbs or disgusts you. To me, this is horror.

When I was asked to sit on two writer’s discussion panels for the Sci Fi Weekender, it actually made me think properly for the first time about the genre I regularly write in. I never normally analyse or label my work until I have to publish the book. So I lay awake most of the night before thinking about what horror writing meant to me and which did I prefer. Needless to say I was tired the next day, but with the adrenalin pumping and microphone in hand, an eager audience waiting for something profound to be blurted from my lips, this is what I wanted to say – even if I didn’t articulate it very well at the time.

Visceral Horror is the blood, guts and gore of the genre, the things that we watch or read that makes us go ooh! Psychological Horror is suggestive, giving the audience the opportunity to use their own intelligence and imagination to make the spine shiver and the heeby jeebies get jiggy in your tummy.

As I am predominantly known as a novelist, I wanted my audience to be clear that ‘writing horror’ isn’t just restricted to writing books and short stories for anthologies or magazines. Graphic Novels, TV Scripts, Film Screen Plays and Theatre all come under the writing banner too. At the end of the day a person thought it, wrote the script and then let others produce the creative media the story is being told in.

So, we discussed novel writers such as Dean Koontz, Stephen King. Horror Films which crossed over into the Sci-fi genre too, such as Cloverfield and Skyline (I found terrifyingly disturbing films). Supernatural Horror like Nightmare on Elm Street, Carrie and Paranormal Activity – Serial Killer Horror like Halloween and Friday the 13^th. Granted there is some blood and gore in them, but only right at the end when the psychological tension has been built to a crescendo. I pointed out horror in the theatre, psychological plays like A Woman in Black, The Haunting and Ghost Stories (my personal favourite). I did see a visceral play in the form of a Jacobean Play called The Changeling (I have reviewed this play in my Blog before). Quite shocked when there was a lot of stabbing and blood at the end.

The Weeping Angels on Doctor Who. The thought of something horrible happening to you when you close your eyes for just a second is terrifying!

I concluded that psychological horror worked much better for me because I like to think about what’s going on in the story, being kept on the edge of my seat or compelled to turn the next page of the book, but a certain amount of visceral horror is needed to push the story along. For instance, my Beyond Books do have a certain amount of violence or blood based wounds and deaths because the supernatural creature themselves are visceral and need to drink blood or kill with their bare hands or decapitate the odd immortal Lycan, because it is necessary for their survival.

One cannot help but feel sympathy for a vampire who is made against their will and then must feed on human blood to continue to survive – or a were-wolf pack ripping the heads of the feral wolves that attack them in their homes when all they wish to do is live peaceful lives and hunt in the forests.

It seemed unanimous amongst the group that it was easier to accept this fictitious world because we all know it’s not real, but an escapism of the drudgery of real life. However, psychological horrors involving humans inflicting the visceral blood lust and gore on fellow humans is deeply disturbing for me. For instance, serial killer TV programmes that I have watched like Dexter, The Following, or Patrick Jane tirelessly hunting for Red John in The Mentalist is far more frightening because we are all too aware that these sort of people really do exist. In fact, as you read this and look around, (if in a public place, of course) notice the people and ask yourself – Who are they? Why are they there? Are they inherently good people or could they be the next Yorkshire Ripper or Myra Hindley?

 

How many times have friends and neighbours said in the news about killers. “Well, I’ve watched them grow up on our street. I’ve known them all their lives – He was such a lovely person – I can’t believe he could do such a thing!” And the shock quotes could go on and on. I’ve never heard anyone being interviewed after a revelation of a captured serial killer saying – “I knew all along the guy was a complete wacka-doodle… or - I thought about telling the cops when I saw him cooking his pet guinea pig on a campfire when he was a kid… He gave me the creeps!!” To me this kind of horror is truly disturbing and which is why I am exploring the mind of a serial killer in my crime thriller series Mancunian Tales. I have two books written so far, but I want the one I’ve been currently researching to write to be released first as part of a trilogy. 

Beamish Museum - Durham

 

Beamish Museum - Great Research Tool And New Writing Projects

Now that Lycan Lamia - Book Four in the Beyond Series is almost edited and ready for publication and can happily turn my attention to two new writing projects I've been itching to start. The feeling of relief when a writing itch is finally scratched is amazing!

Mink Coats is an History true life novel based on my both my grandmothers lives whom I promised to write about and they both lived astonishing lives. I also have a huge interest in all kinds of history, especially early twentieth century history so when I had the opportunity to visit an open air working museum set in Tyneside close to Durham I jumped at the chance. Not only was this an enjoyable day out, but for me it was an opportunity to experience what it was like to live in a northern town from 1900 right through to the Second World War.

So here is my tour of the Beamish Open Air Museum, and boy was it brilliant! I took a lot of photo’s, I loved it that much, but basically it is a working museum, where you catch a tram to a 1900’s coal mining Village of Beamish, which has mostly crumbled and collapsed into the mines, but what’s left has been beautifully preserved.

A typical looking early twentieth century Northern town. The traditional bakery smelt amazing. They’d just finished baking hot cross buns and the scent of cinnamon and bread baking made my tummy rumble… so I bought a warm loaf…. Mmm!

 Every building had been dismantled brick by brick and moved to Beamish. I caught the tram to 1900’s town, which according to Barclays Bank Manager all of it has been built from original buildings that were to be demolished from elsewhere, taken down brick by brick and rebuilt at the museum. Barclays Bank just like one I worked in during the 80's

I had a nosy in the Dentist Surgery and he told us some gruesome stories about pulling teeth, so I went to the Music teacher’s house and she’d just baked some cherry cake in her wood burning range…. Mmm! All that food we needed to wash it down in the local pub and warmed up by a roaring fire then headed to the sweet shop where they’d just made some lime and sherbet boiled sweets…. Mmm!

Grocers just like the one my mum began her working life in. Kitchen and Hearth. War time Britain and the Land girls cottage -A working farm preserved in 1940’s Britain, with your very own Home Guard and Land Girl to answer any questions and bake some very lovely cheese scones in an old wood burning range.

 By this point I was getting some serious cases of Déjà vu and it was bugging me so much I asked the tram conductor if they had ever allowed filming of period drama’s there and it turns out they have. Catherine Cookson?  I enquired and I was right. The Sweet shop was the giveaway for me and as I love the Catherine Cookson films that are made for TV I was really chuffed to say, I’ve been on a film set of The Wingless Bird! Which made me even more excited, I've been on a film set!

My other new writing project is a teen/YA trilogy about Time Travelling witches in The Devilin Daughters series The Reluctant Enchanter.