All about horror, and horror's what it's all about.

Or, what works in horror and what doesn't. Because a lot of horror really doesn't work. We should all know this now that Halloween is done and we've gorged on scary movies and spooky books. Who am I, then, to talk about this?

I write horror novels, mostly. The primary target audience is not adult. I'm aiming for the 12-15 year olds (although if the rest of the world wants to hop on board I'm convinced they'll enjoy the ride). This has thrown up a key question: How much horror is the right amount of horror? This is followed by a further question: Am I getting it right? One final question: How much of my writing time can I waste by writing a blog about these pertinent questions?

All my keys say this.

My first go at YA horror was called Macadamian Pliers and it's about a particularly sinister man with an unpleasant plan. We've got haunted houses, growlings in attics, vigorous ghosts, draggings into dark wardrobes, a mausoleum, and a fairly hectic final sequence. I tipped a couple of bags of horror in and gave it all a good stir. I told myself while writing it not to hold back, not to self-censor, just get the story done. I didn't want to dilute the inherent badness of a man like Pliers. As it turns out, Mac was the first of my stories I actually enjoyed upon reading it back (after letting it settle for a couple of months - it's vital to step away and leave the first draft alone when finished). There's a sense of foreboding to the piece, and Mac himself is creepy as hell. It's about the scares, not the grue.

And it's not exactly the stuff I thought I'd write.

When I was younger (late teens - like I was ever there) I envisioned myself as becoming a writer with Stephen King's enviable ability to spin a tale and James Herbert's ability to shock (all those chewing rats - yuk), but my heart wasn't quite in it. There was little joy in blood and guts for the sake of it. All the gruesome stuff... it's horrible, yes, but is it really horror? As a fan who's seen far too many films and read plenty of books, I'll tell you here and now that the answer is very, very close to no. Your Saws and Final Destinations and Shaun Hutson books and all the rest can be found at the lowest level, where the horror genre is at its least effective. No point in arguing with me, because it's true. Ring and Spiral (both in book and film form) are exponentially more effective at scaring, at horrifying, at lingering long after they are over. There's a couple of bits in Mama (which I watched recently - decent film, terrible ending as usual) which actually caused my toes to curl. Scares driven by suggestion. The Conjuring films and the second Annabelle are equally effective. The first Annabelle movie is not (and do not ever speak to me of the abysmal The Nun).
The blood is the after-effect of the event. It is the result. It should not be the whole story.

That cover still gives me the heeby-jeebies.

So I'm not that into blood and grue. My writing should be alright for younger readers, then? Nothing wrong with a few scares.
But there's those who will automatically shake their head and demand such books be burned. Ghosts and ghouls and bad men at the bottom of the garden? Horror is for grown-up sickos, not kids. No spooky stuff, no ghosts, no wizards even. Look at all the hullabaloo about Harry Potter in the US of A (funny bunch, you Americans). Maybe there's a good point to be made - a young person's imagination is electric and lively, and is arguably far better than an adult's at making these spooks and demons real.
Yes, I don't bother with the extremely icky stuff. It's all about the power of suggestion people! And that power can be strong. The threat is all you need. Any idiot can write in detail about cuts and splashes and gouts and sprays and loppings and choppings. Can you make the reader fear those horrors without ever painting them clearly? If so, the reader is yours to manipulate - and therein lies my concern.

Conscience, then, can be the writer's only guide. Conscience and confidence, the assurance that you know how far is far enough.

I've said before that horror is a constant let-down. And it's running out of ideas, right? So why am I bothering? Well, for the reasons I've discussed. There are other ways to go with horror, other stories to tell. There are plenty of characters waiting for someone to forget all the old cliches and to concentrate on story instead.

But I've got a cheek. Even I, who dares to spout off like he knows anything, am guilty of stealing well-worn tropes and settings.
The graveyard is one such classic setting. It comes with spookiness built-in. The second novel was called A Graveyard Visible. And yes, I am aware that I'm wide open to accusations of laziness. Ooo. A graveyard. And spookiness. Well done, Steve. However did you come up with that? Do something new, you might yell in my general direction. You think you're so clever? Try doing horror somewhere totally new, like a haunted microwave, make that scary! Well, shut your face. I've given the haunted house a twist, (a twist in the grim shape of a man called Macadamian) and I did something new down at the graveyard as well.
(God, I get so defensive when I make up arguments in my head.)

Anyway, I'm done for now. I'll probably have more to say about this...

Laters.

Ghosts and Ghoulies and Trunks, Oh My!

Hey.

Gonna wheel out an old classic blog for one more Halloween haunt.

I wrote this horror book a couple of years before A Graveyard Visible, see. It's called Macadamian Pliers. Haunted house, a man of strange angles, trouble in a new town.  It's got everything you need for Halloween. (Hint, hint. So does 'A Graveyard Visible'. Graveyards, revenants, abandoned mansions, what more do you want?) And one of the kids in it, Jack, he's crazy-mad about ghosts and ghoulies and stuff. He's got a mondo-huge collection of mad spooky stories, new stuff and his own takes on the classics, and he sticks them all up on this website he shares with Cherry and Frank Raine - ihatemacadamianpliers.weebly.com So, to get into the mood for that most creepy time of the year, I'm going to let him take over my blog.

Okay, I'm handing over to Jack now. The kid tells a mean story. Strap in, and good luck.

The Trunk

I'll start with this bad ass story that messed my skull up for days. I got a trunk full of comics and couldn't go near them, which was a real pain.

'There was this old house that was abandoned and up for sale and these college kids were always messing around in there, having parties and stuff. There was usually about seven or eight of them, and they decided to play hide and seek. The game went on for a total age, and the college kids got bored before they finished they game, and did off. It wasn't until the next day that they realised one of them, a girl, was missing. They phoned her and called round her house and she never turned up. She was totally gone.
So it's five months after all this happened, and this family bought the house and moved in. They had a ton of stuff so it took an age, and there was a bunch of old furniture and stuff there already, but the mom wanted to keep it because she thought it was cool, the weird way oldies do. In the kid's bedroom was this properly old trunk, and that was where he wanted to stick his toys, but the lock on it was stuck. The dad sorted that out with a hammer, and they opened the trunk, and in there was the rotted body of the missing girl, all stinking and putrid, and her mouth was open in a big wide O, and her nails were all broken where she'd tried to get out.
Sick!
That ain't all of it.
The police took the body, and the family threw the trunk out. The kid was a total sycolo.. psykol... mental mess, but eventually he had to sleep in his room on his own. He was there in the dark, on his own, and BOOM! There was a loud thud, like something real heavy landing on the floor. He was so scared he couldn't shout for his mom. He could hardly bring himself to turn on the light... but when he did, it was there! The trunk had come back. He was actually kinda glad to see it coz he could stick all his toys and junk in there, so he got out of bed and went to the trunk and opened it up, and a rotting corpse leapt out and dragged him in!
When the trunk was eventually searched it was completely empty. Years later another family moved in and got rid of the trunk, but the next night when their little girl went to bed it reappeared, and do you know why? Because the thing in the trunk was hungry again, and it was time for another meal...'

Bloody Mary

I'm gonna tell this one the way my sister tells it, because her version kicks ass.

'It was, like, a century ago, before most of these houses were here. There was a woman who lived by the lake, the one past where the school is, and she lived there alone with her little daughter. The kid ended up drowning in the lake and this woman, Mary, she couldn’t cope with the grief. Eventually it drove her nuts, properly insane. People stopped going anywhere near the place. She could be heard screaming and wailing at all hours of the day, and would be seen beating herself with stones. The madness made Mary blame herself for her daughter’s death. Then the townsfolk’s children started going missing, but only the girls. It didn’t take long for the blame to land on Mary. The mob went out to her home, not to challenge her with their accusations, but to exact their revenge. They had already decided she was guilty.
Another girl disappeared after Mary was dead. She was spotted being carried away in the arms of a man headed for the lake. He was a labourer who’d moved into the area a few months earlier, and he admitted responsibility for all the disappearances. Mary’s daughter was his first victim.
And that’s what makes for a restless spirit. She waits for any opportunity to take her revenge on this town for what they did to her. It’s said that she can be summoned by chanting in the mirror…
You have to say Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, who killed your daughter Bloody Mary? They say she doesn’t just appear, though. They say she tries to smash her way through.'

Skinned Tom

This one is awesome.

'Every town has a lover's lane, one of those places where guys and chicks drive to and then sit there with soppy-ass music playing while they get it on, wasting their time. There's one town, though, where you should totally avoid the lover's lane, and I'll tell you why. Tom took this married chick there every friday night, been doing it for months. This one night they were there, kissing and whatever, when the car door was pulled open, and the chick's husband was right there and he had a knife and he was properly angry! He stabbed his wife, then dragged Tom out of the car, and said to Tom 'I told you before, didn't I? I told you if I caught you again I'd skin you alive!'
The married chick didn't die, and while she was in hospital she told the police what had gone down. As it turns out, the husband handed himself over to the police, owning up to his crimes. But Tom wasn't found. They searched and searched, but the only thing they found was a few splashes of blood near the car.
People started going missing after that. Couples would go up to lover's lane and never return. Their car would be found abandoned, and covered in bloody hand-prints. There's only ever been one survivor of these attacks, and she wound up in the loony bin, but before she got locked up she told a doctor what she saw. It was a bloody skeleton, and it was holding a knife, and it told her it needed her skin because it didn't have any of it's own.
Nobody goes up there anymore.'

Massive thanks to my man Jack for all the entertainment. We might have to invite him back again before the big night itself, Halloween...
If you liked Jack's tall tales, you might just get a kick out of the horror story he finds himself a part of. Macadamian Pliers

myBook.to/AGraveyardVisible

Laters.

Seeing your novel in real life!

Bit of a weird one today, but have you ever found yourself inside a real life version of your novel, after you've actually written it?

Now, we writers, odd-bods that we are, all live for incredibly long periods of time inside the worlds we have imagined. We know the characters as if they are real people (or should do), we know the locations, walk around them in our sleep, experience every development in the story as if they're actually happening to us. This next bit depends on what you're writing: if you're scribbling down your biography or basing your story firmly in the real world around you, then you see those places all the time, you know the physicality of them, you know the atmosphere, can breathe it in. If, however, you are working in fantasy like myself, if the geography of your tale is a construct of part-truth and part-make-believe, then you can't really have a wander round, getting a feel for the location.

However, I did just that.

Sometimes in life you find yourself doing a double-take.

This scene caused me a triple.

You simply don't expect it. I certainly wasn't out looking for it.

All the images in this post are, to me, a real-world representation of Daisy Hill in my new novel A Graveyard Visible. The hill in the book is a lot steeper than this one, but this idea of burials all the way up the gradient, of a graveyard that isn't flat but on levels ever-upwards, is the notion that spurred the writing of the novel in the first place. I feel like I've seen the inspiration long after the writing is done.

I'm unlikely to see my first novel Macadamian Pliers in reality. It's based in a made-up American town. I don't live in America, I have yet to visit. and this restricts my chances of seeing anything resembling Cherry Raine's haunted home town. Mac Pliers is based in part on places I have actually been to (isn't everything we write?), Gateshead and Chesterfield are incredibly hilly in parts.

Seeing Daisy Hill, though... it was like the story was saying, We were here all along. It all really happened to us. All you did was report it. And we'll be here when you're gone. 

I wonder what I might have written if I'd seen this place first.

Caleb's up there somewhere, getting into

serious trouble.

This is in Bowness, on Lake Windermere. We were there for a few days, to celebrate a birthday, to get away from the mania of normal life. What a beautiful place it is, so much so that you will want to walk and walk and carry on simply so you can see more of it. There's a joy that all of this exists, and a pain that I haven't seen more of it, and that one day I won't be able to see any of it at all.

I love the place. The calm of the water, the hills and peaks, the morning mists that shroud the swooping ranks of trees... At no point do you feel any temptation to check social media or scan through a million nonsense news stories (the pathetic excuses for reporting that are considered newsworthy these days show how pathetic modern times are). I had no clue for three days that Syria had been bombed. I was probably better off not knowing. Such was my delight at connecting so thoroughly with nature and disconnecting so completely with the society I loathe, that I slipped into a pretty severe funk upon return to real life. Isn't this why we go off to our other worlds, because we deem them better than this one? Windermere is better than the real world, much better. And it's real. It's there. Go to it. Bring a camera, turn off your Wi-Fi, turn off your data, do yourself a favour while you can.

The railings that Caleb peers through,

convinced they're expanding.

The timing is so weird too. Two weeks before A Graveyard Visible's release date of 27th April 2018. So close to that moment when the book is finally out there for readers to either love or hate or be completely confused by (which is exactly what's been happening in the pre-release reviews). Serendipity? Sure, why not? It certainly made me rethink my attitude towards the novel. With everything going on regarding reviews during the lead up to release, I've found myself feeling very distant from the work, unsure of what it is, what it represents, why I wrote it in the first place. There are those who can't finish it. There are those who can't understand why it's been slated. There are those who think the writing is awful. There are those who think it beautiful, lyrical. Between all these sharply opposed opinions, I've lost my way. In this moment, in Windermere, when I wasn't looking at all, my book came to find me. That graveyard, that boy, that girl, they're a part of me, no matter what. Discovering them, writing them, everything that came after, then finally finding the graveyard is real... It's been an adventure like none other.

I know that there's no other book like it. The sadness inside its pages, the yearning for acceptance... It is the horror of things coming to an end. It's my attempt to put my greatest fears into words. Whether the reader is capable of deciphering the code... That is up to them. I have to accept what it is, and move on.

But I'm sure glad I saw Daisy Hill for real. Without that, I would have turned my back on my work for good.

Back home, I've taken to watching 4K videos on Youtube of people walking around lakes and driving scenic routes while trying to work out how on earth to promote this book before it's too late. These videos tend to be around four hours long. Yes, it's loopy, but I can't tell you how relaxing it is, and it beats the hell out of Netflix, evil Facebook, and (non) news.

A Graveyard Visible, out 27th April 2018

Go get my book. It's all real, it all actually happened. Honest.

Laters.

Bad review, what do I do?

I got a couple of bad reviews, and now I'm in freefall and I don't know what to do.

This is a particularly painful post, and I've thought long and hard whether to publish it. I promised myself, however, that if I wrote a blog then I would be honest about the writing journey. With that in mind, this is going to be a very honest post, possibly to the detriment of my unreleased book. But what can you do? The bloody reviews are out there now. No hiding those.

Way back when I started this bloody thing,

I never thought it would be so much trouble.

It all seemed like a pretty good idea. New book A Graveyard Visible is due for release at the end of April, and I was feeling confident about it, thought it was about as good a piece of work as I could put together (after all, I sent it to a publisher, and they accepted it, so, you know...) Why not drum up a bit of interest for my YA horror nice and early? I stumbled upon a scheme to garner a bunch of reviews. So I went for it.

Yeah. Pretty good idea.

First review came in. I checked it out nervously. It was great:

'This book goes from “good” to “great” to “I can’t put this book down until I have finished it”. If you want creepy, edge-of-your-seat page turner, this is for you!'

In the spirit of honesty, then, here are some direct quotes from the negative reviews, and this is the stuff that broke my heart:

'Ok, I did not get this book at all. I love suspense and horror, but this was a mangled mess of confusion. The alternating third person perspective and stream of consciousness just left me confused. This would have been a DNF for me except I felt guilty...'

And even worse:

'The story started off strong and I was captivated by the idea of what could be happening within the graveyard. The narrative soon became really difficult to follow. Each chapter switched between many characters’ perspectives and it often took me reading a paragraph or two to understand which character I was reading about.
This was a difficult book for me to get through. I ended up quitting with only 70 pages left because I was just uninterested and not invested in the story. '

Never in my life thought I'd write a novel people didn't want to finish! I can't imagine a review being any worse.

This is what my cat thinks of the whole situation.

Again, being honest, I got defensive when I read these. When you've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours creating something you believe in, anyone would get a tad bristly, I suppose. So let's get the stroppy author bit out of the way. The main beef here seemed to be the multiple perspectives. But what's wrong with that? I whined. It's hardly the first novel to have multiple bloody viewpoints. It's standard stuff for telling big tales! It's meant to give proceedings a touch of the ole epic scope. It keeps the story fresh, lends a bit of unpredictability to how it all unfolds.

Look, there's not that many viewpoints! There's our two leads Caleb and Misha, some flashback stuff (which is all in italics, by the way), some very brief stuff with the grandparents, and some short sequences with the villain of the piece, and he's really obvious because he has all these dark thoughts 'n that. That's it. Caleb is a very normal boy, Misha is a bit odd, it's all signposted quite clearly.

I've read a ton of books that switch viewpoints. Grab one of Stephen King's bigger epics - The Stand, Under The Dome - and you'll be switching all over the place. I don't think it's that hard to keep up in my novel. Really I don't. Maybe I'm too close to the story though. After all, it did take longer than usual and more effort to get it done. Maybe I've buggered it up far more than I think.

Anyhoo, my defense is all well and good... but so far two readers don't buy it. That there is bad news, bro.
It could be that multiple viewpoints just wasn't to these readers' tastes. Having two of them say the same thing though? Oh man...

Like I said at the beginning, I don't know what to do. It feels like the damn book's been murdered before it's anywhere near release. Is it fixable? Do I dare get more reviews? I have to, in the hope I can get some balance, get a few good ones in, so that at least it looks like a divisive novel. That would be a good sell, the book that you either love or hate. But... what if more reviewers hate it? What if that's all AGV gets? I don't know what to do....

Oh yeah, I'm comfort eating these days. You wanna see how big I can get? Keep posting them bad reviews, guys. Reckon I could end up a whopper.

Laters.

Love it or hate it, They'll come after you anyway.

Pre-order here. Release date 27th April 2018

Why does the second book deal feel better than the first?

A second horrible child is on the way. And I couldn't be happier.

(By the way, this episode is all about me. Deal with it.)

A Graveyard Visible has done what I thought was impossible. It has landed a publishing contract. All going well, it will tear itself loose around October/November 2017.

Currently I have the pleasure of choosing images to inspire the designer of my new front cover. I used to dream of such days... I can't tell you how much fun I'm having, imagining what the final product will look like in my hands. Another real actual book, sitting next to Mac Pliers on the shelf!

This is pretty cool - it's got the hill, craggy old tree,

headstones dotted about. A bit grey, but mood is about right.

This is a wow. Love love love.

I'd read a book with this cover in a heartbeat.

Wowzer, right?

Too zombie-ish for my novel, but still...

I could always stick a zombie in.

That's about a quarter of one percent of the amount of stuff I've actually looked at (and in truth none of these has actually been chosen to pass along for inspiration, and - for the record - I don't own any of them, okay? So no-one freak out).

I've written a hell of a lot since I started tapping away on my knacky electronic typewriter 20-some years ago. I'm about to finish my tenth full length novel. (There's various scripts and attempts at short stories on top of that. Even a poem or two. We all try stuff out. Some sticks, some... bad times.) So, until I got the incredible news about A Graveyard Visible, I had a single novel and 3 short stories published over the course of those 2 decades. One novel. 20 years. Mac Pliers looked like a fluke.

People always say this - it took J K Rowling x amount of attempts before she got published, you know. It's usually Rowling they refer to. And the amount of attempts varies from 20 to 30 submissions to publishing houses. I wish I had that kind of average! We're talking in the hundreds for submissions here. Not hundred. Hundreds.

There was only one conclusion: either my targeting was way off, or I simply can't write, and Mac Pliers was an accident bound to happen when one has committed so many strings of words to paper.

A discouraging thought, I'm sure you'll agree.

So, as happens every few months (for I am a stroppy writer, don't you know), I decided that my most recent submissions would be my last. I was wasting my time, other people's time who had to read my queries, and all in all that seemed to be a lot of time going up the spout. Best to get on living, and keep my scribbles to myself.

I meant it this time.

I really did.

I sent it, gave up on it, and we had a busy Christmas in which everything but food, drink and cats up trees was forgotten, and then in the first week of the new year an offer of a contract came. I'm pretty certain I cleared the high jump world record. 2nd time really is the charm, folks. It's much harder even for stroppy writery me to believe in a double fluke. I might actually be good at this. In fact, I'm actually doing it, I'm being a writer. Plus, another novel of mine received 2 very positive bits of feedback in the very same week. Not an acceptance, but positive feedback. 2017 has been very nice so far.

No hidden morals in this story. I mean seriously everyone, if I can keep going after THIS LONG and finally get to where I want to be, then there's hope for every single one of you. It simply needed a teeny tiny touch more patience than originally anticipated.

Perhaps I'll stick with this novel game a while longer. Only this time, I need to get a good grasp on promotion.

This time.

Don't forget - this guy gets re-released at the end of Jan 2017

Laters