Tag Archives: writing

Afterword: The True Horror Behind Two Books

Posted on by
Reply

I THINK I DIED WHEN I WAS FOUR. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here… Recently, I was asked to write a little behind the scenes non-fiction piece for my novella, A Season in Hell (Crystal Lake Publishing, September 7, 2018). Having just finished that, feeling the joy in writing such a piece, I decided to dive into the behind-the-scenes inspiration for two of my releases this year. Those two books would be From Death Reborn (Silver Shamrock Publishing, April 13, 2021) and Storm Shadows (JournalStone Publishing, November 12, 2021). The two are actually connected in a way, so let’s dive in and see what inspired these stories.

Okay, back to the beginning… When I was four, lightning struck my window and formed a skeleton across the pane. Those of you who have already braved Storm Shadows recognize this as a scene in the book. But let me explain how this ties into From Death Reborn, and why I didn’t write an afterword for each book, due to this intersection. Laying there in my crib at four, that was something I had not expected. I was far too young to understand the purpose of the lightning rod just outside of my window, but I understood fear all too well. That house, and I mean this with all of my heart, was the scariest fucking place I’ve ever been. My family experienced a wide range of haunting, including seeing ghost dogs jump in through windows at night, knobs sliding up and down the door, hearing a deep voice warn us to leave, and many more. So yes, I knew fear better than most at that young age, and so I was terrified by the skeleton formed on my windowpane that night.

I know, I know… You’re thinking, “But you said you think you died?” Yes, that is true, and here is why and how that ties into From Death Reborn. After the lightning struck, I crawled out of my crib and headed for my parents’ bedroom. The house itself was a two-story model, one in which an old doctor supposedly killed his entire family and then himself (yes, I know it’s a very common story, but in this particular case it happens to be true). My bedroom, as well as my parents’ room, was on the first floor. On my way to their room, I stopped at the front door, and something compelled me to open that door. When I did, everything was gone. No trees, no houses, no ditches or small swells, no nothing…just flat land as far as I could see, save for some storm clouds hovering ominously in the sky above me. And as I walked out into our yard, and kept walking, eventually I found myself far away from my home, which I could no longer see. That’s when it happened.

For those who don’t know, I consider myself a spiritualist. What does that mean? I do believe in a higher power, and I think of myself as a Christian, though I doubt most of them would be very accepting of my beliefs, as science plays a big role. Regardless of my beliefs, the one thought I hold dearest is that people can make up their own minds about reality. It isn’t my place to judge anyone, and yes, that is ultimately what separated me from the church. I was told I was going to Hell for the music I listened to, for wearing tie-dyes, and other assumed wrongdoings. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that when my mom approached me with a religious book, I refused to read it. She asked me time and time again, each time with me avoiding doing so. Until one day when she convinced me to read a few paragraphs she’d earmarked. In that small section, the author detailed a near death experience (NDE) and spoke about meeting God to the exact details of my own story. Imagine my shock. The afterlife has always fascinated me, but that was the birth of a story, right there, standing in my mother’s living room—a little nugget to build upon.

The clouds began to spread, the sky opening up, and what I saw beyond was a clear blue sky lit by a bright and shining sun. And then He appeared. Or, at least, I assume it was a he; it could have very well been a she or a them or something I cannot even comprehend. Whatever the case, I found myself standing beneath this hole in the sky, encountering a being comprised of billions of tiny glass prisms reflecting light in every possible color imaginable. And He/She/They spoke to me. What they said, I have no idea, and I don’t recall anything after that moment other than finding myself back at home. In fact, I completely disregarded this experience for many, many years, until my mom brought it up early in my marriage. 

The other truth in From Death Reborn revolves around the death of my niece, just sixteen at the time, who was killed by a drunk driver. Aleia (and yes, if you’ve read the book, you can make a correlation with the name) has appeared often in my stories in one way or another, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise. Her death changed me, as it would anyone. And the car accident in From Death Reborn is, in a way, a tribute to that, and the story itself a means of me working through my issues in losing her, including reuniting with her in the afterlife, should that be possible. While the core of that book is probably more dark fantasy, it includes many horror elements, but I like to refer to it as my superhero story. If you’ve finished all the way to the end, you might know why.

Now, let’s revisit Storm Shadows to complete this short essay. 

When we moved away from that house shortly after that incident, our new house also proved to be haunted. Perhaps it’s something inside of me, something unlocked by that NDE, that allows me to see things through the thin veil that hides them from others. The day we moved in I set off to explore the house, and soon I found a terrible looking stuffed gorilla in an oddly placed attic within the upstairs closet. That gorilla tormented me nightly, causing me to lose a lot of sleep. I was also the new kid in town, and a group of bullies had taken a liking to me and decided to torture me as frequently as possible. Those were grueling days, going without sleep and then finding myself face down on the ground, being pummeled and my face forced into the wet grass. Some would call those formative years; I call it trauma I’ve not soon forgotten. Did it make me stronger? Sure, but I’d rather have not gone through it all. So here’s my clear message on that: bullies suck. That is all.

Lying asleep at night, strange sounds often awoke me. And yes, all houses make sounds, and over time you might grow accustomed to them. It takes time. But in this instance, each time I awoke, I found that stupid gorilla standing in the middle of my room, staring at me with its awful orange eyes. I tossed it back into the attic, but it showed up in my closet weeks later. I threw it in the trash, and still it came back to my closet. Chucked in up the sewer tunnel of a nearby creek, and still it returned. I don’t think I rid myself of that gorilla until I was twelve and we moved to Pennsylvania, believe it or not. And, of course, all of this, the gorilla, the bullying, me trying to get rid of it, is in Storm Shadows. But there’s more…

Yes, the shadow people really did come for me in that second house in the suburbs of Chicago. One night I went to go to the bathroom and there he was, standing in the window of the backdoor, his shadow cast by the porchlight I had just turned on. That occurred a few times over the next few weeks, and eventually, one night while I was asleep, that shadow appeared from behind my bedroom door. It strangled me through my sheets, trying to kill me. I managed a peep, barely audible call to my mother, and the shadow took off. Who knows, maybe it was some entity coming to reclaim a soul it felt was stolen from the afterworld, but for whatever reason, that was the end of it. And soon after, we moved to Pennsylvania.

It should come as no surprise that even now I have real horror stories. I’ve seen things in near every house, things that cannot be explained away. I’ve seen things with friends, things that changed us, and terrified us. Perhaps this is why I write horror, as I try to reconcile the things I’ve seen, explain them in some way. Where that takes me, I often don’t know—I am a pantser, after all. But I hope you enjoy the ride when you take a chance on one of my books. I hope it keeps you lying awake at night wondering whether that shadow on your wall really did just move.

Amazon links for the mentioned books:

A Season in Hell – http://mybook.to/ASiH

From Death Reborn – http://mybook.to/FDR

Storm Shadows – http://mybook.to/StormShadows

Pleasant nightmares,

Kenneth W. Cain

January 31, 2022

Single Question Interview: C Bryan Brown

Posted on by
Reply

What is the anatomy of a solid character?

779b733095090a7e9d9a45.L._V195021601_

Generally, that depends on the character, but every solid character must have a few basic things in common.

First and foremost, a solid character needs mass.

For example, ghosts, while they can certainly be well-rounded, entertaining, scary, or sympathetic, just aren’t solid. They walk through walls, fall through floors, disappear in sunlight. It makes them very hard to grab on to, you know, very hard to pin down for anything necessary. As a matter of fact, I don’t think you could put a pin in a ghost because there’s nothing solid to stick!

Actual mass will depend on a variety of factors, but mainly the size of your character. Large characters take up more physical space than, say, small characters. Be sure you remain consistent when writing kids, too. Smaller = less space, but if you’re writing about a juvenile bigfoot, for instance, its mass will be more than a juvenile human of the same age. Cuz, you know, it’s a BIGFOOT.

So, after adding the proper mass, you’ve got a pretty solid character on your hands. But solid doesn’t just mean owning a physical space, having some sort of cosmic address where a body is parked. No, it’s also about the correct bits & pieces being in place. So that means if you’re writing about an alien with three eyes and a tail, you need to make sure those are present and accounted for, always. Tails swish, they flick, people trip over them. While some people trip over nothing, or their own feet, it’s much more likely they’re going to trip over something solid. Everyone knows this.

This same rules apply for writing humans. The women and men characters need to have the proper parts. If needed, switch these parts around, of course, but they need still be present. And switched around means women can have male parts and vice versa, just tucked away where they should be, not, say, sprouting from their foreheads like a unicorn’s horn or reminiscent of a porcupine joke I once heard.

So we’ve covered mass and each character having the proper pieces for what they are. We’ve also seen that you’re allowed to shuffle them around when needed. Think of each character like a Potato Head doll: holes in the arms, legs, head, face, eyes. Put things where they need to go to fit your story.

Seriously, folks, it’s that easy to have proper anatomy on a solid character.

My serious answer to this question, which certainly includes all of the above, is that the anatomy of a solid character is quite simple.

It boils down to duality.

I’ve never known a single person who is all good or all bad (and I use those terms relatively) and that’s what you have to bring to the table when you write characters. You have to recognize that while this character is certainly the baddie, there’s a reason for that. Just like every super hero has an origin story, so does every villain. The villain may very well like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain, which aren’t very villainous things at all. But if the villain is nothing but mean and vile, then some of the mass is lost, some of those solid bits you want to stick a pin in.

Conversely, your good guy may shoot a kid in the face and then go home and hug his own.

If you know the goals, motivations, and loves of both your antagonist and protagonist, you essentially have a story tree with two thick, healthy, branches. You can use the leaves from either branch to tell a damn good story. Now, apply the goals, motivations, and loves to your secondary players, give them the same treatment. Now your story tree grows more branches that produce more and more leaves until you have a natural, beautiful canopy through which to stream the sunlight of your story.

***You can pick up Chris’ books through AMAZON.

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)

Single Question Interview: Nicholas Conley

Posted on by
1

What are the challenges in creating a believable character that is younger than you, the writer?

86ad416bdda70ac1d188da.L._V387540968_SY470_.png

It’s certainly very tricky.  As an adult—and especially as an author—I do believe that it’s important not to emotionally separate myself from the personal issues of people who happen to be younger than me; when a person does that, it puts up a kind of barrier, a barrier that blocks the adult from empathizing with younger generations.  It’s a terrible trap, but it’s an exceedingly easy one to get ensnared in.  As an adult, it can be challenging to remember that the terrible struggles that one went through as a child or teenager weren’t laughable.  No, back at the time, these struggles were very important and often very painful.  This is why many teenagers tend to get angry at adults, I believe.  They feel like adults don’t understand them – and the truth is, they often don’t.

Adults tend to glamorize childhood.  Why?  Because back then, we didn’t have to worry so much about finances, relationships, jobs, et cetera.  As a result, it’s incredibly tempting for one to say that childhood was a blissful, happy time of wild abandon.  But I’ve found that for most people, that perception is not really true to life.  Children and teenagers don’t have the freedom that we adults take for granted.  Most children struggle through their early years; they struggle with loneliness, bullying, rebellious tendencies and so on.  Teenagers have to contend with a heightened awareness of their impending adult responsibilities, as well as the sudden onset of messy relationship drama, intensely sexual situations, peer pressure, alcohol and drug use.

When it came to writing Ethan Cage, the protagonist of The Cage Legacy, I made a point to step away from my (at the time) 22-year-old adult self and remember who I really was as a teenager.  I asked myself; what kind of personal issues did I struggle with?  What was important to me at the time?

Of course, since Ethan Cage is the 17-year-old son of a serial killer, his problems are greatly magnified.  Ethan is constantly in a battle to retain control over his emotional impulses; he’s angry at the world, stubborn, frustrated.  He wants to control who he is—his adolescence is like a prison cell to him—and every time another bit of control slips out of his grasp, he panics.  His id grows stronger than his ego with every failure, with every harsh judgment passed upon him.  Though very intelligent, Ethan is a self-conscious introvert who struggles to properly communicate with his loved ones, especially when it comes to his girlfriend, Whitney.  He constantly feels underestimated.  He’s torn between the urge to disappear into the background and the desire for some degree of recognition and/or acclaim.

As adults, it’s easy to look down on a teenager’s problems and say that we “know better.”  But if we do know better, it’s only due to the fact that we went through the trial by fire ourselves, got burned, and came out the other side alive.  Instead of diminishing the importance of teenage tribulations, I think it’s important to really understand where a teenager is coming from.  An adolescent’s pain is no less real than an adult’s suffering, it’s just different.

***You can pick up Nicholas’ books through AMAZON.

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)

Single Question Interview: Teel James Glenn

Posted on by
Reply

Murder-mystery or mysterious murder?

393346_10150471388069001_1468969540_n

The concept of the conventional murder mystery is puzzle story, a game to be played with the ‘prize’ the satisfaction of solving it.

Murder Most Faire was anything but; it was a way to deal with the pain of a mysterious death of a friend. I took the real events of that terrible day when I found his body and, by weaving in other elements from my adventurous life fashioned a map of my recovery-as-puzzle. I found this was a healing journey for me and realized as I wrote it that it could be just that for others. So the final gift my friend had given to me was being able to lay this path out for others to follow–albeit not everyone can have the satisfaction of being able to drive a sword through their problem…But they should…

***You can pick up Teel’s books through AMAZON.

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)

Single Question Interview: Lori Michelle

Posted on by
Reply

Write with purpose or for feeling?

90ca878661450ac1d18837.L._V167591775_SY470_

Like all writers, I can do both and have done both.  Writing for a specific purpose is more factual for me. I tend to view purposeful writing as just that, writing for a specific purpose.  It has its place and can be done very well.

Writing for feeling is much more evocative. Words come pouring out of you whether in anger, happiness or depression.  They are words that provoke emotion from the reader unintentionally. However, most of the time, really emotional writing is a tangle of jumbled mess without much rhyme or reason.

A good writer can do both. They have the skill to turn purposeful writing into something more meaningful and be able to draw emotions out of the reader. They also have the ability to corral the emotional part and write cohesively when feeling heightened.

I will admit, I write much better when emotionally charged. The feelings that flow through me manage to make themselves jump off the page to my readers.  My rage is especially powerful since I tend to express that better in words than I do in life. So going back to the original question . . . with feeling.

The best idea as a writer would be, find your emotions right before purposefully sitting down to write.

***You can pick up Lori’s books through AMAZON.

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)

Single Question Interview: Jamie White

Posted on by
1

How important (or not) is relating
your writing to your past or present residences?

jamiebmusings

First, thanks for having me here today, Kenneth. I love this feature you do, so it’s awesome to be a part of it.

I think it’s a big help to “write what you know”. I put little details of people I know and things I’ve experienced into my stories, and I think that brings a certain life to a story that research alone can’t quite give you. All the details of a place can be right on, but I believe writing about a place you have lived in adds an emotional resonance to a story that is hard to manufacture. Our hometowns are, for better or worse, filled with memories and helped to shape who we are as people. I can’t think of a better source of inspiration.

***You can pick up Jamie’s books through AMAZON.

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)

Single Question Interview: David Wright

Posted on by
Reply

Describe the feeling of being published.

299153_4722414031700_264933393_nGetting my first novel published was like Christmas morning. The Christmas morning after you’ve been told that year that there is no Santa. It’s still exciting. You still get up early and go look under the tree. Cuz, hey… there’s presents. But there’s no “Wahoo!” kind of moment. It’s more like, “Yeah. Alright. That’s pretty cool. I’m hungry… are we out of Fruit Loops?”

I try to get super stoked about being published but it is surprisingly difficult. Maybe it’s the nature of modern publishing. I had this scenario in my mind where I open the front door, take a brown cardboard box from the mailman, open it up and find my book in my hand. Music swells, the neighbors cheer and wave. A Jack Russell terrier runs up out of nowhere and offers to shake. The phone rings and it’s the publisher telling me we’ll take the world by storm. He’s smoking a cigar and wearing a bow tie. He calls me ‘Kid’ and laughs like he’s already drunk as hell at 11am.

Instead, I got an email that said, “Here ya go” and boom, it was on Amazon. Which is great. No long wait, no hassle. But just… plop and another work of fiction is born into the world.

Or maybe my lack of enthusiasm is more to do with the nature of the world now. I’m old. Getting published when I was a kid 40 years ago was a big deal. Being a writer meant you had skill and talent. You had crafted your masterpiece, run the gauntlet of agents and publishers and editors and you had arrived. You knew things that no one else did. Your sports coat had those goofy patches on the sleeve. You looked like Napoleon Dynamite’s twin brother but women still got all fluttery and worked up around you.

Now everybody is an author. Kind of like everyone is a photographer or a musician or poet or a model or an actor. Which doesn’t mean we’re all good at it. But it’s so much easier. We can produce movies on our telephones, compose music with 82 different instruments on a touch screen and take stunning photographs with the electric can opener. As Syndrome put it in “The Incredibles,” “And when everyone’s super, no one will be.”

I realize this makes me sound like Abe Simpson. Just bitching up a storm about everything with an air of senile entitlement. And I try to keep that in mind also. It is a big, huge, hairy deal to have completed a novel that I think kicks ass. It took two years to write. I rewrote it about ten times. I hooked up with a great publisher in Severed Press who pretty much gave me carte blanche to get the book out there the way I wanted it. That’s unheard of nowadays without going the self-publishing route. So I am grateful. And I’m more than pleased with the novel.

I just haven’t had my “Wahoo!” moment with it yet.

The publication of the book does make me look forward to this Christmas. Even knowing there is no Santa.

A couple of years ago, I went to my first Christmas party in the UK. I had just opened a beer and my big mouth to say that I was planning on being a writer when the host informed me that most of the people there already had at least a couple of books published. I spent the rest of the night nodding and smiling and trying not to look like a twat.

So when I go back to that party this year, I can say that I’m a writer, not a wannabe. I’ve written and published something every bit as good as anyone else’s. For even though more people than ever before are being published, there will always be an even larger percentage who just talk about writing without actually doing it. I did it. And there’s a lot of Wahoo in that.

I’m thinking that the big excitement will happen when I get that call from Hollywood telling me they want to option the book for a movie. I’m still holding on to that particular delusion pretty tightly. Can anyone else hear that music right now?

Cue the Jack Russell…

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)

Single Question Interview: Cynthia Pelayo

Posted on by
Reply

Is your heritage reflected in your writing?

9c503851863f0ad8976fbe.L._V161798384_

In short, yes. I’m not sure if a lot of people who read my work understand that. I try to not make it obvious that I’m Hispanic in my biography and marketing materials. I don’t want people to avoid my fiction because for whatever reason they haven’t read much fiction by other Latino/a authors. However, I feel maybe I should point it out sometimes to avoid confusion. Once a reviewer wrote something along the lines to me that how dare I caricature Latino characters – my response was ‘How am I caricaturing Latino characters? I’m writing about myself, my husband, my father, my uncles, my friends and our experiences.’ They detracted their response not knowing earlier that I am Hispanic.

It’s difficult for me to look at the world through any other prism. I was born in Puerto Rico, raised in inner city Chicago and by inner city I mean you name it and I’ve seen it: teen pregnancy, drive-by shootings, the deaths of so many young and bright individuals, the cost of poverty and the desperation of loss. So, not only do I write reflecting a bicultural identity, I try to reflect an urban identity. I’ve gone on to college, obtained multiple advanced degrees, work in corporate America but to this day I still live in that inner city neighborhood (by choice) and walk past panaderias (Mexican bakeries) and stop and chat with elderly Puerto Rican men who are out playing dominoes on a sunny Chicago summer day. They are my world and they are the community that raised me, a Latina horror writer who loves her people. There is something magical about speaking Spanish and having this slew of superstitions tied to my Hispanic culture and then having to navigate the English-speaking American reality. It’s both beautiful and sad sometimes. I’ve always felt as though I belong to both but somehow am not fully accepted by either. Perhaps that’s why so many of my characters are outsiders.

***You can pick up Cynthia’s books through AMAZON.

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)

Single Question Interview: Emma Ennis

Posted on by
Reply

Long fiction or make short work of it?

1c89000754fa0ad8956e9b.L._V138524768_SY470_

To be frankly honest, my dear, I don’t usually have much of a choice. ‘Twas about this time last year I was settling in front of a blank page to jot down the outline for a short story which would go towards filling my second short story collection. An entire weekend and two a4 notepads later, and I was still going.

The thing, which started out as a just a snippet of dialogue I’d hastily scribbled down in some long forgotten moment, just exploded. All of a sudden I had a fully fleshed novel on my hands, and 20,000 words later I had the premise for a sequel and a third in the series.

Needless to say, said short story collection got shoved onto the back burner.

The book was completed around November last year, and is right now nearing the top of the ‘to edit’ pile. I plan to at least flesh out and start the sequel before doing anything with the first because it’s a tricky plot with lots of crossovers, connections and a sprinkling of conspiracy, so I don’t want to miss anything.

But as to short or long fiction, for me they both have their merits and faults. There’s nothing like the feeling of having a bulging notepad in front of you with layouts, characters, maps, pictures, all ready to be translated into a story. It’s a huge challenge, stretching ahead towards a glorious finish line. Picture yourself, if you will, standing at the entrance to the Appalachian Trail, a backpack strapped to your back, brimming with everything you’ll need for the long, arduous journey ahead. I’d like to think that feeling is something akin to starting a new book.

Short stories however, are rewarding in the sense of accomplishment they give. An idea gets wrapped up, tied in a bow and filed under ‘done,’ short and sweet, job done, brush off the hands, next one please.

Personally I’ll take any idea, long or short, as they come. Bring it on!

***You can pick up Emma’s books through AMAZON.

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)

Single Question Interview: G Elmer Munson

Posted on by
Reply

What makes you click with a character?

397567534db60ac1d18852.L._V390887980_

For me, that’s both an easy and hard question to answer.  The obvious answer is that the character should be likable.  For a protagonist, I have to like the character enough to be willing to see them through whatever nastiness the story has in store for them.  I have to like them enough to hope they come out alive when the story ends.  If I don’t, why keep them?  I have had the occasion where mid-story I realize that I absolutely hate the main character.  This usually occurs right around the time that I kill them off (it’s a reliable indicator).  Someone else becomes the main character and the story goes on.  In most cases, I soon realize that’s what I should have done in the first place.  The story is better because of it.  Other times?  Well, that’s what a trunk is for…

That was easy, right?  Well, the hard part for me is when I take great pleasure in developing a character that I absolutely hate.  Nasty people are fun to write, but that doesn’t mean they’re as fun to read.  Thankfully I learned long ago that first drafts are like playing in a sandbox.  You can throw whatever you want in there and then just rake the crap out later on.  That, of course, is the hard part.  First drafts are fun.  Editing is hard.  That’s the time to take an asshole character and turn them into someone that’s fun to read.  Either that, or go through countless pages of manuscript deleting them from existence.  Both take time, but in the end you’ve got yourself a character worth reading.  That makes the story worth reading.

Villains are a different story altogether.  With villains, all bets are off…

***You can pick up G Elmer’s books through AMAZON.

(Want to take part in a single question interview? Contact me for your question.)