Tim Waggoner's Blog
April 27, 2026
Written By: Can Human-Created Writing and AI-Produced Writing Coexist?
Oneof my recent blog entries deals with how writers can outwrite AI. (It’s gearedtoward horror writers, but it applies to any fiction writer.) If you missed it,you can read it here: https://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/2026/04/how-to-win-war-against-ai-fiction.html
This entry is about what writers can dobeyond their actual writing to continue setting themselves apart from aithors.I saw someone use the term aithors on social media, and if I couldremember who it was, I’d give them credit. I do remember that they didn’t meanit as pejorative, and I don’t either. It seems to me an effective label todifferentiate AI book-producers from writers whose work was created withoutgenerative AI.
I’m notgoing to debate the ethics of using AI to produce fiction in this entry. As awriter and human being, I’m against its use in the arts, both because it wastrained on stolen material and because of its environmental impact. As ateacher, I’m against it because it keeps people from working to develop theirown artistic skills. I’m putting my personal feelings aside right now andproceeding from the premise that aithors aren’t going anywhere and they’ll be sellingtheir AI fiction on Amazon and selling their AI-produced books at conventionsand book festivals.
I alsouse the terms AI-produced books and human-created books in thisentry. AI-producers use a program to make a book for them. There’s somecreation involved, but very little compared to non-AI-using authors. I wantedterms that accurately describe the process of making both types of books. Ifyou’re an AI-producer and you’re salty that I don’t call you a writer, I can’thelp you. You don’t write. You direct an AI program to string together words,sentences, and paragraphs based on the massive amount of information it stole.Maybe you shape it somewhat after that, but if anything, that’s editing workyou did not write.
Truthin Advertising
Aithorsshould be upfront about how they produce their work, and readers should knowahead of time what sort of book they’re purchasing. Some readers may not careif a book was produced by AI or created by an actual human, but some will. Somemay even prefer AI-produced books. It’s only ethical to inform consumers of theexact nature of what they’re purchasing. Producing a book with AI andpretending you created it all on your own is a lie. More than that, it’s fraud.People do employ ghostwriters and then pretend they wrote the finished product,and the ethics of this in terms of readers knowing exactly what they’repurchasing are the same as with AI-produced fiction, but at least a human (theghostwriter) was paid in the process. (Although I wonder what AI will mean forprofessional ghostwriters. Will they find their work drying up, or will theyuse AI to produce books quickly so they can make even more money?)
Thisis an AI-Produced Novel
AI-producedfiction should be labeled as written by AI, produced by AI, assisted by AI,etc. I think assisted isn’t the best label, as it implies that AI mayhave only helped the writer a little bit. If AI was heavily used in theproduction of a book, the term assisted is misleading at best, and a lieat worst. Plus, an audience for AI-produced books may arise, and I would thinkaithors would want to market to them. Some aithors might argue that if theylabel their books as having been written by AI that it will limit theiraudience, and that’s probably true. But that happens with any type of fiction.I write horror and dark fantasy. Readers who love cozy mysteries are not goingto buy my books. That’s fine. I don’t write in their preferred genre. Aithorsmight argue that labeling their work as AI-produced will make it seem inferiorin the eyes of some readers, and that likely will happen. But writers of genrefiction are used to (some) literary writers and academics viewing our fictionas lesser. We know this, and most of us don’t worry about it. We know our workwill never appeal to all readers, any more than the work of literary writerswill. Plus, AI-produced fiction will likely become a genre all its own, onethat, as I said earlier, may have its own readership. As its own genre, it’llneed vocabulary that names it and describes the process of producing it. I’veused placeholder terms in this entry, but I imagine actual terms will bedeveloped over time.
And ifyou use an AI-produced cover, you should disclose that as well. Anyone who’d beinterested in reading an AI-producer’s book shouldn’t mind that the art AI usesto produce images was stolen.
I thinkit might be a good idea for aithors to have a page at the front of their booksdetailing how they used AI. If you used assistive AI, such as Grammarly,there’s no need to mention that, especially if you just use it for spelling andgrammar checks (as I do). Be aware that Grammarly can trip AI-detectionprograms, so if an agent or editor is checking submissions for AI use, youdon’t want them to think you used AI to produce your entire manuscript (or eventhe majority of it). If I picked up a book and saw such a list, and it said theaithor used AI only to generate ideas for character names and to providefeedback on work in process, I’d at least read a couple of paragraphs and seewhat I think about the writing. But if the book was labeled AI-produced withoutany further explanation, I wouldn’t touch it. Providing a list of ways you usedAI could potentially broaden your audience. And if you used AI in very limitedways, you could potentially label your book as AI-enhanced (but don’tlie and say it’s enhanced when AI really produced the entire goddamned thing).
And yes,you could make an argument that using different labels to differentiateAI-produced books from human-created ones is a “separate but equal” policy, andthat separate can never be equal. But I believe thathuman-created writing and AI-produced writing are different things. Even if youbelieve they’re essentially the same, just because green beans and French-cutgreen beans are the same vegetable, their preparation is different, anddifferent consumers might prefer one over the other. Same with AI-producedbooks and human-created ones.
SomethingAI-producers should consider, though: We know you’re okay with having your bookbased on stolen material, don’t mind a cover produced with stolen art, and thatyou don’t care about the environmental impact of AI. So we have no reason tobelieve that you’ll be honest when you write your list of how you used AI. Andyou have no easy way to prove you’re telling the truth.
BeLoud, Be Proud
Thecoffee shop at the college where I teach “proudly serves Starbucks coffee.” MaybeAithors should label their books as “Proudly produced with AI.” If aithors areproud of what they do, they shouldn’t be hesitant about identifying their booksthis way. If they aren’t proud to admit they use AI, then that says they don’ttruly believe in what they’re doing. In which case, they should do somesoul-searching about whether they truly want to use AI to produce their books.I may think using AI to produce fiction is nothing to be proud of, but whywould aithors who truly believe in what they’re doing give a shit what I oranyone else thinks? Claiming the identity of an aithor (or whatever termeventually becomes standard) tells readers you aren’t ashamed of what you’redoing and that you believe it’s an ethical, viable alternative to human-createdwriting. And again, if you don’t believe that, maybe consider writing theold-fashioned way – just you, your imagination, the blank screen, and yourwords.
TheTraditional Publishing Stamp of Approval
Oneadvantage of traditional publishers is that they can vouch that your work waswritten by a human. They also vouch that your work is of a certain quality,like how a college degree makes it easier for employers to gauge that you –hopefully – have the experience, training, and knowledge for a job. It’s astamp of approval that makes it easier for an audience to take a look at yourwork and seriously consider purchasing it. Big press, small press, it doesn’tmatter. Having a press with a reputation for putting out good work vouch thatyour books are human-created will help readers believe they weren’t produced byAI. Otherwise…
Aren’tAll “Authors” Aithors?
Peoplemay come to regard all indie writers as aithors, regardless of the truth.Anyone can say their books were not produced by AI, but how can readers knowfor sure? They can’t. (I mean general readers here, not well-read criticalreaders who are more likely to recognize AI-produced fiction.) Because of this,I wonder if many indie writers will start seeking out traditional publishersthat can vouch for their work. I hope aithors don’t ruin things for indiewriters, but I do foresee them being a huge pain in the ass for indies.
Likeit Says on the Tin
Writers shoulduse a non-AI label, like products labeled as gluten-free. Some writers andpublishers are already doing this, but if you’re indie, I advise you to startdoing it, and I’d consider putting a 100% Human-Created label on yourbook covers. If you’re a publisher and you’re not labeling your books this way,consider doing so. It’s a visual signal that your books are human-created, andpeople can see the label when the cover is posted online or if they stop atyour table during a book-selling event. Hell, we should probably put 100%Human-Created on all our signage, too, and on our websites, and businesscards… I sent my first story out for publication in 1982, so maybe I should put100% Human-Created Since 1982 on all my shit. Maybe even make it a linein my bio.
The AuthorsGuild has started a human-written certification program. It’s only open tomembers at the moment, but they plan to open it to non-members as well: https://tinyurl.com/3evhzaz4
There arevarious other sites that offer human-written certification – for a price. Asimple Google search will reveal them, but as always, buyer beware.
Here’s onefrom author Sarah Hall:
You canread an article about why she decided her latest novel needed a maker’s markhere: https://lithub.com/human-written-why-sarah-hall-put-a-makers-mark-on-her-new-novel/
AI Marketinghas both 100% Human Written and 100% AI Written badges: https://aimarketingplan.com/human-ai-content-badges/
SoHappy Together
Indiewriters who don’t want to make the move to traditional publishing shouldconsider forming author collaboratives that seem like publishers, in thesense that the collaborative vouches for each member as a writer ofhuman-created books. Members can cross-promote each other and table together atevents to further cement their collective identity. They could also visuallybrand themselves with shirts or hats they wear at events, which have the groupidentity/logo on the front. I’m not sure what the best size for suchcollaborative groups would be. Three to five members, maybe? And, of course,make sure everyone is someone you want to be in a group with. Memberscan still do events as individuals, but wear their collaborative-branded shirts.They should probably have a group website with links to their individual sites,as well as a group newsletter in addition to individual ones.
If any ofyou have thoughts on anything I’ve mentioned above, or ideas you want to add tomine, feel free to put them in the comments. If anyone just spouts venomwithout contributing anything of substance, I’ll delete your comment and askyou to rewrite it so it’s constructive. If you’re an aithor (or want to be), Ipromise I won’t attack or ridicule you.
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
The World Turns Red
I still don’t have anything new to promote yet, so I’mpromoting my novella from Cemetery Dance, which came out almost a year ago.
Welcome to the meat room.
At first, it’s a whisper on the edge of yourconsciousness.
As it gets louder, you begin to make out words—dark,sharp, dangerous words… You clap your hands over your ears to shut them out,but you can’t escape what comes from inside you.
The voice tells you to do things to yourself. Badthings. Awful things…
The longer you listen, the more they seemreasonable. Desirable.
Inevitable.
And as you reach for the nearest knife, gun, orrope, the voice speaks the last four words you’ll ever hear:
All hail the Unhigh.
“Waggoner blurs the lines between reality andnightmare, leaving readers questioning what is real and what is imagined. Hissetting against both a familiar and unsettling backdrop is expertly builtwithin a world laced with an underlying sense of dread.”– Catherine Jordan,Horror Tree
“A dark, disturbing masterpiece worth binge-readingin one sitting.” – S.E. Howard
“This is a very dark, intense read with a surrealquality that pulled me in from page one and held me spellbound to the bitterend.” – Well Worth a Read
“The World Turns Red is another in a longline of brilliant horror work by Tim Waggoner. There was never anyone who couldblend the real with the surreal so seamlessly that, as wild as the story gets,it makes perfect sense somehow. Now THAT takes one hell of a writer. The bookis a flawless masterpiece…6 out of 5 stars.” – Carson Buckingham, Hellnotes
Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/5cabrjn2
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
“TheArt of Suspense” workshop. May 4, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dayton Metro Library,Wilmington Stroop Branch. Kettering, Ohio.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
ShoreLeave 46. July 10-12. Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
GenConWriters Seminar. July 30-August 2. Indianapolis, Indiana.
Intothe Springs Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Shivercon.August 14-15. Muncie, Indiana.
WHERETO FIND ME ONLINE
Wantto follow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website:www.timwaggoner.com
NewsletterSign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
Substack:https://substack.com/@timwaggoner
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133838.Tim_Waggoner
Instagram:@tim.waggoner.scribe
Threads:@tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net
Bluesky:@timwaggoner.bsky.social
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9
April 18, 2026
Dear Aithors
Theother day, I had what literary writers call an epiphany, and which regularwriters like me call an insight. But epiphany sounds cooler, right?
Someoneon a Facebook thread asked if it was necessary to use AI to write a novel. Ihave no clue whether the poster was serious or if they were trolling, buteither way, people responded. Some dropped snark bombs, but others took thequestion seriously. The responses boiled down to two things: One, generative AIwas created with stolen material (including around thirty of my novels), it’sharmful for the environment, and research has shown it damages cognition (andthat this damage is permanent). Two, why would anyone want to write a novelwithout going through the process of making it yourself?
Mycomment: Writing with AI is like using a motorcycle to win a marathon.
(Before Icontinue, I’m only talking about using generative AI to write for you or do thebulk of writing for you. And as I tell my students, if you’re comfortable withthe moral and environmental issues with generative AI use, that’s yourbusiness. I’m not here to judge your choices. My students and I talk about the limitedways generative AI might be able to help them without doing too much of thework for them. My creative writing students want nothing to do with generativeAI. Some of my composition students feel that way, while others would gladlyuse generative AI to do as much of their coursework as possible if they couldget away with it.)
After Iposted my comment on Facebook, I kept thinking about it, and I realized a truthabout AI “writers” (I saw one person use the word Aithors, on anotherthread). Extending my marathon example a bit – the motorcyclist does notunderstand the purpose of a marathon. They believe the goal is to reach thefinish line, and if a motorcycle can get them there faster than everyone else(and without taxing them physically), they’ve simply worked smarter, notharder. A marathoner knows the goal is to run the race. To do this, theyhave to train. They have to become a marathoner. They test themselves inboth body and mind, learn about their perceived limits, continue to pushthemselves, to grow. Becoming is all about process and growth. The ultimate product– in this case, winning a race – means something because of the process.The marathoner has worked hard as hell to become capable of doing something thevast majority of the human race has never attempted, and of those who doattempt it, only a few reach the point where they can finish a marathon, letalone come in first.
Non-runnersdon’t think marathoners are elitists who are gatekeeping marathoning. This isbecause they can see people run, can understand how long a marathon is, can tryto run that distance without any training and preparation, and see how far theyget. Enough of the process takes place in the physical world for non-runners tounderstand, in general, what it takes to become a marathoner. Time, dedication,practice, acquired and applied skills, hard-won experience…
Throughmy marathon example, I realized that most “aithors” are motorcycle riders. Theythink the goal of writing a novel is to have a finished book in hand, soanything that can get them to that goal as fast as possible, with as littleeffort as possible, is the way to go. And all those idiots plodding along ontheir feet behind them just aren’t smart enough to hop on a motorcycle.
Writersare marathon runners. They understand that writing is a verb, just likerunning. Writing is doing. It’s Sarah’s speech at the end of the movie Labyrinth.“Though dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here tothe castle beyond the Goblin City…” Being at the castle isn’t the point. Reachingthe castle is, along with all the knowledge, self-insight, and growth thatoccurred to you on the journey.
Aithorswould reach Jareth and say, perhaps smugly, “I didn’t feel like doing all thatwalking, so I called an Uber.”
This iswhy I think it’s useless to argue with aithors. They have no understanding ofwhat writing really is, hell, what process is. If they’re young enough,they’ve lived their entire lives in a world where all they have to do is push abutton, and they get their result, never seeing all the steps that occurred toget that result, because those steps can’t be perceived. If aithors aren’tcreative by nature, or haven’t had their creativity nurtured as they grew up,they literally do not understand it. They don’t value doing. They onlyvalue having.
Lots ofpeople suggest that generative AI is an aid to people who lack creativity, writingability, and writing training, so it’s like an accommodation for someone whohas a disability. Now everyone can be a writer, and no one will be left out!Except aithors aren’t writing. When I was an undergrad in the eighties, I workedin the Writing Lab at Wright State University. WSU was known for being one of –if not the – most accessible schools for people with disabilities in theworld. As a writing tutor, I worked with people who had a range of physical andcognitive challenges, and the tool that did provide accommodation forthem was a new thing called a personal computer. We could adjust the font sizefor people with vision problems. Often, people with physical disabilities couldstill grip a pencil and press the keys to type. If they were physically incapableof typing, we sat at the keyboard and typed the words they spoke to us. We weretrained not to comment on their writing as they were drafting, and not to improveit as we typed. The PC was a wonder tool back in those days. It made itpossible for people with certain disabilities to write because while writing isa verb, it’s ultimately a mental process. Writing is thinking is what compteachers always say. This accommodation did not replace someone’s thinking. Itallowed their thoughts to be recorded as writing so they could be revisedlater, or turned in as a finished assignment, if that’s what the tutee desired.
Thethinking is the goddamned point.
And yes,some tutees had cognitive issues because of organic damage to their brains orbecause they had learning disabilities. We still helped them think, processinformation, express their thoughts, and produce them as writing. Processinginfo might’ve been a challenge for them, but they worked hard at it, and theydid it to the best of their ability. And the more often they did it, the morethey improved.
Myexperience at the Writing Center is a big reason why I don’t let myself worryabout writer’s block or whether I can accomplish a challenging writing task. Inthe Writing Center, I saw people overcome challenges I can’t even imaginehaving. After that, I couldn’t take my petty bullshit writing fears seriously.My challenge is depression, but I work to deal with it and not let it stop me becauseof the disabled tutees I worked with in college. Every fucking one of them wasa hero to me. And the only time I really get furious at aithors is when I thinkabout those heroes. Every single one of them was more of a writer than any AI-assisted“author” will ever be.
If AI couldfunction as a tutor instead of a replacement for thinking, it might actuallybecome an accommodation tool. I’ve never used programs like Scrivener (I boughtand downloaded the damn thing a year ago just so I could become familiar withit, but I’ve never opened the program), but I’m familiar with the basic toolsit gives writers, and it seems like it can be an aid to thinking rather than areplacement for it.
I knowaithors aren’t going anywhere. Why would someone stop using AI when it can givethem something for nothing? But if any of you who are reading this are on thefence about using generative AI for writing, I urge you not to replace yourselves.I want you to write, not some fucking program. We need your voice,your vision, your perspective, your imagination. And ifyou feel you don’t have these things, or if you do, they aren’t strong enoughyet, remember that every journey begins with a single step.
Just likea marathon.
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
As I wasfinishing up this blog post, I wondered what work(s) of mine to promote thistime. I decided to go with the Custodians of the Cosmos series from AethonBooks. This trilogy, perhaps more than anything else I’ve written, is the most me,and it would be impossible for generative AI as it currently exists to createanything as bat-shit crazy as these books.
Creaturesfrom dark dimensions infesting your home? Demonic beings trying to drive youinsane? Alien gods attempting to destroy your universe?
Justcall Maintenance.
Thisunderpaid and overworked secret organization is dedicated to battling forcesthat seek to speed up Entropy and hasten the Omniverse’s inevitable death.
“Waggoner offers a fresh variation on the trope of acovert agency combating evil in his blood-drenched Custodians of the Cosmosseries opener.” – Publishers Weekly
“This gripping dark fantasy boasts an indelible castand an unwavering pace.” – Kirkus Reviews
"THE ATROCITY ENGINE is a wild ride full ofentertaining scenarios and scary monsters!" – Booklist
“THE ATROCITY ENGINE is a kick-ass cross-genrethrill ride of a novel! Holy moly! Tim Waggoner is easily one of today’s besthorror writers.” – Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of CAVE 13 andNECROTEK
"This is edge-of-your-seat Horror Fantasy. It'sas if Stephen King wrote MEN IN BLACK!" —Scott Sigler, #1 NYT Bestsellingauthor of EARTHCORE
“Fast-paced, cleverly thought-through, and deeplyunnerving in all the right places—urban horror fantasy with a decidedly creepydifference. Don't read it in the dark!” – Diane Duane, New York Timesbestselling author of TALES OF THE FIVE: THE LIBRARIAN
https://aethonbooks.com/book-author/tim-waggoner/
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
“TheArt of Suspense” workshop. May 4, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dayton Metro Library,Wilmington Stroop Branch. Kettering, Ohio.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
ShoreLeave 46. July 10-12. Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
GenConWriters Seminar. July 30-August 2. Indianapolis, Indiana.
Intothe Springs Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Shivercon.August 14-15. Muncie, Indiana.
WHERETO FIND ME ONLINE
Wantto follow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website:www.timwaggoner.com
NewsletterSign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133838.Tim_Waggoner
Instagram:@tim.waggoner.scribe
Threads:@tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net
Bluesky:@timwaggoner.bsky.social
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9
April 3, 2026
How Horror Writers Can Win the War Against AI Fiction
Magnus Robot Fighter Fights Robots!
“Ifsomeone can write a book in a day with AI, and it takes me a year to write one,how can I possibly compete?”
I’mincreasingly seeing comments like this on social media from writers who, ifthey’re not panicking yet, sound as if they’re on the verge of it. And who canblame them? AI is being hyped to the skies by companies desperate to be theleader in AI as well as tech-forward types who believe the Next Great Machinewill make the world a perfect place (while also making them hella rich).Businesses and schools are rushing to adopt AI without any notion of what itreally is or what it can do. The college where I teach created the AI Instituteof Excellence – and is that name trying way too hard, or what? – but I couldn’ttell you anything about it other than its name since I never read the emailsthey send. No one has tried to force me to incorporate AI into my classes yet,and since I talk to my students about the ethical and environmental issues ofusing AI, I’ve already incorporated it as much as I want to.
And it’snot like the majority of students haven’t already incorporated AI into their educationto at least some degree, and many surely use it to “write” their essays forthem. I can’t really fault them, though. They’ve grown up in a world wheretechnology does almost everything for them. Why shouldn’t it think for them aswell? I’m so glad I can retire from teaching in two years. Once I’m out, if Iever teach again, I’ll do so without looking at a single word of a studentessay.
I’malso starting to see people post that it doesn’t matter if a book was writtenby AI or not. Here are some comments I saw during the online uproar over ShyGirl. (If you’re not aware of the controversy, read this: https://slate.com/culture/2026/03/shy-girl-mia-ballard-novel-a-i-book-horror-reddit-hachette-canceled.html)
“I donot know whether a particular author has used AI to generate their work, but Ican be certain that there is no way for me to know. So if I find the book andthe author enjoyable, I will continue to read their content and promote it.”
“If abook is bad, it’s bad. If a book is good, it’s good. Period.”
“Icannot tell if something is written with AI or not, so if I enjoy it, I’ll keepreading it too!!”
It’sclear that at least some readers only care about their experience ofreading a book, and they care nothing for its origin.
StephenMarche recently wrote an article for The Guardian titled “I Wrote aNovel Using AI. Writers Must Accept Artificial Intelligence – But We Are asValuable as Ever.” You can read it here:
(Healso wrote a book called On Writing and Failure: Or, the PeculiarPerseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer, which I recommend. NothingAI-related in this one.)
People,who probably only read the article’s headline, took to social media to lambastMarche and AI in general. But his thesis is that while AI can producecrappy-but-good-enough writing for some tasks, only humans can produce work ofhigher artistic quality. (I wonder if the editors at The Guardian wrotethe headline to purposely make it click-baity.) Here are a few quotes from thearticle that I found noteworthy.
“Generativemodels are fundamentally cliché machines. If you ask AI to write a film script,it will produce an average film script masterfully. If you ask it to write anessay, it will produce an average essay masterfully.”
“Thinking,creating, understanding – these cannot be replaced, certainly not by artificialintelligence.”
“Onceupon a time, mastery of the banal was adequate for writers. It was enough toprove that you were capable of writing. But that skill has no purpose anymore –it can be automated. Skill will be found in the purpose of the work. What canyou alone make happen with language?”
So ifwriters want to compete for readers’ attention in a world filled with AI slop, weneed to write work that’s better than average and continue improving throughoutour careers.
Thefollowing are some ideas on how we can do that. They’re geared to horrorwriters, but most of them can work for any fiction writer. (You may haveread/heard me say some of the following before, but this time it’s in serviceof out-writing the cliché-machines.)
Read/watcha LOT of horror so you can avoid clichés.
As acreative writing teacher, I’m always surprised when a student tells me theywant to write, but they don’t like to read. I guess the equivalent in the AIage is I want to be a writer, but I don’t want to write. The more horroryou consume, the more you’ll come to recognize common – and average – ideas andprose, and the more you’ll be able to try to do better.
Also,read every subgenre of horror, so you can avoid all clichés. Plus, you might bean extreme horror writer who, after checking out cozy horror, may find thatgenre calls to you more strongly than any other.
A whileback, I wrote a blog entry listing 61 horror clichés and how to make them freshagain. You can find it here:
https://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/2023/11/61-horror-cliches-and-how-to-make-them.html
Writer’sDigest publishedan article I wrote about avoiding clichés when writing horror:
https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/done-to-death
Seekout current, excellent, and innovative work.
If youwant to write above-average work, you need to read above-average work. You canGoogle “best contemporary horror writers” and “innovative horror writers of the21st century.” You’ll find plenty of results. Check out a number oflists, though, since each one will likely be at least slightly different.
Here’s alist to get you started:
If youcome across work that’s very unlike anything you’ve read before, and you’restruggling to get through it, don’t give up on it right away. You may need sometime to adjust. As one of my professors in grad school once said, “Great booksteach us how to read them.”
Avoidor rework familiar tropes.
Tropeshave power, but overused tropes don’t. Try to find the essence of a trope andthen embody it in a new way. Take the trope of the Grim Reaper. As its core,it’s the Bringer of Death. A great example of a different way to handle thistrope is the movie Radius (2017). In this film, after surviving a carcrash, a man finds that anyone who comes within fifty feet of him dies.
Yourdreams.
I don’tremember my dreams much anymore, and when I do, they’re like the dream I hadlast night, where I’m in the back yard picking up dog poop. But my wife hasextremely vivid dreams, many of which turn into nightmares. Just this morning,she told me of a dream she had that featured faceless men with red stripes overtheir featureless skin. A faceless person is a horror cliché, but the redstripes add an interesting touch. And if you can find a way to make the stripesmeaningful to the being in a way that shapes your story, you might end up withsomething truly different. Maybe the men’s skins are chalk white, and the stripesare because the men are made out of candy canes. The Candy Cane Men sounds weirdand scary, doesn’t it? My wife may have been the only person in human historyto dream of that exact image, and there’s an excellent chance your dreams willalso be a source of original ideas and images (unlike mine).
Writeabout what you – and only you – see and hear.
To hellwith vampires and werewolves. I love classic horror tropes, but I almost neveruse them. I try to stay observant throughout the day, and I write down anyweird things I see or hear. Often, they’re mistakes in perception, the resultof my horror writer’s mind interpreting something normal in a sinister way. Forexample, the last time I flew home after a convention, I saw an ad on a wall inthe Dayton airport for The Gaping Void Design Group. I did a double-take,thinking I’d misread the sign, but I didn’t. I wondered who the hell wouldchoose that name for their business? How many people who even noticed the nameon the ad thought twice about it? I’m likely the only horror writer who sawthat sign, noticed the name, and thought those thoughts. I wouldn’t want to usethe exact name in a story, but I might swap design for another word.Maybe Gaping Void Logistics. Another example: One day, when I looked outthe window, I saw a kid kicking a round, plant-like soccer-ball-sized objectdown the street. Again, I was probably the only person who saw that, thought itwas really strange, and wrote it down as possible story material. You can dothe same.
Readhorror from writers in other countries.
And watchhorror movies made in other countries. This way, you’ll expose yourself todifferent horror images, concepts, and narrative styles. The publishers ofValancourt Books have done an excellent job of making translations of horrorfiction available, and I highly recommend you check them out.
TheValancourt Book of World Horror Stories Vol. 1 and Vol 2 Edited by James D. Jenkins and RyanCagle
https://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-valancourt-book-of-world-horror-stories-vol-1.html
Use asmany of your personal experiences as possible.
AI candraw on other people’s experiences that are in its database, but it can neverlive and reflect on those experiences. Drawing on your own experiences bringsan authenticity that AI can’t replicate. You don’t need to write strictautobiography, but your experiences can add realism and emotional depth to yourstories.
Writewith a deep point of view.
AI’swriting never gets below the surface, because all it knows are words (and itdoesn’t really know them the way humans can). When you write with aclose attachment to a character’s point of view and aren’t afraid to go deeper,you’ll create fiction that readers will respond strongly to. I tell studentsthat this is the greatest strength of fiction because, right now, no othertechnology can put us in the mind of a character. Plus, deep point of viewallows for stronger horror. I tell students to imagine that your viewpointcharacter is wearing a GoPro camera that records what he or she sees and hears.But imagine the camera has a cable that’s embedded into the back of thecharacter’s head, recording their thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations.The more you can depict a character’s full experience (without getting sobogged down in detail that the story grinds to a halt), the more your fictionwill stand apart from AI slop.
Writevivid description.
Theparagraph above covers most of this. I suspect a description that contains anemotional component or causes a character to have an emotional reaction willstand out strongly from AI writing. Also, use distinct similes and metaphors(without overusing them). The more original they are, the better. For example,I once saw a sketch on a comedy show (whose name I can’t recall). The sketchfeatured a mom and dad who were berating their teenage son about something, butthe entire family spoke in bizarrely original similes. When the son got fed up,he started yelling at his parents, and at one point, he describes his dadfalling out of a boat on a lake. “He flopped over the side like a soiled mattressand sank like a sack of batteries.” I saw this sketch decades ago, but thosesimiles have stuck in my mind ever since. When you come across effectivesimiles and metaphors in your reading, pause and ask yourself what makes themso effective for you. As an exercise, you can write your own similes andmetaphors describing the same concept as in the story. So if a writer describesa messy rest stop restroom as “looking like Tijuana Mike’s shitter afterAll-You-Can-Eat Burrito Night,” you can try to write a different, but equallycolorful metaphor for a filthy rest stop bathroom.
Includesubtext.
Simplydefined, subtext is the true but unexpressed meaning behind words or actions.For example, if you ask your spouse what’s wrong, and he or she says,“Nothing,” in a cold tone, you damn well know something is wrong, and you werelikely the cause of it.
AI can’tdo subtext, but humans can. Machines are literal, and subtext is about theunspoken and unrevealed. It’s abstract and requires an understanding of humanpsychology, interaction, and communication. Take advantage of this in yourwriting.
Here’s anarticle about subtext in fiction: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/how-to-use-subtext-and-the-art-of-dramatic-tension-in-fiction
Andhere’s one about subtext in horror by Lindy Ryan: https://janefriedman.com/what-isnt-said-still-screams-writing-subtext-in-horror-fiction/
Createcomplex characters.
Writingwith a deep point of view will help you create well-developed characters, butyou need to go beyond that. Make them eccentric, idiosyncratic, downrightfucking weird… Give them weaknesses, contradictions, moral ambiguities… Letthem be unlikable sometimes, let them fuck up and make a mess of things. Makethem as deeply human as you can. This is one of the most importantaspects of writing fiction that AI can’t replicate because this aspect doesn’tlie in any one word or sentence. It lies in the cumulation of them, of athousand small details that the reader, with their experience of being human,can put together in a way a machine can’t, to get a complex picture of acomplex person.
Experimentto develop a distinctive voice…because AI will never have one.
Voiceis everything about you as a writer – content, use of language (vocabulary,sentence length and complexity, paragraph length, scene length, chapter length,etc.), structure (linear, nonlinear), story length, and on and on. While we canmake conscious choices about voice, much – if not most – of it develops overtime, the result of small unconscious choices we make. So experiment. Shortstories are excellent laboratories for developing and honing your voice. Setcreative challenges for yourself. Write a story with an omniscient viewpoint orone with no characters. Try formalism, using a different form of writing, likea newspaper article, to tell your story. Pay attention to reader response. Ifyou write a story in first person present tense, and readers love it, maybethink about using that technique for more stories. Don’t drive yourself crazysearching for your voice, though. It’ll come in time.
“FiveWays to Develop Your Writer’s Voice”: https://janefriedman.com/5-ways-develop-writers-voice/
“HowDo I Find My Voice in Writing?”: https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/how-do-i-find-my-voice-in-writing
Takeyour time.
Don’tbe like AI users who want immediate results. Write, read, explore, trydifferent things. Allow yourself to continue growing as an artist. GenerativeAI can’t grow. It can only be fed more words to recombine and spew out. Itmight get better at spewing over time, but it will not grow. We can andshould.
Astonishus.
Asa theater education major in college, I only had to take two years of actingclasses. My professor for my sophomore year in acting was Dr. Jeffrey Huberman,and at first, he terrified us. Not because he was mean or harsh, but because heknew we were capable of excellence, and he expected it from us. Whenever wewould perform a scene in class, he would start us off by saying, “Astonish me,”the admonition that the famous dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev would give tohis performers. It took some time, but we slowly began to believe in ourselves,and our acting improved dramatically. It’s a lesson that I’ve applied to mywriting over the years. AI-produced fiction can never astonish us. Only workcreated by humans can do that.
Onlywork created by you.
Soas they say on Letterkenny, “Pitter patter, let's get at 'er.”
Booksthat you might find useful:
MethodActing For Writers: Learn Deep Point Of View Using Emotional Layers by Lisa Hall-Wilson
Writingfor Emotional Impact: Advanced Dramatic Techniques to Attract, Engage, andFascinate the Reader from Beginning to End by Karl Iglesias
TheArt of Subtext: Beyond Plot byCharles Baxter
WordPainting Revised Edition: The Fine Art of Writing Descriptively by Rebecca Mcclanahan
ExperimentalFiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology by Lawrence Lenhart and Will Cordeiro
TheArt of Character: Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV by David Corbett
PlotVersus Character: A Balanced Approach to Writing Great Fiction by Jeff Gerke
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Thistime, I’m going to highlight work of mine that will help you battle themediocrity of AI.
Writingin the Dark is myBram Stoker Award-winning book on writing horror. It’s follow-up, Writing inthe Dark: The Workbook, also won a Stoker. Both are full of info that willhelp you take your horror to new levels. Let Me Tell You a Story isabout writing short stories. It contains stories from throughout my career, andI write about how I wrote them and what I’d do differently if I wrote themtoday. You can find all three at the following link:
https://rawdogscreaming.com/author-tag/tim-waggoner/
Kindleversions are available on Amazon.
I’malso going to recommend my latest horror/dark fantasy novel, The Face ofPain. It’s made (like all my original work) from bits of my real life,images and characters that either don’t follow standard horror tropes or reworkthem, and my own surreal/nightmarish style, all of which adds up to my authorvoice.
Kindle: https://tinyurl.com/3hzdyjhd
AmazonPaperback: https://tinyurl.com/44wt2tdw
Barnes& Noble Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/3h6kkszz
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
“TheArt of Suspense” workshop. May 4, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dayton Metro Library,Wilmington Stroop Branch. Kettering, Ohio.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
ShoreLeave 46. July 10-12. Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
GenConWriters Seminar. July 30-August 2. Indianapolis, Indiana.
Intothe Springs Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Shivercon.August 14-15. Muncie, Indiana.
WHERETO FIND ME ONLINE
Wantto follow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website:www.timwaggoner.com
NewsletterSign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133838.Tim_Waggoner
Instagram:@tim.waggoner.scribe
Threads:@tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net
Bluesky:@timwaggoner.bsky.social
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9
February 3, 2026
Writing When the World is On Fire
NOTE:I’ve turned off comments on this entry to prevent MAGA trolls and bots fromflooding the comment section with their poison.
Having ahard time writing in the Dystopian States of America? You’re far from alone.Difficult times produce difficult emotions, and it’s okay to take however muchtime you need to process them. And if writing is more a passion than an incomefor you, and you only have so much spare time, you might decide it’s betterspent taking care of yourself, your friends, and your family. Or you may devoteit to directly opposing fascism through protests, social media posts, engagingwith your least brainwashed MAGA relatives to open their minds, etc. As I tellmy daughters and my students, it doesn’t matter what you choose to do becauseit all needs to be done. All that matters is that you contribute somehow.
But if yourincome does depend on your writing, in whole or in part – or if, like me, youneed to write to stay sane – then here are some ideas that might help keep thewords coming.
(And ifyou’re a reader who doesn’t normally write, consider what writing – just foryourself if not for publication – might do for you.)
Writefor your mental health.
Like Isaid above, writing keeps me sane. Whenever I get irritable and out of sorts,my wife asks if I’ve been writing lately, and if I say no, she says, “Getstarted.” Keeping yourself sane isn’t only a benefit for you, but it has apositive impact on your family, coworkers, and anyone else you come in contactwith. Existence is resistance.
Pouryour feelings into your writing.
If youremotions are currently a turbulent maelstrom of what-the-fuck andthis-is-horrible (mine sure are), then writing can be a way to untangle them.This can help you process them, but it could also help you express them toothers, whether in person or online.
Readingfiction strengthens empathy.
I’ve readabout studies that suggest one of the main reasons for MAGA is a lack ofempathy on their part. Other studies have shown that reading fiction increasesa person’s empathy. So if, like me, you primarily write fiction, you’recontributing to building empathy in others. Sure, maybe only a small number ofpeople read our work, but every little bit helps. I’ve focused on empathy in mystories for years, and especially in my media tie-in work, most recently in theTerrifier novelizations and my Conan fiction. I know I'll reach abroader audience with those books, so there’s a greater chance they’ll impactthe empathy-challenged.
Writearticles – or blog posts – with practical tips for people who feel the same wayyou do.
Like I’mdoing right now. They don’t have to be about writing, of course. Maybe you canprovide tips on meal preparation for the stressed and depressed. Or exercisetips. Whatever. Remember, everything needs to be done.
Poetryis great for distilling and concentrating emotion.
I don’twrite poetry (although I love to read it), but poetry is an excellent vehiclefor expressing emotion, whether directly or through imagery and metaphor. Andif it’s something you don’t usually write, it could make a nice break from yourusual writing. And speaking of poetry…
Tellit slant.
This isEmily Dickinson’s famous advice to poets (and it works for all writers). Itmeans that some things are too big, too complicated, or too difficult to write(or read) about directly, so we write about them indirectly. That’s why a poemthat on the surface seems to be about a spider continually rebuilding its webafter wind, rain, or birds knock it down is really about finding the strengthto persist in the face of repeated setbacks. Pick one aspect of how you’refeeling right now, and try to write about it slant, whether as fiction, poetry,or nonfiction.
Writeprotest sign slogans.
Literallywrite slogans that people can use on signs and post them on social media oryour blog for anyone to use. If you can’t get out to protests for one reason oranother, your words still can.
Writea speech to give before Congress.
Whatwould you say to Congress if you were given the chance to address them? (I’dprobably just scream “Fuck you!” at the top of my lungs over and over, buthopefully you can come up with something better.)
Writea letter that you would send to your representatives.
And thensend it. Yeah, it may be a drop in the bucket, and it may be ignored, butyou’ll have written it, and you can post it in various places. If nothing else,maybe you’ll feel a little better afterward.
Writea future historian’s article.
How woulda future historian write about what’s happening in America now? You can writeone version that has a positive outcome, one that has a negative one, or onethat’s mixed. Or try all three.
Writeabout your worst fears.
As ahorror writer, I wholeheartedly endorse this. There’s a reason why non-horrorfolks often remark that horror writers are the nicest, kindest, gentlest peoplethey meet. We constantly process and come to terms with our negative emotionsvia our writing. It’s more than art; it’s an important survival skill for us. Ifyou’re not a horror writer, give it a try.
Writea survival story.
Write asurvival story that doesn’t directly have anything to do with current events.Writing about a struggle for survival can prove very cathartic – and you mightend with something you can submit to an editor.
Writea justice story.
Samething here, only with justice. You could combine this with survival if youwant.
Makethe big small.
Thecurrent situation is way too big to write about all of it, but you could pickone small part to write about, whether you do so directly or indirectly. Forexample, today I saw video of high school students – different ages and genders– beating up a MAGA dude who stopped to harass them during a protest. If Iwrote that scene or a slant version of it, I’d be writing about how youngpeople are fighting for their future, and by extension, everyone’s. The bigmade small. (And fuck that MAGA dude!)
Writea story about empathy, for adults or kids.
Write astory or poem that demonstrates the importance and strength of empathy withoutbeing obvious about it. Write it for adults or kids or both.
Writeabout an invented religion taking over a society.
Writeabout a version of the current Christofascists trying to take over our societyor an imaginary one. Write from the perspective of a follower who’s beginningto have some doubts. Write from the perspective of someone trying to stop aloved one from joining the movement.
Workon your dream project.
Ifthere’s a project you’ve been putting off until the “right time,” start workingon it now. Not only will it feed you emotionally, but it’s also a powerfulstatement to yourself that there will be a future and you’re helping to createit for yourself.
Trysomething you’ve never tried before.
Writesomething you’ve never attempted before. A topic you’ve never written about, aform you’ve never tried before. The old phrase “A change is as good as a rest”comes in here. (This is also a good technique to bust through writer’s block.)
Makesomething, anything.
If youreally can’t bring yourself to write, then draw, paint, or sculpt. Build a newset of bookshelves. Attend to the home repair you’ve been putting off. Buy acool Lego set. Making is a deep human need. It’s one of the main things thatdefines us as human. And, like working on your dream project, makingsomething reinforces that there will be a future and you can have at least somesmall measure of impact on it.
Helpothers.
I’m moreof a builder than a fighter. Not just creating stories but building connectionsbetween people and giving people tools to build things for themselves. (Likepresenting all these ideas in a blog post.) It’s one of the main reasons Ibecame a teacher. Help other writers by giving them feedback on their work orby listening to their writing and publishing-related woes and commiserating. Conductworkshops online or in your community. Help others however you can. It buildsand strengthens community bonds, and it reminds us that we can still have apositive impact on the world even in the face of what seems like anoverwhelming tide of darkness that we don’t know how to fight. Remember, everybit of positive energy we put into the universe adds to the sum total of Light tocounter the Darkness, whether you literally believe in those concepts or, likeme, believe in them as metaphor. Either way, we’re still helping, so who cares ifthey’re real or only abstract concepts? They work either way.
And ifyou don’t have the emotional bandwidth to help anyone else, take care ofyourself. You’re important too, you know.
And thereason it’s so important to take care of yourself right now can be boiled downto what flight attendants tell passengers: “Put your oxygen mask on beforehelping others.” So get that mask on, and let’s ride out the turbulence thebest we can – together.
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Conan:Marked for Death Out Now
Titanpublishes an ebook-only series of short stories starring various Robert E.Howard characters called The Heroic Legends Series. Conan: Marked for Deathis only $1.99 for 8,000 wordsof barbarian action!
Synopsis
Wounded,thirsty, and stranded in the desert after a job gone bad, Conan is desperate.To make it out alive, he bands together with his fellow surviving mercenaries.
Conantrusts none of them, and the feeling is mutual. Fine. Everyone knows where theystand. But when a cursed treasure is discovered, distrust turns to suspicion.Conan knows enough about dark magic to leave well enough alone, but will greedget the better of his new “friends”?
You canfind all the purchasing links here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/813527/the-heroic-legends-series---conan-marked-for-death-by-tim-waggoner/
TheFace of Pain
Synopsis
The doctors said it was cancer, butTricia knew the thing inside her was something far worse.
Tricia Everhart is diagnosed with uterine cancer, butdespite her test results, she can’t escape the feeling that she’s notsick–she’s pregnant. When a mysterious door appears in the hospital, she stepsthrough and finds herself trapped in a nightmarish facility called the RedTower. There, a cult of sinister physicians known as the Lineage worship a foulentity called the Face of Pain… and they believe Tricia is its chosen vessel. Her husband, Aaron, follows herinto the Tower, desperate to bring her home. But the deeper they go, the morethey encounter horrors beyond comprehension. Will they escape the Red Towerbefore the Face of Pain enters our reality? Or will its birth unravel existenceitself?
Praise for The Face of Pain:
Tim Waggoner is a magician. He weaves layers ofprofound emotionality without losing the thrill and thrust of the story. TheFace of Pain is as real as it is fantastical and we are given the gift ofreading in both light and dark, passage to passage, as if Tim is in the roomwith us, controlling all illumination therein.” –Josh Malerman, New YorkTimes-bestselling author of Bird Box and Incidents Around theHouse
LefthandPath Press: https://www.lefthandpathpress.com/book/the-face-of-pain/
If you’veread the book, I’d appreciate it if you could drop a review somewhere, whetheryou loved it or hated it. All reviews help draw attention to a book.
IScream, You Scream
My novel IScream, You Scream is now out in trade paperback and Kindle! Signedhardcovers are also now available for $30 at the Weird House Press site!
Eighth-graderJoel Taylor just moved to Shadow Springs with his mom. He likes his new homewell enough – until a sinister being called Mr. Freezee begins driving hiscreepy ice-cream truck up and down the streets at night, playing “Pop Goes theWeasel.”
Joelheard the music.
He lookedout the window.
He sawMr. Freezee, and what’s worse…
Mr.Freezee saw him.
Now Mr.Freezee wants to take Joel to a very special place where the world is made ofevery flavor of ice cream you can imagine – all of them deadly. Mr. Freezeebrings all his new friends here, and they love it so much that they neverleave.
Mr.Freezee makes sure of it.
Welcometo Sweet Land, Joel.
Welcometo a nightmare that never ends.
AmazonTrade Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/2bvwmhaw
Barnesand Noble Trade Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/mpw8k2k7
Kindle: https://tinyurl.com/3t8ntyxa
Hardcover:https://tinyurl.com/y3hxu7ys
CarsonBuckingham Reviews I Scream, You Scream for The Horror Review
“In no way is this book just for kids. I blewthrough it twice and enjoyed it just as much both times…” – Carson Buckingham
Full review: https://tinyurl.com/bddwv728
TheTerrifier 3 Novelization
Get readyfor some Ho-Ho-Horror as Art the Clown slaughters Christmas!
Synopsisfrom Bloody Press
TheBiggest, Most Brutal Unrated Film Ever is Now a Book!
No moreclowning around. The unholy novelization of Terrifier 3 is here… andit’s the horrific splatterpunk event of the holidays!
Aftersurviving Art the Clown's Halloween massacre, Sienna and her brother arestruggling to rebuild their shattered lives. As the holiday season approaches,they try to embrace the Christmas spirit and leave the horrors of the pastbehind. But just when they think they're safe, Art the Clown returns,determined to turn their holiday cheer into a new nightmare. The festive seasonquickly unravels as Art unleashes his twisted brand of terror, proving that noholiday is safe.
Writtenby Tim Waggoner, the author of the Terrifier 2 Novelization, the XTrilogy (X, Pearl, and MaXXXine) Novelizations, and the HalloweenKills Novelization.
Andremember, boys and girls, blood-drenched stories about demonic clowns makegreat gifts no matter what season it is!
AmazonKindle US: https://tinyurl.com/573hwu4u
AmazonHardback US: https://tinyurl.com/2asknbjh
Amazon KindleUK: https://tinyurl.com/yrmrd626
AmazonHardback UK: https://tinyurl.com/mtjne3yx
Amazon KindleCanada: https://tinyurl.com/yc6pupcn
AmazonHardback Canada: https://tinyurl.com/4np3ckc7
Amazon KindleFrance: https://tinyurl.com/mr6dn4zr
AmazonHardback France: https://tinyurl.com/4np3ckc7
Amazon KindleAustralia: https://tinyurl.com/mvz3dad9
AmazonHardback Australia: Not available yet.
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
SuperstarsWriting Seminar. Feb. 4-5. Colorado Springs, Colorado.
A Tastingwith Friends. Feb. 26, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Benham’s Grove Event Center.Centerville, Ohio.
AkronBook Fest. March 7. Akron, Ohio.
“The Artof Suspense” workshop. May 4, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dayton Metro Library, WilmingtonStroop Branch. Kettering, Ohio.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
ShoreLeave 46. July 10-12. Lancaster Wyndham Resort and Convention Center,Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Into theSprings Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Gencon. July30-August 2. Indianapolis, Indiana.
WHERETO FIND ME ONLINE
Wantto follow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website:www.timwaggoner.com
NewsletterSign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133838.Tim_Waggoner
Instagram:tim.waggoner.scribe
Threads:@tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net
Bluesky:@timwaggoner.bsky.social
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9
December 15, 2025
The Face of Pain: Chapter One
Check out the first chapter of my new dark fantasy/horror novel The Face of Pain below!
THEFACE OF PAIN
CHAPTER ONE
Tricia Everhart, wearing only a thin whitehospital gown, wandered through a world of endless red corridors.
She didn’t know how long she had walked in thisstrange place, but it must have been some time, for her legs ached and her barefeet felt numb. She wanted to sit down and rest, but there were no chairs orcouches in this place. Just red walls, red light panels in the ceiling, redtiled floors... The red was a deep, dark crimson, the color of old, driedblood, and for some strange reason, it disturbed and comforted her in equalmeasure. The light made it seem as if her own blood had seeped from her veinsand now lay just beneath the surface of her skin.
There were large, framed pictures on the walls,but instead of peaceful scenes of a lush, green forest, ocean waves breaking ona shore, or a field of colorful flowers, they were grisly photographs ofautomobile and industrial accident victims, their bodies mutilated and mangled,many damaged so severely that it was impossible to tell they had been human.Seeing these images made Tricia’s stomach roil with nausea, and she kept hereyes averted as she passed them. Speakers were set into the ceiling at regularintervals, but instead of playing soothing music, what came out were the soundsof people moaning in pain, sobbing in despair, begging to be released fromtheir misery. She’d been hearing these terrible sounds for what felt likehours, maybe even days, and she still hadn’t become used to them. It didn’thelp that she hadn’t seen another person during the entire time she’d beenhere. The isolation made this place feel even more sinister, especially becauseshe had the sense that she was being watched, although she’d seen no securitycameras anywhere.
This place felt deeply and profoundly wrongin a way she sensed but didn’t fully comprehend. She had been searching for anexit the entire time she’d been here – although she couldn’t remember coming tothis place – but so far, she hadn’t found one. There were numerous doors oneither side of the corridors, painted red, of course, each with a rectangularmetal plate (also red) on the surface with engraved letters. The names on theseplates made no sense to her: s: This was a twisted, nightmarish version of a medicalfacility, the kind of place where the physician’s oath might begin with Firstdo great harm.
“This has to be a dream,” shethought. It couldn’t be anything else.
And yet, everything felt so real. The floor wassolid beneath her bare feet, and the air in the corridors was cool, so much sothat she hugged herself for what little warmth it provided. She’d hoped thatshe’d come across a door labeled Laundry where she could sneak in andhopefully “borrow” some warmer clothes, like maybe scrubs or a lab coat. But sofar, she hadn’t found such a door. The odor in this place was awful, acombination of gasoline and rotting meat, and she breathed through her mouth soshe wouldn’t have to smell it. But that made her throat feel raw and her lungsache. She feared she was inhaling some toxic gas, but there was nothing moreshe could do but keep walking and hope she finally found a way out of here.
Tricia was a short,petite woman with straight brown hair, cute rather than beautiful. People oftenpatronized her because of her height, whether consciously or not, and so she’ddeveloped a take-no-shit attitude. But here, in this place, she did feel smalland helpless, and she had to keep reminding herself she was a grown-ass womanwho could handle anything that came at her…she hoped.
She felt as if she’d been in a hospital – anormal one – not long ago, but the fumes in the air had made her lightheaded,and she found it hard to remember specific details. She could recall emotions,though, and the two strongest that she associated with hospitals were grief andterror. These emotions were so raw and blistering that she was grateful thatthe events that caused them eluded her.
She heard a voice in her mind then, soft, kind,understanding.
“You know the old saying that a journey of athousand miles begins with a single step? What that hoary bit of wisdom leftout is that the entire journey is comprised of many singlesteps, and each one can feel like a monumental undertaking. But finding thestrength – or the sheer stubbornness – to keep taking those steps, one afterthe other, is what allows us to continue moving forward.”
She’d taken a lot of single steps since findingherself in this awful place, and while she was definitely moving forward, shehad no idea if she was moving toward anything. But a few moments later,she turned a corner and had her answer.
This hallway was short, only ten feet long, andit ended in a set of double doors. Above it were black letters that appeared tohave been burned into the plaster, and they formed two words.
Maltreatment Center.
She suddenly felt a powerful urge to turn andrun, and if her legs and feet hadn’t been so sore, she might’ve done so. Butshe hesitated, and the double doors burst open, and a smiling woman in a rednurse’s uniform rushed out, clipboard held in one hand. The woman was bald, andthe right side of her head was marred by a long, bloody gash. The nametag overher left breast identified her as Nurse Skullcrack, and given thewoman’s head wound, Tricia thought the name appropriate.
“You’re right on time for your appointment,Tricia.”
The woman’s voice was monotone, and her facedisplayed no emotion. The left side of her body drooped slightly, and her armhung motionless at her side. Tricia was no doctor, but she suspected thesephysical effects were due to the nurse’s head injury.
Tricia didn’t know how to respond to the woman,and Skullcrack frowned and consulted her clipboard, which, Tricia now saw, hadnothing on it. The nurse looked at Tricia once more.
“You are Tricia Everhart, aren’t you?”
Tricia finally found her voice.
“Yes.”
Skullcrack’s frown eased, and the faintest hintof a smile touched her mouth.
“I recognize your voice. I’m face blind, thanksto this.” She pointed to her head wound. “But considering how much of the staffhere looks, it’s a blessing most times.”
Now it was Tricia’s turn to frown.
“How can you recognize my voice? We’ve nevermet.”
“Of course we have. You just don’t remember. Nowfollow me, please.”
Skullcrack turned around and pushed through thedoors. Tricia hesitated, but then she did as the nurse ordered, unable toescape the feeling that she was making a horrible mistake.
There was no reception area or waiting roominside, only a large open space the size of a football stadium. Instead ofbeing painted red, the walls, floor, and ceiling were a startlingly brightwhite, and the room’s light panels glowed with normal blue-white fluorescence.She hurried to catch up to the nurse, bare feet slapping on the tiled floor.
“What kind of maltreatment goes on inhere?” she asked.
Skullcrack answered without looking at her.
“All kinds, really. Physical, mental, spiritual,subatomic, aetheric, temporal, transdimensional… If you’ve got it, we canmaltreat it.”
She chuckled, but Tricia didn’t find anythingfunny in the nurse’s words.
They weren’t the onlyones in the huge room. In the middle was a stainless-steel examination tablethat looked uncomfortable as hell, and next to it stood a stout middle-aged manin a crimson lab coat. He wore a metal amulet on a gold chain around his neck,upon which was the figure of a snake eating its own tail. Tricia felt as if sheshould be familiar with the symbol, but she couldn’t place it. She couldn’tmake out the man’s face at first, but as Skullcrack and she got closer, hisfeatures came into sharper focus. His white hair fell past his shoulders, andhe had a thick white beard and mustache with the ends curled up. His eyes werea penetrating ice-blue, and she felt as if they could see into her very soul.
Frightened, Triciaturned around, intending to get out of there as fast as she could manage on hersore legs and feet…but before she could take a step toward the doors, she sawthat they had vanished. Where they’d stood was now nothing but an unbroken whitewall.
The doctor chuckled.
“No need to be afraid,Tricia,” he said in a rich baritone. “
“The most highly regarded one aside from the Surgeon Supreme himself,”Nurse Skullcrack put in, and Winterblood acknowledged her praise with a nodbefore continuing.
“You’re here for a few last minor adjustments, nothing more. Have tomake sure you’re ready before your big day tomorrow. Thedoors will reappear once we’re finished.”
Nurse Skullcrack hadreached the doctor by this point, and she stood next to him, frowning at Triciawith impatience.
“Come now,” the womansaid. “Dr. Winterblood hasn’t got all day.”
The doctor grinned atTricia.
“The nurse is right, butonly because – for the most part – time is meaningless in the Red Tower. Idon’t have all day because I don’t have any time. No seconds, minutes,hours, or days…We live in an eternal present here.” The doctor’s grinfell away, and his tone became thoughtful. “Which, admittedly, does make itdifficult for our patients to heal at times.”
Winterblood andSkullcrack laughed at this, but Tricia saw no humor in it. She did wonder ifthe fact that this place was timeless was the reason why the nurse’s headinjury still looked fresh…and it would explain why it felt like Tricia hadwalked the Red Tower’s corridors forever before arriving here.
“Now if you’ll removeyour gown and hop up on the table, we can get started.” Winterblood’s smilereturned, but this time it was cold and mocking. “No need to be embarrassed.After all, I am a doctor.”
Talking to this manwhile she wore only a flimsy hospital gown was bad enough. But to get naked infront of him? No fucking way.
“I…just met you. I’m notreally comfortable –”
“I’ve examined you manytimes over the years,” Winterblood said. “But it’s been necessary to removeyour memory of those visits before allowing you to return home. That won’thappen this time, though. You’ll remember everything…including the things you wishyou could forget.”
“Especiallythose,” Skullcrack said.
“I have no idea whatyou’re talking about,” Tricia said, “but no way in hell am I going to get nakedjust because you want me to.”
Winterblood looked atSkullcrack, and the nurse dropped her empty clipboard to the floor and startedtoward Tricia. Skullcrack’s brow was slightly furrowed, but otherwise, thewoman displayed no emotion. Tricia raised her hands in front of her, palmsoutward, as if she hoped this gesture would ward off Skullcrack, but the nursedidn’t slow. When she reached Tricia, she grabbed a handful of the gown’sfabric, yanked with surprising strength, and tore it from Tricia’s body with asingle pull. Tricia crossed her arms over her breasts to preserve what littlemodesty she could. She knew the effort was ineffective, but it made her feellike she had a modicum of control in the situation. They were her tits,and by Christ, she’d decide who got to see them.
She didn’t wait forWinterblood to tell her to get on the table again. She walked over to it,realized she couldn’t get on without lowering her arms, and thought, Fuck it.This was a dream, and what was the point of modesty in a dream? She removed herarms from her breasts, used both hands to mount the table, sat, and gasped athow cold the steel felt against her bare ass and the backs of her legs.
“Lie down, please,”Winterblood said.
Tricia didn’t want to.Couldn’t they at least have put down some paper or something, like in a regulardoctor’s examination room? Hoping she’d get used to the feel of the metal onher skin sooner rather than later, she did as Winterblood told her – and it waseven colder than she’d expected. She gritted her teeth to keep them fromchattering. Nurse Skullcrack retrieved her empty clipboard from the floor andstepped near Tricia’s head.
“I need to ask you a fewquestions before the doctor begins,” the woman said.
Tricia saw that not onlydidn’t Skullcrack have any paper on her clipboard, she didn’t have a pen,either.
“Okay.”
She heard a soft humthen, and she turned her head to see a rectangular panel in the floor slideopen. A second later, what looked like a block of polished obsidian roseupward, upon its flat surface a dozen or so metal instruments that appeared asif they belonged more in an auto shop than a hospital. When the table or altaror whatever it was finished rising, Winterblood stepped over to it and perusedthe instruments.
“We have quite aselection today, Nurse. I’m going to have a terrible time choosing.”
He muttered to himselfas he picked up a tool that looked like a speculum made from rusty barbed wire.Tricia’s vagina clenched tight at the thought of that thing going inside her.Winterblood examined the bizarre thing for a moment, then put it back down witha shake of his head and selected another instrument to examine. Tricia sighedin relief.
Skullcrack looked downat her empty clipboard, as if she were reading questions instead of merelyspeaking them.
“First question: Haveyou ever wanted to kill someone, and if so, who was it?”
“You’ve got to snap outof this, Aaron! The doctor says you’re perfectly healthy!”
“But I don’t feel healthy…”
“No one,” Tricia said.
The nurse eyed herskeptically, but she moved on to the next question.
Tricia remembered a great, crushing emptiness inside her, as if herentire body had been scooped out, leaving her a hollow shell.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
Skullcrack hrumpfed but asked the third question.
“What would you do to reverse that loss if you could?”
Tricia didn’t hesitate to answer this time.
“Anything.”
Skullcrack nodded, as ifpleased.
“That’s all. Thank you.”
The nurse stepped back,and Dr. Winterblood approached the table. He reached into one of his jacketpockets, removed a pair of eyeglasses, and slipped them on. He then leaned overthe table and positioned his head six inches above her abdomen. She could feelhis cool breath on her skin, and she found the sensation revolting. Shesquirmed, and suddenly Skullcrack was at the side of the table again. Shesmacked the clipboard against Tricia’s forehead hard enough to make motes oflight dance before her eyes.
“Please remain still,”Winterblood said.
Tricia glared at thenurse, but she did as the doctor asked.
He straightened andpushed the glasses onto the top of his head.
“Everything looks goodin there, Magna Mater be praised. We just need to make a few minoradjustments.”
He returned to theobsidian block, selected one of the strange devices on top, and came back tothe table.
“Did you just use X-rayglasses?” she asked. “Like the kind you could order from old comic books?”
“Of course,” Winterbloodsaid. “They’re standard equipment around here. But don’t worry. The amount ofradiation they emit is negligible.”
Tricia didn’t like thesound of that. Just how negligible was negligible? But before she couldask, the doctor held up the device he’d selected. It was a scorpion, orsomething very much like one, formed out of silver. There were no visible seamsor joints. It was as if the thing had been made by coating an actual insect inliquid metal. The sight of the thing sent a chill through her, and she had thefeeling that she’d seen it before, although she had no idea when.
She rememberedWinterblood’s earlier words.
“I’ve examined you manytimes over the last year. But it’s been necessary to remove your memory ofthose visits before allowing you to return home.”
“You and Argent are oldfriends, although of course you don’t remember,” Winterborn said. “I’m afraidthis is going to hurt – a lot. But this procedure must be conductedwithout anesthesia. Besides, pain relief isn’t really something we do here, isit, Nurse?”
Skullcrack laughed. “No.We specialize in pain enhancement.”
Winterblood gentlyplaced the silver creature on Tricia’s stomach. Its touch was so cold itburned, and she drew in a hissing breath. She reflexively reached out to knockthe thing off of her, but Skullcrack smacked her with the clipboard again tostop her. Tricia shot the nurse a venomous glare, but Skullcrack didn’t appearto notice. Her gaze was focused on the scorpion, her eyes gleaming withanticipation.
The creature began tostir, as if it were alive. Tricia felt the feather-light touch of its legs asit moved around on her abdomen, as if searching for just the right spot. Itstopped an inch below her belly button and then plunged its large front claws intoher flesh. Blood sprayed as the insect began digging furiously, and Triciascreamed.
Skullcrack hit her withthe clipboard again, but this time Tricia barely felt it.
“No need to make such afuss,” the nurse said. “You’d told me you’d do anything, remember?”
The scorpion – Argent –burrowed into Tricia’s body, continuing to tear at skin and muscle as it went.Within seconds, it had penetrated so far that only its barbed tail remainedvisible, and then that slid down into her, and the silver creature was gone.And as it went to work inside her, the pain increased a hundredfold, and herscreams intensified.
“Anything,”she reminded herself. “You’d said you’d do anything.”
She had, and she’d meantit. So she stopped screaming, gritted her teeth, and endured, tears streamingdown the sides of her face the entire time.
“Anything,” shewhispered, and then repeated it under her breath like a mantra. “Anything,anything, anything, anything, anything…”
* * ** *
Despite Tricia’sdetermination not to surrender to the pain, she passed out. There was a periodof blessed, pain-free darkness for a time, but despite her wishes, awarenessslowly returned to her, and she opened her eyes. She still hurt like amotherfucker, but the pain had receded to a point where it was bearable. Sheraised her head to look down at her abdomen, fully expecting to see her fleshmangled as severely as one of the accident victims in the photos that lined thecorridors of the Red Tower. But while there was blood – and plenty of it – theskin was smooth and unmarked, with no sign that it had been touched, let aloneripped into by a scorpion-like creature made of silver.
Dr. Winterblood andNurse Skullcrack stood at the side of her table. Argent, still slick with herblood, perched on the doctor’s shoulder, as if it were a pet.
“My little friendrepaired your flesh when he was finished,” Winterblood said. “The woundwould’ve made an exquisite scar, but we can’t have the so-called physicians inyour world seeing any signs of our work.” He lowered his voice, as if impartinga secret. “To be honest, it’s mostly a professional pride thing.”
Some blood remained onhis hands, and as he wiped them on his lab coat, Tricia understood the reasonwhy there was so much red everywhere in this place. It was to hide the blood.
Nurse Skullcrack spokethen. “You’ll be happy to know that after all this time, you’re finally ready.”
Tricia pushed herselfinto a sitting position, then frowned.
“Ready for what?”
Winterblood grinned ather and spread his arms wide, reminding her of a circus ringmaster preparing tostart the show.
“This!”
Every surface in theroom – walls, floor, ceiling – displayed the same image. At first, Triciadidn’t understand what she was looking at. It was a mass of discolored fleshand tarry blood, but when an eye opened in the middle of it, she realized whatthe horrible thing was, and she screamed until her throat was raw and bleeding.
LINKS
Kindle: https://tinyurl.com/3hzdyjhd
Amazon Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/44wt2tdw
Barnes & Noble Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/3h6kkszz
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
SuperstarsWriting Seminar. Feb. 4-5. Colorado Springs, Colorado.
A Tastingwith Friends. Feb. 26, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Benham’s Grove Event Center.Centerville, Ohio.
AkronBook Fest. March 7. Akron, Ohio.
BookRelease Event for C.J. Dotson’s Novel These Familiar Walls. April 15, 7p.m. Barnes & Noble, Fairlawn, Ohio.
“The Artof Suspense” workshop. May 4, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dayton Metro Library, WilmingtonStroop Branch.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
ShoreLeave 46. July 10-12. Lancaster Wyndham Resort and Convention Center,Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Gen ConWriters Symposium. July 29-August 2. Indianapolis, Indiana.
Into theSprings Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
WEBSITES/SOCIAL MEDIA
Newsletter Sign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
Website:www.timwaggoner.com
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
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Bluesky:@timwaggoner.bsky.social
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November 30, 2025
Clowning Around: Writing Terrifier 3 the Novelization
After along wait, my novelization of Terrifier 3 is finally out! What was itlike for me to revisit my good buddy Art the Clown? Read on!
When Iwrote the novelization of Terrifier 2, the movie had been out for awhile. I saw it in the theater, and it was available on streaming. This meant Icould watch scenes as I wrote, and I could pause them or watch them more thanonce. The script I was given matched the finished film completely. There wereno scenes in the script that weren’t filmed. The folks at Bloody Disgustingwanted the book to be 100,000 words long, and this meant I had to invent quitea bit of material. Damien Leone was fine with that, but he asked me to cut thelast line of the book. I’d hinted at how Art would be resurrected for the nextmovie, but I’d guessed wrong.
Theresponse to Terrifier 2: The Official Novelization was quite positiveoverall. Readers enjoyed the extra scenes I’d created, and they liked gettingglimpses into Art’s perspective. Many people mentioned that the kill sceneswere more brutal than in the actual film, and some reviewers commented on how I’dstrengthened the role of women in the story. These last two elements were onesI purposefully added to the story. One of the things I do in my original horroris to make sure that characters – even minor ones – aren’t disposable ciphers.I want readers to empathize with them and understand that violence has realconsequences. One of the critiques of Horror, especially Slasher films, is thatthey glorify violence against women. Sienna is a strong character in the film,but I gave the other women in the story deeper backgrounds to make them moredeveloped characters. I always have artistic goals when I write, whether it’smy original fiction or a media tie-in novel. I’m happy if people enjoy mystories as entertainment, but I’m also happy when they see what else Iattempted to do with the story.
Somethingthat surprised me was that people who said they couldn’t bring themselves towatch the film were glad to be able to experience the story through my book. Andsome fans of the film said that reading the book rekindled an interest inreading for them, and I can’t imagine a more satisfying response to somethingI’ve written.
Whatdidn’t surprise me was when I did book fairs, some people thought I’d writtenthe script for the film, too. Most people aren’t familiar with how media tie-infiction works. They just know that movies have scripts.
I wasdeeply honored when Terrifier 2: The Official Novelization won a ScribeAward for Best Adapted Novel this July. The award was presented by theInternational Association of Tie-In Writers at San Diego Comic-Con, and I wasable to accept the award in person. Will the Terrifier 3 novel win thesame award? We’ll find out next July.
Accepting the award at Comic-Con while bestselling novelist and IAMTW president Jonathan looks on.
So whatwas it like for me to write the novelization of Terrifier 3?
One bigdifference was that the film hadn’t been released when I started writing thebook. This is the usual case when you write novelizations. The film is usuallystill being worked on while you’re writing. Instead of being able to seeclothing and sets, like I could when writing the first book, I had to create thoseelements. Another difference is that the script for T3 was as long as the onefor T2, but in interviews, Damien said the film wouldn’t be as long as theprevious one. This told me that he wasn’t going to film everything in thescript, so there would be scenes of Damien’s in the book that audienceswouldn’t see in theaters. Damien also said in interviews that he toned down theviolence and gore in some scenes when filming. This meant my book would havesome scenes that were more intense, violent, and gross than in the film.
Ifinished the book before the film was released, but I was able to see it in thetheater before I turned in the final manuscript, and the studio gave me onlineaccess to the film soon after. This meant I could adjust my book to match thefinished film. Once again, I wrote with a deeper point of view to strengthenthe impact of violence. And while this script balanced gender roles moreeffectively than the first, I still made sure to develop all the womencharacters as fully as the males. I once again wrote some scenes from Art’spoint of view, and since Bloody Disgusting again wanted the book to be 100,000words long, I again had to create original scenes.
Siennaand Jonathan’s reaction to the trauma they experienced in T2 was a part of T3’sstory, so I expanded the themes of mental health and PTSD that were in the script.I think it’s important for Horror creators to address the effects of violenceand unnatural experiences on characters. Stephen King does a good job of this.Danny from The Shining struggles with PTSD from his experiences in theOverlook Hotel in the sequel Doctor Sleep.
As Damienbegan to work on the script for Terrifier 4, he asked me to avoid writinganything about Jonathan’s ultimate fate, as well as how Sienna recovered hersword from the Terrifier attraction. I hadn’t covered what happened toJonathan, but I’d written two chapters detailing Sienna’s struggle to retrievethe sword, and I had to cut that material. Those were two of my favoritechapters in the book, and I was sorry to see them go. But that’s the deal whenyou write tie-ins. The IP holder is always the boss – and that’s how it shouldbe.
BloodyDisgusting’s original intent was to release the T2 book through their ownpublishing company called Bloody Books. But it takes time to get a publishingcompany up and running, so they partnered with Titan Books to publish Terrifier2: The Official Novelization. But they were determined to bring out the T3book via Bloody Press, which is why it took a while for it to come out. DrewStepek, Creative Director at Cineverse and publisher of Extreme Horror at Godless, collaborated with Bloody Press,and he worked his ass off to help Bloody Press get the T3 novelization published.
So whatwill Terrifier fans get from reading the novelization of Terrifier 3?
· Extrascenes and story elements of Damien’s that didn’t make it into the final film(and some of them are wild!).
· Somescenes will be more intense than they were in the final film.
· Scenesfrom Art’s point of view.
· Scenesand story elements that I added.
Ireally hope readers enjoy the novelization of Terrifier 3. People ask meall the time if I’m going to be writing novelizations of Terrifier and Terrifier4. I hope so, but right now, I don’t have a contract to write either. Keepyour (bloody) fingers crossed for me!
With Art at Horror on Main
Ifyou want to check out Bloody Press or Godless, here are some links:
BloodyPress: https://bloodypress.com/
Godless:https://godless.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoq0ITJr2UQt-aLofQXb8yzYKX6FnXkGyyEQqGA4shXjsTkCA-2K
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Terrifier3: The Official Novelization
No moreclowning around. The unholy novelization of Terrifier 3 is here… andit’s the horrific splatterpunk event of the holidays!
Aftersurviving Art the Clown's Halloween massacre, Sienna and her brother arestruggling to rebuild their shattered lives. As the holiday season approaches,they try to embrace the Christmas spirit and leave the horrors of the pastbehind. But just when they think they're safe, Art the Clown returns,determined to turn their holiday cheer into a new nightmare. The festive seasonquickly unravels as Art unleashes his twisted brand of terror, proving that noholiday is safe.
Writtenby Tim Waggoner, the author of the Terrifier 2 Novelization, the XTrilogy (X, Pearl, and MaXXXine) Novelizations, and the HalloweenKills Novelization.
TheKindle version is ready to preorder now. The hardback and paperback versionswill be available to order on Tuesday.
AmazonUS: https://tinyurl.com/573hwu4u
AmazonUK: https://tinyurl.com/yrmrd626
AmazonCanada: https://tinyurl.com/yc6pupcn
AmazonFrance: https://tinyurl.com/mr6dn4zr
AmazonAustralia: https://tinyurl.com/bmfu6spr
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
SuperstarsWriting Seminar. Feb. 4-5. Colorado Springs, Colorado.
A Tastingwith Friends. Feb. 26, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Benham’s Grove Event Center.Centerville, Ohio.
AkronBook Fest. March 7. Akron, Ohio.
BookRelease Event for C.J. Dotson’s Novel These Familiar Walls. April 15, 7p.m. Barnes & Noble, Fairlawn, Ohio.
“The Artof Suspense” workshop. May 4, 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dayton Metro Library, WilmingtonStroop Branch. Kettering, Ohio.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
ShoreLeave 46. July 10-12. Lancaster Wyndham Resort and Convention Center,Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Into theSprings Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
WHERETO FIND ME ONLINE
Wantto follow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website:www.timwaggoner.com
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October 26, 2025
An Age Undreamed Of: My Adventures in Hyboria
Mynovel Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God comes out this Tuesday, Oct. 27,2025. I had a blast writing this book, and I can’t wait to find out whatreaders think of it! My editor at Titan loves it, as do the folks at HeroicSignatures, who currently hold the license to produce Conan stories in comicsand prose. But the real test of a novel is when people crack the spine, openthe file on their e-reader, or hit PLAY on the audiobook, and start reading.(Yes, listening to audiobooks counts as reading, and I experience fiction quiteoften via audio.)
I first encounteredour favorite Cimmerian in Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian #1 in thatancient era known as 1970. I was six years old, and I was a monster fanatic. Superheroesand adventure characters weren’t really on my radar, but the cover showed Conanbattling bat-winged humanoids, and I was sold. I kept that issue for years andread it so much that eventually the cover fell off. I have no idea whathappened to it, but I still think back on it fondly. The very first story Isubmitted for publication (when I was eighteen) was “As Good as a Rest,” and itfeatured a Conan-like barbarian named Grod who was tired of being a warrior ina fantasy realm and went to the Office of Archetype Management to see if hecould be reassigned to a different milieu. It was, of course, rejected numeroustimes and never saw print. I eventually rewrote the story (with the character nowfemale), and the new version, still titled “As Good As a Rest,” appeared in WarriorFantastic published by DAW Books in 2000. (If any of you want to read thestory, email me at twaggon1@msn.com, andI’ll send you the Word file.)
So youthink I’d have been thrilled to get the chance to write a Conan novel. But whenI had an opportunity to do so for Titan Books, I passed. I was only a casualConan fan, and so I was intimidated by the depth and complexity of the milieu thatRobert E. Howard created for his barbarian adventurer. I felt I wouldn’t beable to learn enough about the Hyborian Age and its most famous denizen to makethem come alive on the page, certainly not in time to meet the publisher’sdeadline. After a few weeks, I regretted saying no, but I figured that ship hadpassed and there was nothing I could do about it – until Titan asked again, andthis time, I was smart enough to say yes, thank Crom. So what was it like forme to write an adventure featuring one of the most iconic characters in literature?Read on!
First, I wrote a couple ofdifferent pitches for Conan adventures and sent them to my editor at Titan andthe folks at Heroic Signatures. My book was supposed to tie into The Scourgeof the Serpent comic series, but all I had to do was include the snake-godSet and Serpent-Men in the story, so I didn’t need to reference specific eventsor characters from the comics. Eventually, my editor and Heroic decided weshould combine elements of the two pitches, and once that was settled, it wastime to do my research. The following are various things I did or learnedduring that process.
Speaking of audiobooks… Iimmersed myself in Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, listening to them on audiowhenever I was driving, taking a shower, or doing chores around the house. WhenI finished them, I started over. Eventually, I listened to stories of Howard’sother famous characters – King Kull, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn. (I listenedto a few El Borak stories, too, but not all of them.) I also listened to Conantales by John C. Hocking (City of the Dead), S.M. Stirling (Blood ofthe Serpent), and L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter (the novelization ofthe first Conan film). Up to that point, my exposure to Conan primarily hadbeen through Marvel Comics and the various films. I had a sense of Conan as apop culture character, but listening to these stories – especially Howard’s –gave me a much stronger sense of Conan’s personality and of Hyboria as a world.
· Ibought older Conan novels.Books by Andrew J. Offutt (who, along with Mike Resnick, was one of the GOH’sat the first SF con I attended in 1986), Robert Jordan, and L. Sprague de Campand Lin Carter. (I knew that the de Camp and Carter stories were considered controversialamong Howard fandom, but I still wanted to see how they handled the character.)
· Istarted reading the current Conan comics. These are published by Titan and Heroic Signatures,and this version of Conan was the same one that would appear in my novel. Ihighly recommend both the Conan the Barbarian and The Savage Sword ofConan comics. (I got a chance to meet Jim Zub, Conan comics scribe, at SanDiego Comic Con last year.)
· Iwatched S&S movies and TV series. Iwatched all the Conan films and other sword-and-sorcery films such as RedSonja, the Deathstalker series, and others. (I didn’t need torewatch Beastmaster since I’ve seen it so many times over the years.) Idid watch some episodes of the Beastmaster series, along with episodesof The Outpost, Beowulf, Xena, Into the Badlands, etc. Overall,I wanted to absorb as much of the feel of S&S as a genre as I could. (Icouldn’t get into the Conan TV series or the Conan the Adventurer cartoon,though.)
· Isearched for Internet resources. Iwanted sites that provided information about Conan’s timeline, the differentraces and gods of Hyboria, period weapons and dress, Conan’s fighting style,etc. Here are some sites I found useful:
ConanTimelines
http://www.barbariankeep.com/galen.html
https://www.conanchronology.com/the-chronology.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conan_chronologies
HyborianCurses
https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/hyborian-age-curses.1644/
HyborianName Generator
Creaturesfrom the Hyborian Age
https://hyboria.xoth.net/bestiary/creatures.htm
WikipediaHyborian Entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyborian_Age
Arms andArmor
https://hyboria.xoth.net/rules/arms_armor.htm
HyborianRaces
https://conan.fandom.com/wiki/Index_of_Hyborian_People_and_Races
https://hyboria.xoth.net/races/human_races.htm
https://hyboria.xoth.net/gods/gods.htm
Zamora
https://hyboria.xoth.net/gazetteer/zamora.htm
https://conan.fandom.com/wiki/Zamora
https://conan.fandom.com/wiki/Zamora_(city) Description of areas of the city.
https://conan.com/locations/zamora/
https://immersive-exiles.fandom.com/wiki/Zamorian
Yezud
City ofThieves (also called Zamora or Arenjun)
https://conan.fandom.com/wiki/Zamora_(city)
· Ijoined REH and S&S discussion groups on Facebook to get a sense of whatreaders and fans expected – or didn’t want – in a Conan story. Not that Iintended to pander to the audience, but when writing tie-in fiction aboutbeloved characters, I like to be aware of readers’ expectations so I can keepthem in mind (or subvert them) as I write. Some of the groups I follow are Swords,Sorceries, and Barbarians: SlayerPosting, Swords & Sorceries: Tales ofHeroic Fantasy, The League of Swords and Sorcery, Contemporary Sword andSorcery, Sword & Sorcery Book Promotions, Barbarian Books Without Limits,and The International Robert E. Howard Fan Association. I don’t post much,though. I don’t want group members to avoid discussing my novel (andcriticizing it) due to my presence.
· Ididn’t try to mimic Howard’s writing style. I’ve seen some REH fans bemoan that tie-in writers don’twrite like Howard, but if we tried to recreate his style, it would come acrossas bad parody. Plus, we’re not writing solely for REH devotees but for anyonewho enjoys a Conan story. What readers get from a Conan tie-in is one writer’sinterpretation of Howard’s character and his world. I did my best to honorHoward and his fiction while still writing my own book.
· Howardscholars and fans define “pastiche” differently. Throughout my life, I’d only everheard the word pastiche applied to characters and stories that areslightly altered versions of the originals. For example, Philip José Farmer wrotepastiches of Tarzan (Lord Grandith) and Doc Savage (Doc Caliban). Suchpastiches allow creators the freedom to alter popular characters or explore typesof stories that could never be told about them otherwise. (Farmer’s charactersappear in his Feast Unknown series, which contains more overt sexualelements.) And both Homelander and Omniman are evil pastiches of Superman. ButREH fans call any Conan tie-in a pastiche. Wikipedia says pastiche “implies alack of originality or coherence, an imitative jumble, but with the advent ofpostmodernism, pastiche has become positively construed as a deliberate, wittyhomage or playful imitation.” Until I became familiar with REH fandom, I’dthought pastiche was only defined as the second part of the previous sentence.Now I realize that some REH fans use the first half to express a negativeattitude about non-Howard Conan tales. Which is why…
· I’mready for die-hard Howard fans to savage my novel (but I hope they’ll like it).From what I’veseen, the best I can hope for from REH fans is “It was a decent book, but ofcourse, it wasn’t REH” or “It was an okay fantasy novel, but not a trueConan story.” The worst I can expect is for my book to be excoriated as a desecrationto REH’s sacred memory and to have each mistake I made hauled out like evidenceto be presented to a hanging judge. But knowing this has (hopefully) preparedme for these types of potential reactions.
· ThingsI learned about Conan from Howard’s stories that I didn’t know (or didn’trealize) before. 1)Conan has a chivalrous streak, likely due more to pulp fiction’sconventions in the 1920’s than specific characterization on Howard’s part.Conan often finds himself coming to the aid of a woman (a beautiful and sexyone, of course), but he doesn’t make any kind of move on her. The women aren’talways helpless, pretty things, though. They often have a core of steel inthem, and of course, Howard created two of the best warrior women characters inS&S, Bêlit and Valeria, the former who is Conan’s lover and the latter whois a respected colleague. Fairly progressive for Howard’s time. 2) There wasracism in the stories to various degrees, but it was only blatant in a couple oftales. More often, Conan was the object of racism because so-called civilizedHyborian citizens often viewed him as a semi-intelligent brute because he camefrom Cimmeria. 3) Conan got drunk often and was kidnapped/imprisoned whileinebriated. I suppose this was Howard’s way of giving his character a weakness,ala Superman’s kryptonite. 4) Conan isn’t a hero. He’s an adventurer, and aboveall, a survivor, with a huge appetite for life. His motivations are usuallyselfish, but he lives in a world where altruism can get you killed. I prefer tothink of him as self-focused. He does have his own moral code, however, whichbasically boils down to “Don’t fuck with me, and I won’t fuck with you.” Itdoesn’t take a lot to get him to tackle a threat to others, though, especiallyif that threat pisses him off in some way. 5) Conan isn’t as dour as he’s oftenportrayed in tie-in novels, comics, and film. Howard famously describes him as aman of “gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth.” 6) Conan wears clothes andarmor more than in the comics, where he’s always portrayed as running around onlyin a fur loincloth and fur boots. 7) Conan has a talent for picking up languages.8) Conan is more fearful of magic than he seems to be in non-REH Conan stories.
· Hyboriais as much a character in Conan stories as the Cimmerian. Once I understood this, I had thekey to writing Conan fiction (at least, the key I needed). This is why, in myopinion, the tales of REH’s other famous adventure characters – while enjoyable– are inferior to Conan’s stories. He lives in a richer, more developed milieu.Literary writers often say that a setting should be as much a character in astory as the people. In Conan tales, Hyboria is a character of equal importanceto the Cimmerian. It’s what he lives to explore and enjoy, as well as being hismain adversary, the thing he must battle to prove himself worthy of survival. Ina way, it’s his one true love and his most implacable foe.
· Conan was in the Avengers? In 1978, I read Marvel’s What If?#13: “What if Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?” written by Conan comicsscribe Roy Thomas. In the story, Conan is magically transported to 1978, has anadventure, and eventually returns to his own time. I liked the story wellenough, but without Hyboria, it just wasn’t the same. Decades later, Conan endedup in modern times once more and joined the Avengers for a time. I wasn’treading comics then, but I kept tabs on what was happening in the industry, andI thought this was a fun idea, but Conan was too much of a loner to join a teamfor long, and without Hyboria, I doubted his character would be very effective.But what do I know? Like I said, I didn’t read those comics.
· WheneverI write fiction about an established character or world, I like to address thewhy of things, and I did in this book. Why does Conan have wanderlust when the rest of hispeople don’t seem to? Why does he wear his hair long? Why is he clean-shavenuntil later in his life when he becomes King of Aquilonia? Why does he go aboutshirtless and wearing only a loincloth so often? If he’s truly an amoralwarrior out for his own pleasure, why doesn’t he rape women? Why is he so afraidof magic? What happened to the Tower that fell in “The Tower of the Elephant”?Why is there less magic in the world during Conan’s time than there was in KingKull’s? Which is it – Zamora or Arenjun? I addressed all these questions – and more– in my book. I figured my editor and the folks at Heroic Signatures would askme to take out any details I created that they thought didn’t work, but I gotto keep them all!
· Whydid I depict Set as female in my novel? Because the comic book folks were referring to Set asfemale in their The Scourge of the Serpent series, and they asked me todo the same in my story. But they wanted me to mention that gods can appear indifferent aspects, including different genders, for readers who prefer FatherSet to Mother Set.
· Ismy story canon? It’sbest not to worry about stuff like “canon” when reading stories about along-running character like Conan. Think of it as my story based on Howard’swork. It does feature connections to a number of different REH stories, though.
· Ilove writing S&S. Ioriginally started out wanting to be a fantasy novelist, although I wrote shortstories in various genres. I wrote some novels for Wizards of the Coast, and Ipublished an original fantasy novel called Godfire with Five Star Presssome years ago. (They published it as two volumes: Godfire: The Orchard ofDreams and Godfire: Heart’s Wound…and they forgot to mention that thefirst book was only part one of a longer story, which confused the hell out ofreaders.) I enjoy writing both fantasy and action, and S&S is the perfectfusion of the two. I hope to start writing original S&S, at the short storylevel if nothing else, as soon as I can carve out some time in my writing schedule.
· Conanis (almost) in the public domain. TheConan stories are in the public domain in Europe. In the U.S., only the firstpublished Conan story, “The Hour of the Dragon,” is. The rest of the storieswill be in the public domain in a few more years. Right now, you can writefiction based only on those elements that appear in “The Hour of the Dragon.” Andbecause of trademark issues, you can’t use the name Conan on the coverof your book. The one self-published Conan novel I own is titled The Scionsof Ymir, written by David L. Irick. Expect to see more self-published Conanbooks over the course of the next several years. Who knows? Maybe you’ll writeone yourself.
· WouldI write more Conan stories? Funnyyou should ask…After I finished my novel, my editor at Titan asked if I’d beinterested in writing a short story featuring an REH character for their ebook-onlyHeroic Legends series. I did another Conan story, which comes out onJan. 27th, and is currently available for preorder at Amazon andB&N. You can find more details about it below. Would I write another Conannovel? If Titan offers me another contract to do so, I’ll jump at it.
That’sthe low-down on writing Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God. It was awonderful experience creatively, and it left me with a greater appreciation forREH and his work, as well as Sword and Sorcery in general – especially thatwritten by modern authors. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a Conan fan,I hope you’ll give Spawn of the Serpent God a try and that you’ll enjoyreading it as much as I did writing it!
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Conan:Spawn of the Serpent God isOut This Week
My Conanthe Barbarian novel, Spawn of the Serpent God, comes out this Tuesday,October 28th. The novel ties into the comic book event Scourge ofthe Serpent Men. You won’t have to read the comics to understand my book,and vice versa. I had a blast writing it, and I can’t wait for people to readit!
You canfind various preorder links – hardcover, ebook, and audio – for my novel at theTitan Books site: https://titanbooks.com/72365-conan-spawn-of-the-serpent-god/
Synopsis
InZamora, the city of thieves, Conan meets Valja, a thrill-seeking thief. Sheentices him to join
her on aheist, where they steal a golden statuette of Ishtar, said to contain thegoddess herself.
Afterkilling a dozen guards and failing to escape, the pair are saved by priestessesof Mitra. But
Conanknows that nothing is free.
Thepriestesses have need of their skills. They have waged war against Set, god ofchaos and
serpents,who demands constant sacrifice from his subjects and massacred thousands of his
followers.Yet they are no match for Uzzeran, a powerful sorcerer, who has been performing
unspeakableexperiments on humans in the name of Set. To defeat Uzzeran, they will need a
legendarywarrior on their side. They need Conan the Barbarian.
Conan:Marked for Death Available for Preorder
Titanalso publishes an ebook-only series of short stories starring various Robert E.Howard characters called The Heroic Legends Series. I got to write Conan again,although this time at much shorter length. But since most of the Cimmerian’soriginal appearances were in short form, writing this tale felt more like whatwriting adventure fiction in the classic days of the pulp magazines must havebeen like.
Markedfor Death will bereleased on January 27th, 2026, for only $1.99 at both Amazon andBarnes and Noble.
Synopsis
Wounded,thirsty, and stranded in the desert after a job gone bad, Conan is desperate.To make it out alive, he bands together with his fellow surviving mercenaries.
Conantrusts none of them, and the feeling is mutual. Fine. Everyone knows where theystand. But when a cursed treasure is discovered, distrust turns to suspicion.Conan knows enough about dark magic to leave well enough alone, but will greedget the better of his new “friends”?
Kindle: https://tinyurl.com/c8mt6krj
Barnesand Noble ebook: https://tinyurl.com/2wyxtpz8
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
2026
SuperstarsWriting Seminar. Feb. 4-5. Colorado Springs, Colorado.
AkronBook Fest. March 7. Akron, Ohio.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Into theSprings Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
WHERETO FIND ME ONLINE
Wantto follow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website:www.timwaggoner.com
NewsletterSign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133838.Tim_Waggoner
Instagram:tim.waggoner.scribe
Threads:@tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net
Bluesky:@timwaggoner.bsky.social
September 10, 2025
Have I Got a Deal for You
Writers get messages from all kinds of hustlers trying tomake a quick buck off us. As I tell my creative writing students, “Whenever someonehas a dream, someone else is right there ready to take advantage of them.” Andwho dreams more than writers? We all want success (however we measure it) sobadly that we’re willing to do almost anything to get it. And if the road to thatsuccess seems especially long and winding, we’ll look for any shortcuts we canfind – especially if we’re new to the game and haven’t yet accepted that developinga writing career is a marathon and not a sprint. (Actually, it’s a lot morelike a decathlon, but I digress…)
I’llnever forget the one literary agency I queried that asked to see my manuscript,but only if I paid a $300 reading fee. (This was over thirty years ago, andthere wasn’t a robust internet for writers to share info about scams likereading fees.) I called the agency and told the agent who answered that I wasn’tcomfortable paying the $300 fee. He said, “How about you pay us $150, and we’llread half the book?” I laughed and disconnected.
Probablythe most common type of scam writers get is someone who promises to sell us TheSecret of Success. Back in the day, the covers of Writer’s Digest usedto promise you would make lots of money by following the advice in theirarticles. (They’ve had classier covers for years now.)
And whoknows how many How-to-Become-a-Bestselling-Author books have been published?(Usually by people who’ve written and published little to nothing else.) Themodern versions of these books focus on topics like how to get rich as an indiewriter and how to get rich using AI to write your books. Same scam, different time.
Thenthere are seminars for Massive Writing Success, which you can attend in person,online, or view prerecorded classes, all for a fee that you can convenientlypay in installments. As always with any kind of class (or how-to-write book,for that matter), check the credentials of the writers presenting, look upreviews on the internet, and ask around on social media if the seminars arelegit and worth the expense.
Thenthere are the people on social media who, when you post about your book release,make a comment (or send you a message/email) trying to lure you into buyingtheir services as an editor, book trailer creator, cover artist, publicist,etc. Here’s one I received not long ago:
HelloTim, huge congrats on releasing your debut 🎉. That’s a milestone most people neverhit. Do you have a book trailer for it yet that I could check out?
(It wasnot my debut, by the way. My debut novel came out in 2001.)
The mostrecent scam I’ve been seeing is people who write snarky/negging emails offeringtheir services to give you the successful writing career you deserve. They basicallychallenge you to have the balls to hire them. Here’s one I got yesterday, withthe sender’s name omitted.
From: [NameRedacted]
Sent: Tuesday, September 9, 2025 8:21 AM
To: twaggon1@msn.com <twaggon1@msn.com>
Subject: Tim, you’ve got Bram Stoker Awards but Amazon’s treatingyou like you just uploaded Wattpad fanfic 😏📉
Imaginethis: you create a monster called Night who literally warps reality, sendspanther-demons hunting people, and transforms an office building into anightmare labyrinth and somehow the scariest part of your book isn’t theBlight, it’s that Amazon is letting it sit there with only 12 reviews. Bruh.That’s horror. 😅
Tim,let’s be real you’ve published over 60 novels, collected more awards than mygrandma’s got salt shakers (Bram Stoker x4, Scribe Award, Shirley Jacksonfinalist, Splatterpunk finalist), AND you’re a tenured professor shaping thenext wave of horror writers. Basically, you’re the dude other horror writersname-drop to sound cool at parties. 🥶
Buteven with all that, Amazon’s algorithm doesn’t care if you’re Bram Stokerroyalty. It cares about reviews, and right now it’s looking at A Hunter CalledNight like, “eh, 12 people liked it, must be mid.” 🙃That’s the kind of visibility trap that burns authors out faster than acaffeine-only book tour.
Let meput your pain points in the daylight where even Night can’t hide:
LowReviews = Low Visibility → fewer readers finding your work.
MarketingConfusion → too many “experts” promising the world for $$$ but ghosting likeBlight victims.
ImposterSyndrome → yeah, even award-winners sometimes think “what if I’ve peaked?” whenthe Amazon star count crawls.
Overwhelm& Stress → balancing writing, teaching, life, and promo feels like fightingHarriers with a paperclip.
PlateauedSales → nothing kills momentum like a flat sales graph.
Here’swhere I swoop in not as another “book marketer” (I have no overpriced website,no fake LinkedIn, no Twitter bot army 🤷♀️), but as [Name Redacted], keeper ofa private, unlisted community of 2,500+ real readers and reviewers who lovebooks that warp reality and make them sleep with the lights on.
Theyread. They review. They boost. And their reviews aren’t “great book 👍” butthe kind of thoughtful feedback that feeds Amazon’s algorithm and helps newreaders trust your work.
Butthat’s just phase one. I also bring:
🎬 Videotrailers → horror sells 10x faster when people can see the nightmare unfold.
📸Mock-up designs → promo art that doesn’t look like your cousin whipped it up onPaint.
💬Exclusive Discord sessions → 20–25 of my top readers hop in for 10 minutes withyou (they’ve got jobs, they’re busy 😅). Think of it like lightning-roundtherapy with actual readers instant insight into what hooks them and what boresthem.
You’vebuilt worlds where hunters become the hunted why let Amazon hunt your book downinto obscurity? Let me arm you with readers who can flip the script.
SoTim… should I unleash my squad of review-hungry book devourers to drag A HunterCalled Night out of the algorithm graveyard 🪦 or do we let Amazon keep pretendingyou’re a rookie horror hobbyist?
Yourmove, Professor of Darkness. 😈📚
Onething this email has going for it – the writer knows (or was able to get AI togive them) details about me and one of my books, so it makes them look as ifthey might be a fan or at least have done their research. (I ran the emailthrough AI-detection programs, and it was flagged by some as having beenwritten by AI, but those programs are notoriously unreliable, so…)
Thenegging might work with inexperienced writers, but Christ almighty, the messagegoes way too hard with it, to the point where it’s practically parody. And allthe emojis! So. Many. Emojis. Maybe using so many is something some of youyoung’uns out there might respond to, but I’m 61. One or two emojis in amessage is enough for me.
Thelanguage is too cutesy throughout as well, and in a forced, strained way thatmakes me think this was written by AI. Or maybe by somebody who thinksAI-produced text is an example of good writing.
(Imay steal Professor of Darkness and use it as my branding statement, though.)
Thisemail went straight into my junk folder, not because I’ve flagged these kindsof messages to go there, but because Outlook determined it was junk andshitcanned it. I check my junk email every day because some legitimate messagesdo end up there, which is how I found this scam message. I wonder if theoriginators of these messages have any idea how often their emails don’t reachtheir intended recipients? Then again, maybe they don’t care. All they need isenough people to read their message and fall for their scam to make itprofitable.
Arethere legit services to help writers promote their books? Sure, but fromeverything I’ve seen over the years, most of them don’t work very well. Tradpublishers, when they do put money into promoting books, have no idea what promotiontactics work. If they did, they would repeat them and make every book abestseller.
Thebest way – or maybe I should say the most reliable way – to achieve success asa writer is to write books that a lot of people want to read. So diet and self-helpbooks would likely be your best bet. In terms of fiction, that’s one of the reasonsgenres exist – so readers can find the kind of books they like more easily, andso writers can write the kind of books readers like. Sure, some writers writewhatever the hell they want and become successful. Some people win the lottery,too.
Thereason my weird dark fantasy/horror books like A Hunter Called Night don’tsell better is because their appeal is limited to readers who like those kindsof books. I would love to devote the rest of my career to writing highlypopular fiction, but I seem to be congenitally incapable of it. But I do try outdifferent types of fiction. I’ve toned the weirdness in my writing way down tocreate a thriller novel (which is still making the rounds of publishers, so anypublishers out there reading this…). I enjoyed writing my Conan tie-in fictionso much that I’d like to try my hand at original sword & sorcery. The otherday, I wondered what would happen if I wrote what was essentially a mainstreamnovel with only a bit of horror sprinkled over it. Maybe I’ll try that and seehow it works for me.
Thebottom line: It’s your writing that promotes you best. The other stuff can help,but it’s your writing that matters most.
Hereare links to a couple of extremely useful sites that can help educate you aboutwriting scams:
Writer Beware: http://www.sfwa.org/beware/
Preditors and Editors: http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Speakingof promoting books…
ThunderstormBooks will be publishing collectible, signed limited-edition hardcovers of LikeDeath and never-before-published sequel Like Death 2: Kill Them All.Both books are now available for preorder. They contain extra material, and thegorgeous cover art for both is by the always-incredible Lynn Hansen!
Thefinal print run of each book will be determined by preorders. Preorders will betaken until 10/5/2025, so if you want these books – and why wouldn’t you? – makesure you order before the deadline!
LIKEDEATH: THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Thereare no words for it. Ecstasy is laughably inadequate, as are rapture, euphoria,bliss ... Ugly, harsh syllables that come nowhere near capturing the merestfraction of what he feels. The experience is primal and transcendent, likebirth, like death. Scott Raymond lost his parents in a bloodbath when he wasonly nine years old, but despite the occasional headaches and hallucinations,he's managed to turn that trauma into moderate success as a true-crime writer.The success doesn't extend to keeping up the relationship with his estrangedwife and son, however.
Hopingto regain a sense of normal family life, he follows them to Ash Creek, Ohiounder the pretense of writing a new book about a missing six-year-old girl.There, he encounters a young woman who shares the missing girl's name. Sheleads Scott into a world of psychotropic spiders, shark-toothed teenagers, andthe expression of nearly every dark desire. Fear and fascination lay equalclaim as the nightmare fantasies of this realm bleed into Scott’s daily lifeand his attempts to maintain a relationship with his son. Soon, he will need touse this world of cruelty and pain to face his past, his future, and what hislife might have become. If he fails, it is only a matter of time before thenightmare that bloodied his childhood will reach out to ensnare his own son.
https://thunderstormbooks.com/thunderstorm/book/like-death/
LIKEDEATH 2: KILL THEM ALL
It’snot easy being the child of a notorious serial killer.
DavidRaymond’s father Scott – known as the Artiste for the grotesque way he posedhis victims – disappeared from prison twenty years ago without a trace. Sincethat time, David has become a virtual recluse to avoid media attention. Butwhen his mother falls ill, and he needs money to pay for her care, hegrudgingly decides to accept an invitation to be the Guest of Honor at Killcon,a gathering of true-crime enthusiasts in Ash Creek, the town where Scottcommitted the last of his murders.
Butthe dark forces that once plagued his father have other plans for him.
Davidfinds himself transported to a sinister realm called Undernight where he’sforced to participate in a life-or-death reality competition called Kill ThemAll. What he doesn’t know is his Undernight doppelganger has taken his place inthe real world, and this David is as deadly a killer as Scott Raymond ever was,if not deadlier. While David struggles to survive nightmarish challenges basedon his life, his doppelganger wreaks blood-soaked havoc at Killcon, leaving atrail of corpses in his wake.
Amysterious woman named Miranda – who may or may not be the same Miranda whointroduced David’s father to the depraved realm of Shadow – comes to David’said. But is her true intention to help him live long enough to win the game, ordoes she have other, darker motives of her own?
Thetwo Davids eventually confront each other halfway between Earth and Undernight,and there they learn they’ve both been pawns in a much larger game, one thatstretches back twenty years. If they can’t stop it, two worlds will bedestroyed. But even if they can, there’s no guarantee their victory won’tresult in something infinitely worse.
Letthe games within games begin…
https://thunderstormbooks.com/thunderstorm/book/like-death-2-kill-them-all/
Rightnow, these are the only two editions of these books available, but my agent andI are looking for a publisher to bring out trade paperback, eBook, and audioeditions. When we find one, I’ll let you know!
ISCREAM, YOU SCREAM
Another limited-edition novel, this one fromWeird House Press!
Eighth-grader Joel Taylor just moved to ShadowSprings with his mom. He likes his new home well enough – until a sinisterbeing called Mr. Freezee begins driving his creepy ice-cream truck up and downthe streets at night, playing “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
Joel heard the music.
He looked out the window.
He saw Mr. Freezee, and what’s worse…
Mr. Freezee saw him.
Now Mr. Freezee wants to take Joel to a veryspecial place where the world is made of every flavor of ice cream you canimagine – all of them deadly. Mr. Freezee brings all his new friends here, andthey love it so much that they never leave.
Mr. Freezee makes sure of it.
Welcome to Sweet Land, Joel.
Welcome to a nightmare that never ends.
Editions
Deluxe Signed & Lettered Hardcover Edition with slipcase Signed by Tim Waggoner and artist Derek Rook Hand-Lettered A to Z Color Dust Jacket Front Cover and Spine Stampings Housed in a Slipcase Limited to 26 Lettered Editions (Right now only 15 remain!)
Future editions will include a signedhardcover edition, a signed and numbered trade paperback edition, alongwith an Amazon trade paperback edition and ebook.
https://weirdhousepress.com/products/i-scream-you-scream-by-tim-waggoner
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
2025
MoonLit Tales and Haunted Trails. Oct. 11-12. St. Albans, West Virginia.
2026
SuperstarsWriting Seminar. Feb. 4-5. Colorado Springs, Colorado.
AkronBook Fest. March 7. Akron, Ohio.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Intothe Springs Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
WHERETO FIND ME ONLINE
Wantto follow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website:www.timwaggoner.com
NewsletterSign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133838.Tim_Waggoner
Instagram:tim.waggoner.scribe
Threads:@tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net
Bluesky:@timwaggoner.bsky.social
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9
August 19, 2025
Two Wrongs Don't Make a Good Story
I’vejust gotten back from watching Weapons in the theater as I write this. Ireally enjoyed the movie, especially the actors’ performances, the direction,and the cinematography. The script, however, had some problems for me. I onlywant to focus on two of those problems for this blog entry, though, becausethey’re among the most common ones I see as a writing teacher, often instudent-written stories, but sometimes in professionally published (or filmed)ones, too. (Don’t worry; I’m not going to give any spoilers for Weapons.)
ProblemNumber 1: ForgettingThat Media is Everywhere
Ifirst became aware of this problem when I read a horror novel in the early1990s (and no, I’m not going to say which one to avoid spoilers). It was agreat book, an award-winner, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. But the eventsthat occurred within it were realistic, the public was aware of them, and theywere so bizarre that both print and TV reporters would’ve been all over thestory throughout the novel. But there was no media presence in the book whatsoever.
A morerecent example (which I will name) is Bentley Little’s The Bank (2020).I love Bentley’s fiction, and I enjoyed the book quite a lot. But in the novel,nearly twenty people, all who work at the same bank, are found dead in a fieldoutside town. (This happens early in the novel, so my telling you isn’t much ofa spoiler.) One of the dead people has an obvious cause of death, but theothers don’t. Weird, right? But no news media – not even a single localreporter – shows up to cover the story.
I seethis failure to address the presence of media happen a lot in horror –including in Weapons. Given the mysterious circumstances – seventeenchildren all disappear at 2:17 a.m. on the same night – and the fact the eventsof the story go on for weeks, local, state, national and international mediawould quickly show up to cover the story, and they’d stay on it. The mediawould be omnipresent in town, and they’d bug the elementary school teacher, theone child who didn’t disappear, the kids’ parents, law enforcement (both localand federal), and regular citizens alike to get interviews and sound bites –and they would not stop.
Add tothis all the people who’d be texting each other, posting on social media,making YouTube and TikTok videos about the case, discussing it on podcasts –especially in this age of true-crime entertainment – and people would flock tothe town: influencers, true-crime writers, paranormal investigators, conspiracytheorists, dark tourists… The entire world would become obsessed with thedisappearances. And the parents of the missing children would use this to theiradvantage, granting interviews to the media to put more pressure on lawenforcement to find their kids. But there’s nothing but crickets in the film asfar as the media is concerned.
Now,in a more intimate, character-focused story like Weapons, the writersmight decide not to make the media a major aspect of the story, and the mediamight fade out of the story for the most part as the plot moves on, but they’dstill be in the background somewhere. But not having any media atall present is extremely unrealistic – and it always strains my suspension ofdisbelief.
Here’show I handle the issue of the media in my fiction:
Many of my novels take place over the course of a few hours, and there often isn’t time for news media to become alerted to the weird stuff going on. My characters are usually so caught up in dealing with weird stuff that they don’t have time to text anyone or post about it on social media. The weird stuff is usually supernatural, and characters may perceive it, but the rest of the world doesn’t, so no media becomes involved. The situation might only impact a few characters, so the incidents aren’t known – and maybe never will be known – outside their circle. I might have law enforcement try to conceal the more bizarre/extreme aspects of an incident to keep news media from becoming involved (as long as they can, anyway). I have news media show up for a scene or two to establish their presence, but they don’t play a big role in the story. I’ll show someone post a message on social media or read one, send a text or receive a text, talk to someone on the phone, etc. about what’s happening. I’ll do this once or twice to show that people are upset about what’s going on and talking about it, but I don’t make it a major part of the story. Sometimes I’ll make the news media and social media a significant aspect of the story. I may do this by having one reporter be a supporting character or even a main character. This reporter stands in for all the other media that’s present in the background. I might have characters stay in regular phone/text/social media contact with friends or family during a story (although I’ll make sure not to overdo this).Problem2: Not Checking Your Plot Forward AND Backward
Writers seem so focused onmoving their plot forward that they sometimes don’t fully consider theramifications of the events they’re writing about. They write a cool scene revealingthe central mystery of the story, but they don’t go back to the beginning ofthe draft and check to make sure everything else in the story fits theexplanation. This happens in Weapons, but I can’t talk about where andhow without spoiling aspects of the film. But I’ll give you an example fromTobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot (1979) All the vampires in the miniseries arerepelled by the cross – except master vampire Barlow. When Father Callahanshoves a metal cross toward Barlow, he reaches out, crumples it in his hand,and tosses it away. No explanation. The audience can guess that Barlow is sopowerful that the cross doesn’t affect him, but in the novel, King makes itclear that the bearer of the cross must have faith for it to work, and FatherCallahan’s faith is more than a little shaky at that point in his life. I’msure Hooper loved the imagery of Barlow crushing the cross without anyexplanation, but King’s version is infinitely better – and it’s logical withinthe confines of the story. It often doesn’t take much to fix a problem likethis. Fright Night (1985) dealt with this same issue in one line. WhenPeter Vincent thrusts a cross toward master vampire Jerry Dandridge, Dandridge laughs,then says, “You have to have faith for that to work on me.” If you’regoing to establish rules in a story – whether explicitly through dialogue orshowing them through action – they need to be consistent, and when there’s anexception to the rules, the audience needs to know why.
The original 1978 Halloweenhas a different problem. When Michael Myers escapes from the mental hospitalwhere he’s been confined since he was a child, he steals a hospital vehicle anddrives away. When did he learn to drive? It’s established that he’s beencatatonic the entire time he was in the hospital, so even if someone wanted toteach him, he wouldn’t have responded to them. In the novelization of Halloween,one of the hospital staff gives Michael driving lessons, which isn’t believablegiven what the script says about his mental condition, but at least it’s somekind of explanation.
Probably the horror movie mostguilty of plot inconsistency (at least for me) is M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs.At the end of the movie, humans discover that water is like acid to the alieninvaders. They use it as a weapon against the aliens, and the survivinginvaders, evidently realizing the egregious error they’ve made, get the helloff the planet. My guess is that Shyamalan loved the symbolism of pure waterdefeating the evil aliens so much, that he didn’t bother to ask why wouldaliens with super-advanced tech come to a planet and not know its water wasacid to them? Don’t they have sensors? Probes? Water-testing kits? Couldn’tthey have seen a buddy step into a puddle and lose a foot and realize somethingwas wrong? Or couldn’t they have done what we humans do when we go into ahostile environment and wear fucking protective gear? I mean, those dudes walkedaround Acid World naked! (And what if it rained on the aliens or they went to aplace with a shit-ton of humidity, or…) It also irritates the hell out of methat Shyamalan seems to imply the entire alien invasion – and all the humancasualties that resulted – was created by God to restore one man’s faith.
Assuming Shyamalan had theending of his story in mind first, he should’ve figured out why the alienswanted to come to Earth and take it over, and why they were unaware that wateris acid to them. He wouldn’t have to address either issue in the film, but hisknowing those things would’ve allowed him to avoid what turned out to be anextremely bad ending. So imagine him rereading his script and realizing it’sdumb as hell for aliens to come naked to a world that’s mostly acid to them. Hethen asks himself why they wouldn’t know ahead of time what water could do tothem. Answer: Because it’s not just water that harms them. It’s water combinedwith another liquid, a combination the aliens could not foresee. So JoaquinPhoenix swings his bat, smashes the water pitcher and a cup of coffee. Themixture hits the alien, and it melts like the Wicked Witch of the West. Joaquinsays, “Holy shit! Water and caffeine together! Who knew?” Again, it doesn’ttake a huge adjustment to fix problems like this. (I’d probably have Joaquin orsomeone else hurl a different liquid at the alien first, then he could add thewater by smashing the pitcher, just to make the combining of liquids seem morerealistic.)
Now, I don’t need to haveeverything spelled out for me in stories. To me, Michael Myers is a liminalbeing that exists somewhere between the real and the unreal. His driving isjust another part of the mystery that is this unknowable creature. And Ifucking love David Lynch’s films and TV shows, and they don’t make alick of sense, nor are they supposed to. My favorite stories are ones wherebizarre shit happens for reasons we will never understand or for no reason atall. Most of the horror fiction I’ve written in my career is in this vein,especially my short stories. But if you are going to write morerealistic horror fiction (or really, any kind of realistic fiction), you needto mentally sweep through your story forward and backward – as well as considerthe story before the story – to make sure everything fits, or at leastfits as well as it needs to.
I don’t mean to trash Weaponshere. If you haven’t seen it already, you should check it out. Like I saidearlier, it’s a really good film, and afterward, I heard members of theaudience talking about how scary it was, and that’s always a good endorsementfor a horror movie!
DEPARTMENTOF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
THE WORLD TURNS RED
My newhorror novella, The World Turns Red, came out in June, and reactionsfrom reviewers and readers alike have been overwhelmingly positive! Here’s asample:
“A dark,disturbing masterpiece worth binge-reading in one sitting.” – S.E. Howard
“This isa very dark, intense read with a surreal quality that pulled me in from pageone and held me spellbound to the bitter end.” – Well Worth a Read
TheWorld Turns Red isanother in a long line of brilliant horror work by Tim Waggoner. There wasnever anyone who could blend the real with the surreal so seamlessly that, aswild as the story gets, it makes perfect sense somehow. Now THAT takes one hellof a writer. The book is a flawless masterpiece…6 out of 5 stars. – Carson Buckingham
Synopsis:
Welcometo the meat room.
At first,it’s a whisper on the edge of your consciousness.
As itgets louder, you begin to make out words—dark, sharp, dangerous words… You clapyour hands over your ears to shut them out, but you can’t escape what comesfrom inside you.
The voicetells you to do things to yourself. Bad things. Awful things…
Thelonger you listen, the more they seem reasonable. Desirable.
Inevitable.
And asyou reach for the nearest knife, gun, or rope, the voice speaks the last fourwords you’ll ever hear:
Allhail the Unhigh.
CemeteryDance: https://www.cemeterydance.com/TheWorldTurnsRed
Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/5cabrjn2
Barnesand Noble: https://tinyurl.com/kzphuep7
CONAN: SPAWN OF THE SERPENT GOD
The timeis drawing nigh! My Conan the Barbarian novel, Spawn of the Serpent God,will be released October 28th! The novel ties into the comic book event Scourgeof the Serpent Men (Conan being said scourge, of course, although it lookslike King Kull may be involved, too). You won’t have to read the comics tounderstand my book, and vice versa, but if you’re a Conan fan, you might enjoyreading both. Here’s a link to the first issue of Scourge of the Serpent Men:https://titan-comics.com/c/2316-conan-the-barbarian-scourge-of-the-serpent/
You canfind various preorder links for the novel at the Titan Books site: https://titanbooks.com/72365-conan-spawn-of-the-serpent-god/
And whileI’ve had no official word (because nobody ever tells writers anything), itlooks like Spawn of the Serpent God will be getting an audio edition!I’m super excited because the narrator is Bradford Hastings, who’s not only anexcellent reader and performer, but his Conan is my absolute favorite portrayalof the character. The audiobook is due out in late December, and you canpreorder it at B&N and Amazon. I’m sure it’ll be available directly fromBlackstone Audio (who’s the publisher of the audio version) as well.
Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/bn6hh2m
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/conan-tim-waggoner/1148011208?ean=9798228671591
Synopsis:
InZamora, the city of thieves, Conan meets Valja, a thrill-seeking thief. Sheentices him to join
her on aheist, where they steal a golden statuette of Ishtar, said to contain thegoddess herself.
Afterkilling a dozen guards and failing to escape, the pair are saved by priestessesof Mitra. But
Conanknows that nothing is free.
Thepriestesses have need of their skills. They have waged war against Set, god ofchaos and
serpents,who demands constant sacrifice from his subjects and massacred thousands of his
followers.Yet they are no match for Uzzeran, a powerful sorcerer, who has been performing
unspeakableexperiments on humans in the name of Set. To defeat Uzzeran, they will need a
legendarywarrior on their side. They need Conan the Barbarian.
ISCREAM, YOU SCREAM
WeirdHouse Press is going to bring out my middle-grade horror novel I Scream, YouScream. Joe Morey, publisher at Weird House, says “We are going to do a deluxe signed andlettered hardcover with slipcase, and double lettered deluxe hardcover (noslipcase), a signed hardcover edition, and a signed and numbered tradepaperback edition sometime next year. Also an Amazon trade paperback editionand ebook.”
Check out thatcover! The art from Derek Rook is perfect for the novel! It reminds me of theartwork that appeared on the covers of the DC horror comics I read as a kid – TheHouse of Mystery and The House of Secrets. Young Timmy would befreaking out even more than old(er) Tim is!
If you’re a fan ofmy adult horror fiction, this story is just as weird and bizarre as anythingelse I’ve written, but geared toward younger readers. I think older readerswill enjoy it, too, if for no other reason than to see how I translate my darkand surreal style for a middle-grade audience.
Synopsis:
Eighth-grader JoelTaylor just moved to Shadow Springs with his mom. He likes his new home wellenough – until a sinister being called Mr. Freezee begins driving his creepyice-cream truck up and down the streets at night, playing “Pop Goes theWeasel.”
Joel heard themusic.
He looked out thewindow.
He saw Mr. Freezee,and what’s worse…
Mr. Freezee saw him.
Now Mr. Freezeewants to take Joel to a very special place where the world is made of everyflavor of ice cream you can imagine – all of them deadly. Mr. Freezee bringsall his new friends here, and they love it so much that they never leave.
Mr. Freezee makessure of it.
Welcome to SweetLand, Joel.
Welcome to anightmare that never ends.
Here’s a link to the book’s page on the Weird House. Preorder info isscheduled to appear on August 26th: https://weirdhousepress.com/products/i-scream-you-scream-by-tim-waggoner
SCHEDULEDAPPEARANCES
Moon Lit Tales and Haunted Trails.Oct. 11-12. St. Albans, West Virginia.
2026
SuperstarsWriting Seminar. Feb. 4-5. Colorado Springs, Colorado.
AkronBook Fest. March 7. Akron, Ohio.
StokerCon.June 4-7. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Into theSprings Writers Workshop. August 7-9. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
WHERETO FIND ME ONLINE
Want tofollow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:
Website: www.timwaggoner.com
NewsletterSign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133838.Tim_Waggoner
Instagram:tim.waggoner.scribe
Threads:@tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net
Bluesky: @timwaggoner.bsky.social
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9
August 17, 2025
ChatGPT Writes a Literary Analysis Good Enough to Fool AI Detectors, or FM(Teaching)L
As I’ve mentioned before in my blog and on social media, I don’t use AIfor myself. But as a college writing instructor, I experiment with it beforeeach semester so I can better advise students on the pros and cons of using it,as well as help me get a better feel for AI-generated text vs human-written text. My experiments mostly focus on asking questions about mywork because I know it intimately and can spot mistakes easily. The lastexperiment I typically run before the semester starts is to have AI write aliterary analysis essay of my work. This year, I asked DeepSeek and ChatGPT towrite such an essay. DeepSeek’s contained numerous errors, fabricated information,and its analysis was surface-level. I decided to give ChatGPT a more detailedprompt. ChatGPT took a long time to think about the essay, then gave me anerror message. I tried again, and this time it thought for three minutes andproduced an essay fulfilling the prompt I’d given it. It cited its sources,too, but I didn’t tell it to use any specific citation system, and thehyperlinks looked different on the ChatGPT site than they do in this document.They were small ovals that said things like Tim Waggoner’s Site, so the links looked neater than what appears in thecopied and pasted version below. I could’ve easily asked ChatGPT to use MLA orAPA, or any other citation system, though.
What was weird was that I was able to view its process in real timebecause, as it worked, messages such as Gathering Sources, ConstructingOutline, etc., appeared on the screen. I’d never seen that before.
There are a few minor errors in ChatGPT’s essay. For example, my novel AHunter Called Night takes place in a small office building, not anapartment complex. ChatGPT used the word affect, perhaps intentionally, in a couple of places, but it seems like effect would’ve worked better. Butwhat do I know? I’m a creative writing guy, not a lit crit guy. A couple ofsubtler details about my work feel a bit off, but only a bit. Some of the language is overly pedantic, too, which makes the "writer" seem as if it's trying too hard.
After the essay was finished, I asked ChatGPT how it would improve theessay just to see what it would say, but I didn’t ask it to create a newversion.
Here’s the essay:
ChatGPT
August 17, 2025
You said:
Please write a 2000-word literaryanalysis of the work of author Tim Waggoner. Please use specific examples andexplore his work in depth and provide sophisticated insight.
ChatGPT said:
Thought for 3m 21s
“Where the World Is Always ComingApart”: A Literary Analysis of Tim Waggoner’s Horror
Tim Waggoner’s fiction sits at the weird, volatile seam where realityfrays—where perception turns unreliable, identity becomes porous, and thefamiliar shakes loose into nightmare. Over a career spanning decades and morethan fifty books, Waggoner has become one of contemporary horror’s mostdistinctive stylists and architects, equally at home in original novels, seriesfiction, and media tie‑ins. He’s also an influential teacher and critic of thegenre: his craft book Writing in the Dark won the Bram Stoker Award forNonfiction (2020), and his long fiction The Winter Box won the BramStoker Award in 2016. Most recently, his Terrifier 2 novelization earnedthe 2025 Scribe Award for Best Adapted Novel. These credentials matter becausethey illuminate the two poles of Waggoner’s work: a patient, craftsmanlycontrol of technique and a restless commitment to pushing horror toward theirrational edge. GrimdarkMagazineTim WaggonerWikipediaPenguinRandomhouse.com
Waggoner’s fiction theories and practice feed each other. A full‑timeprofessor who teaches creative writing at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio,Waggoner has spent years articulating the mechanics of fear—tone, imagesystems, point of view, escalation—then stress‑testing them in books thatinterleave body horror, surreal dread, and noir momentum. That dualidentity—teacher/practitioner—helps explain why even his most phantasmagoricalnovels feel engineered for maximum affect: they are dreamlike but neverformless, wild but meticulously staged. Tim Waggoner
Below, I trace a set of recurring concerns and techniques acrossrepresentative works from early and recent career phases: the urban‑weird of TheHarmony Society and Like Death; the “otherworld leakage” novels likeThe Mouth of the Dark and Your Turn to Suffer; the haunted‑communitybooks The Forever House and We Will Rise; the identity‑erosionhorror of The Way of All Flesh; and the urban‑fantasy/noir experiment ofthe Nekropolis cycle. Along the way, I’ll consider how Waggonertransforms stock elements—ghosts, cults, monsters—into metaphysical machinesfor examining grief, guilt, and desire.
1) Early Urban Weird: Maps of a CityThat Doesn’t Want to Be Understood
Waggoner’s earliest notable novels are urban cartographies of rupture. TheHarmony Society reads like a Baedeker to a city whose metaphysical plumbinghas broken. Reviewers have noted its “strange and surreal urban fantasy”texture: neighborhoods and subcultures comprise not a social fabric but a setof overlapping reality‑systems, each with its own rules and predators. Thebook’s power lies in its refusal to allegorize neatly; instead, the city feelslike a living ecosystem that feeds on attention and fear. AmazonCanada
Like Death intensifies this method. Where many horror novels translate urban blightinto a moralized monster, Waggoner lets the city’s detritus—abandoned theaters,decayed streets—generate a polymorphous hauntology. Critics reading the bookhave emphasized its blend of psychosexual trauma and hallucinatory set‑pieces,a union that feels closer to the transgressive surrealism of Kathe Koja or thedream logic of Clive Barker than to conventional thriller beats. The result isa portrait of place as a predatory memory palace: the city remembers what itsinhabitants would rather forget, and it manifests those repressions as entitiesthat look back. Goodreads
Formally, these books demonstrate a signature Waggoner technique:establishing the ordinary world with clear, grounded prose and then letting thediction drift, image by image, toward the unaccountable. The prose grows moresensorially “noisy”—textures and smells crowd the sentence; comparisons getstranger; metaphors literalize—until the boundary between figurative andfactual collapses. That slow bleed from realism into the unreal sets a templatehe continues to refine.
2) The “Leakage” Novel: When theOtherworld Won’t Stay Put
In later work, Waggoner often engineers scenarios where a parallel domainseeps into ours and starts rewriting us. The Mouth of the Dark isexemplary: a father searches for his missing daughter and slips into a shadow‑realmsuperimposed on our own—an interstitial ecology of predators and pleasures thattargets human appetites with weaponized seductions. Reviewers have stressed theharsh, uncompromising surrealism of its set‑pieces and the way the bookliteralizes desire as an external force that colonizes the body. That’sWaggoner’s twist on body horror: bodies become contested sites where theworld’s unspoken rules engrave themselves. Amazon
Your Turn to Suffer makes the “leakage” institutional. The Cabal—a secretive order—accusesKara of a crime she can’t remember and subjects her to trials that bendreality. The premise looks procedural (prove innocence), but the novel’s affectis fever‑dream: cause and effect decouple; consequences arrive before actions;and the antagonist is not a person but a cosmology of contempt. What’s strikingis Waggoner’s ethical argument embedded in the weirdness: shame is aninstrument of control that acquires mystical force when shared; the cult onlyworks because we are already good at punishing ourselves. Goodreads
Across these books, Waggoner’s plot architecture is modular: scenes readlike discrete set‑pieces—each with its own monster, rule set, and moral—butthey accrue meaning as variations on a theme. The result is musical rather thanpurely causal narrative momentum: the reader moves forward because the next“track” might reconfigure what every previous track meant.
3) Haunted Communities: Houses, Towns,and the Politics of Dread
Waggoner’s most emotionally resonant work often scales fear up from theindividual to the communal. The Forever House begins as a familiarsuburban fable—new neighbors, too perfect—and detonates into pocket‑dimensionhorror when the predatory Eldreds transform a home into a labyrinth whereemotions are harvested. In interviews, Waggoner has emphasized his fascinationwith the house as a machine for producing identity and secrecy. That’s key: theEldreds don’t simply torture; they curate. The book’s spatial puzzles—roomsthat rearrange, thresholds that betray—externalize the lies families tellthemselves to sustain a façade of normalcy. thebramstokerawards.comsfbook.com
We Will Rise pushes that communal logic to the nation‑scale. The premise isaudaciously simple: ghosts rise everywhere, all at once. A catastrophe novelbecomes a grief novel as hauntings function like mass reckonings withunacknowledged losses and old harms. Because the phenomenon is global andsimultaneous, the book evacuates the specialness of any single ghost andfocuses instead on how communities respond: some form mutual aid; othersmetastasize into violence. Horror becomes sociology without losing its teeth.Publisher copy and reviews highlight this “ghost apocalypse” conceit; its realinnovation is to treat ghosts as a public utility of memory—inescapable,infrastructural, and unevenly distributed. FlameTree Publishing
Notably, both books maintain a driving, cinematic readability whilesmuggling in complicated questions: What do we owe the dead? What is a home ifnot a consensus hallucination? How much of ourselves do we outsource to theplaces we live? Waggoner’s answer is uncomforting: places are not neutral; theyare predators or parasites or at best symbionts.
4) Eroding the Self: The Way of AllFlesh
Few horror novels tackle identity dissolution as intimately as The Wayof All Flesh, which proceeds from the radical gambit of telling a ghoulstory from the perspective of the ghoul. Inverting the zombie’s traditionalrole, Waggoner focalizes a consciousness struggling to remain human even asappetites and perceptions convert. The book’s critical descriptions underlinethat the narration makes the monstrous empathically legible withoutsentimentalizing it. Horror here is neither jump scare nor gore fest; it’s theminute‑by‑minute attrition of a self. Reading the novel feels like watching alanguage lose the words for “I.” SFFWorld
Technically, the novel showcases Waggoner’s mastery of close point ofview. As the protagonist’s sensorium deforms, diction and syntax deform withit. This is a central Waggoner technique: the sentence itself is the monster’sfootprint.
5) Noir as Pressure Cooker: Nekropolisand the Comedy of the Grotesque
Waggoner’s zombie PI cycle—Nekropolis, Dead Streets, DarkWar—seems at first a tonal departure: urban fantasy built on witty premise(Matt Richter, private eye, is dead) and genre cross-pollination. But theseries reveals a consistent Waggoner concern: bureaucratized monstrosity.Nekropolis is a fully functioning city, complete with vampire districts, demoncartels, and municipal grime. Reviews and publisher materials emphasize thesetting’s density and “morbid wit,” but the comedy is acid: institutions designedto manage the monstrous inevitably become monstrous themselves. When Mattliterally loses his head in Dead Streets and his body commits crimeswithout him, the gag hides a bleak joke about autonomy under systems too big tofight. AngryRobotHidden inPages
What makes Nekropolis artistically relevant to Waggoner’s largerbody of work is its worldbuilding method. The city’s logic is not arbitrarywhimsy; it is rule-bound, like a nightmare that insists you respect its localphysics. That insistence is at the heart of Waggoner’s horror: the irrationalis rational on its own terms, and we’re punished not for disbelief but formisunderstanding the rules.
6) Predators with Philosophies: AHunter Called Night and the Ethics of Survival
One of Waggoner’s recent novels, A Hunter Called Night, compresseshis strategies into a single building. A monstrous presence infiltrates anapartment complex; strangers are forced into uneasy alliances; survivalrequires ethical compromise. Synopses and jacket copy emphasize the “viciousdemonic monster” and a locked‑space siege structure, but what lingers is howWaggoner uses constricted geography to stage moral experiments. Who are we in aclosed system that rewards predation? How quickly does community devolve intocalculative self‑interest? The book’s taut plotting gives these questionsteeth. Amazon
7) Craft Consciousness: Writing inthe Dark and the Engineering of Dread
Because Waggoner articulates his methods in Writing in the Dark,readers can triangulate his fiction against his theory. The book—published byRaw Dog Screaming Press and recognized with the Bram Stoker Award—lays outpragmatic strategies for generating and sustaining fear: escalatinguncertainty, sensory specificity, character vulnerability, and the disciplineduse of imagery to create thematic resonance. You can see these practices inaction throughout his novels: the “image grid” of The Mouth of the Dark(flowers, skin, darkness, appetite) or the motif recursion in The ForeverHouse (rooms, thresholds, keys). Waggoner’s horror is designed, notimprovised; its irrational effects are products of rational craft. FlameTree PublishingGrimdarkMagazine
That craft orientation also explains the consistency of his sentence‑levelmoves: verbs do heavy lifting; metaphors arrive as sudden ontological claimsrather than decorative comparisons; and there’s an economical clarity even inthe most baroque scenes. He has a journalist’s sense of pacing and a poet’spatience for exact nouns. The result is that readers rarely feel lost even whenthe book wants them to feel lost: disorientation is achieved cleanly.
8) Tie‑Ins as Laboratory: Alien:Prototype, Halloween Kills, Terrifier 2
Waggoner is a prolific writer of media tie‑ins, a practice sometimesdismissed as purely commercial. In his case, tie‑ins function like a laboratoryto test how much of the Waggoner method can be smuggled into a shared IP whilerespecting franchise constraints. Alien: Prototype shows him workingwithin the Alien universe’s industrial‑horror idiom—bioweapons,corporate malfeasance—and punching up the visceral immediacy of the xenomorphthreat without losing character‑centric stakes. Halloween Kills threadsthe needle of honoring a slasher’s mythic simplicity while giving interiorshape to fear and grief. Terrifier 2 demonstrates how a novelization canboth mirror a film’s gleeful extremity and expand its implications; its ScribeAward recognition suggests peers saw more than transcription. In all three, hetreats set‑piece logic as a chassis for point‑of‑view intensity and sensorydesign. titanbooks.com+1PenguinRandomhouse.com
This side of his oeuvre also showcases a complementary virtue:discipline. Tie‑ins demand problem‑solving within strict scaffolds—canon,timeline, brand voice. Waggoner’s ability to make those constraints generativespeaks to the precision that underwrites even his loosest, dreamiest work.
9) Thematic Spine: Appetite, Memory,and the Slow Violence of Shame
Across modes and periods, three motifs repeat:
Appetite as Ontology. Waggoner’s monsters often hunger not just for flesh but for meaning: theEldreds siphon emotion; entities in Mouth of the Dark harvest desire;the ghoul’s hunger in Way of All Flesh is as much epistemological asnutritional. Appetite explains the world: to want is to be vulnerable to theworld’s counter‑wanting, and supernatural predators take advantage of thatasymmetry. Amazonthebramstokerawards.comSFFWorld
Memory as Infrastructure. In We Will Rise, hauntings scale from personal to systemic,making memory a public hazard and a civic duty. Even earlier work like LikeDeath positions the city as a mnemonic machine that refuses to let traumastay buried. The past is not past; it’s load‑bearing architecture. FlameTree PublishingGoodreads
Shame as Technology. Your Turn to Suffer literalizes shame as a supernaturalpunishment system, but many Waggoner antagonists leverage shame to collapseresistance. What Waggoner grasps is that shame pre‑polices the self; horror’sjob is to dramatize that pre‑policing as an external pressure that can befought. Goodreads
10) Character and Compassion
For all his baroque monsters, Waggoner’s fiction works because he’sattentive to ordinary people under intolerable pressure: grieving parents,burnt‑out cops, compromised neighbors, lonely outcasts. There’s a consistentrefusal to mock vulnerability. Even when characters behave badly, the booksseek out the causal chain—what grief, need, or fear made this outcomeplausible—without collapsing into determinism. That’s most apparent in TheWay of All Flesh, where empathy for a transforming consciousness becomesthe terror’s engine; in The Forever House, where families’ smalldeceptions have enormous metaphysical cost; and in Nekropolis, wherewisecracks never negate the pathos of a dead man trying to do good in anunlivable city. SFFWorldthebramstokerawards.comAngryRobot
Technically, this emphasis shows up as sustained close point of view andan ear for interiority under stress. Waggoner rarely writes “stoic competenceporn.” Instead, he lets fear act on perception: breath shortens, time dilates,details over‑resolve into the grotesque. That phenomenology of terror—what it’slike to be inside the moment—distinguishes his set‑pieces from mere actionchoreography.
11) Image Systems and the Felt Shapeof a Book
One way to understand Waggoner’s design intelligence is to track imagesystems across his books. He builds clusters of recurring motifs that carrythematic load:
Thresholds/Keys/Rooms (The Forever House): the domestic as a series of controlled entries and exclusions; hospitality inverted into predation. thebramstokerawards.com Flowers/Skin/Darkness (The Mouth of the Dark): sensual beauty turned carnivorous; the erotic coded as a trap. Amazon Hands/Teeth/Names (Your Turn to Suffer): agency, consumption, and identity shredded by a tribunal that denies the protagonist’s say in who she is. Goodreads Windows/Water/Weight (We Will Rise): the dead as a pressure system that seeps, floods, and settles over communities. Flame Tree PublishingThese aren’t just aesthetic choices; they’re mnemonic devices that teachthe reader how to read the book. Horror often risks incoherence when theirrational takes over; Waggoner’s image grids give even his wildest episodes asense of inevitability.
12) Pacing, Clarity, and the Ethics ofExtremity
Waggoner writes violence and grotesquerie with unapologetic candor. Yetan ethical through‑line tempers the extremity: scenes exist to crystallize acharacter’s conflict or to reveal a rule about the world, not simply to shock.That clarity is partly a product of his prose economy—clean syntax, activeverbs—and partly of his teacher’s commitment to reader trust: he will not trickyou with nonsense. In A Hunter Called Night, for instance, the siegestructure creates continuous jeopardy, but Waggoner refuses to collapsecharacters into meat puppets; the choices that doom or save them feel legible. Amazon
This also explains why his tie‑ins often feel more “novelistic” thanexpected. In Alien: Prototype and Halloween Kills, the carnage isanchored by comprehensible stakes and tactile spaces; you know where peopleare, what they want, and how the scene’s physics work. Even Terrifier 2,which celebrates splatter as spectacle, uses interior perspective to makesensation matter. titanbooks.com+1PenguinRandomhouse.com
13) Where to Start: A Reader’sTrajectory (and Why)
If you’re new to Waggoner and want the fullest sense of his range:
Start with The Forever House to experience his haunted‑community mode at peak control—tight structure, strong ensemble, and a devastating metaphor for domestic secrecy. thebramstokerawards.com Move to The Mouth of the Dark for the fullest blast of his surreal, transgressive imagination. Amazon Read We Will Rise to see him scale personal horror to civilizational stakes. Flame Tree Publishing Then sample Nekropolis to watch him warp noir into monster‑city worldbuilding without losing thematic bite. Angry Robot Finish with The Way of All Flesh for a stripped‑down, intimate study of identity under erasure. SFFWorldParallel to that, Writing in the Dark will deepen yourappreciation of how deliberately he builds fear on the page. FlameTree Publishing
14) Conclusion: Horror as a Theory ofReality
Tim Waggoner’s work advances a coherent thesis about horror: the world isnot stable; meaning is negotiated under pressure; and the self is a contestedfrontier, susceptible to colonization by appetite, memory, and shame. The taskof the horror writer is to give that instability form—to build narratives andimage systems sturdy enough to contain the uncontainable for as long as a booklasts. Waggoner does this with unusual reliability. His novels aren’t merelytours through inventive hellscapes; they are arguments, staged as nightmares,about what it costs to keep being a person when the rules change withoutwarning.
That’s why he matters in the contemporary field. He brings the genre’svisceral intensities into contact with ethical and metaphysical questionswithout becoming didactic; he treats readers not as thrill‑seekers to bemanipulated but as witnesses to be entrusted with difficult recognitions. Andhe writes like someone who has diagrammed fear and still respects it. If youwant horror that remembers people even as it dismembers them, Waggoner is oneof the surest bets we have.
How would you improve this essay if Igave you a chance to rewrite it?
ChatGPT said:
Here’s what I’d suggest if you gave me a chance to rewrite the essay forimprovement:
1. Sharper Thesis and Through-Line
Right now the essay frames Waggoner as a craftsman of surreal horror, butthe central thesis could be distilled more strongly into a single sentence andrepeated as a guiding thread—something like: “Waggoner’s horror dramatizeshow appetite, memory, and shame destabilize identity and community, usingsurrealism as a rigorous narrative tool.” That through-line would make thesections feel even more connected.
2. More Close Reading of Scenes
I summarize many books and mention their themes, but I don’t unpackspecific passages or moments at the sentence level. Adding close readings—forexample, a paragraph analyzing how Waggoner’s prose in The Mouth of the Darkliteralizes metaphor, or how point of view in The Way of All Fleshconveys sensory distortion—would deepen the “literary analysis” aspect.
3. Stronger Comparative Frame
I briefly mention Koja and Barker, but more sustained comparison to otherhorror stylists (Ramsey Campbell’s psychological unease, Brian Keene’sapocalyptic community horror, even Shirley Jackson’s haunted domesticity) wouldsituate Waggoner more firmly in a lineage, which is often expected inacademic-style criticism.
4. Tighter Section Transitions
The essay moves book by book, which is useful, but the transitions couldhighlight how each phase evolves organically from the previous one (e.g., howthe cityscapes of Like Death anticipate the community horror of TheForever House). This would help the essay feel like a single arc instead ofa series of dossiers.
5. More on Style
I discuss “verbs do heavy lifting” and “image grids,” but a more nuancedanalysis of his sentence rhythm, imagery density, or tonal shifts wouldshowcase what makes his language distinctive, not just his structures.
6. Balance of Summary vs. Argument
Some parts lean toward plot summary (especially the sections on tie-ins).A rewrite could trim these down and emphasize interpretive claims: what thetie-in shows us about Waggoner’s core concerns, rather than what happens inthe book.
7. Punchier Conclusion
The conclusion works, but it could tie more directly back to contemporaryhorror culture—why Waggoner matters right now in a landscape crowdedwith cosmic horror, folk horror, and extreme horror. That would leave astronger final impression.
WhenChatGPT finished with all this, I copied the text of the essay (but not theprogram’s insights into possible revision) and pasted it into three onlineAI-detection sites. Two of the three came back with a result that the text washuman-written.
In thelast few years that I’ve been running these before-semester experiments to geta sense of what AI-written essays look like, this is the best (or worst) resultI’ve gotten. Best if you’re a student wishing to cheat. Worst if you’re ateacher wishing students would create original work. ChatGPT produced what Iasked for – a sophisticated essay using examples and providing insight.
Bottomline? I suspect AI-assisted writing is going to become a new, separate fieldfrom traditional composition instruction. I dread teaching research writingthis academic year, and as I’ve said before, I’m glad I'll retire soon.
