Travis McBee's Blog

Haven't read THE OTHER SIDE OF HAUNTING yet? This post contains several spoilers, so make sure to read the story first!Link to the story:AmazonHere will be a welcome change, I knew what this story was going to be about before I began it! Amazing, right? I mean I'm the guy who always just goes for it. Oh, you really aren't all that thrilled about it? Sorry, I guess it's just me.So this story came to me in a few separate parts that I then put together. The first part that came to me was pretty much the opening lines of the story as they are now, where someone calls a girl a complete bitch while he watches her bury him. That basically came about by me simply trying to make a shocking first line, and calling someone a bitch can always be pretty shocking. But I felt the need to justify saying such a thing, so I naturally figured that if someone murdered you, you'd be more than justified to call them whatever you wished.I had that opening line, but I had no clue what to do with it, so I let it stew in the back of my head. It was pretty obvious it'd be a ghost story, maybe of the fly on the wall variety as he watched her try to get away with it, but for some reason that didn't appeal to me all that much. The second element that came in and allowed me to write this story as it is came from something I was watching on TV. I'd really like to tell you what it was, but I can't remember; I was just flipping through channels at my parents' house while I waited for them to get their old butts in gear—Love you, Mom! Anyways, whatever it was, the person was only in danger from the supernatural thing if they were scared of it. It's not a concept I haven't heard of before, I've seen most of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, which have a basically identical concept, but because I'd had that ghost story line ruminating in the back of my mind, I instantly connected them together. Most stories of that nature are told from the live person's perspective, trying to conquer the ghost or whatever it is that's after them. With the first line I already had, and this set up of fear fueling power, I realized that I could write a story from the ghost's point of view as he tried to put that fright into his victim, to build his power so that he could have his revenge.And so when I finally set down to write it, I knew exactly what it would be about. I also knew that I wanted to write it in first person, present tense for several different reasons. The first of which was simply that that's how the first line came into my head, and I liked the way that "she murdered me" sounded. The second was that I wanted the reader to be fully relating to the ghost, instead of possibly vacillating between the two characters. And the third reason was that it is, to me, an unnatural tense—referring to the present tense part here. Stories are things that happened, as in in the past, so the most natural way those stories are told is in past tense. There has been a recent surge in the use of present tense, a very famous example being The Hunger Games, but by and large it's still something that you won't see all that often. This being a ghost story told from the ghost's perspective, it was taking place in a very unnatural setting, so I wanted that unnatural feel of the prose that present tense would help to lend.So the story went along, much scaring, much screaming, what I didn't know, though, was how it was going to end. Hey, at least I knew what it was going to be about this time! The obvious answer would be to have him simply kill her and float away into peace. And that's why I didn't use it, it was too god damn obvious. For a brief moment I did consider playing it straight, ending it in that expected way, but the only reason I considered it was because I don't want to be a one-trick-pony, the M. Night Shyamalan of books. I have a reputation for putting twists in most of my endings, so I wondered if I needed to do something to help head off that trope before it could really take hold. In the end, I had to do what I thought would make the best story, as I think every writer should always do. Maybe I'm addicted to twists, so sue me, but I want my readers to really be curious as to how things are going to turn out.Alternate endings I considered: 1.) He kills her, she becomes a ghost, too, and they have a kick ass battle or they're stuck together forever. 2.) He doesn't kill her, helps her get away with his murder, but spends the rest of her life making her go bat shit crazy until she finally kills herself. 3.) It turns out he wasn't dead yet and is still being stabbed by her, and he fantasied the entire ghost thing. 4.) It turns out that she didn't kill him at all, that he murdered her. Yeah, that last one would have been really tricky, I'm still not sure how I would have worked it out, but that's how things go sometimes.So that's my story. It's brutal, but it's mine. Oh, you might be wondering what happens next, after he discovers himself in Amy's body, and I'm sure that if you've read these things before, you're expecting me to tell you to figure it out on your own. Well, here's another twist ending! I don't know when I'll get around to it, but I'm actually planning on writing a sequel to this little story, cause I actually do know what's going to happen. I mean, he's in deep shit at the moment, what with his new girly body being all banged up and there being a dead body in the back yard. I didn't add what comes next into this story for two reasons: one, I didn't want it to drag out into one of my usual novellas. Two, it's a completely separate, yet related story, with a different tone.And so that's that. The moral of the story? Listen to your mom.

Haven't read HELL'S HOLLOW yet? This post contains several spoilers, so make sure to read the story first!Link to the story:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JJ9JDS2Here will be a welcome change, I knew what this story was going to be about before I began it! Amazing, right? I mean I'm the guy who always just goes for it. Oh, you really aren't all that thrilled about it? Sorry, I guess it's just me.So this story came to me in a few separate parts that I then put together. The first part that came to me was pretty much the opening lines of the story as they are now, where someone calls a girl a complete bitch while he watches her bury him. That basically came about by me simply trying to make a shocking first line, and calling someone a bitch can always be pretty shocking. But I felt the need to justify saying such a thing, so I naturally figured that if someone murdered you, you'd be more than justified to call them whatever you wished.I had that opening line, but I had no clue what to do with it, so I let it stew in the back of my head. It was pretty obvious it'd be a ghost story, maybe of the fly on the wall variety as he watched her try to get away with it, but for some reason that didn't appeal to me all that much. The second element that came in and allowed me to write this story as it is came from something I was watching on TV. I'd really like to tell you what it was, but I can't remember; I was just flipping through channels at my parents' house while I waited for them to get their old butts in gear—Love you, Mom! Anyways, whatever it was, the person was only in danger from the supernatural thing if they were scared of it. It's not a concept I haven't heard of before, I've seen most of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, which have a basically identical concept, but because I'd had that ghost story line ruminating in the back of my mind, I instantly connected them together. Most stories of that nature are told from the live person's perspective, trying to conquer the ghost or whatever it is that's after them. With the first line I already had, and this set up of fear fueling power, I realized that I could write a story from the ghost's point of view as he tried to put that fright into his victim, to build his power so that he could have his revenge.And so when I finally set down to write it, I knew exactly what it would be about. I also knew that I wanted to write it in first person, present tense for several different reasons. The first of which was simply that that's how the first line came into my head, and I liked the way that "she murdered me" sounded. The second was that I wanted the reader to be fully relating to the ghost, instead of possibly vacillating between the two characters. And the third reason was that it is, to me, an unnatural tense—referring to the present tense part here. Stories are things that happened, as in in the past, so the most natural way those stories are told is in past tense. There has been a recent surge in the use of present tense, a very famous example being The Hunger Games, but by and large it's still something that you won't see all that often. This being a ghost story told from the ghost's perspective, it was taking place in a very unnatural setting, so I wanted that unnatural feel of the prose that present tense would help to lend.So the story went along, much scaring, much screaming, what I didn't know, though, was how it was going to end. Hey, at least I knew what it was going to be about this time! The obvious answer would be to have him simply kill her and float away into peace. And that's why I didn't use it, it was too god damn obvious. For a brief moment I did consider playing it straight, ending it in that expected way, but the only reason I considered it was because I don't want to be a one-trick-pony, the M. Night Shyamalan of books. I have a reputation for putting twists in most of my endings, so I wondered if I needed to do something to help head off that trope before it could really take hold. In the end, I had to do what I thought would make the best story, as I think every writer should always do. Maybe I'm addicted to twists, so sue me, but I want my readers to really be curious as to how things are going to turn out.Alternate endings I considered: 1.) He kills her, she becomes a ghost, too, and they have a kick ass battle or they're stuck together forever. 2.) He doesn't kill her, helps her get away with his murder, but spends the rest of her life making her go bat shit crazy until she finally kills herself. 3.) It turns out he wasn't dead yet and is still being stabbed by her, and he fantasied the entire ghost thing. 4.) It turns out that she didn't kill him at all, that he murdered her. Yeah, that last one would have been really tricky, I'm still not sure how I would have worked it out, but that's how things go sometimes.So that's my story. It's brutal, but it's mine. Oh, you might be wondering what happens next, after he discovers himself in Amy's body, and I'm sure that if you've read these things before, you're expecting me to tell you to figure it out on your own. Well, here's another twist ending! I don't know when I'll get around to it, but I'm actually planning on writing a sequel to this little story, cause I actually do know what's going to happen. I mean, he's in deep shit at the moment, what with his new girly body being all banged up and there being a dead body in the back yard. I didn't add what comes next into this story for two reasons: one, I didn't want it to drag out into one of my usual novellas. Two, it's a completely separate, yet related story, with a different tone.And so that's that. The moral of the story? Listen to your mom.

Haven't read HELL'S HOLLOW yet? This post contains several spoilers, so make sure to read the story first!Link to the story:https://amzn.com/B01J3ZWIW0As with so many of my stories, this one didn't come from some upper-level consciousness decision. When I sat down to write it, I didn't have a clue that it'd be about a camping trip from hell, or that it would involve the devil in one of his classic schemes of collecting souls. No, this story just came all of its own, a piece at a time.It was time to write a short story, plain and simple, so I sat down to do so. Sometimes when I do that, I know the gist of what story I want to tell. Other times, as with HELL'S HOLLOW, the words and stories just seem to come from some mysterious abyss within my own head. With no clear idea—heck, any idea at all—of what the story would be, I sat down, opened up my word processor, and almost immediately had an image of the inside of an old canvas tent being tested by a windy night. I could make up a story of where this image came from, but it would be a lie. I don't know where it came from any more than I know where my dog finds half the shit he shows up with in the back yard. It just came. These things happen...a lot. Poof, the image of that tent is in my head. Double-poof, I see that there are two dudes in said tent, facing each other down.I began with the ending. Didn't mean to, didn't plan this shit out. When it comes to stories, I'm quite often like a cat with a laser pointer: I'm not entirely sure what that thing is, or where it came from, but dammit, it sure does look like fun, so I chase the shit out of it. Maybe I read too damn much, maybe I have an evil, suppressed personality hiding inside my head that likes to whisper some really screwy shit, but I'm truly not being facetious when I say that quite often these stories seem to set themselves up on their own and, for the most part, guide themselves along. That autopilot is the reason the story began with the end, then jumped back to the beginning. I just wish that autopilot stayed engaged through figuring out what the hell it was all about.So here is my conscious, sane—stop laughing—part of my brain, stuck with the first part of a story. I knew that it would have to end with a showdown between two friends. I knew that they'd have to be in an old fashioned tent. I knew that even as they faced each other, they wouldn't be entirely sure why they were doing it. So I set to fulfilling all of the requirements for that ending. Step one: send those poor bastards camping.Since I knew they'd have to be in an old tent at the end, I came up with the idea that this was a group of middle aged old farts trying to recapture their youth, thus using gear from said youth. And because it would be logical to assume that the two men in the tent had been through some shit before facing down, I sent along two more friends with them to act as fodder. And because I like characterization, and that little, hidden part of my brain that whispers things to me suddenly awoke again, I made one of the characters be a confirmed bachelor, but not at all sure if he was still happy with it. I also put in a thoroughly whipped boy, cause I thought it would be fun to kill him...I mean, I put him in for a contrast...yeah, a contrast it what I meant.So off on the camping trip they went. That part was easy, a logical setup. But all it did was provide the pieces for the puzzle, I still had to figure out the puzzle itself. And here's where the real difficulty of the story showed up. Go camping, check. Set up camp, check. Those parts were obvious, as was even the small detail of the rituals along the way to that campsite. I decided to use the tried and true method of warning the poor saps of what was about to happen. It's been done a billion times before, basically in every slasher flick ever. The old redneck warns them not go down that there road, or not to go in that there house, or not to, ya know, poke Jason in that there head. But to change things up just a bit, I decided not to let my redneck be all that helpful. He simply shows up, says yep, you'll do, and saunters off. Fun times in the sun. Thanks for the warning, jackass.So what now? What do we do now that the warning has been given? Travis-ism no. 159: When things need to start moving along, plug a guy.To compound the horror, I deliberately had the poor SOB get whacked when he's pulling the steaks off the grill. They fall to the dirt, good meat wasted, and thus we have easily the most horrific part of the story. A wasted steak, I weep along with you. I'm sorry if I went to far with that one.But, in all seriousness, killing someone is a very effective way of getting things moving. And if you'll remember, I made there be four friends because we needed some fodder, so I was simply putting Jeff to his proper use.Much freaking out, running and hiding, trying to figure out what had just happened, all those things are obvious extrapolations of suddenly killing a character in front of other characters. What wasn't obvious was why. And that was the crux of it, really. I kept coming back to why this was happening. So I did what I often have to do while writing in this manner, without having any idea what the story is going to be before writing it, I took a break and walked around for a while.Nutso serial killer? Been done before, and I wasn't feeling it. Cannibal? Yawn. Overly territorial redneck? Also yawn. But what it really kept coming back to with all of them was the fact that, in the end, I knew I'd have to have two of those friends trying to kill one another. Those scenarios didn't really help go to that end. They had to be forced into it, and that meant that they couldn't just run away from it. So that was the next logical step, forcing them to be stuck in that hollow. That was easily done, it was too steep to climb out, and when they went sauntering down the road—surprise!—the other piece of fodder we brought along goes up in a magical fireball. Escape: terminated.Okay, so we have them trapped, they can't leave, we know that they'll have to end up killing each other. But why? Why will they have to do it?I was stuck again, I couldn't figure it out, so I went on another walk. It just turned out that that walk lasted for six months. I really couldn't figure out a good ending for it, where to take it, so I left it for dead just after our family man went up in flames and turned my attention to other works. And then, out of the blue one day, I began to think once more about this story, and tried again to find some answers.And the answer I finally found was a pretty simple one—whatever spell was over that hollow would only allow someone to leave if they made a sacrifice, if they murdered someone. Enter the notes from the good old redneck, enter them trying to kill good old redneck, enter good old redneck explicitly laying it all out.And so I finally found all the pieces to get back to the ending from whence we'd begun. The two accept that they have to show down, and Kevin—that doubting bachelor—comes to believe that his life really isn't as worth living as his married friend's, so he selflessly allows himself to be killed.So why the devil stuff? Why pass it all off on ole Lucifer? Was I trying to preach to you, the reader? I'm sure someone will think that, to which I must guffaw. I'm not saying that I don't share some of the beliefs and values touched on in this story, but I am explicitly stating that I don't share them all, and preaching had fuck all to do with why it shaped out the way it did. The devil was in the story for the sake of the story. I could have used Hades, I could have used Voldemort, I could have used the evil Santa from Futurama. What I actually believe has nothing to do with the choice. What did have to with the choice was the devil's reputation for having an appetite for souls. Who better to want to force someone into committing murder—a universally damning act—than that guy? Also helping matters along was the fact that The Devil Went Down to Georgia was playing at the time.And so there we have it, the story is all told. Some lingering questions you might have: Was the redneck the devil himself? Yep. What would have happened if they hadn't killed each other? They would have burned up just as the devil said; it was no idle threat, but their souls wouldn't have been damned. Did Paul really damn his soul? You betcha, he actually wanted to kill Kevin. Did Kevin damn his soul for trying to kill Paul? Nope, I didn't want to make it insanely, overly explicit, but it should still be pretty clear that he purposely allowed himself to be killed, thus sacrificing himself for his friend. What happened to Paul after the story ended? I'm not entirely sure, but you'd have to think he'd have a hell of a time explaining why his friends were dead, and one of them by his own hand. Am I up for going camping with some old friends? You betcha, but I'm bringing Chupie along, and he'll eat a devil.

The following is a scene from my newest novel, The Dreamer. I hope you enjoy, and don't let it give you too many nightmares... GET YOUR COPY TODAY: https://amzn.com/B01FOFL6WG Isabelle Craten had a reputation of being one seriously nice, albeit odd, lady. That reputation would have taken a serious hit if anyone had stopped by at that particular moment.“Damn it, Natalie!” she screeched, wading through a sea of cats which split in front of her. “God damn it, girl!”It was hard for her to believe

 Haven't read A DUTIFUL SON yet? This post contains several spoilers, so make sure to read the story first!Link to the story: https://amzn.com/B00CD94XTU One of the annoying things about having family read my works is that they for some reason think that every main character is me. It doesn’t matter if the character is a psychopath, a jock, a nuclear physicist, a boy who melts in the rain, or even a girl. For my relatives, they are all me. This, of course, is also a question I get asked fairly

 Haven't read BLOOD TYPE yet? This post contains several spoilers, so make sure to read the story first!Link to the story: https://amzn.com/B00EN7GN3Y  Where did the idea come from for Blood Type? Well that’s easy enough to answer; it’s a true story.Okay…maybe it’s not completely true. That whole part about a man spawning from blood might not have actually happened, but the rest of it, right up until the point of Nick’s sanguine arrival, is perfectly true.One day, just as I was leaving a routine

   Haven't read CHUPIE yet? This post contains several spoilers, so make sure to read the story first! Link to the story: https://amzn.com/B00GWU0EB2  To the long time viewers of my YouTube channel, close friends, or a certain pair of old people known to some as Granny B and Papa B, this story was hilarious. And for the rest of you, the ones now asking, “How in the name of cookies was this hilarious?!” I must explain it as simply as I can.Chupie is real. I kid you not, I tease you not. Chupie,

 Haven't read THE LAKE yet? This post contains several spoilers, so make sure to read the story first!Link to the story: https://amzn.com/B013C2K1CE   Like many of my stories, I’m not entirely sure how this one began. I sat down to write a short story after a long break of writing them, and found that there was nothing waiting in my fingertips to come pouring out. I messed around with a few sentences for a few hours, but nothing felt right. In desperation, I turned to my most trusted tool for

Behind the Story: The Lake Like many of my stories, I’m not entirely sure how this one began. I sat down to write a short...

Prologue On a day like many others, born into the world with skies of morose gray and docile temperature, two people were preparing to act...