L.K. Scott's Blog
December 15, 2016
Fan Mail: What Advice Can You Give Me as a First Time Horror Writer?
Today's question comes from Wattpad user, Monody. He asks:
"I'm trying to write my first horror story, and this is the first one I've ever written. Are there any pointers or tips you guy can give me about starting my book, or about writing horror stories in general?"
For those readers out there unfamiliar with Wattpad, www.wattpad.com is a website where anyone can publish fiction, non-fiction, fan-fiction, and comic books of all genres ranging in horror, erotica, mystery, YA, and much more.
To cover all the answers to Moody's question would take a lifetime so, like building a house, let's begin with the foundation.
Fear is the emotion that hooks the readers while intrigue keeps the readers reading. Your readers will be more likely to experience fear if your character feels afraid. This effect is what I call the scream effect. If your protagonist looks out her isolated cabin window and sees a man in the snow staring back at her she will feel fear. It is a natural instinct that, when afraid, humans and animals seek the company of others. This witness to the peeping Tom will call to her other friends in the cabin, causing uneasiness to form between them. If your protagonist is not afraid, then don't expect your readers to be.
Also, never let an opportunity to make your characters feel uneasy pass. Every detail that would otherwise seem insignificant can add to the tension in the air. Conflict is the heart of the story and cannot exist without it. Perhaps your lactose-intolerant male protagonist who has a secret crush on the barista down the street is caught off guard when a man with a harelip serves him a dairy-based coffee instead. How you choose your character to react will demonstrate the mood, but how your readers will feel about the ironic interaction.
The movie Se7en does is an excellent example of conflict. In the opening scene, conflict comes in the form of rainy weather, Bradd Pitt is late to work, he spills his coffee, it's his first day on a new case, the obnoxious sounds of inner-city traffic, car alarms, shouting pedestrians, and Morgan Freeman's dialogue expressing judgment of Brad Pitt's cocky behavior.
In the first chapter of my novel, Evilution, I add conflict to a loving scene by adding elements of a speeding logging truck (Final Destination, anyone?) an elderly man running for his escaped shopping cart of groceries into traffic, and a single rain-soaked girl scout selling a mushy box of high-fructose corn syrup cookies to a pregnant woman.
Characters define the story, and characters are defined by the impossible choices they make. Characters need to be relatable. Not everyone is 100% good and no one is 100% evil. They both need to make bad decisions, but with good motivations behind them. For example, audiences always scream at the big-breasted woman who runs outside after receiving a threatening phone call from a killer. We know that's a bad choice, so why do we care if she lives or dies? But what if you as an author change it so that she runs outside because her pet dog is on the porch and she wants to save him from the killer? Now we know she's making a bad choice to run outside, but we sympathize with her because she's making the wrong choice, but for a very right reason. The biggest challenge now, a challenge that separates good stories from great stories, is how to make your villain likable.
"I'm trying to write my first horror story, and this is the first one I've ever written. Are there any pointers or tips you guy can give me about starting my book, or about writing horror stories in general?"
For those readers out there unfamiliar with Wattpad, www.wattpad.com is a website where anyone can publish fiction, non-fiction, fan-fiction, and comic books of all genres ranging in horror, erotica, mystery, YA, and much more.
To cover all the answers to Moody's question would take a lifetime so, like building a house, let's begin with the foundation.
Fear is the emotion that hooks the readers while intrigue keeps the readers reading. Your readers will be more likely to experience fear if your character feels afraid. This effect is what I call the scream effect. If your protagonist looks out her isolated cabin window and sees a man in the snow staring back at her she will feel fear. It is a natural instinct that, when afraid, humans and animals seek the company of others. This witness to the peeping Tom will call to her other friends in the cabin, causing uneasiness to form between them. If your protagonist is not afraid, then don't expect your readers to be.
Also, never let an opportunity to make your characters feel uneasy pass. Every detail that would otherwise seem insignificant can add to the tension in the air. Conflict is the heart of the story and cannot exist without it. Perhaps your lactose-intolerant male protagonist who has a secret crush on the barista down the street is caught off guard when a man with a harelip serves him a dairy-based coffee instead. How you choose your character to react will demonstrate the mood, but how your readers will feel about the ironic interaction.
The movie Se7en does is an excellent example of conflict. In the opening scene, conflict comes in the form of rainy weather, Bradd Pitt is late to work, he spills his coffee, it's his first day on a new case, the obnoxious sounds of inner-city traffic, car alarms, shouting pedestrians, and Morgan Freeman's dialogue expressing judgment of Brad Pitt's cocky behavior.
In the first chapter of my novel, Evilution, I add conflict to a loving scene by adding elements of a speeding logging truck (Final Destination, anyone?) an elderly man running for his escaped shopping cart of groceries into traffic, and a single rain-soaked girl scout selling a mushy box of high-fructose corn syrup cookies to a pregnant woman.
Characters define the story, and characters are defined by the impossible choices they make. Characters need to be relatable. Not everyone is 100% good and no one is 100% evil. They both need to make bad decisions, but with good motivations behind them. For example, audiences always scream at the big-breasted woman who runs outside after receiving a threatening phone call from a killer. We know that's a bad choice, so why do we care if she lives or dies? But what if you as an author change it so that she runs outside because her pet dog is on the porch and she wants to save him from the killer? Now we know she's making a bad choice to run outside, but we sympathize with her because she's making the wrong choice, but for a very right reason. The biggest challenge now, a challenge that separates good stories from great stories, is how to make your villain likable.
December 8, 2016
Day 3 in the Emergency Room
My third day in the emergency room left me unable to work on my editing projects for nearly a week. Three, freaking days!
My spouse works as a private chef for a celebrity in Montecito, CA--well, worked. Past tense. Past tense because he nearly burnt down this celebrity's kitchen, and that asshole forced my spouse back into the blackened, smoke-filled room and wouldn't let him leave until the fire was put out, causing my spouse to suffer smoke inhalation sending him to the emergency room. Thank god he's okay, because if something would've happened to him, this celebrity would be toast.
The following day, I woke up with severe pains in my abdomen. The worst pains I've EVER felt. My spouse rushed me to the emergency room where I was doped up on so many drugs that I barely understood the doctors when they told me I have two stones, one in my kidney waiting to drop, and the other one entering my system.
They sent me home drugged up, but they didn't give me any painkillers to take home! The doctor refused to prescribe them because of an "opium epidemic." I'm on my knees crying in pain and he thought I would sell them instead of take them myself? So, as predicted, the following day when the pain returned, my spouse, at 6 AM, Ubered me back to the E.R. where the doctors once again doped me up, and this time they prescribed painkillers.
Two days of being in bed, high as Christian Slater on New Year's Eve, was not productive towards my goal of getting my latest zombie novel "Evilution" out this week as planned.
I don't know how Stephen King was able to write his novels after his accident when he became addicted to pills. I couldn't even focus enough to play Civilization V on my laptop let alone read or write.
Today is my first day without meds and I'm miserably in pain still, but at least I'll be able to get back to editing "Evilution."
I'm so over 2016.
My spouse works as a private chef for a celebrity in Montecito, CA--well, worked. Past tense. Past tense because he nearly burnt down this celebrity's kitchen, and that asshole forced my spouse back into the blackened, smoke-filled room and wouldn't let him leave until the fire was put out, causing my spouse to suffer smoke inhalation sending him to the emergency room. Thank god he's okay, because if something would've happened to him, this celebrity would be toast.
The following day, I woke up with severe pains in my abdomen. The worst pains I've EVER felt. My spouse rushed me to the emergency room where I was doped up on so many drugs that I barely understood the doctors when they told me I have two stones, one in my kidney waiting to drop, and the other one entering my system.
They sent me home drugged up, but they didn't give me any painkillers to take home! The doctor refused to prescribe them because of an "opium epidemic." I'm on my knees crying in pain and he thought I would sell them instead of take them myself? So, as predicted, the following day when the pain returned, my spouse, at 6 AM, Ubered me back to the E.R. where the doctors once again doped me up, and this time they prescribed painkillers.
Two days of being in bed, high as Christian Slater on New Year's Eve, was not productive towards my goal of getting my latest zombie novel "Evilution" out this week as planned.
I don't know how Stephen King was able to write his novels after his accident when he became addicted to pills. I couldn't even focus enough to play Civilization V on my laptop let alone read or write.
Today is my first day without meds and I'm miserably in pain still, but at least I'll be able to get back to editing "Evilution."
I'm so over 2016.
April 6, 2016
FREE BOOK - Violin
From April 6th through midnight on Saturday, April 10th, my 41 page story Violin will be free on Amazon. Please, if you like the story it is a great help to me if you would leave me a review here on Goodreads and/or on Amazon. If you didn't like what you read, please send me a message here on Goodreads or write in your review what aspects need improving so that I can continue to bring you even better short tories and novels in the future.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to read my work. Writing is my life. It's how I support my family.
Please enjoy Violin, the story of Stephanie who is haunted by the ghost of her recently deceased musical rival, and Stephanie's father, Darrin, who falls into a horrific trap after becoming stranded on a deserted island.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to read my work. Writing is my life. It's how I support my family.
Please enjoy Violin, the story of Stephanie who is haunted by the ghost of her recently deceased musical rival, and Stephanie's father, Darrin, who falls into a horrific trap after becoming stranded on a deserted island.
May 28, 2015
A Word about Frozen Charlotte
I published my first short story, "Frozen Charlotte" on Kindle only.
Right after I graduated from college, I traveled up to Washington State where my family lives and spent the winters there. Winters in Washington State offer a lot of writing time. Even when I didn't feel like writing, the four or five hours of daylight over the forest-lined lake house ten miles from the nearest town, blanketed under up to three feet of snow, pretty much forced me to sit at my laptop to write, or suffer from cabin fever the likes of a Stephen King novel. For an autumn and summer guy like myself, where winters are unbearable and the springtime allergies could send me to the emergency room, I had more time to write than I cared for.
It was while researching obscure urban legends and "true" stories of foreign origins that I came upon many unusual tales, like the coastal Japanese village nestled at the edge of a forest and hugged between two mountains that only appears once every generation to lure guilty souls (which served as inspiration for my novel, "Nightmare Eve") that I came upon the sad tale of Frozen Charlotte.
Frozen Charlotte was said to be the ghost of a woman trapped under a lake, or possible a river, of ice who lures people to their death. The story was itself creepy, but I was more interested on who Charlotte was when she was alive and the social issues of that era that prompted her to run away, leaving her friends and family behind. Although it was a ghost story meant to scare people away from the dangers of thin ice and undercurrents, her story, to me, was heartbreaking. Who was Charlotte and did she even exist?
Whether this is a true story or just a legend passed down by generations, in my story she is very much alive and I hope her tragic tale lives on.
Right after I graduated from college, I traveled up to Washington State where my family lives and spent the winters there. Winters in Washington State offer a lot of writing time. Even when I didn't feel like writing, the four or five hours of daylight over the forest-lined lake house ten miles from the nearest town, blanketed under up to three feet of snow, pretty much forced me to sit at my laptop to write, or suffer from cabin fever the likes of a Stephen King novel. For an autumn and summer guy like myself, where winters are unbearable and the springtime allergies could send me to the emergency room, I had more time to write than I cared for.
It was while researching obscure urban legends and "true" stories of foreign origins that I came upon many unusual tales, like the coastal Japanese village nestled at the edge of a forest and hugged between two mountains that only appears once every generation to lure guilty souls (which served as inspiration for my novel, "Nightmare Eve") that I came upon the sad tale of Frozen Charlotte.
Frozen Charlotte was said to be the ghost of a woman trapped under a lake, or possible a river, of ice who lures people to their death. The story was itself creepy, but I was more interested on who Charlotte was when she was alive and the social issues of that era that prompted her to run away, leaving her friends and family behind. Although it was a ghost story meant to scare people away from the dangers of thin ice and undercurrents, her story, to me, was heartbreaking. Who was Charlotte and did she even exist?
Whether this is a true story or just a legend passed down by generations, in my story she is very much alive and I hope her tragic tale lives on.
November 4, 2014
Frustrations with the Kindle version of Massacre'ade Party
Unfortunately, many readers are rating and reviewing the novel based on the rough draft instead of the final draft. Please, if you intend to rate my novels, purchase the final copy from Amazon or your local book store and rate that one. The original draft is ripe with grammar and spelling errors with many plot holes, character name changes and a warehouse that changes its address from 221 to 223 and back. If the version you are reading opens up with a gruesome elevator death, then you are reading the leaked rough draft. Please purchase the edited version available on Amazon.com and other bookstores. Thank you.
Massacre'ade Party #1 Bestseller!
Was really excited to see my first novel, "Massacre'ade Party" reach #1 on the Amazon Bestseller list for the categories of gay & lesbian murder mysteries!
