Writing a good scare!

Hey guys!

Ah the month of Halloween is upon us! In just 21 days all the spooky and creepy will hit our doorsteps and homes. And I, for one, couldn’t be more excited. This is hands down my favorite holiday of the year. The haunting atmosphere connects with my eerie little W.I.P. So, I wanted to look at some fundamental elements that I think should be in a “good scare” book (just to be clear: this is only my ramblings, no one else’s. Also, I’m talking spooky, not full on horror – though some elements might overlap).

All right, let’s get to it.

When it comes to eerie, one of the first thing I think of is pacing. A spooky book isn’t going to be a languid walk in the park. It’s got to be fast and unpredictable at times, and then at others there needs to be a slow, but ever-increasing tension buildup. This can’t be just your average building of tension. This needs to build a particular atmosphere. It needs to be an increasing “heart in your mouth” feeling. Think about those old horror movies where the girl goes creeping around the house. Cheesy, yes. Effective? Also, yes. Most of us will still hold our breath, even though we know what’s going to happen. It’s human nature. Now, I’m not saying write an old-fashioned cheesy horror (but you can if you want!). What I’m getting at is the variation in pacing should go between these two. You need to build up, then be quick and unpredictable.

So, here’s where I want to build on atmosphere aside from it building your tension. Atmosphere is crucial for a spooky book. You need to decide what kind of atmosphere you want (and I do recommend either doing this before you write your first draft, or doing an entire edit pass focusing on just this aspect.) Are you looking for eerie and peculiar (ala THE ACCIDENT SEASON by Moira Fowley-Doyle) or are you looking for something off-kilter and uncomfortable (ala CORALINE by Neil Gaiman)? Perhaps you’re going for an old-style Goosebumps book, or what about something like ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake? Whatever your choice, you need to think ahead – what makes an eerie tone as opposed to a “hold your breath” tone? Word choice, word choice, word choice. Sentence structure. Choice of details. Be careful in your choices.

Then, of course, there’re characters to talk about. You can have a cast of completely normal characters, of course, but you can up the spook by having odd characters, too. Think about HOW TO HANG A WITCH by Andriana Mather. The Descendants are plain unusual – descended from the witches from the Salem witch trials, all dressed in black, and giving fierce looks, and a closed circle kind of feel.

Plot – well, this one goes without saying. But just a reminder: twists, turns…the unexpected, and the guessing game of who is going to do what. And then you have the “this is weird…what the heck is going on?” And the “is there going to be something terrifying in there?” Choose whatever plot you want, but make sure it keeps the creepy factor throughout!

All right. So, there are many, many more things that can make a novel spooky, but if I try and write them all here, I’ll end up with a book (and I’m not writing non-fiction lol), and there will be plenty that I miss. So this is just my little nook in the web to tell you the main things I look at on my first edit pass when it comes to spooky!

Happy Halloween to come, you guys!!!

Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Kill Em

I had this character once whom I adored. Her dialogue was so easy to write and she was young, scrappy, and hungry, and I'm not giving away my shot. Oh  I loved her! I even named her after my childhood best friend and this character, in my mind, became a vital part of the book.

Everyone who read this character LOVED her and so when I first got a note from a CP that they loved the character, but that she didn't seem to have enough agency and kind of seemed pointless, I was like, "What? WRONG."

I brushed off that note and kept revising, but there was something about it that stuck with me. As I kept revising, I began to see what my CP was talking about. Her role in the story was spotty. She didn't seem to have enough of a purpose to be on the page all the time. She lacked a lot of depth outside her role of spurring the MC onto new plot points. Yeah she was funny and sarcastic and challenged my MC, but was that enough?

Sadly, I realized that my most favorite character I've ever written needed to go. Y'all, I was sad. It was truly like killing one of my kids—or like taking a time machine and altering the space-time continuum so that there was no kid ever in the first place.

It ended up being a much better thing. I was able to combine her character with another one and it COMPLETELY changed the pacing of the story for good. More than the benefit to the story, having the guts to cut her character (and all those awesome dialogue lines) gave me courage as a writer. Sometimes it can be hard to cut thousands of words. You're afraid you'll never get them back—as if revising them out means 10k less words you'll ever be able to write in your lifetime. But we both know that's not true.

Killing your darlings is a tough, but necessary tool writers have to use. We can't be a slave to our characters or even plots, we have to be always be writing in service to the story.

So if you're having a tough time with a particular plot line or a character, take a risk and remove it. See what happens! You might just find your story is stronger because of it.

Want to connect?

Find me at www.destinycole.com

or follow me on Twitter or Instagram: @destinywrites

Falling Back in Love with Your Manuscript

One of the most exciting parts of writing is that puppy love phase. 

You know what I’m talking about. It’s those early days as you’re fleshing out your characters and defining your plot points. You spend hours selecting the perfect character name. You take the time to carefully research the city or world you’re writing about and giggle over your character’s idiosyncrasies. You cry—real actual tears—as you describe their heartbreaking lives. Your story is real and you honestly think it’s the best thing you’ve ever written. Those first 10,000 words or so just flow and sure, maybe you hit a few bumps in the road, but you keep going until you type “The End.”

But we writers know that the first “The End” is actually only the beginning. First revision, CP note revisions, Beta reader revisions, agent revisions, then editor revisions, then copyeditor revisions…

How many times can you re-read your own words without your eyes crossing and you drop-kicking your laptop out a 3^rd story window? You begin to question everything. The story is awful. The characters dull. The plot done a million times before. You've officially fallen out of love with your manuscript.

If you’re anything like me, the above is not dramatic; it's real life when writing a book. Once you do a few revision rounds on a manuscript, you never want to HEAR about your story again, let alone keep implementing fresh ideas.

But we have to. It’s our job as writers to continue to improve our stories and cut away the fluff and layer in the meaning. It’s what makes writing magic.

So how can you stay engaged in your revisions and fall back in love with your manuscript?

• Put it aside. Sometimes the best thing you can do is not look at your manuscript for a week or two. Yes, maybe that will delay a deadline, but beating your head against a brick wall delays deadlines too.
• Change up the order. Start at the end and revise forward. Maybe reading it a different way will help you get out of the rut and also help you see pacing issues you don’t always see reading chronologically. Or if it's dual POV, work on only one POV at a time. That way you can work on staying in one "voice" at a time.
• Work on a different medium. Do you write in Scrivner? Do a revision round in Word. Tired of reading on a computer? Print it out and mark up sections in the margins. Read it on your Kindle and keep a notepad of notes where you want to make changes. The bottom line is mix it up a little. Sometimes just viewing it on a different medium can make all the difference in the world.

It doesn’t matter what you do, the bottom line is don’t give up. Don’t allow yourself to get stuck in that rut of this will never be done and “OH, I have this wonderful new shiny idea that would be SO much better than this dumpster fire of trash.” Keep pressing through because the world needs your words.

Want to connect?

Find me at www.destinycole.com

or follow me on Twitter or Instagram: @destinywrites