Masters of Macabre Challenge 2012 Announced!

WHAT IS THE MASTERS OF MACABRE CHALLENGE?

An opportunity for male horror writers, published and unpublished, to strut their stuff! You write and record your own scary story, we post it on the internationally famous HorrorAddicts.net site and let the listeners vote for the best one. The winner receives a host of prizes, most importantly the coveted “Master of Macabre” title and the privilege of organizing next year’s MoM Challenge. You can listen to last year’s stories here.

2012 THEME – CURSES!

This year’s Challenge will lure us into the dark domain of malicious hexes and inescapable afflictions. Contestants will be tasked with telling stories inspired by famous, or once-famous, curses from around the world. The real curse will be on us listeners who have to choose a winner. Woe is us!

GUIDELINES

• Entries will be accepted until April 11, 2012.
• Each entrant will be assigned a curse from somewhere in the world. Look here for an idea of the kinds of curses we might give you.
• The entrant is to write a story of 1500-3500 words in which the assigned curse plays a central role. Stories should explain the curse for listeners who have never heard of it, but should not be merely a re-telling of the original story.
• The entrant records the story. Horror Addicts will not provide readers this year. If you need help recording your story, the MoM group on Facebook is a great place to ask questions. Audio will be due in mp3 format on May 11, 2012. After your story, you may tell listeners how they can find more of your writing.

OTHER DATES

June 30, 2012: contest airs and voting starts

July 27, 2012: voting ends

August 25, 2012: winner announced on HorrorAddicts.net podcast

HOW TO ENTER

1. Send the following information in the body of an email to momchallenge2012@gmail.com.

Name
Email address
Skype name (if you have one)
Websites and blogs (if you have any)

You will receive a brief contract for your perusal.

2. Return contract, a short bio (50 words or less) for our website, and your headshot to momchallenge2012@gmail.com.

3. Shaunessy Ashdown, the current Master of Macabre, will assign you your curse (but not curse you) and you can get writing!

Who will be the next Master of Macabre?

HorrorAddictsCon: The Wicked’s, Are Submission Guidelines Important?

Are Submission Guidelines Important?

by Emerian Rich

“Writers who don’t follow the rules aren’t worth our time.”

This is what most editors think and you should listen to them. Why? Because you’ll never get past the submission pile into the pile of stories they are seriously considering for publication.

I’ve heard editors say that they won’t even consider a story if the author hasn’t submitted it according to their guidelines. Writers think this sucks. Why should the way it’s presented mean anything? If it’s a good story, it should be considered on the plot merit, right? Being a writer I tend to agree, but we have to look at it as a job. If you were going to a job interview, you wouldn’t wear stained pajama pants and a bleach-spotted Kama Sutra t-shirt, even if you were a Harvard grad with excellent references. Think of the submission formatting as your foot in the door. Once you’ve dressed it up, then it’s up to your writing to break out of the pile and wow them.

Now, I am by no means a pro editor and I am still stuck some of the same piles you are. However, I did run a ‘zine called DarkLives for ten years. Nowadays, I receive on an average, 20-30 pieces of work a month from various collaborations, critique groups, and for my podcast HorrorAddicts.net. Having read hundreds of submissions I can tell you some things that make them difficult to handle.

First, always read the publishers website to see what their guidelines are and follow them precisely. Yes, they will notice if they asked for an outline and you give them a synopsis instead.

Second, don’t email them the next day to find out how they liked it. Especially if you are emailing another writer or a small publication, they probably have a “real job” and family that they have to work their writing dream around.

Third, if no guidelines are listed on their site or you are sending a manuscript to someone in the industry who doesn’t have submission guidelines (like another writer), PLEASE follow the standard submission format. I always change stories I receive into the proper format before I print or crit them. Mostly because someone will send me a twenty page story with no page numbers on it. If I drop the story, I’m in trouble. Trying to piece together someone else’s rough draft is insane. The author’s name and story title should also be in the header of each page for this reason.

So what is the “standard manuscript format”? Let me reiterate that you always need to follow the submission guidelines for the publication you are submitting to. If none are stated, go with these guidelines below:

• Number pages in header or footer. It’s also nice to put the number of pages like so: 1/13
• Courier font, 12 point, never in italics or bold
• 1 inch margins all around
• Double spaced
• Use the # sign (centered) to indicate viewpoint change
• Use left paragraph text (never justified)
• Include your name and story name in the header of every page.
• On the first page, list your name and a way to contact you. I don’t feel you have to include the info below if you are sending it to a critiquer, a simple email address should suffice, but if you are submitting to a publishing house, unless otherwise instructed, you should include: your name, address, phone number, email address, what type of story (Horror Novel or Fantasy Short Story, etc…), and computer word count.

There are more detailed formatting descriptions on publisher’s sites, in writing books, or online. If you are thinking about submitting, I strongly suggest you do your homework first so that you are put in the pile to read and not the recycle bin. If you don’t format it correctly, it won’t be read, and you might as well save yourself the trouble and cost of sending it out in the first place.

One word of encouragement. You’ll never be published if you don’t send it out. So… WRITE, SUBMIT, WRITE, SUBMIT and repeat as often as you can.

Emerian Rich is the author of Night’s Knights vampire series and Sweet Dreams Musical Romance Series. She’s also been published in a handful of anthologies and written everything from non-fiction reviews to Science Fiction. As a Horror Hostess, she heads the HorrorAddicts.net podcast and attempts to promote the Horror Addicts lifestyle from the fan point of view. For more information on Emerian, go to: http://www.emzbox.com 

HorrorAddictsCon: The Wicked’s Rhonda on Crit Groups

Critiquing groups are they helpful?

 by Rhonda R. Carpenter

After writing the first rough and I mean rough draft of The Mark of a Druid, I searched all over for a group that would be right for me as an aspiring author. I found that group on compuserve’s literary forum. Now since I joined, the group some almost 8 years ago it has had its membership ups and downs. For several years we were housed in another location on a Forums America site. Not too long ago the forum moved back to compuserve and into a much larger community setting. Lots of the old folks are there and a ton of new ones.

One of the things I liked about our little group was that there wasn’t anyone who felt it necessary to cut you to pieces to make a point about what you could do better in your story. The crits were not only content considerate but line editing as well. (for me extremely helpful) If you saw a mistake that was an obvious typo or grammatical help were also offered as well as plot and character development.

It was an easy system. Once granted access to the library of file you picked something that caught your eye and started critiquing. After you critiqued 5 pieces, you could upload 1. Pieces usually consisted of a complete short story or a chapter or chunk from a WIP (work in progress). From then on it is 3 to 1 and trust me you would build a cash of crits to use for your uploads fast if you put any effort into the group.

The diversity of the group was wonderful, people from all over the world joining together and helped each other out. The benefits to me as an author were worth every minute I spent with these people. Now I am not going to tell you that I agreed with all of the suggestions but if I didn’t incorporate something I thought long and hard about the readers experience.

Now there are plenty or writing groups online and in your local communities as well. I like the online groups because I can get more out of them, the volume of participants is higher and more diverse. While I am not active in the compuserve forum at this time because I am in a different phase, pre-publication and podcasting, I do recommend the group. Here is a link to them the membership is free and once your work is posted it is copywrited so it is actually a way to protect your work although others say it is not safe I just don’t agree. No one writes in the same way I do. They may be able to take what is there but they would never be able to complete the work like I would have, so I don’t worry about it. And from what I know this has not happened in this place. There is also a research and craft area that can be very helpful.

I found my time in a critiquing group extremely rewarding and I hope as I move into book two in the series I will find the group as helpful again. I met many wonderful people there and one of my dearest friends and I actually met there and we talk almost every day.

Keep Writing, I know I will!

Rhonda R. Carpenter

Rhonda R. Carpenter is the founder of Lifefirst.com. She is an Author, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Handwriting Expert, Dream Analyst, and Professional Psychic. Her first novel, “The Mark of a Druid” is available in audio, Ebook and print. Rhonda is the co-founder of www.Podioracket.com where you can learn all about the new Podiobooks.com authors and Indy-Authors from all over the world. Rhonda was awarded the coveted Wicked Women Writer’s Award in 2010 for her Sexy short horror story, “Barring Lilith” She lives on a secluded ranch in Southeastern Oklahoma where she enjoys raising chickens and cows. She is happily married and the mother of 4 boys, all grown and on their own and recently a first time Grandmother.

HorrorAddictsCon: Steven Rose Jr. – Illusions – Free Fiction

Illusions – Free Fiction

by Steven Rose, Jr.

This excerpt is from the title story for a collection of my short fiction that I’m putting together. The main theme of the book is going to be illusions, but not so much in the sense of magic (even though that’s what this story is about) than in the sense of delusions. So yes, do mind the pun on “illusions”. I’m not necessarily talking about abnormal psychology, but delusions that we all have when our expectations about something are too high.

One example is when a person wants that dream car. That person gets the car thinking they will be happier than they ever had been only to find out that, because it is a more expensive and higher quality vehicle, the required maintenance turns out to be more trouble than it was worth buying the car for. If the disillusionment is really extreme, the car may even turn out to be Steven King’s Christine (from the novel of that same name) or maybe even the Car itself (from the ‘70s low budget horror movie of that same name). Although both instances are highly unlikely. So while many of the stories will be about supernatural or magically generated illusions, the core or universal meaning will be about our misconceptions of life. This is what many myths do, which all forms of story telling are—they tell a truth or fact about life through imaginary means. Therefore all stories, in a way, are illusions.

Just to play a little game, see if you can guess what the magician’s trick in this portion of my story really is. Is it really a trick or is the occurrence real and therefore not an illusion at all? If it is real, can the audience’s preconceptions have been illusions themselves and therefore is the trick actually a disillusion? If so, would such an act be a paradox and therefore both an illusion and a disillusion simultaneously? You won’t find out the answer until I publish the book which I hope to do by Spring 2012. Depending on your approach to reading, you may not find an answer even when you do read the complete story and therefore may conclude that the act on a literary level is an illusion that can never be disillusioned.

Of course, please feel free to leave your answers here on this blog in the comments section but I ask that you do not make continuation scenes based on them for publication since this story is copyrighted.

Thanks.
~Steven

THE FOOL’S ILLUSION

By Steven Rose, Jr.

Freddy had seen the notice on the gray brick pillar of the wrought iron gate of Max Manus’s Magic Mansion which forewarned that the shows were not for the faint hearted. It was not until he saw what happened to Mr. Manus’s young assistant, Maggie Rosen, that he realized the notice was no mere advertisement gimmick.

It was opening night for both the show and the theatre itself. The building used to be an old Victorian mansion, hence the theatre’s name. Mr. Manus was performing the traditional thin model sawing trick. It was traditional with one exception. The box that Manus had Maggie step into was in the likeness of a black, oblong coffin. But that was not the exception.

Freddy had not realised how attracted he really was to Maggie until after that final act. He had noticed both her childishly stubby nose that was gracefully curved at the bridge and her wide, bright blue eyes. He had also noticed that, although her mouth was small, her licorice red lips were fully rounded and her skin a rosy white. Her flashing-white teeth looked like those of a baby’s whenever she smiled which was almost always. Her neck, which her chestnut brown curls dropped to the middle of, was maturely long and slender. And there had been no way he could miss her costume which consisted of a shiny leotard, a black silky pair of hot pants and black tights.

No, Maggie was not the exception either. But she was directly involved with the exception, and that is what attracted Freddy to her.

After Manus closed the coffin lid on Maggie, he sliced a blade sheet through the coffin’s center and another blade through the top third portion of the box. Then the magician separated the box segments setting each one upright on top of the black satin draped bier and opened each. Blood flowed from each segment of Maggie’s body. Her head was slightly tilted downward but her face empty of expression. About half of the audience screamed while the other half gasped in a mix of awe and terror. Freddy’s body froze . . .

Steven Rose, Jr. is a journalist and writer of fiction. His non-fiction includes book, television, and movie reviews. His fiction consists of horror and science fiction short stories, although he plans to write novels in the near future. Besides writing, Steven serves as a public relations rep for the Sacramento based network, Sylvanopolis Writers’ Society. For more information about Steven, go to: http://faroutfantastic.blogspot.com/

HorrorAddictsCon: Steven Rose Jr. – Horror and Dark Fantasy III

Horror and Dark Fantasy: One and the Same?

by Steven Rose, Jr.

Part III

The dark fantasy tends to contain literary elements from both the epic fantasy and, as stated at Beyond, a horror story. The dark fantasy plot often involves a quest on the main character’s part, but it is often a quest into darker, more forbidden settings. The hero may or may not have friends or companions on that quest with him/her. The obstacles he/she faces are menacing creatures that you find in many horror stories, creatures such as zombies or evil spirits ready to devour the hero either physically or spiritually. There often tends to be more fairy or folk tale elements in this type of story than in the epic fantasy or horror story. Therefore there may be magical creatures, such as fairies or talking animals that help the hero, and the hero may come from humble beginnings like the hero in the fairy tale often does. Also, the story’s ending is more like that in the fairy tale—a joyful ending where everything turns out good for the hero(es) and they either go on living life as normal as before or better.

These distinguishing elements between horror and dark fantasy can best be seen if we compare a horror novel such as Dracula with a dark fantasy novel such as Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. In Dracula, a young man who can be considered the hero goes on a journey to the evil count’s estate in Transylvania on business. He is imprisoned by the count, and faces many obstacles in his attempt to escape and in doing so is in utmost fear for his life. He finally does escape, but the count follows him home to his native England . It is there where Dracula causes the terror and havoc on not just the hero’s, Jonathan Harker’s, friends and beloved, Mina, but even on the society at large. The horror of this creature is that he can take control of a person’s life and soul in that he can make them into one of the living dead like himself making them have to feed off of innocent people’s blood. He is immortal and undefeatable. He can appear anywhere at anytime, and, unlike in most of the movie adaptations, can even walk about by day under certain circumstances. He can make people come to him over remote distances by merely thinking about it, like he does with Mina. He can change into a bat, wolf or mist. He can even change the appearance of his age from old to young. Jonathan Harker, Mina, and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, along with others form a kind of expedition to go after Dracula and kill him after the evil count has fled back to his native Transylvania . In this way the basic mythic motifs of the quest and battle against an enemy comes up in this novel. But even though Dracula has become a threat to an entire society, the climaxing battle here is more for an individual’s soul, Mina’s.

Gaiman’s Neverwhere is a story that is actually developed from the basic plot of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The story mostly takes place at night in the underground ofLondon . Because it’s based on Alice in Wonderland, it’s got a fairy tale quality to it and this kind of otherworld atmosphere, yet it takes place in the subterranean structures of an actual geographical based city. However, this underground world in the novel is a fantastical one in that it is seldom seen by Londoners and is occupied by magical beings and so is an environment of mystery. One of the magical beings is an enchantress who sucks the life source out of people, an element of horror since it is so close to the idea of sucking the soul out of a person and is a more personal threat like what we see in Dracula than a societal one. But the very fact that this hidden society comes out both underground and above at night while the rest of Londoners are sleeping gives the setting a more imaginary, dream-like quality seen in much of high fantasy. The majority of the characters the hero comes in contact with are of magic and mystery, as opposed to the more rational based human characters in Dracula (save for the vampires themselves, of course). One of these characters is a talking rat, a rodent character type often seen in a lot of fairy tales and fables such as The Nutcracker. So the quest inNeverwhere, unlike in Dracula, involves more fantastical characters who help the hero on his journey, and the purpose of the quest is more societal than it is personal.

Another high fantasy element in this novel is a giant boar that the heroes must battle in the sewers, a creature used as a dragon type in this story. Likewise, Dracula himself on a more implicit and symbolic level is a dragon figure. In fact, his very name derives from a word associated with dragon. As a dragon figure he is a threat to society. But more importantly he is a hoarder of not only blood but gold like the typical Western dragon is. And, of course, he is a devourer of human blood just as a dragon is the devourer or destroyer of human flesh and lives.

So in comparing these too popular novels, we can see that the distinction between the genres of horror and dark fantasy is that one is more emphasized on the threat of the individual as opposed to a whole society, more specifically the threat to a person’s soul, although dark fantasy can contain that same kind of element. However, there is a more fairy tale quality to the dark fantasy than there is to the horror story since more impossible characters occur, characters like talking and humanized animals such as the talking rat in Gaiman’s novel. In the horror story, the characters are more rational and realistic and the plot, although fantastical in its involving supernatural creatures, consists of more realistic and so more believable events.

Another factor that we shouldn’t overlook is that the distinction between these two genres is also due to the commercial industry’s categorization and marketing of fiction. The majority of book retailers sell their literary merchandise according to popular interests and therefore according to what the majority of customers are going to be looking for in story type. But in order for retailers to do that, and in order for them to consider readers’ preferences, the literary conventions of these story types have to be considered.

So the distinction between the genres of horror and dark fantasy seem to be based on two factors: literary convention and marketing. Yet when looking at the conventions closely between stories of these two subgenres, the distinction seems very blurred because many of these conventions are used to a more or lesser degree in both. What are your thoughts on the differences in these two subgenres? Would you say the two are based more on conventions or more on marketing methods? Are such categorizations more up to the reader than the forces of literary convention and marketing? Are horror and dark fantasy interchangeable terms, or can dark fantasy be considered a mixed genre of horror, high fantasy and even fairy tale elements? Should both just be considered dark fiction and not have any further classifications? Let’s extend this discussion, and so please feel free to leave any answers or other comments!

References

• Beyond . . . a Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy
• http://www.nvcc.edu/home/ataormina/beyond/subjects/fantasysubgenres/index.html

Suggested Reading

• http://www.horror.org/horror-is.htm
• http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/new-titles/adult-announcements/article/47758-fall-2011-announcements-fiction-science-fiction-fantasy–horror-shaking-up-the-status-quo.html

Steven Rose, Jr. is a journalist and writer of fiction. His non-fiction includes book, television, and movie reviews. His fiction consists of horror and science fiction short stories, although he plans to write novels in the near future. Besides writing, Steven serves as a public relations rep for the Sacramento based network, Sylvanopolis Writers’ Society. For more information about Steven, go to: http://faroutfantastic.blogspot.com/

HorrorAddictsCon: Steven Rose Jr. – Horror and Dark Fantasy II

Horror and Dark Fantasy: One and the Same?

by Steven Rose, Jr.

Part II

Like the epic or high fantasy, the horror story also involves the unknown and mysterious, but these two elements are much more threatening to the individual. They are usually threatening to a character’s life either spiritually or physically. Therefore, the threatening force is some sort of unfamiliar being such as a ghost, demon, or vampire and often associated with the underworld like the enemy characters are in epic fantasy. But the emphasis is on the threat to the individual than it is on the one to a whole society. Although the term horror primarily has referred to a sense of fear for a person’s own soul and therefore spiritual life (as is the case with Dracula) it has also come to be associated with an extreme fear for one’s physical life.

If the threatening being is not of the supernatural realm, then it is often associated with it through superstition. This is the case with The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom is not really a supernatural being himself but, because he hides in obscure parts of the opera house and kills people, he is thought to be a ghostly presence. Throughout the horror narrative, there are many unexpected attacks or pursuits from the monster, often in dark settings, resulting in shock on the audience’s part. Needless to say, such evoking of fear plays a crucial role in the horror story.

Often at the end of a horror story, the reader or viewer is left hanging, but not in the sense of a lack of a satisfying conclusion. The audience is left hanging in the sense that they wonder what will happen to the characters’ lives after the characters have faced the traumatic situation brought on by the threatening figure or monster. Therefore the conclusion to a horror story tends not to be as joyful or promising as that of the epic fantasy, and because the story has been focused on the menacing being itself and the terror it has caused, the other characters’ lives are not elaborated on in the conclusion making it much shorter than that of the typical epic fantasy. The monster may have been destroyed by this time or somehow banished from the setting, but what happens to the characters next is anybody’s guess. The monster may return, as is the case with many Hollywood horror films (and so why sequels are so popular with them) or the main characters may have post trauma to deal with that may drive them to insanity. Because of these possibilities, the conclusion to the horror story is more realistic than the more fairy tale happy ending of the high fantasy.

References

• Beyond . . . a Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy
• http://www.nvcc.edu/home/ataormina/beyond/subjects/fantasysubgenres/index.html

Suggested Reading

• http://www.horror.org/horror-is.htm
• http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/new-titles/adult-announcements/article/47758-fall-2011-announcements-fiction-science-fiction-fantasy–horror-shaking-up-the-status-quo.html

Steven Rose, Jr. is a journalist and writer of fiction. His non-fiction includes book, television, and movie reviews. His fiction consists of horror and science fiction short stories, although he plans to write novels in the near future. Besides writing, Steven serves as a public relations rep for the Sacramento based network, Sylvanopolis Writers’ Society. For more information about Steven, go to: http://faroutfantastic.blogspot.com/

HorrorAddictsCon: Steven Rose Jr. – Horror and Dark Fantasy I

Horror and Dark Fantasy: One and the Same?

by Steven Rose, Jr.

Part I

In the last ten years at least, the dark fantasy subgenre has become just about as popular as the horror subgenre. The two have many similar elements even to the point where they may seem interchangeable or synonymous with each other. Dark fantasy has been permeating just about all media, including video games and books. Neil Gaiman is one of the most popular dark fantasy writers of today, and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of novels and the TV series Supernatural can also be considered to fall under this fantasy subcategory. Authors more associated with strict horror have also written some dark fantasy–Steven King with his DarkTower series, for instance.

Two other authors, who write much science fiction and horror but also write a lot of dark fantasy are Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison. Ray Bradbury’s most famous dark fantasy is his novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, while Ellison has famous stories of the subgenre such as “The Basilisk” and “Chatting with Anubis”.

Directors such as M. Night Shyamalan and Guillermo Del Toro who typically make horror movies, like Devil and The Orphanage, also make films that can be classified as dark fantasy: Shyamalan Lady in the Water, Del Toro Pan’s Labyrinth. It shouldn’t be too surprising that such authors and movie directors of horror also produce dark fantasy works since the two subgenres are both imaginative, dark forms of story telling, but what literary elements and conventions really distinguish the two?

Since horror has been the more popular familiar genre for a longer period of time, we’ll look at the literary conventions that make it up before we do the ones of dark fantasy. But before doing that, because dark fantasy descends from the more typical epic or high fantasy, we’ll look at the conventions of epic fantasy before looking at the ones of dark fantasy. But as far as supernatural horror goes, horror itself is also a subgenre of fantasy since it involves imaginary events such as hauntings and black magic.

Horror stories involving more realistic menacing characters, such as serial killers, would not be considered supernatural horror and so would hardly fall under the umbrella of the fantasy genre. So in general, fantasy story telling, regardless of the medium it is told through, involves any type of plot that is centered around magical or impossible events. In a wider perspective, this includes science fiction. The scientific events in a science fiction story, although much more plausible than events in high or epic fantasy, have not occurred in the present time the story is produced and so at that time of production these events are impossible, yet they are visionary since they are possible for a future time. But since we are looking at the distinctions between two subgenres of fantasy that do not primarily deal with science, we’ll disregard science fiction for purposes of this discussion. Because the fantasy genre is the umbrella that the subgenres supernatural horror and dark fantasy fall under, we’ll look at the conventions of epic/high fantasy which is the oldest form of story telling that falls under that genre.

Most epic fantasy involves either a hero’s quest or a battle to save a society–often a kingdom, maybe even the world. Magic, the supernatural, or both play a major role in the story. The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) involves wizardry and underworld creatures such as demons and spirits–the Orcs and Ringwraiths, for example–in the war that occurs throughout Tolkien’s trilogy. The main hero’s, Frodo Baggins’, quest is to take a magic ring to its rightful place and destroy it before it leads to the world domination of evil. The hero or heroes in stories such as this must face several obstacles to completing a task, these obstacles often involving the supernatural. However, they often receive help from a supernatural force such as a deity or elf, or a magic object they obtain. This is the case in the Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit, when Bilbo finds the ring (before its evil power is discovered in LOTR) because he can turn invisible in times of danger by slipping it on his finger.

The hero in epic fantasy often makes it back to his/her homeland after completing the quest/battle bringing some sort of redemption to the society. Such fantasy is often also referred to as high fantasy. Northern Virginia Community College’s literary Website, Beyond . . . , indicates that a slight difference between the two terms is that high fantasy often takes place in imaginary worlds (as is the case with LOTR) whereas epic fantasy is based more in reality and so more directly based on myths rooted in our world’s history (for example, The Odyssey). A good example of epic fantasy would be Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon since it is based on Arthurian and therefore British/Celtic myth. But in nearly all circumstances both kinds of fantasy involve the unknown and mysterious. Because of this we’ll use these terms interchangeably for reasons of simplicity since this discussion’s aim is to distinguish horror and dark fantasy, not epic and high fantasy, from each other.

References

• Beyond . . . a Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy
• http://www.nvcc.edu/home/ataormina/beyond/subjects/fantasysubgenres/index.html

Suggested Reading

• http://www.horror.org/horror-is.htm
• http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/new-titles/adult-announcements/article/47758-fall-2011-announcements-fiction-science-fiction-fantasy–horror-shaking-up-the-status-quo.html

Steven Rose, Jr. is a journalist and writer of fiction. His non-fiction includes book, television, and movie reviews. His fiction consists of horror and science fiction short stories, although he plans to write novels in the near future. Besides writing, Steven serves as a public relations rep for the Sacramento based network, Sylvanopolis Writers’ Society. For more information about Steven, go to: http://faroutfantastic.blogspot.com/

HorrorAddictsCon: Jeri Unselt – Free Fiction – Ringo

Free Fiction: Ringo

by Jeri Unselt 

I ran as fast as my paws would let me go, once I saw what they were gonna place the mask over my head, I knew what those humans had in mind, a one way trip to doggy heaven. There’s was no way in hell I was gonna let them put me to sleep, that
was how I saw my parents die when I was still a small pup. I had to go back to where it all happened, I had to see if my girl Megan was ok.

The house was in my sights, anytime now, I was going home. Megan was waiting for me, I knew it, I could feel it in my bones. As I got close, I stopped dead in my tracks. What the hell? The entrance of the house was covered in some sort of big gigantic yellow tape. With each step I took, the black words on the tape got bigger and bigger, so big that I feared they would fall on me.

“Crime scene,” I read. “Do not cross.”

Maybe humans couldn’t go inside, but I was a dog, an American bulldog to be exact, I went inside like I didn’t have a care in the world.

Right away the bowl of water in front of the kitchen caught my eye. Thank goodness, I thought, all that running left me so thirsty, that I could be peeing sand. I ran towards it with excitement only to stop mid stream. There isn’t water in my bowl, I realized. At least it wasn’t the clear stuff I normally drank, no I saw a light pinkish color inside. What is that? My eyes turned to the right of the bowl to see something red, I didn’t want to but I took a quick lick. Almost immediately, I wined at the realization.

Blood, I looked around, there was blood everywhere in the living room, in the kitchen, even along the upstairs steps.

I let out a howl and barked, it was the only way I could get Megan’s attention.

She has to be ok, she just has to be.

“Shh,” a voice behind me said. “Careful, people can hear you.”

I turned around to see an old man staring back at me, it wasn’t the first time I had locked eyes with him.

“Everyone’s gone kid,” he explained. “All but one were taken
away in body bags.” The man knelt down and scratched my head, “I can hear your voice kid, I have that ability. What’s your name?”

“Ringo,” I answered. “What happened? Where’s my girl?”

“They took her away in the ambulance, she was hurt bad.”

“Take me to her,” I begged. “Please?” My mind wondered to the day she fell off her bike and broke her leg. She had said to me, I had made her recovery easier. I couldn’t let her down.

“I can’t kid,” the man answered.

“Why?” I let out a wine to let him know how serious I was. “Megan needs me.”

“Don’t you remember Ringo?”

“Remember what?” as I asked the question, a sudden loud scream brought me to focus. “Yes,”

Megan and I awoke at the sound of the scream. A lady she called grandma rushed inside and closed the door.

“Oh my god,” she cried. “OH MY GOD!”

“Grandma, what is it?” Megan asked holding me close.

“They’re dead,” she answered. “Your grandfather, and Robbie are dead!”

“Dead?” Megan got to her feet and hugged Grandma. I in turn went to the door and started growling. “Ringo, no, come back.” I wanted to go out but I was trained to respond to Megan’s command and so I went and stood by her side. “What happened Grandma, who did this?”

“The demons your grandfather warned us about,” she explained. “The one’s your father sold your soul for!” She sat on the bed crying. “Oh god!”

“What are we gonna do?” Megan took a couple of steps to the door.

“No Megan,” Grandma got up and wrapped her arms around her pressing against her like a cobra.

“They want you, don’t you get it!”

“Why?” she answered. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“That’s why they want you Baby,” they hugged each other again. “I won’t let them hurt you ok,” Megan nodded and sat back down on the bed. Grandma the. Turned her attention to me with eyes so big that I wanted to hide under the bed. “I’m gonna go back out, see if I can find a way out. If I don’t make it, you keep Megan safe, you hear me!” I wined and ran to Megan’s waiting arms.

“Grandma, you’re scaring Ringo,” Megan scolded.

“When I leave,” she said. “You and Ringo get in the closet and hide.” Grandma stared at both with tears in her eyes. “I love you Megan,”

“What happened next Kid?” the man asked.

“We stayed in the closet for a long time,” I began. “It was so silent that I think Megan began to fall asleep. But then,”

“No!” Grandma screamed. “You can’t have her!” Megan opened her eyes and held me close. “Take me instead you spawns of Satan!” Once again neither Megan or I could hear anything.

“What’s going on?” Megan whispered. All of a sudden Grandma’s scream brought us both to our feet. “Grandma!” She rushed out of the closet with me behind her. “Grandma!”

Megan stopped at the middle of the staircase and screamed, “No! Grandma!”

We watched helplessly as the body that was her grandmother was being torn and then eaten away by creatures unseen by the human eye, but I could. Two dobermans stood over their meal like they didn’t have a care in the world, no way would I allow them to have Megan.

“Ah,” all of a sudden a third creature knocked Megan down the stairs. She tried to get up, but the pain held her hostage. “Ringo!” she screamed as the three demon dogs surrounded her, sharp fangs ready to feast. “Help me!”

I ran downstairs and knocked one of them away from her, my teeth grabbed onto it’s neck and began shaking it’s body like a rag doll. Somehow I managed to throw the beast so far against the patio door and disappeared. Wow, I thought. Did I do that?

“Stand aside Bulldog,” one of the doberman creatures stared me with eyes of fire. “The girl is ours.”

“You stand aside,” I answered. “The only way you’re getting to my girl is threw me.”

The creature gave me a most menacing smile, a part of me wanted to run, but there was no time for that. “With pleasure.”

Within moments, the dog had me on the floor, but I pushed it back against the wall. It got up and came back for me. I sighed, so your gonna make this difficult for me huh. Just as it got close to me, I heard a loud a pop and the dog fell at my feet. I looked to see the other creature had run for it’s life. Good riddance, I thought. I turned back to see the creature had disappeared just like it’s friend. It was then I saw the man with a shotgun.

“It was you,” I said to him. “You saved Megan’s life, and mine.” By the time I could get to her, she was unconscious from the fall.

“I’d been tracking them for years,” the man explained. I wanted to know more, but there was someone else I was worried about. “Is
Megan ok? Please take me to her?”

“I can’t do that kid.”

“Why not?”

“Because as far as the rest of the world is concerned,” the man explained.

“You’re responsible for all of this,”

“Me?” I looked around. “Why would they think I did this? I’m just a dog.”

“Yes, but you’re a bulldog Ringo,” the man answered gently. “Your breed has made you a scapegoat. I’m sorry Kid, I should’ve realized that or I would’ve taken you with me before the police and paramedics arrived.”

I wined as tears came out of my eyes, “It’s not fair.” I looked at him. “It’s not right,”

“I know that,” the man gave me another scratch on the head. “Come on, let me do what I should’ve done, before those bastards in animal control find you to finish the job.”

“But what about Megan?” I allowed him to pick me up.

“I’m certain you’ll see her again,” the man promised. “We just gotta keep you alive long enough for that to happen. I’m certain those monsters will want to come back to finish you off.”

“Yeah,” I could sense their presence getting closer. “Let’s go.”

Jeri Unselt is a native of Colorado who has been writing stories ever since childhood. She started podcasting her first novel, Inner Demons, in 2008. The print book will be released in 2012 alongside a podcast prequel, Inner Demons: Turmoil. She is a member of the Wicked Women Writers, has been featured on several HorrorAddicts.net episodes, and will be in the up-and-coming Wicked Women Writers anthology. To find out more about Jeri, go to: www.jeriunselt.org

Guest Blog: What Is Horrifying to Me – Ron Vitale

What Is Horrifying to Me
By Ron Vitale

I woke up startled from a noise. It was the middle of the night and I had been sleeping. I opened my eyes and floated between consciousness and sleep, my mind reeling. Still in bed, I saw lights in the hallway. The lights appeared to dance in the air and I heard an odd noise that rushed toward me. The sound, distant yet constant appeared to be coming from the strange lights levitating in my hallway. My teenage body froze in fear. The lights grew in size, moving closer to my doorway and increased in their intensity. I tried to move again and could not. Trapped in pure horror I remained paralyzed and could not speak and I tried thinking but my brain refused to work. The rumbling noise faded and the lights faded back.

And then I knew it, a ghost or an angel had come to visit me. Torn between which it might be, I desperately pushed aside the thought that a ghost had come to haunt me and take my soul. In my compromised state, an angel seemed the better option. But this ethereal being sounded more like Gabriel coming with his sword to wreck havoc on the unjust than to help a poor soul like me. I had wasted too much time as the rumbling sound increased in volume, shaking ever so slightly the apartment we lived in, and the lights flared up, angry and brilliantly white. With seeming aggression, they floated toward the door and I begged them to not hurt me. The horror of my predicament left me powerless. The angel of death had come for me and instead of being asleep as it had intended I would see my last few minutes on this Earth before being taken and dragged into the chute of hell, to writhe with the rest of the unfortunate souls who had not done God’s will. I would suffer for all eternity, cast aside and adrift from the light, only to be in utter darkness and fear—forever.

I cannot tell you how many minutes my run in with the angel of death lasted, but I can tell you how I woke from it. Having heard the sound again, my sleepy brain began to put two and two together. The “roar” and “rumble” were trucks and cars passing by our apartment. The sound of their passing was echoing off a wall and coming in through the bathroom window. Similarly, I then realized that the light from their headlights was reflecting off the bathroom mirror and then onto the full length hallway mirror creating the illusion of floating balls of light. I logical answer for my other worldly experience was simply that I had been in a dream state and a large truck rumbled by. I wasn’t quite awake and saw the lights, thinking that they were some spirits coming to get me. When you’re 15 years old and have an active imagination, that’s all it took to instill that dreadful horror into me.

But what is horror? Truly, what does it mean? For our edification, I looked it up on Wikipedia and learned that horror is defined as:

-noun
1. an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear: to shrink back from a mutilated corpse in horror.

Now that we know what horror is defined as I’d like to expound a bit on what horror means to me. I’ll be honest: I’m a scaredy cat. It doesn’t take much to frighten me but there is power in horror and I’d like to propose that the anticipation of an event or action is so much more powerful and horrifying than any monster that Hollywood can put on the big screen. I love CGI, but it pales in comparison to my imagination.

A few examples. Remember, the movie Jaws? There’s a scene in the beginning in which a young woman is swimming at night. She feels a tug at her leg and a confused look crosses her face. Then it happens again and she’s pulled under the water. She’s scared, it’s dark, you can’t see much and then she’s dragged around and pulled under. Many minutes go by in the film until you actually see the shark. Granted, with the limited technology at the time, the shark isn’t much to look at. In 2010, who would be afraid of that mechanical monstrosity? But re-watch the film and take in what Spielberg does to build suspense and fear. Granted, Jaws is not a horror film, but, as a little kid, it was my first understanding of how powerful my imagination could be.

A few years later Alien came out and as I was only 8 at the time so I didn’t get to see the movie until it was on VCR a few years later. But I’ll never forget the stomach bursting scene and Ridley Scott’s use of the camera. How many long, smoking corridors does he bring us down as the crew searches for the creature? How many times do you think it’s going to pop out and instead it’s a cat or nothing? Building that suspense and then, when you least expect it the creature would come out scare the crap out of my pre-teen self.

And my third example will be a controversial one. I’ve learned that there’s a split camp on this one. I’ll break the argument down as such:

I saw The Blair Witch Project before all the hype. My brother waited until the movie had been blown up into being something that would scare God Herself. There’s a scene at the end (I apologize for the spoiler but the film came out in 1999 so stop reading this if you haven’t seen it) in which Mike is standing facing a wall. You know something’s there (the witch creature thingy) and Heather falls down and the camera is knocked on its side. There’s screams and the camera fades out. Boom. The End. Now I saw the film, thought it was good and came home and that night I had nightmares that freaked the hell out of me. Why?

I could not stop replaying the ending of the movie in my head: Mike is standing in the corner, hunched a bit like he’s a little boy, immobile and trapped by the witch. She/it is there in the room waiting to get Heather. With the darkened, grainy video, you don’t see much. I didn’t need to, but my imagination filled in the rest. In my dream, I replayed that ending scene and was horrified at the potential for evil in that room. My psyche can dredge up the most imaginative creatures, places or events that will tear at my mind, enabling me to live in that moment. I had not been more terrified and frightened from a movie’s ending in a long time.

My brother laughed at me. “Dude, there’s a guy standing in front of a wall. The bitch trips and drops the camera and then she screams and the camera fades. What’s up with that?”

I understand his point. I do. But, for me, true horror isn’t what we see on the screen or read on the page. It’s the anticipation, the implied horror that can take your feeble human mind and break you down into the puny little kid you once were—afraid of lights dancing in the hallway in the middle of night.

I would argue that the best horror masterpieces embrace that human weakness of ours: We want to know and put explanations to the unknowable. An odd noise or sight: We will think it’s a ghost, a creature or a UFO. And to me, finding the intersection between what we think we know and try to anticipate what we know is the true horror. It’s hearing the odd noise in the middle of the night in a darkened house. Is it the house settling or is someone there, waiting for you?

By no means am I saying that my definition of horror is the “right” one. No, that’s not true at all. But I would ask that if you are, like my brother, loving the exploding guts and mindless zombies eating the intestines of hapless teenagers on the screen or in books, I’d recommend trying a different type of horror. Explore what you can’t see and let your imagination fill in the gaps. I wonder: Will what you dream up be more horrifying? There’s only one way to find out…

Ron Vitale is the author of the fantasy novel Dorothea’s Song, the creator of The Magic Sock and co-creator of The Podd couple podcasts. Learn more at http://www.ronvitale.com and follow him on Twitter @ronvitale.

Guest Blog: Rattling Bones and Writing Horror – Chris Ringler

Rattling Bones and Writing Horror
By Chris Ringler

Oh, pity us poor fools who fall in love with the horror genre. Pity us because once you’re in love, man, it’s hard to kick the old ghost outta bed in the morning. I, for better or worse, love horror and part of that love came from the movies and writers I found as a kid. The logical, maybe, outcome of this silly infatuation with horror was to jump knee deep into it, and so, since being a teenager, I have been a writer. Now, I am a writer of no great import or fame, but I have had my nods toward legitimacy, but those aren’t the reasons I write. No. I write because I have to. And I think that’s the heck of it with anyone that works in the arts – you do it because you have no choice.

I started pretty simply, writing stories that were high on blood and imitation and low on real chills but these old stories were the first steps that I took as a writer and without those old stories, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Now, I didn’t set out to be a horror writer, and am not sure I would say I am wholly one now but oh, I can tell you with all certainty that I write stories that are meant to remind you of what it was like to be a child in the dark, when all is quiet but for the sounds coming from your closet or under your bed. I started writing, seriously writing, because of all the weirdness that was roaming around in me, the germs of stories waiting to be born. It was like wherever I was, whatever I was doing I could see some potential for horror. Now, I have never had aspirations to be the next big anyone, nor have I tried to imitate any of the people that influenced me but it’s hard not to want to do honor the writers that filled you with the passion in the first place.

And that’s where you get to the core of it. You write, well, I write for a couple reasons – the passion, and the past. I write because I have to. Even when it aggravates me, when it drives me nuts, when it makes me wonder why on earth I keep doing it, well, even then you keep writing. Even when the fear of not ever getting anything seen creeps in you keep at it. It’s a passion that drives you. A fire that can’t be put out, no matter what you do. And after the passion there’s the past. The want and desire to pay forward the things that influenced you. The want to inspire people as you were inspired and thus get people to look at the people who inspired you. As a writer I have so many people that inspired me – Kathe Koja, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Toni Morrison, H.P. Lovecraft – and the list could go on and on and I feel I owe some debt to them for their work and their inspiration. So I want to write stories as a tribute, in the hopes that I can capture some of the darkness that they passed to me, and so we pass this darkness from person to person to person in the hope of keeping intelligent, scary, good horror alive.

Writing is a challenge, but it’s always been a challenge and always will be. The challenge now comes in getting it out there. The publishers are not taking as many looks at new fiction as they used to, and the same goes for agents and magazines. So it hasn’t gotten easier. Only, it has. With self publishing starting to gain legitimacy and the advent of the internet you can always have an avenue to get your work out. Patience is always the key when it comes to writing – the writing, the editing, the editing, the editing, and then getting it out to people. Phew. It’s daunting, but it can be worthwhile. It can be amazing, really. And with the advent of e-books and e-readers we have a new world opening up to us. Me, I dream of a day when I can match a story with images, with video, with footnotes, with every manner of device that will not bog the story down but which will help to tell it. To advance it. It’s scary…and so, so exciting to think of what technology will do for the story. It seems sometimes as if books and reading are passing away but is evolving and we’re at the edge of it. It’s our job now not just to tell stories, to tell good stories, but to, bit by bit, figure out how to make technology help us tell our stories new and exciting ways – in ways that will make them last until the next generation is ready to pay our scares forward. And as for me, I’ll be waiting for you, not under your bed, or in your closet, but just out of sight and watching from the dark, and waiting, quietly waiting for you to just fall asleep.

CHRIS RINGLER: I am the author of three books – Back From Nothing, This Beautiful Darkness, and The Meep Sheep and have had stories published on 3 AM Press, and in the anthology books Bare Bone 6, 7 and 9 as well as in Cthulhu Sex Magazine. I have also received Honorable Mention in Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror numbers 19 and 20. I have also been featured on Horror Addicts. http://www.grimringler.wordpress.com