My Addiction

My Addiction



         The reason for writing this statement is multi-purposed. First, it will serve to introduce myself. Next, it will also examine the path I chose in my journey to become a writer. My influences as well as what I’ve learned along the way. Lastly, what my goals are as an author and where I see my craft going. That being said, I have a confession to make.

         I am an addict; there I said it. My secret has been exposed. I am addicted to the written word. I blame my parents for my addiction. They got me hooked at a young age; in the crib if my mother is to be believed. She told me that I would sit for hours “reading” a book; not drooling on it or tearing it apart.

         They increased the depth of my addiction my introducing me to Dr. Seuss. Then came the really hard stuff, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, my first YA novel with limited pictures. By this time my addiction was so strong that I actually read this book at least six or seven times – in a row.

         My school, working with my parents, furthered my dependence by periodically bringing in a cardboard box full of books. I could pick one and keep it. I loved to fan the pages of a book and breathe deeply the aroma of the newly printed page. Forget the expensive men’s cologne and hard to pronounce women’s perfume, that scent was and is heavenly.

During this time, early to mid-sixties, I, along with most of the nation, followed the space program. I studied and soon learned name of every planet in order, from the sun outward and back. One day when they brought the box of books in, I selected H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.

         We lived in a small town and had little money. I didn’t go the movies hardly at all, but I didn’t need to. My books took me to the movies in my mind. While I devoured Wells, I was there when the Martians landed and swept across the country. But soon, I needed more, my addiction was all consuming.

         In fifth grade, I became a pusher of this drug. As an assignment, we were to write a story. I sat down with my new World Book Encyclopedias, and wrote a story of a traveler who visited every planet. Without realizing it, I had taken my first step as a writer – I performed research for a story. It was about ten steno pages long, front and back, by far the longest of any of my classmates, I’m proud to say.. That was it, I wanted to be a dealer, to hook others in this addiction to movies of the mind.

         However, I grew older and life happened. I didn’t follow my desire to become a writer. Nevertheless, except for a few years, I always had a book with me, no matter where I went. Books have helped me cope with boredom while sitting in traffic, at a doctor’s office, or lying in a hospital bed for several weeks recovering from back surgery. Reading good books that take me to different places and lead me through adventures is the one addiction I love to indulge. I wasn’t aware at the time, but all my reading was preparing me for my passion – writing.

         Stephen King says in On Writing that, “Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life” (142). “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. (139).

In keeping with Mr. King’s advice, I have enjoyed many books from a variety of genres and time periods. From Poe, Shelly, and Stoker, to Koontz, Graham, and King. My tastes have changed over the years from Science Fiction; H.G. Wells, to Fantasy; Tolkien, to Horror; King.

These three genres are so closely related they are known under the umbrella of speculative fiction. I attend the Necronomicon each year here in Florida. It is a convention for Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror writers, readers, and gamers.

A few years back, my desire to write was reborn. I joined an online group called, Writing.com. The overall group is broken down into a large number of subgroups that run the entire spectrum of genres. I joined a fiction writers group and learned the fine art of flash fiction.

About a year in, I participated in a challenge to write a Halloween story based on a picture prompt, for another group. The prompt depicted a cat silhouetted in a large tree looking at a two-storied farmhouse with one red light. I enjoyed writing that piece more than anything I had written prior. I knew the genre that had picked me – horror, although I prefer the title Dark Fiction.

         As any new writer, I didn’t know what I was doing. I violated many rules in my infancy. POV shifts, passive tense, sentence fragments. But I learned while receiving feedback from my fellow writers.

         My oldest brother, who lives in Montana and is an artist, encouraged me to take a writing course that he’d gone through. So I enrolled in the Long Ridge Writer’s Group’s correspondence course, Breaking into Print. Even though I hated it, I still learned a few things about writing. My “teacher” was a non-fiction writer. I wrote dark Fiction and so my character’s blood would freeze (I know, I know – cliché). His comment would be “that’s impossible.”

         I just didn’t get it. Why was he taking my words so literally? What I didn’t realize until much later was that I was speaking literally, by the way I wrote it. Now if I would have said he felt as if his blood froze, than that may have flown.

         Writing quickly became a second addiction, which saw me through a very difficult time. I lost my mother in 2007. My brothers and I were at her bedside when the tubes were removed, the machine keeping her alive was turned off, and she passed away. On the way from Kansas to Pennsylvania to inter her cremated remains, I wrote The Passing, to help me deal with the loss, and maybe help others as well.

         A couple of years later, I decided it was time to stop screwing around and get serious about my writing. I joined writing groups in my area and attended their critique meetings. I am now the critique group leader for the Tampa Writers Alliance and the Tampa Chapter Group Leader for the Florida Writers Association, as well as a Horror Writer’s Association member. I am a big believer in education, and so I began my search for a university that offered MFA courses that I could afford. Enter National University, which advertises on Writing.com by the way.

         So over the course of many years of reading various genres and books about writing, I felt like I knew pretty much what a good dark fiction book should contain. My goal when I sit down to write a story is to try to crank up what I call the creepy factor as high as I can.

         Edo Van Belkom writes in Writing Horror that, “The object of horror is to elicit some sort of response from the reader. When it’s good, horror can make your skin crawl, your pulse race, your body break out in a cold sweat, and your hair stand on end” (12).

         In my thesis, I aimed for the creepy factor, I try not to show the creature, demon or monster throughout most of the book. The horror is in the feelings and reactions of my characters. Belkom calls this Quiet Horror,

“Quiet horror relies on mood and atmosphere more than anything else for its chills. It is, above all else, low-key, suggestive, and understated. Instead of the monster jumping out of the closet, there is a shadow creeping across the wall. Instead of the rapid dog gnawing on your leg, there are fingers of cold, cold hand slowly around your neck” (24).

Tim Waggoner in Writers Workshop of Horror states, “It’s my firm belief that horror –at its best – should make the reader uncomfortable” (48).



         What each one is saying is that horror is the genre of the senses. Feeling something is out there is creepier than seeing what’s out there.

         For example in Dean Koontz’s Watchers, he starts off with something unknown and unseen right from the first chapter.

         “From the sound of it, the unknown beast was within seconds of reaching the clearing between lower and higher trails.

         The length of Travis’s spine, shivers tracked like melting bits of sleet down a windowpane.

         He wanted to see what the thing was, but at the same time he had gone cold with dread, a purely instinctive fear” (11).

         At no time is the creature shown at this early stage, but the tension and fear through Travis and the Golden Retriever make for a creepy scene. I also noticed the short sentences, used to increase the tension and the pacing for a sense of urgency.

         Shirley Jackson in The Haunting of Hill House achieves the same result by not showing the entity walking the halls. Here Eleanor is lying in bed listening to a child cry. Across the room, unknown to her, lays Theodora on a cot.

         “Now, Eleanor thought, perceiving that she was lying sideways on the bed in the black darkness, holding with both hands to Theodora’s hand, holding so tight she could feel the fine bones on Theodora’s fingers, now, I will not endure this. …They think to scare me. Well, they have. I am scared, but more that, I am a person, I am human, I am a walking reasoning humorous human being and I will take a lot from this lunatic filthy house but I will not go along with hurting a child, no, I will not; I will by God get my mouth to open right now and I will yell I will I will yell “STOP IT,” she shouted, and the lights were on the way they had left them and Theodora was sitting up in bed, startled and disheveled.

         “What?” Theodora was saying. “What, Nell? What?”

         “God God,” Eleanor said, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, “God God – whose hand was I holding?” (163).

         Even though we’re not shown what she was holding, the imagery and creepiness is at a high level. Fear of the unknown is a powerful emotion. It is easy to imagine, from Jackson’s narration, lights coming up, thinking you’re holding a hand, feeling the bones, to find out there’s nothing there. Of course, this scene by itself it not as powerful, until you have been brought through all the scenes leading up to it.

         In each case with Koontz, Jackson and others, the tension is built slowly, by small bits here and there.

         In addition to Quiet Horror, my stories also include elements of Occult/Supernatural Horror as well. Belkom explains this type as, “Supernatural horror is any type of horror that occurs outside of our known universe, where rules of the normal world need not apply. It includes any sort of ghost, demons, or otherworldly monsters. . . (26).

         Throughout my readings, I have noted that word choice is probably the most important aspect of writing Dark Fiction. In movies, a shadow can pass unknown behind a character that sets the audience shrieking to “look behind you.” In Paranormal Activity, the first, a shadow walks by the bedroom door and the audience went nuts with screams. In my stories, I have to develop the same feel, but with the proper word.

         In the examples above, Koontz describes the thing coming as, “the unknown beast”, and words to evoke emotions, “Travis’s spine, shivers” and “gone cold with dread.” Dread, shivers, beast, all bring specific images to mind without describing them. It is left to the imagination of the reader, and nothing can be more powerful than a reader’s imagination.

In my thesis, I strove for the same thing by using as many senses as I could besides sight. The hint of a dead wife’s perfume is one. The sense of smell is one of the more powerful memory joggers there are. My protagonist often feels watched, and is even touched by unseen hands. Whenever something is shown, it is in shadow.

Another characteristic, as my mentor pointed out, is how a character is feeling at the time, should taint how something is described. For instance, in Blood Alley, Vincent sees couples together being intimate, reminding him of what he’s lost and how lonely he is.

         My wife asks me why I want to write this type of stuff. The reason is that I believe, deep down, everyone wants to be scared. When we were kids, we each had our own pet fear, the monster under the bed, or in the closet. For me, it was what lurked down in our cellar. As we grow older, we lose some of that fear. I believe we are always seeking to regain that child-like fear. Look at the theme parks with roller coasters where the riders hang from a bottomless seat, while doing loops and twists hard enough to give a concussion. I do not ride them, not because of fear, but because of terror. Here I think I need to make a distinction. Fear will get your heart pumping, terror will stop it. It is a matter of degrees, intensity

Every year, Universal Studios, Orlando, holds Halloween Horror Nights. This lasts several days and is packed every night with people seeking to be scared. I watched people, who a moment ago were screaming, exiting the various haunted houses excite and laughing. I believe being scared causes an adrenaline rush; the heart beats faster, our senses are heightened. Along with the adrenaline, endorphins are released by the brain. This is why people feel good after exercising. Endorphins are the body’s natural opiate, like in opium. So when you’re scared, you’re actually getting high. This is why those people are talking excitedly and laughing, they’re high as a kite. So now you can see why I said at the beginning that I’m an addict.

So where do I go from here? I go the path of every writer, I continue to hone my craft, attend as many conventions and workshops my limited wallet will allow, and keep on reading a lot and writing a lot. There’s just three more things I can add to my list; submit, submit, submit.







Works Cited

Belkom, Edo Van. Witing Horror. Bellingham, WA: Self-Counsel Press, 2000

Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. New York: Penguin Books, 1984

King, Stephen. On Writing A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Pocket Books, 2000

Koontz, Dean. Watchers. New York. Berkley Books, 1987

Waggoner, Tim. Writers Workshop of Horror, Chapter 5 And Horror the Soul of the Plot. ed Michael Knost. Chapmanville, WV: Woodland Press, LLC,2009

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