Brandon: Horror, what is it?

Dan: The horror genre is a lot of things in a lot of venues. They think of slasher movies.

Howard: I think steven king.

Brandon: I think vampires and werewolves.

Dan: It’s mostly been splintered.

Brandon: stephanie myer books worked well.

Howard: deen coons and stephen king are main stream and they wrok well.

Brandon: suspense vs horror?

Dan: it’s tricky because most books have suspense. Horror husually have supernatural forces.

Brandon: I like to think horror is the extreme end.

Howard: female police officer after serial killer.

Horror is the same but he is an animal god.

Dan: the main character is less competent, then normal.

He wrote an articale and said horror is not spectacle it has no spectacle it’s the girl next door who will
never be an actress holding a knife knowing she’ll never be able to use it.

Brandon: how do you write characters for a horror book?

Howard: you have to reduce their competence in the face of their monster.

Alien was horror

Aliens seemed like military sci fi but it turned into horror.

Dan: there is a moral quality. He likes to take the character the reader likes the most then puts them
through the burner. They have to have flaws. The half of the boook is about the big problem. The other
half is about personal conflicts. A lot of the reason that the reaader has never been chased by a
monster. The reader might understand personal relationshipos.

Brandon: there’s the concept that the inner demon vs. the outer demon. We are destroyed by external
forces and they represent the internal monster.

Dan: its not always purely representative. But it is sometimes. a lot of mine is told in the first person.

Brandon; I like lovecraft. Very intense first person character facing horrorfying monster that is also
supernatural

Howard: he told he didn’t show. That was the one thing I didn’t really like. But you can’t imitate him.

Brandon: you can’t imitate tolkien for new readers.

Dan: concrete details preferably small. If you boil it down it’s the fear of not understanding rats in the
walls descends into madness. At one point the guy goes insane you don’t know what is going on but you
know it’s scary.

Brandon: how do you approach it differently?

Dan: it is inescapable. Usually. You can’t escape , confront something you dn’t know how to confront.

Howard: the fantastic elements are cool. In horror the holes in your understanding are scary dark places.

Brandon: the more I reveal in fantasy. Horror the less you know the better.

Dan: watch a horror movie a lot of the tension drains right out.

Howard: how early in the how do you get a look at the alien.

Brandon: 7 is a horror show. Overblown the more you discover the freakier it gets.

Now plot. What do you do differently?

Howard: Stephen King you put the character through the grinder. You make it worse to the characters
you like.

Brandon: you want things to be personal. It ahs to be very close to the character. When it becomes
about the real world.

Howard: war of the worlds we pay attention to steve cruise.

Dan: people trapped ina grocery show.

Final words.

Howard: Boo! That didn’t work did it

Dan: Yellow wall paper, rats in the walls

Writing Prompt

Dan: Descent into madness from a first person point of view.

Brandon: (screams)

Dan: and then Brandon will scream.

Howard: Boo!