Procrastinating/My Other Story Ideas
Recently I’ve been thinking about anthologies in horror. I think when it comes to the written horror genre, it can be a little more difficult to truly frighten your reader. The stakes need to be raised somehow; in a book characters are more durable because they have to be. If all your characters die off there’s not much of a story left to tell.
I was thinking about a semi-anthological horror novel. The exact phrase I wrote down was ‘expanding the story of the opening kill in a horror movie/show’. What I meant by this was the idea of a story where each chapter is led by a character who will die to the monster/villain whatever. Then as the story progresses, background characters in the early chapters begin to feature more and more, the reader becomes more attached, and dreads turning the page to see a familiar name titling the next chapter. So the story begins with a few random killings before the rest of the characters start to take action and try and hunt down whatever’s doing this, inevitably leading to some of their deaths. This would of course require a large cast of characters, however each character's chapter could go on for a longer amount of time than others. The idea being then that the last character to have a chapter is the ‘final girl’, or the one who survives.
It’s a loose thread right now, just something I’ve been thinking about. I don’t know why when I have a big writing project to complete my mind begins to wander to other endeavors and ideas. I think it’s a writer thing, procrastinating writing by writing something else. As of right now, the horror anthology is my second side project idea, the first being a sitcom book.
It’s a weird thing I came up with, because I’d been wanting to write a sitcom for ages because I feel like I have a lot of good ideas for one, but mostly because I love sitcoms. However, I am not a screenwriter. I don’t really know how to do it, and I just prefer to write in prose. So, obviously my next thought was why don’t I write a sitcom as a book? Not exactly the same of course, but a book that focuses on the friendships and relationships of a group of people, mixing fun and mischief with dramatics.
The problem with this, is that books are a different format than TV. It’s a little harder to create a book where nothing really happens, it’s just people hanging out, however I think it is possible. Instead of an overarching plotline, there would be an overarching emotional arc woven through the storyline. In the course of one book (which would correspond to one year), maybe a couple would get together, someone would break up, someone leaves the group, familial drama, etc. In the similar way that sitcom seasons tend to end with something dramatic happening. I think it’s a good idea, and I’ve been working on the characters for a while now. I’m hoping to begin writing it this summer.
I have this inane idea that I can write three manuscripts and my dissertation this summer. My thought process being this is the last summer I have without more adult responsibilities. I will have time on my hands, so why not use that time to create? One manuscript being an adapted/expanded version of my dissertation project, another being the sitcom, and the third up for debate. Currently, maybe the horror anthology idea. It would be good to do, and it would be highly beneficial to further developing my writing style. I think the hard part is the motivation and the sitting.
I hate that so many of my favorite things to do involve sitting. I dream of a standing desk, it would make everything so much better.
Rehashing on the horror anthology series, I was thinking about combining my three horror shorts from my undergraduate program. I am fairly proud of them, and I think they each share similar themes and tone. I think my next post will be the first of them with some added commentary at the end, and then maybe every other post will be the other two. Maybe in the future I fix them up, expand them, and turn them into something else. I really think horror is such an underrated genre in writing, it’s honestly where an author can flex their creativity and comment on the world around them. I think the best horror has real world meaning to it. After all, horror reflects our cultural anxieties back at us.
