WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:06.939 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Hey? Hello! Hello, everyone! 2 00:00:10.690 --> 00:00:11.650 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Hi! 3 00:00:11.810 --> 00:00:20.800 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: I'm Stacey from prowritingaid. Thank you for joining us today. If you can see and hear me, please drop your name and location in the chat. 4 00:00:21.430 --> 00:00:23.670 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Let's see where we're all coming from today. 5 00:00:27.880 --> 00:00:29.570 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Arizona. Okay. 6 00:00:29.770 --> 00:00:30.670 J.B. Kish: Right. 7 00:00:30.670 --> 00:00:31.060 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Good. 8 00:00:31.060 --> 00:00:31.840 J.B. Kish: Event. 9 00:00:34.080 --> 00:00:37.590 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Georgia, Canada, Oregon. Oh, that's you! 10 00:00:37.850 --> 00:00:38.510 J.B. Kish: Bye-bye. 11 00:00:40.630 --> 00:00:41.380 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Love it. 12 00:00:42.750 --> 00:00:45.550 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Texas. I'm in Texas, too. I'm in Houston. 13 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:48.720 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Hello, Canada! 14 00:00:48.720 --> 00:00:51.349 J.B. Kish: Seattle right up there. Okay, not too far. 15 00:00:52.201 --> 00:00:56.230 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Netherlands. Oh, wow! Scotland! Very cool. 16 00:00:57.550 --> 00:01:01.594 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: awesome. Well, we are an international bunch today. 17 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:08.569 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Seattle, Canada. Excellent! Well again. Thank you all so much for joining us today. 18 00:01:08.580 --> 00:01:10.730 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Let's go ahead and get started. 19 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:19.920 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: So we just have a few housekeeping items. First, st you can access your horror. Writers fest replays on the Hub page. 20 00:01:19.980 --> 00:01:30.530 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: The replays will be added as soon as they're done processing by zoom, and they will also be posted to our community page for all members to view by November first, st 21 00:01:33.100 --> 00:01:40.840 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: by attending horror writers fest you'll receive early access to prowriting pro writing aid's biggest sale of the year. 22 00:01:41.220 --> 00:01:46.089 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: 50% off yearly and lifetime, premium and premium pro plans. 23 00:01:46.230 --> 00:01:50.910 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: All participants will receive an email with more information. 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Taking a moment to fill out the following type form, I'm going to copy and paste this link in our chat for us 29 00:02:32.040 --> 00:02:33.720 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: one moment. 30 00:02:35.320 --> 00:02:36.400 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: All right. 31 00:02:38.470 --> 00:02:45.800 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Yes, so please let us know what you've loved, what could be improved and what you'd like to see at a future event. 32 00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:53.270 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: We'd also like to invite you to join a new free writing challenge in our community space. 33 00:02:53.410 --> 00:02:58.319 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: We'll be writing 5,000 words or more between November 4, th through the 8.th 34 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:02.849 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: It's open to all genres and all stages of writing. 35 00:03:03.258 --> 00:03:10.410 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: You can sign up. You can sign up for free using this link that I'm going to be adding to our chat as well. 36 00:03:13.790 --> 00:03:14.830 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay. 37 00:03:18.270 --> 00:03:20.569 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: and just a few reminders for today. 38 00:03:20.660 --> 00:03:28.679 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: If you have a question for our speaker, please use the Q&A box, and you can find that button in the center of your Zoom screen. 39 00:03:29.037 --> 00:03:37.229 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: If you'd like to chat with other viewers, please use the chat you'll need to select everyone. Otherwise your messages will just come to us 40 00:03:37.500 --> 00:03:45.720 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: links to your offers from prowritingaid, and our speaker will be available in the chat and on the horror writers fest hub. 41 00:03:46.630 --> 00:03:53.549 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: So with that being said, I'd love to introduce you to our speaker today. Let me go ahead and stop sharing. 42 00:03:55.180 --> 00:03:56.580 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay. 43 00:03:58.710 --> 00:04:03.470 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: yes. So today we are joined by Jb. Kish, Hi, Jb. 44 00:04:04.850 --> 00:04:14.999 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Jb. Is the co-chair of the Oregon Horror Writers Association, and the winner of the 2020 Hooligan Press, prep. 45 00:04:15.290 --> 00:04:20.050 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: 2020 Oligan press right to publish award for fiction. 46 00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:23.759 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: His writing has been featured in the cozy cosmic 47 00:04:24.230 --> 00:04:29.009 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Metaphorosis Magazine's best of 2020 22 48 00:04:29.200 --> 00:04:33.360 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: cosmic horror monthly and still of winter. In anthology 49 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:41.560 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: when he's not writing. Jb. Is a book coach that helps emerging writers design a strategy to reach their goals. 50 00:04:41.980 --> 00:04:54.639 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: He uses proven project management tools and techniques to help his clients finish their novels in 10 months or less. That is awesome. So Jb, when you're ready, let's go ahead and begin. 51 00:04:55.720 --> 00:05:13.510 J.B. Kish: Awesome, Stacy. Thank you so much. Thank you to prowritingaid for having me. And you're a champ, because I probably have the resume with the most like odd alliteration and strangest award spellings and different publications that are hard to pronounce. So thank you very much. I appreciate you. 52 00:05:13.510 --> 00:05:14.950 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: You're very welcome. 53 00:05:14.950 --> 00:05:21.509 J.B. Kish: Alright and thank you. Everybody who joined. I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen right now. 54 00:05:21.590 --> 00:05:24.779 J.B. Kish: And Stacy, will you let me know is that showing up correctly. 55 00:05:24.780 --> 00:05:26.739 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Yes, you're good to go. 56 00:05:26.740 --> 00:05:27.450 J.B. Kish: Awesome 57 00:05:27.805 --> 00:05:49.799 J.B. Kish: I was running through the chat. Sounds like we've got folks joining from all over the world. That's really exciting. Thank you for being so generous with your time and and coming today to to hear what I've got to chat about. And so as Stacy had talked about what we're gonna be talking about today is gore, gore and horror fiction. Or rather, you know what techniques can we leverage 58 00:05:49.800 --> 00:06:08.219 J.B. Kish: to help create a sense of fear without an over reliance on gore, and that I want to be clear is not to pass judgment on anybody who loves their blood and their guts and their body horror. I love the gruesome just as much as the next author, and personally I feel Gore 59 00:06:08.440 --> 00:06:31.899 J.B. Kish: absolutely has a time and a place in horror. And in addition to some of the new techniques we're going to be talking about today, I'll spend a few minutes in our presentation talking about how we can sort of leverage gore more surgically, I guess. Pun intended there so as to have a greater sense of impact, right? So that when we're using it. It's really landing hard with your audiences. But before we get started 60 00:06:32.070 --> 00:07:00.857 J.B. Kish: I did want to quickly introduce myself. Stacy. Thank you so much for the introduction as well. This is not my official author, Bio. However, this was my costume for several reading events this year, and I loved it so much that I decided to include it in today's presentation. Anybody who knows me knows that I love cosmic horror. The Cthulhu mythos, especially shadow over Innsmouth, which inspired my my costume here of, I guess, sort of a 1-eyed kind of fisherman character. 61 00:07:01.390 --> 00:07:25.559 J.B. Kish: so, as mentioned, I'm a horror and a weird fiction author. My 1st novel came out in 2017. I've been publishing short horror fiction for the last decade. My most recent one. I had a short story come out in even cozier cosmic, which is an anthology, the second in its series. It's from Underland press, and it celebrates cozy, cosmic horror. It collects short stories that are meant to kind of give the reader a sense of 62 00:07:25.660 --> 00:07:39.429 J.B. Kish: dread while also wanting to curl up next to a fire, and, you know, welcome our impending doom and madness, with a cozy blanket and a cup, a cup of tea so kind of a really fun subgenre of horror that's taking place right now. 63 00:07:39.940 --> 00:08:07.400 J.B. Kish: I'm also, as mentioned, a book coach, a very specific type of book coach, and at the end of the presentation I'll be talking about my company writingmistones.com. It's all about helping authors, as mentioned, publish their 1st novel once and for all in 10 months, using proven tried and true project management methodologies and processes. So if you're interested in something like that, hang around, I'll be talking about it a little bit more at the end. 64 00:08:07.840 --> 00:08:36.760 J.B. Kish: All right. So let's keep on rolling here. As I mentioned, we want to talk about gore today, or what to do in the absence of it. And as I mentioned, I'm really not picking on gore at all. Rather, I chose this topic to explore with you all, because I think it's a really important one, especially for folks that are newer in their careers, and are starting to explore horror and horror fiction for the 1st time. So anytime that we enter into something 65 00:08:36.760 --> 00:08:49.050 J.B. Kish: brand new. And this is true, for really any activity, we enter into that landscape with a toolbox right that is largely empty. And so naturally, what we start to do is reach for 66 00:08:49.090 --> 00:08:58.050 J.B. Kish: the lowest hanging fruit to get us started, and that that initial fruit kind of becomes our 1st and our most regularly used tools. 67 00:08:58.070 --> 00:09:22.590 J.B. Kish: Now, when it comes to horror. Fiction there is no easier fruit to grab for than gore. It's viscerally off-putting, it's scary, it's frightening, and it often involves sort of blood and guts and organs that should be on the inside of our bodies suddenly being at times extracted and exposed to the outside elements. And you know 68 00:09:22.750 --> 00:09:34.070 J.B. Kish: we know this is true, because the moment we see blood right, we know something's wrong. If if we're seeing red, it means that some safety measure that should have been in place to protect us 69 00:09:34.070 --> 00:09:53.609 J.B. Kish: physically has failed, and there's fewer things more frightening than kind of coming face to face with someone or a situation that wants to impose that kind of physical harm on us or our characters. So Gore absolutely works, and it is a tool for our toolbox. 70 00:09:53.730 --> 00:10:06.689 J.B. Kish: But I want to expand that toolbox today and talk about a few techniques that new or even experienced writers can start to reach for. So they don't start to develop what I mentioned earlier, that over reliance on gore. 71 00:10:07.160 --> 00:10:29.969 J.B. Kish: And so here's what we're going to be talking about today. These 3 key things, psychological manipulation, uncanny imagery and suggestive storytelling. I think there will be elements here that everybody's familiar with, but when we tie them all together it sort of elevates us to a new mode of storytelling. So we'll dive into each of these one by one, and start exploring horror from those different vantage points 72 00:10:29.970 --> 00:10:53.810 J.B. Kish: which is also going to allow you to connect with your readers on deeper, more intimate levels, so that those stories stick with them and continue to stir those emotions inside of them long after they've finished reading the story. That's the success of a good horror story. It's scary in the moment, but it's also scary at 2 am when you get up to go to the bathroom, and you can't help but think of that thing 73 00:10:53.860 --> 00:10:56.559 J.B. Kish: that's when you really know that you've nailed it. 74 00:10:57.115 --> 00:11:02.960 J.B. Kish: There's this really famous Maya Angelou quote that I'm certain many people here are familiar with. 75 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:27.320 J.B. Kish: I've learned that people will forget what you've said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them. Feel feelings stick with us the longest, and this is so true for the tools that we're going to be discussing today. And when looking for an example of a story to start us off that utilizes all 3 of these techniques in a way that sticks with us long after we've 76 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:28.800 J.B. Kish: sort of seen it. 77 00:11:28.800 --> 00:11:34.950 J.B. Kish: There's no greater example, in my opinion, than the exorcist. So 78 00:11:35.020 --> 00:11:58.070 J.B. Kish: when I personally think of the exorcist. What I do not immediately think of I don't think of this, are the gory details. I don't think of Regan, the main character vomiting, or her scars, or sort of the pus coming out of her wounds for me. When I think of the exorcist, my mind immediately goes to this party scene in on the screen 79 00:11:58.070 --> 00:12:10.689 J.B. Kish: in which a group of adults have gathered to drink and sing songs. The scene is very jubilant. It's fun, it's relatable, and the pacing is really snappy. Right? And then Regan. 80 00:12:10.830 --> 00:12:18.639 J.B. Kish: the little girl, the main character of the film. She comes downstairs in her nightgown unannounced. The adults all go quiet. 81 00:12:18.670 --> 00:12:32.419 J.B. Kish: and without prompting or context, Regan looks to a specific party guest an astronaut that is soon going to be departing for a mission in space, and she softly says to him, You're going to die up there. 82 00:12:33.100 --> 00:12:38.809 J.B. Kish: and this has stuck with me over the years, because well, personally, I'm terrified of flying. 83 00:12:38.820 --> 00:13:07.079 J.B. Kish: and this one line has done more to unravel me over the last couple decades than any amount of head spinning or demon voice or gore ever could. This simple moment for me is a masterclass in subtle horror, and it's nothing more than a single sentence of dialogue. So this is the impact of what you can do when you're very strategic and not leaning on that low hanging fruit. 84 00:13:08.090 --> 00:13:29.960 J.B. Kish: Okay, so let's look at our 1st new tool for today. Something the exorcist use a lot of that psychological manipulation. What is it? Why does it work in literature, psychological manipulation? It's a technique that writers will use to unsettle their readers by distorting characters, perceptions of reality. 85 00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:52.720 J.B. Kish: or making them question what is true. It's about playing with the mind rather than relying on overt threats or physical scares. This technique keeps readers on edge, creating a sense of suspense and unease as they, along with their own characters, navigate a world where the reality and the emotions and even the memories might not be reliable. 86 00:13:52.900 --> 00:14:19.220 J.B. Kish: And here are 3 common techniques authors use in stories that leverage psychological manipulation, unreliable narrator. Probably something people are very familiar with on this call. The story's being told, but through a character whose perspective is distorted by sometimes mental distress or isolation or hidden motives. They're unclear to the reader, making them difficult to fully trust. 87 00:14:19.390 --> 00:14:27.450 J.B. Kish: There's also the technique of blurring reality and fantasy. That's where authors will mix dreams and fantasy or hallucinations. 88 00:14:27.450 --> 00:14:52.409 J.B. Kish: with real events, creating a blurred line between reality and imagination that heightens the suspense as well. And there's also sowing doubt and ambiguity. This is introduced by leaving certain details open to interpretation, making readers question what's real and keeping them invested in uncovering that truth all the way up to the end of the novel. So it's a great technique for 89 00:14:52.410 --> 00:15:00.040 J.B. Kish: sort of stringing your readers along feeding them just a little bit at a time, so that you really have a high impact at that climax. 90 00:15:00.210 --> 00:15:11.070 J.B. Kish: These are really common tools, not only in horror, but also you're probably familiar with mystery and suspense. These things are also used there because it's so immersive for readers, right? 91 00:15:11.210 --> 00:15:35.020 J.B. Kish: It's about pulling us in and putting us in their shoes as if it's happening to us so really notable examples of this in literature and film Fight club both the book and the Film Black Swan. For folks familiar with that House of leaves, and probably most notably in the image here the haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson. It's a perfect example, because it explores 92 00:15:35.070 --> 00:15:41.939 J.B. Kish: the sort of devastating effects of isolation and blurred reality. Through the protagonist of that story, Eleanor. 93 00:15:42.050 --> 00:15:57.649 J.B. Kish: the author uses subtle and complex psychological techniques that play with the reader's perception, keeping them unsure all along the way about what's real, what's imagined. And it's what makes us feel so unsettled when we sort of consume that story. 94 00:15:57.650 --> 00:16:13.990 J.B. Kish: It's really easy to map this story to the techniques on the screen here first, st you know, we've got Eleanor's deep emotional wounds and her need for self preservation. They lead her to construct these alternate realities, and she even convinces herself that some of these things are real. 95 00:16:14.050 --> 00:16:22.719 J.B. Kish: And as a reader we're trapped inside that perspective with her right. We're experiencing that unease and unsureness about what's real or not. 96 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:39.100 J.B. Kish: And it's made all the more complicated. Obviously, if you're familiar with the story as her growing attachment to Hill House increases, and you know the house itself kind of begins to sort of consume her across a couple different dimensions or perspectives. 97 00:16:39.100 --> 00:17:02.009 J.B. Kish: Then, you know, the ambiguity of her subjective experience leaves the readers with more questions than answers, really intensifies that psychological impact, because the author doesn't provide the strongest amount of closure for what's taken place. Instead, she allows us, as readers to feel that same sort of cloudiness that Eleanor was experiencing through the story. 98 00:17:02.010 --> 00:17:27.469 J.B. Kish: and it kind of even leaves us with a sense at the end of the story. It suggests that we might not be any better than Eleanor herself in terms of our capabilities of coping. If we leave a story feeling like Oh, I'm not quite sure what I read, and that was the perspective of the character as well. It forces one to ask themselves, am I the same? Could I be subjected to this same experience, which is just kind of like a fun Meta way of 99 00:17:27.719 --> 00:17:35.450 J.B. Kish: scaring your readers, and I never thought I would actually say a fun, Meta way of scaring your readers. But there it is, if that was on your Bingo card today. 100 00:17:35.490 --> 00:17:44.250 J.B. Kish: you can mark that one off. So this is tool number one for today, which we'll kind of explore in other ways but psychological manipulation. 101 00:17:44.250 --> 00:18:10.569 J.B. Kish: Let's talk about my personal favorite for today, uncanny imagery. I love this stuff. So this is a technique in literature where familiar things are presented in a way that makes them seem eerie or unsettling, or just not quite right. The term uncanny means something that is both recognizable and strange at the same time, which often creates that feeling of discomfort and fear. 102 00:18:11.224 --> 00:18:17.850 J.B. Kish: It's this sense of unease that creates a heightened experience for the readers when something familiar. 103 00:18:17.990 --> 00:18:24.570 J.B. Kish: like a doll or a reflection, or even a person, looks or behaves 104 00:18:24.570 --> 00:18:48.060 J.B. Kish: just slightly off right, and it taps into our lizard brains that part of us that has fight or flight like when you meet somebody, and you can't put your finger on it. But there's something that just kind of spooks you about them. You know your brain is telling you that this situation or this person might be trying to take advantage of you, or worse. They might even be trying to harm 105 00:18:48.060 --> 00:19:11.629 J.B. Kish: you. That's the reason it's so effective that part of that brain that sets off those alarms. So it's all about feeling that need to panic, but not being able to point. Why, that's why uncanny is really fun, because, depending on the situation, you might not even be in a place where it's appropriate to point out why, even if you did know what it is, so 106 00:19:11.630 --> 00:19:40.690 J.B. Kish: you know, invasion of the body snatchers great example where our main character starts to believe that the people around him might not be right, but they haven't taken over so much of the town that it would be socially acceptable to run around and start pointing fingers. Right? That actually makes you look more like the crazy person. So there's a tipping point with uncanny. That's really fun. Our main characters often sense something's wrong, but depending on the situation, the context, it might not be appropriate to say so. 107 00:19:40.750 --> 00:19:46.230 J.B. Kish: So. Here are some popular ways that uncanny shows up in literature 108 00:19:46.410 --> 00:20:13.240 J.B. Kish: objects with subtle, inhuman traits. So like I said earlier dolls, mannequins, statues, great examples. You know things with those kind of unblinking eyes that sort of seem to watch us and make them feel disturbingly alive reflections and doppelgangers. So any stories that leverage mirrors or body doubles that appear almost identical. But again, they're off. 109 00:20:13.310 --> 00:20:42.440 J.B. Kish: This is especially scary because it, you know, in addition to hitting our sort of lizard brain, it also taps into our fears of identity and and self control. What does it mean if something like that happens to me now, you're starting to connect with your love, your readers on an entirely different level. There's layers to this sort of thing, and that's where, again Gore achieves a certain amount of layer. But if you start making your readers ask these other questions about themselves now, you're really starting to get to the root of things. 110 00:20:42.961 --> 00:21:05.910 J.B. Kish: Similarly, settings that resemble home, but aren't quite right. These are spaces that mimic home, but with subtly wrong details. A really really great example. This is like one of my favorite things. You know, the Internet. We all agree, the Internet sometimes not the best place, but sometimes the Internet really creates some amazing things. The back rooms which is in the image shown here. Some of you might be familiar with it. 111 00:21:05.910 --> 00:21:26.739 J.B. Kish: The back rooms is an Internet horror kind of concept that shows up in Youtube videos, reddit threads or fan art. Essentially, it is as a concept, this inescapable liminal space that feels kind of like an office complex. But it's it's subtly off the ceiling tiles. 112 00:21:26.740 --> 00:21:46.729 J.B. Kish: the long yellow hallways. Occasionally there's a desk or some paperwork strewn about. They're all familiar objects and things to us, but everything's wrong proportionally. There's no exits to this space. It just keeps going on maze-like, and our lizard brains immediately start telling us 113 00:21:47.070 --> 00:22:08.779 J.B. Kish: this place is a trick. This place is trying to be something else, but it's trying to trick us into going further. And certainly the further you go in the back rooms the more danger you're probably bound to stumble upon. So if anybody's unfamiliar with it, that's a rabbit hole you could spend a lot of time in, and I highly encourage it, because it's some people do some exciting stuff there. 114 00:22:09.040 --> 00:22:36.629 J.B. Kish: Another great example that folks will be familiar with in the world of uncanny imagery. Stepford wives, classic, using the concept of the almost human replacements to create an atmosphere of eerie dread in this novel for those unfamiliar the women of Stepford, who initially seem like average suburban wives, are slowly revealed to be artificial, robotic, and obedient versions of their former selves. 115 00:22:36.630 --> 00:22:48.140 J.B. Kish: which continues to be, but especially for the time this book was published, was a social commentary. Right? Still lands well today, but especially when it was published, really made people turn their heads. 116 00:22:48.420 --> 00:23:13.690 J.B. Kish: And this is where fiction gets really exciting, in my opinion, because Ira Levin, the author, was able to use uncanny imagery to explore some of the more important social topics in a way that resonated deeply with his audience. And I want everyone to really latch on to that. He was exploring women's struggles for individuality, autonomy, social, paranormal. 117 00:23:13.690 --> 00:23:25.030 J.B. Kish: paranoia, and it was a critique of gender roles. And in my mind the big takeaway from this is that finding new and novel ways to scare your readers. 118 00:23:25.170 --> 00:23:44.209 J.B. Kish: It's not just about freaking them out with gory imagery, which is, you know, a great tool, but it's it's also about connecting with our readers on important topics, which is gonna further cement your work in their minds and resonate with them long after they've read your story right? 119 00:23:44.330 --> 00:23:49.800 J.B. Kish: So this right here again, we'll revisit it. But this is tool number 2 for the day, uncanny imagery. 120 00:23:49.980 --> 00:24:14.960 J.B. Kish: and that takes us to our 3rd new tool for the toolbox. Suggestive storytelling. This is pretty much the exact opposite of gore, and it's all about hinting at or implying or subtly suggesting things rather than stating them outright. It relies on implication and subtext rather than explicit detail, encouraging readers to use their imaginations 121 00:24:15.180 --> 00:24:40.499 J.B. Kish: to fill the gap. So it's a bit of offloading of the work, which in certain times and places is a really handy trick. It can be particularly powerful in horror, because the unknown is often scarier and more intriguing when it's left up to interpretation creates more suspense, and it can have a lingering effect again. That's the big theme. Here is, how do we? How do we linger in our readers minds long after they've finished 122 00:24:41.260 --> 00:24:45.040 J.B. Kish: so popular techniques for suggestive storytelling. 123 00:24:45.170 --> 00:25:04.000 J.B. Kish: you know, ambiguous details. That's a very clear one right there events or descriptions that hint at something more, but don't fully explain it implied backstories for our characters, or even our places, with sort of mysterious pasts that are hinted at, but not spelled out all the way for your readers. 124 00:25:04.060 --> 00:25:13.059 J.B. Kish: and then unseen threats, so characters that are sensing or reacting to something terrifying. But readers don't get the full picture. 125 00:25:13.350 --> 00:25:37.320 J.B. Kish: And one of the recent examples of this that I really enjoyed this year was Chuck Windig's Black River orchard. I don't think it came out this year. I think it came out last year. If I'm right, I'll need to double check that. But I read it this year easily. My favorite read of the year for anyone unfamiliar with this story. In Black River Orchard a small town becomes enthralled by this new breed of 126 00:25:37.320 --> 00:25:43.820 J.B. Kish: apple, which a quick pause. I think it's amazing that an author like Chuck said to himself. 127 00:25:43.910 --> 00:25:52.860 J.B. Kish: apples are about the least scary thing I could think of. He kind of did one of those like hold my beers? I'm if you don't think apples are scary, I'm gonna find a way to make them scary. 128 00:25:53.020 --> 00:26:00.020 J.B. Kish: and so he does that in this book these apples are impossibly delicious, and have seemingly 129 00:26:00.020 --> 00:26:28.780 J.B. Kish: transformative health benefits. However, as the allure of this apple spreads, the residents of this small town become obsessed with it, and their cravings start to reveal dark secrets, not only about themselves, but about the town they live in, and its sort of bloody history. The reason I love this book so much there's a ton. But it's really perfect for this slide, because of all the suggestive storytelling that takes place in this book. 130 00:26:28.950 --> 00:26:49.020 J.B. Kish: Chuck often describes the townsfolk as becoming better when they eat the apple, but early on in the novel. It's really not clear what he means by that like, are they physically better, mentally, socially, better? We don't know. But one thing is very clear to the readers upfront. 131 00:26:49.020 --> 00:27:16.229 J.B. Kish: Everybody in the book agrees that this apple makes you better, and it's this kind of unquestioning devotion to the apple that actually starts to slip into our last tool that we just talked about uncanny doppelgangers, right people that you know and trust, who are insisting. You just try a bite of this apple man, just one like it'll make you better. So really love that aspect. Additionally. 132 00:27:16.910 --> 00:27:46.060 J.B. Kish: he's really does a great job in this book at slowly teasing out character backstories. So some of the people that you meet at the beginning of your novel appear to sort of genuinely. Be good, honest, hardworking citizens of the small town, but you know a deeper backstory is always being hinted at, and by the end of the novel some characters are revealed to be sort of something entirely different. And it's that tension that you feel throughout the novel, right? You know, meeting them, that there's certain lines that feel off. 133 00:27:46.060 --> 00:27:49.350 J.B. Kish: and he pulls that taut throughout the entire book. 134 00:27:49.350 --> 00:28:00.029 J.B. Kish: which really makes the payoff pretty satisfying when you have a full, comprehensive understanding of who this character was that you've just spent like 600 pages with. It's a thick book, very worth your time 135 00:28:00.630 --> 00:28:23.769 J.B. Kish: outside of literature and Black River Orchard. For this example, there's other great examples that folks are probably familiar with Bird Box, by Josh Mallorman. That story never fully describes the creatures that cause people to go mad. Readers only know that they are in the book, and they are dangerous if they are seen. 136 00:28:23.880 --> 00:28:27.780 J.B. Kish: And it's that lack of description that builds suspense. 137 00:28:27.850 --> 00:28:45.210 J.B. Kish: As again, the author is offloading the work. It's not a tool to be abused. But again, when used intentionally, you don't have to do all that legwork, simply implying that this thing is so grotesque or so terrifying, it literally breaks your brain 138 00:28:45.210 --> 00:28:53.569 J.B. Kish: that in my world is a perfect example of offloading the work, because I, as a reader, am the only one who could tell you 139 00:28:53.570 --> 00:29:15.640 J.B. Kish: what that thing is so scary in my world that it could break my brain. There's no way Josh Mallerman would be able to describe. Listen, gang it! There's a lot of craziness happening up here, and Josh Mallerman would not be able to tell me what would break my brain, only I have the power to do that. And he was so intentional and so smart by giving me permission as an audience member to do that. 140 00:29:15.770 --> 00:29:45.309 J.B. Kish: So great example there of offloading work to the reader. Similarly, the film jaws great movie and the monster is almost entirely suggested that throughout that entire film. It's not shown outright until the climax. But that threat is communicated in different ways because it's film. They've got the opportunity to use music. But you know, characters, reactions, brief glimpses, all things that you could leverage within literature to do a similar thing. 141 00:29:45.310 --> 00:29:53.750 J.B. Kish: It lets that builder sorry that a reader build up in their mind what this monster is. It makes for an excellent payoff 142 00:29:53.770 --> 00:29:54.990 J.B. Kish: at the end. 143 00:29:55.850 --> 00:30:10.590 J.B. Kish: Okay, so we've spoken about those 3 new tools for our toolbox. But I want to talk about something important that is adjacent to those things, and very related atmosphere and pacing. So if we think of writing as cooking 144 00:30:10.590 --> 00:30:28.739 J.B. Kish: than the tools we've explored. Psychological manipulation, uncanny imagery, and suggestive storytelling. These are the main ingredients in this analogy of like writing is cooking. So these are our ingredients, spices, flavors. They create textures that give the dish the book a unique taste. 145 00:30:29.010 --> 00:30:30.869 J.B. Kish: Atmosphere and pacing 146 00:30:30.900 --> 00:31:00.579 J.B. Kish: are the cooking techniques right? The timing. These things are essential for bringing out the best in the main ingredients. So let's talk a little bit about atmosphere. Atmosphere is a technique in writing used to create a powerful emotional setting that draws readers into the story and evokes specific feelings such as dread tension or mystery. So here's how each of these elements works and why they're effective in horror. So the 1st sensory details. 147 00:31:00.580 --> 00:31:13.030 J.B. Kish: So we're talking sights and sounds and smells textures. Anything that engages your reader's senses, making a fictional environment feel real. This is critical in horror, because 148 00:31:13.150 --> 00:31:22.440 J.B. Kish: when readers can feel a place even in their imagination, the stakes become real, the vulnerability to the danger becomes real. 149 00:31:22.970 --> 00:31:37.540 J.B. Kish: Another sort of element, quiet, isolated settings, so quieter, more isolated settings that lack that sort of outside interven and sorry intervention. So we're talking places like deserted towns 150 00:31:37.540 --> 00:32:02.319 J.B. Kish: or lonely forests, empty homes, big buildings, these places often feel disconnected from safety and society. However, it is worth noting that isolation can be found in populated areas, too, especially if you lean into psychological horror. That tool from earlier that really allows you to isolate a character in broad daylight. Take it out of the 151 00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:14.439 J.B. Kish: need for putting them in the middle of nowhere, without cell service. That was horror of the past. Right? That's very eighties. Horror! But these days great examples of psychological populated horror stories 152 00:32:14.690 --> 00:32:40.449 J.B. Kish: you've got. It follows the movie. It follows the movie talk to me. And the movie smile, all 3 of those very much leaning into the idea that we can isolate our characters psychologically in populated areas and show them things that only they in the audience can see which really cranks up the stakes, because now it's like, Hey, this could happen anywhere. I don't have to be on my way to the cabin in the woods without my cell phone 153 00:32:40.450 --> 00:33:06.680 J.B. Kish: to be at risk of being, I guess, murdered, to put it bluntly. And then, lastly, specific word choices. This one's very obvious for us writers, right? The words we choose matter. We don't want to use cheap words. We want to use specific strategic words, things that have connotations. So you know, darkness, decay and quiet movement all have that connotation. So it's about intentionality for helping create atmosphere. 154 00:33:07.750 --> 00:33:31.730 J.B. Kish: Okay, the second thing around our sort of concept of the cooking analogy here, pacing it's critical to building tension and making atmosphere that readers will remember. So this is how an author controls the speed at which events unfold, creating suspense and anticipation for the reader, and then, by carefully managing that pace, they can feel that build up over time. 155 00:33:31.730 --> 00:33:56.149 J.B. Kish: and you're using slower movements to develop that tension. And then suddenly, you can use fast sudden movements to release that tension in shocking or unexpected ways. So the 2 key elements for that are that, first, st that slow buildup stretching out your scenes, your descriptions, or moments to make readers feel a growing sense of suspense and dread. We're not trying to trick them. We're trying to communicate clearly that this is intense 156 00:33:56.150 --> 00:34:06.609 J.B. Kish: being drawn out it makes them feel the weight of each word that you're writing. And by delaying those events that they're just kind of like no, or right around the corner. 157 00:34:06.620 --> 00:34:35.140 J.B. Kish: You're making them wait anytime. We're put in a position where we're forced to wait. You're naturally increasing our curiosity. But you're also cranking up our anxiety as humans. Right? So great example of this, the film in the book, Rosemary's Baby. The story builds slowly. Our protagonist, Rosemary. She begins to sense that something is not quite right, but the tension is rising in small little surgical ways, and her anxiety grows, making our anticipation grow alongside it. 158 00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:45.370 J.B. Kish: And then, once you've done the slow buildup. Then you can shift to a sudden a sudden shift or a climax. These are big, disruptive moments where the pace 159 00:34:45.370 --> 00:35:10.029 J.B. Kish: shifts to being much faster catching readers off guard. Right? This is the sort of literary equivalent of the jump scare we want to shock readers into releasing that pent up suspension. And when we go back to the Rosemary's baby example, when she starts to kind of uncover the horrible truth about her husband and her neighbors, those realizations. They happen very quickly, very shockingly. They disrupt 160 00:35:10.090 --> 00:35:16.889 J.B. Kish: the previous flow of the novel, which has been that slow build, and it intensifies the scares for people. 161 00:35:17.670 --> 00:35:42.239 J.B. Kish: Okay. So I want to quickly do a little bit of a case study where we see an example of some fiction writing that leverages this in a number of different things that we've talked about today. These are the opening lines from a short story published by Nightmare Magazine, by a horror author named Eric grove in 2023, and the reason that I love these opening lines, the reason I feel that this short story got published 162 00:35:42.240 --> 00:35:52.630 J.B. Kish: was because it shows a very tight and controlled mastery of atmosphere and pacing and psychological terror. Specifically that new tool in our toolbox. So 163 00:35:53.300 --> 00:35:54.689 J.B. Kish: one could. 164 00:35:54.970 --> 00:35:56.490 J.B. Kish: if necessary. 165 00:35:56.580 --> 00:35:59.879 J.B. Kish: hide between the studs in your walls. 166 00:36:00.170 --> 00:36:02.850 J.B. Kish: shoulders narrower than the gap 167 00:36:02.940 --> 00:36:09.510 J.B. Kish: back against the plywood of the exterior panel chest. When fully inflated with breath. 168 00:36:09.690 --> 00:36:12.690 J.B. Kish: pressing against the lath, and the plaster 169 00:36:12.790 --> 00:36:13.920 J.B. Kish: room enough 170 00:36:14.170 --> 00:36:15.479 J.B. Kish: to disappear. 171 00:36:16.180 --> 00:36:41.290 J.B. Kish: So in this much longer story, the opening lines, we have 3 key things happening here. Right? First, st we've created atmosphere. It's the inside of a home. It's not like a living room. It's the space in between the walls, literally between the walls. It's cramped. It's claustrophobic it's isolated. It's not where any good, decent person probably belongs. 172 00:36:41.290 --> 00:36:53.539 J.B. Kish: The second thing is the fact that it's not just any living room or home. It's your living room. It's your home now. It's personal. Now we've tapped into the psychological. 173 00:36:53.920 --> 00:37:03.780 J.B. Kish: And the 3rd thing I love about this is a playful sort of suggestive and definitely sinister implication that the narrator, whoever they are. 174 00:37:04.100 --> 00:37:19.059 J.B. Kish: if they truly felt like it, could sort of simply slide into that space without you knowing. And that is an amazing use of another tool. We've talked about suggestive storytelling, right? You long to know from the 1st paragraph. 175 00:37:19.220 --> 00:37:47.439 J.B. Kish: All right. Who's this guy? Why is he inside the inside of my house? And what does he plan to do while being there? So, in terms of pacing what the author has done is quickly suggest the threat of danger. But the story, if you take the time to go read it online, you know it's a long time before it fully explains what that danger is, and when it finally comes, the shift is sudden, like we just talked about in pacing. The danger intensifies very quickly 176 00:37:48.120 --> 00:38:03.899 J.B. Kish: for the sake of time. I'm going to skip this next section here. But this is another, the next section in that short story. Again, an amazing use of suggestive storytelling, psychological storytelling. I will note one thing here. 177 00:38:03.930 --> 00:38:26.839 J.B. Kish: This was mine before it was yours. A single story, 19 twenties bungalow. It goes on to describe the house a little bit more in great detail, in a scary amount of detail. Whoever this narrator is, they know our house very well. In this last line. Your keeper puts his arms around your waist, his hand with the golden band on the outside. He asked if you liked it. 178 00:38:27.210 --> 00:38:48.600 J.B. Kish: Now this is amazing, because we've suddenly been jumped into the action of the story right? This is a great example of a sudden shift in pacing. We go immediately from a haunting and beautiful description of the house into the action. So this is a great example of that shift from something beautiful to something scary, because we don't know where this person is 179 00:38:48.690 --> 00:38:50.770 J.B. Kish: or how they're watching us. 180 00:38:51.250 --> 00:39:15.840 J.B. Kish: Okay? Because it's almost Halloween. And I imagine that everybody on this call loves their scary movies. 2 films I want to recommend for folks if you haven't seen them, especially when it comes to pacing and atmosphere. Are these oddity and mads? I'm not going to go into each film, but I'll say they both do an excellent job cranking the tension slowly and building an atmosphere that lasts with you long after you've seen it. Oddity 181 00:39:16.300 --> 00:39:32.419 J.B. Kish: actually has almost no gore in it at all, but the suggestive storytelling is terrifying, while Mads has an incredible amount of gore in it, but it uses the gore intentionally, not as a blunt object with which to hammer the audience. 182 00:39:32.420 --> 00:39:46.989 J.B. Kish: Which brings me to my next slide, which is like, okay, John, we get it. You want us to do everything but use gore. But darn it, I like gore. So what about it? When is it appropriate to use it. And how do I make sure I'm not using it as a crutch 183 00:39:47.270 --> 00:40:12.179 J.B. Kish: so great. Let's talk about gore. It's a totally fair question to be asked in defense of gore. Let's talk about when it hits the hardest. In my experience. Once you've leveraged some of these other tools we've talked about today, then you can start leaning into it. And here are some great ways. You can lean into it the climax of a psychological horror story when you use Gore sparingly to break the tension and deliver a shocking 184 00:40:12.180 --> 00:40:40.010 J.B. Kish: physical payoff after that psychological buildup. So in the image here, we've got that famous scene from the shining. It's not quite the climax of the film, but a great example of the tensions been building. Psychologically, the elevator opens, and we have personally a shocking amount of but way too much blood. Whoever's blood this belongs to. They need to get to a hospital quick. Other places where gore really hits hard, externalizing inner states, so 185 00:40:40.010 --> 00:40:57.139 J.B. Kish: gore can mirror a character's mental breakdown or despair, adding depth to the psychological journey, also contrasting the ordinary and the horrific so introducing gore into a familiar setting creates a disturbing contrast. It really intensifies the scares for your readers. 186 00:40:57.180 --> 00:41:01.689 J.B. Kish: It's really great at emphasizing real stakes. 187 00:41:01.690 --> 00:41:26.349 J.B. Kish: A single graphic moment underlines the real danger, and it makes the story's threats feel tangible. So great examples where you might have seen this done masterfully, are anytime you've seen a war film, and you've got our characters who are hanging out in a nonviolent sort of situation, talking to one another that classic scene where suddenly a sniper bullet 188 00:41:26.350 --> 00:41:45.630 J.B. Kish: comes and takes out one of our characters right emphasizing real stakes. And it's a single graphic moment that really brings it full circle and makes it round, and that hits differently when it is acute, when it's surgical, when it's fast but upends everything that we know. 189 00:41:45.870 --> 00:42:08.099 J.B. Kish: Obviously gore is great for highlighting mortality themes, it can underscore themes of decay or corruption is very popular, and it reinforces, whatever your story's darker themes might be. And then, of course, as we've mentioned several times building anticipation, hints of gore like blood splatters on the wall, or faint descriptions 190 00:42:08.616 --> 00:42:18.610 J.B. Kish: some some a story that did this really really well. Another film example, the 19 eighties version of John Carpenter's the thing my favorite movie of all time. 191 00:42:18.610 --> 00:42:41.890 J.B. Kish: At the beginning of the film they go to. I believe it's the Norwegians base where clearly a story has taken place. But that's not our camp, and we don't know what happened. But when the characters go there, and they walk through. The building's been burned down in portions. There's blood in certain parts of it. There's an axe in the wall all suggesting. 192 00:42:41.890 --> 00:42:53.430 J.B. Kish: you know, elements of horror that are raising the tension for our current characters who are trying to figure it out. And it's a clear signaling that if this happened to that other camp, it's definitely gonna happen to yours. 193 00:42:54.120 --> 00:43:08.280 J.B. Kish: Okay, great. So before we go any further and wrap up, I'll pause here, Stacy, are there any questions that we want to get into before I sort of do a recap? Or should I go through the recap and we can get to the questions afterwards. 194 00:43:08.280 --> 00:43:10.060 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Through the recap. Yeah, let's go through the recap. 195 00:43:10.060 --> 00:43:36.040 J.B. Kish: That sounds great. Okay, thank you so much. All right. So gang. Here's what we've covered today. There are 3 new tools that we have added to our toolbox psychological manipulation. It's about unsettling your readers and distorting their perception. Remember our example. There was haunting of Hill House. Eleanor's unreliable perspective really making us feel like we don't know what's going on. Uncanny imagery, something that looks or feels human. But it's off. 196 00:43:36.100 --> 00:43:58.630 J.B. Kish: Example is the Stepford wives that social commentary that something like the uncanny helps you unlock and go a level deeper with your audience and suggestive storytelling rather than showing every horrific detail you know, sort of suggesting what happens, that that Black River orchard example, where you eat the apple and you become better. But what does that mean? Necessarily? 197 00:43:58.900 --> 00:44:20.809 J.B. Kish: And in order for those things to work. We've also discussed the importance of atmosphere and pacing so sensory details and quiet settings. So that's the sights, the sounds, the smells that make something feel more immersive. And if it's more immersive, it's more real in your reader's mind, and then isolating your characters. And remember, isolation can be done in populated areas as well. 198 00:44:20.810 --> 00:44:31.660 J.B. Kish: and then also balancing slow builds with sudden shifts right teasing out your story, controlling the rhythm, and then having sudden, shocking moments. 199 00:44:32.450 --> 00:44:58.389 J.B. Kish: All right. So I want to leave you with just a few more concepts that we didn't talk about today. But you can definitely jot these down and go research them. If you want other great tools that you can be adding to your toolbox, foreshadowing ominous symbols. This is from the opening of the film, the exorcist, which is a great example, that something that you can give the readers to telegraph and start having them anticipate the safety of your main characters. 200 00:44:58.580 --> 00:45:06.680 J.B. Kish: There's also understated horror dialogue. So letting characters hint at fears or dark secrets through offhanded remarks. 201 00:45:06.700 --> 00:45:31.609 J.B. Kish: using minimalist descriptions less is sometimes more. Again, it's about offloading that work to your readers. Simple language can help disturbing moments, feel more powerful and put an emphasis on those moments, and then also, of course, fragmented nonlinear narratives breaking that traditional chronology to mimic characters, disorientation, or to be feeding stakes to the reader 202 00:45:32.630 --> 00:45:43.260 J.B. Kish: different paces. Okay, so that is the majority of the presentation today. I really appreciate it for everyone, for giving me your time, and before we do wrap up 203 00:45:43.310 --> 00:45:49.259 J.B. Kish: I do want to talk a little bit about my book coaching, and then we'll grab some questions, Stacy, if that works well for you. Awesome. 204 00:45:49.610 --> 00:46:13.509 J.B. Kish: perfect. Okay. So mentioned at the beginning, I do a specialized kind of book coaching, prowritingaid has been kind enough to let me preview that for you all today. So essentially, what I do gang is this, I help people finish their novels once and for all, and achieve this milestone right here. If you've ever been scrolling on social media, and you've seen someone get to unbox their very 1st novel for the 1st time, and get to experience. 205 00:46:13.510 --> 00:46:37.420 J.B. Kish: You know the smell and sort of the touch and the feeling of getting to see their work come to life. That's what I do. I have a decade of experience in project management, and what I've done is apply these proven processes and project management tools to folks who are trying to write a book. I've used it for myself, and I've used it for all my clients, and it works so, more importantly. 206 00:46:37.420 --> 00:46:56.479 J.B. Kish: they're able to finish their novels without sacrificing their day jobs, their family, or, in my opinion, most importantly, their sleep. I'm especially serious about that sleep part, because my secret here is not to tell people that they have to wake up at 4 am. To write their book, or like whatever else hustle culture teaches us to do. That's not my vibe. 207 00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:25.089 J.B. Kish: I want you to be able to write your novels, finish it and live your lives instead, it's really about breaking down your goals into incremental, actionable steps that we can put on an actual roadmap to track your progress. Really, it's about understanding that our books, our novels, our projects, just like the websites that I build as a project manager. And if we can build multimillion dollar project roadmaps for building a website. I guarantee we can do it for your book, and we can get it done 208 00:47:25.090 --> 00:47:48.130 J.B. Kish: confidently. So I want to thank everybody for joining. I'm offering a free clarity call for today's attendees if you want to email me with the subject line Pwareferral at Hello, at Jbkish, you're more than welcome to do so. I'd be happy to hop on a call and just chat with you about what your goals are, and if you want to learn more. You can check out my website writingmestones.com. There's lots of information about how me and my clients are able to do this. 209 00:47:48.240 --> 00:47:56.169 J.B. Kish: and with that I'll stop moving my hands around so much. I'll stop talking, Stacey. Thank you so much for your help. What questions can we start with. 210 00:47:56.380 --> 00:48:13.200 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Sure. Well, 1st of all, that was just absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for kind of taking us through that journey and also sharing about. You know what you're offering this? It sounds amazing. We do have a couple of questions. Let's see here. 211 00:48:13.470 --> 00:48:20.109 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Oh, someone wanted to know in the beginning, could the hotel, from the shining be part of uncanny imagery? 212 00:48:20.410 --> 00:48:30.600 J.B. Kish: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah, that's where uncanny also can. And that's funny. Because we later on had the shining example totally leans into it specifically, because if you know about the film. 213 00:48:30.750 --> 00:48:55.000 J.B. Kish: the book is really good about this, but the film especially they set up the sets so that when you are seeing the characters walk through it. The windows don't make sense. They're on the interior of the building. But suddenly, when they go into an office on the interior. There's a window behind the desk which is physically impossible. So that was actually the filmmakers, subtle techniques of creating the uncanny something that seems right. But like. 214 00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:01.419 J.B. Kish: how could that window actually be there from the moment you start watching that film or reading the book you're being introduced to that. 215 00:49:04.820 --> 00:49:15.839 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Awesome. Okay, what advice would you give? What advice would you give the level of fear and gore for children's horror? Middle grade age. 216 00:49:16.040 --> 00:49:38.649 J.B. Kish: Yeah, that's great. That's really good. There's a lot of approaches to this. I would start by watching Rl. Stein's masterclass Rl. Stein, who wrote The Goosebumps Series. Everybody's probably familiar with that. He came up in a different era. The stories he wrote don't necessarily wouldn't necessarily work today if he hadn't already established his brand, but he did early on in the nineties. 217 00:49:38.650 --> 00:49:54.480 J.B. Kish: so people know what to expect from him, and he's a powerhouse, and the man can't be stopped. I love him. I grew up on goosebumps, but he has rules in his masterclass that you can learn about what level of gore is appropriate what level of horror, psychologically, especially, one of his rules is that 218 00:49:54.640 --> 00:50:18.220 J.B. Kish: the death is never shown on screen. It's always suggested, and there's never any divorces being explored in like his parents situation. So he's got rules that have worked for him. Now. A lot of other authors these days think that kids these days, especially with fortnite and all the TV and the screens are exposed to this stuff way earlier, and that they actually can stand a little bit more of this gore. 219 00:50:18.220 --> 00:50:38.680 J.B. Kish: So there's other great children's authors. I would Google that and figure out who the top ones are, check out what they're doing because they are pushing the envelope a little bit. But starting with Rl. Stein is an amazing starting point, because you really can't go wrong. He will guide you in the right direction, and then you'll get to experiment from there, adding bits of gore to see what lands or what might be too far. 220 00:50:41.360 --> 00:50:50.430 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, I love that every year. Actually, I end up watching goosebumps, even though I'm in my thirties. Just, you know, good memories. 221 00:50:50.590 --> 00:50:51.790 J.B. Kish: Nothing wrong with that. 222 00:50:52.740 --> 00:51:07.380 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: All right. Thank you. Okay, so we have a question from the creeper. Love that name? He asked. What is a masterful way to implement suggestive storytelling in a way that is both terrifying and subtle. 223 00:51:08.310 --> 00:51:11.278 J.B. Kish: Yeah, that's great. There's so many good examples. 224 00:51:11.850 --> 00:51:29.280 J.B. Kish: the short story that we explored there by Eric Grove. I would check that out on nightmare.com. It's free. They post most of their stuff for free once it is published, and that's a great way where it's like the suggestion is in the implications of if somebody can be in my home 225 00:51:29.280 --> 00:51:44.740 J.B. Kish: without me knowing it, and making observations, and have a more intimate understanding of my home than I do. Then what you ask yourself as a reader is like, Okay, well, what are all the ways? They can take advantage of that. And I think that's the crux of what you're asking is like 226 00:51:44.900 --> 00:52:11.499 J.B. Kish: writing situations. Where, again, you're offloading that work to your reader to ask themselves, what are all the ways. This situation affects me personally, intimately for the worse, and if you can start to zone into that, you've unlocked the ability to really just write suggestive things that are going to start scaring people. Probably everybody on this call would be terrified to learn that somebody might be living in the walls of their house. 227 00:52:11.500 --> 00:52:22.110 J.B. Kish: and you've offloaded the work of like, okay, well, if my wife's not here and I'm by myself. And suddenly they decide to emerge. I can imagine some pretty horrific things that they would do. 228 00:52:22.190 --> 00:52:51.230 J.B. Kish: Now you can write a line about the knife on the counter going missing, and it's like, okay. So now there's a person in my house, and they might have a knife, and it's really easy for me to connect the dots to all those insane things I've seen on TV. Now, you can suggest the crazy things you've seen on TV. You don't even have to say those. But we've all seen horrific imagery. So you're hinting at it, and you're just giving the people the seeds to plant it out. I hope that answers the question. But email me at this email, if that doesn't quite nail it for you, I'd be happy to talk about that further. 229 00:52:52.740 --> 00:53:09.100 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Oh, awesome. Awesome. Okay, this is from winter. Let's see our time. Okay. Great. How do you reconcile building things up slowly and potentially boring your reader. I'm always afraid that if I go too slow it will be too boring. 230 00:53:09.420 --> 00:53:34.119 J.B. Kish: Yeah, yeah, that's great and slow can be boring. And that's where you need to lean into elements of craft where you feel you might not be as strong. If your craft is firing on all cylinders, slow won't be boring for you. But ask yourself, why is this boring right now? And look at the elements of craft and see if you can identify where you might have a little bit of a weaker muscle. 231 00:53:34.240 --> 00:53:54.749 J.B. Kish: Dialogue is something that a lot of people feel they're really good at. But dialogue is actually really hard to nail, especially in horror, to speak in a way that feels natural, but is also succinct. So I would suggest that you look at examples of your craft first, st and then you look at examples of. I would go to novellas 232 00:53:55.020 --> 00:53:58.930 J.B. Kish: torre.com has a bunch of horror novellas that they write 233 00:53:59.549 --> 00:54:03.610 J.B. Kish: the example with the Stepford wives is really great as well. 234 00:54:03.620 --> 00:54:24.370 J.B. Kish: What they do is, they're working in a novella length, so they're allowed to be slow, but only for about 90 pages, and then things turn rapidly, so I would play with that word length. If that's a struggle for you as well, give yourself permission to not have to do a novel's worth of slow. Give yourself permission to write 90 pages worth 235 00:54:24.370 --> 00:54:33.670 J.B. Kish: and then grow that muscle, identify those elements of craft. And suddenly you'll be able to put a novel together much faster, but play with word links. Novelettes 236 00:54:33.830 --> 00:54:52.440 J.B. Kish: and novellas are doing very well in horror right now. So if you're interested in getting started here short stories the easiest, there's plenty of magazines that are publishing, and then novelettes, which are essentially like very long, short stories. And then novellas, really short, really tight. 40,000 words. Probably everybody here could get that knocked out. 237 00:54:52.460 --> 00:54:55.809 J.B. Kish: Those are playing very well. Shorten the length you're working in. 238 00:54:56.480 --> 00:54:59.446 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Awesome. Yes, and get started in our 239 00:54:59.930 --> 00:55:02.020 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: it open. New writing challenge. Yeah. 240 00:55:02.020 --> 00:55:04.396 J.B. Kish: Yeah, that's good. Look at that cross promotion boom! 241 00:55:04.860 --> 00:55:17.009 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: That's awesome. Okay, we'll do a few more. Let's see, let's see, what role does point of view play in crafting fear does 1st person tend to work better over. 3.rd 242 00:55:17.850 --> 00:55:40.989 J.B. Kish: Yeah, absolutely. It depends on the type of story you're telling. And for that I won't even pretend to be an expert. It really comes down to your personal preference in the sort of story that you're trying to write. I will tell you this. Some of the most successful stories that I've read actually lean on, tense over point of view. Present tense has an immediacy to it 243 00:55:40.990 --> 00:55:57.079 J.B. Kish: that feels more immersive. So right now, there's a lot of people publishing with present tense. So I would actually not to not answer your question. But I would look at trying to write something in present tense, and then feel out what point of view feels good. 3rd person's great. 244 00:55:57.080 --> 00:56:06.310 J.B. Kish: because you don't have to live inside their heads, and you can do a lot more implying to the reader what they're feeling and reacting through action through dialogue. 245 00:56:06.310 --> 00:56:30.540 J.B. Kish: 1st person's also great. You put ourselves inside the perspective. But if you're uncomfortable with interior monologue. For example, if that's not one of your craft strengths, there's going to be a lot of heavy lifting to do to make your audience feel the same sense of immediacy as your character. Right? You're gonna have to really lean into that. So I would say as I'm coming full circle on my answer. 3rd person's great, because 246 00:56:30.540 --> 00:56:46.310 J.B. Kish: you can offload some of the work to the reader by not necessarily needing to live in your character's head. It's a lot easier to describe what fear looks like through physical body actions and dialogue, and then play with tense present tense has gotten immediacy to it that really moves, especially in horror. 247 00:56:47.180 --> 00:56:53.860 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Awesome. Okay, what's the most difficult subgenre of horror you have worked in to 248 00:56:54.060 --> 00:57:01.480 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: to write a beyond gore story. So what's the most difficult subgenre of horror you have worked in to write a beyond gore story. 249 00:57:01.770 --> 00:57:08.529 J.B. Kish: Yeah, that's really interesting. Cozy, cosmic. Most recently, I'll lean on that one right there because cosmic core 250 00:57:08.530 --> 00:57:32.539 J.B. Kish: cosmic core is great because it's about. It's all psychological, right? Cosmic core. If you think of Lovecraft, it's all about being exposed to something so much bigger than us that it is indifferent to human existence. So if you think of Cthulhu, we've all heard that is an elder god. He's so big. His problems are so beyond us that people go mad, realizing that we're not the center of the universe as humans, that we're just like 251 00:57:32.540 --> 00:57:35.099 J.B. Kish: to these people. That's 252 00:57:35.320 --> 00:57:52.630 J.B. Kish: fairly easy to write. But then, if you're supposed to make it cozy, which again cozy, is a subgenre that is getting really popular across genre, cozy romance, cozy, fantasy, cozy horror. How do you write something that psychologically needs to break your characters 253 00:57:52.920 --> 00:58:15.160 J.B. Kish: while also making it feel like a nice, comforting hug to read. That's a fun challenge. I invite everybody to to check that out. And Underland Press is the press that published 2 of these there will be a 3rd one that comes out. So check out underland press. They publish amazing books, and there will be a 3rd one. And if that's an interesting challenge, you could write cozy, cosmic. 254 00:58:15.380 --> 00:58:27.340 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay? And I actually have a follow up question on that. Dudley wants to know. What magazine or website would you recommend? Are good for publishing a 1st horror. Short story, so would you say the same. 255 00:58:27.988 --> 00:58:56.810 J.B. Kish: I would say, start with Nightmare Magazine. Nightmare Magazine is hard to publish in. They are publishing the best of the best in the industry right now. So that is a good place to start understanding what is top tier. And then there's a number of other magazines in terms of like their own. They're not only looking to publish the prestige which I can't cite here because there's too many. But if you email me at Hello, I can send you a list that I've got a collection of magazines that I'd be happy to send out to folks. 256 00:58:57.144 --> 00:59:01.120 J.B. Kish: But start at the top to understand what the best looks like right now. 257 00:59:02.210 --> 00:59:12.399 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Excellent. Okay, we'll do just a couple more. This is from Alex. Can a story be too violent? How do you know when you have gone too far. 258 00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:36.080 J.B. Kish: Yeah. So that's a great question. And it's subjective. The thing about storytelling is like, really, there's nobody who can tell you what type of story. You can't. There's splatter punk. There's Bizarro, there's weird. These are all subgenres that tend to celebrate gore more than others. And there's a thriving community of people there that deserve to have stories told as much as any other genre 259 00:59:36.737 --> 00:59:43.620 J.B. Kish: so I would say, what dictates if you've gone too far is, how big of an audience do you want? 260 00:59:43.640 --> 01:00:03.080 J.B. Kish: The harder you go the more niche your audience becomes. I know a lot of authors that are very successful, and they are very happy to publish to a niche of like Bizarro sort of splatter punk content. That's what they want to write. It's smaller than like the romance category, and they're fine with that. 261 01:00:03.080 --> 01:00:30.449 J.B. Kish: So it comes down to what your goals as a writer are. And this clarity call that I've got up on the screen right here. That's number one. Stop for any conversation I have with anybody who wants to meet is, let's talk about your goals because a lot of people trick themselves into thinking they want to be the next New York Times bestselling author. But the question you just asked helps me narrow in with you. That might be a waste of your time. If you want to write gory stories, I can point you right to the community that wants to read them. 262 01:00:31.530 --> 01:00:48.899 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Love it all right. We'll do one more. This is from Adam, and he says, Hey, jb, thanks so much. This is a great seminar. I recently saw color out of space and really enjoyed it. What HP. Lovecraft would you recommend to read or watch next. 263 01:00:49.610 --> 01:00:51.976 J.B. Kish: Oh, man, that's really good! 264 01:00:52.970 --> 01:01:22.020 J.B. Kish: I love anything. Shadow over Innsmouth. The Innsmouth is my favorite little corner of Lovecraft. I love fish people that might be evil. They seem normal, but maybe they've got gills. Dagon. Dagon is essentially that story. It's from the eighties. It's not particularly good, but I think that it is worth watching to celebrate Lovecraft and my personal favorite corner of of the Mythos. 265 01:01:22.780 --> 01:01:29.670 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Love that. And that actually reminds me of an old goosebump story where the kid turned into a passion. 266 01:01:30.240 --> 01:01:55.609 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: I love it. Okay, well, thank you. Thank you so much. Jb, this was absolutely amazing. We are just so happy that you got a chance to just spend your time with us. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I know. In the chat everyone is just thank you so much. This is so great. This is absolutely amazing. We are just ecstatic. Okay. 267 01:01:55.880 --> 01:01:59.840 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: yeah. So from everyone as always. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. 268 01:02:00.040 --> 01:02:06.170 J.B. Kish: Just gonna say, thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun. I love talking about this sort of stuff. Let me know if anybody has any additional questions. 269 01:02:06.320 --> 01:02:07.040 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: So 270 01:02:07.170 --> 01:02:28.189 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: great. Well, everyone you can find the replay to this session and the rest of our sessions in the horror writers best hub you can find the links again in the chat. I posted those, and if you have any other questions, just let us know. I've also added Jb's information. Let me go ahead and add that again, because I see everyone 271 01:02:28.330 --> 01:02:32.090 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: is chatting with us again. Oh, I love this! This is so great. 272 01:02:32.170 --> 01:02:33.780 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: this is so so great. 273 01:02:35.160 --> 01:02:39.989 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: excellent! Alright! Well, thank you all so much, and we'll see you again soon. 274 01:02:40.520 --> 01:02:41.610 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Bye. 275 01:02:41.610 --> 01:02:42.203 J.B. Kish: Thanks, everybody. 276 01:02:42.500 --> 01:02:43.180 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Thank you. 277 01:02:43.180 --> 01:02:43.930 J.B. Kish: Running. 278 01:02:44.150 --> 01:02:45.310 Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Yes, happy writing.