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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Welcome.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Welcome, everyone. If you can see and hear me drop your location in the chat so we can see where you're joining us from welcome to day. 2 of horror writers fest we are back with another author. Interview. If you can see and hear me drop your location

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: all right. Hello, Ashley, in South Texas.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I'm gonna drop some links for you. I see some familiar names. Hello! From the Netherlands

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: as you are filtering in. If you can see and hear me drop your location in the chat.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and we will get started in just a moment.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Hi, Tony and Anita, welcome

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: alright! Sounds like you can see and hear me. Just fine. I'm going to go ahead and get started with our intro info.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So your replays for for writers fest are on the Hub page which is linked in the chat for you, and I will drop it again here, in case you have just come in.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Those replays will be up as soon as we can get them processed through Zoom and Youtube. So if you don't see a replay there yet, just refresh. Visit the hub again later, and it should be there. These replays will also be posted to our community page by November first, st so you'll be able to see those on the event recording space, and you can also see previous event recordings there as well.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Our offer for you for attending horror writers fest this time is

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: early access to our Black Friday sale. This is Prowritingaid's biggest sale of the year. You will receive an email with exclusive access to get your 50% off your either premium or premium pro yearly and lifetime plans. If you do not receive anything for some reason, by November 16, th please give us a shout at hello@prowritingaid.com, and we will be happy to assist you.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We would love to have you over in our free online writers, community, if you would like to keep the conversation going. You log in with your prowritingaid account information it's free to join. It's very simple, and we have the live event chat happening now where you can talk to other folks from horror writers fest, and we will have some other fun things coming up there soon.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: if you would be so kind as to share your feedback about the event that with us we do have a type form linked in the chat as well as on the Hub. It's a short survey, but it really helps us in our future event, planning. You can tell us what you enjoyed, what you think we could improve upon, and what you'd like to see at a future event, we'd greatly appreciate it.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We have a brand new writing challenge coming up. It's 5 k. In 5 days. This will take place November 4, th through the 8, th where attendees will write 5,000 words or more. During that time we will have daily writing prompts and teachings, live write-in events, discussion, forums, and all kinds of fun stuff over in our community. We would love for you to join us. There is a free sign up link in the chat and on the hub as well.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So be sure to check that out

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: reminders for our session today as you are listening to the interview. If you have any questions, please drop them in the Q. And A. Box for me, and I will try to get as many of your questions

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: woven in as possible. If you would like to chat with other attendees, please feel free to use the chat box for that. Make sure that you are selecting everyone in the dropdown menu beside 2, so that your messages are visible to other folks in the session today, and any links from our speaker and from pro writing aid are in the chat as well as on the hub.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So with that being said, I'm so excited to introduce

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: our

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: author today. Johnny Compton Johnny is the author of the Bram Stoker Award, nominated novel, The Spite House. His short stories have appeared in pseudopod, strange horizons, the No sleep podcast and many other outlets. He is a horror. Writers, association, member and creator and host of the podcast Healthy fears welcome. Johnny, we're so happy to have you.

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Johnny Compton: Thank you for having me.

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Johnny Compton: Can everybody hear me?

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Yes, you sound nice and clear.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I am going. Let's go ahead and dive in and like I said, everybody, if you have any questions as we're going through these, don't hesitate to drop them in the QA. Box.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So just kind of starting from where it all began. What initially piqued your interest with the horror. Genre in particular.

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Johnny Compton: I've been really into ghost stories since I was 5 years old, and I was in a kindergarten class, and my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Nina rest in peace. She played a record in the class. I'm in my mid forties. This was the eighties. I don't think they're doing this in in kindergarten class, and now playing ghost stories for the class, necessarily, but

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Johnny Compton: mid mid eighties. And

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Johnny Compton: she played the Golden Arm, which, if anybody's unfamiliar with that it's a very classic ghost story on my website. I actually go into the history of it on a kind of a blog post. I did about the history of the Golden Arm ghost story, and other similar ghost stories that are about grave robbery.

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Johnny Compton: and somebody emerging from the grave to reclaim a precious artifact from whoever stole it from them, and I heard that when I was very young, and have just been absolutely blown away and fascinated by ghost stories since then, and that just built upon other interests from there. So the ghost stories turned into stories about cryptids and creatures, and

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Johnny Compton: all kind of other unimaginable spooky things that are out there potentially, and I loved reading about them in fiction. I loved reading about nonfiction, alleged accounts of hauntings and cryptids, and just have been obsessed with it pretty much ever since.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Was there a specific character from a horror film that used to frighten you as a child? But you were just so fascinated by.

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Johnny Compton: Oh, Freddy Krueger, I was. I was a big

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Johnny Compton: in in that era of the Slasher eighties, Slasher Era. You had Michael Myers, you had Jason Voorhees. You had Chucky, you had a variety of Slasher villains, and everybody kind of had their favorite, and you knew who the favorite was, and for me the favorite easily was was Freddy Krueger

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Johnny Compton: in terms of

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Johnny Compton: disappearance.

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Johnny Compton: the literal character work?

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Johnny Compton: It was just. It was just fascinating to me, and the idea of someone that could kill you in your dreams and making you afraid of your own nightmares was terrifying, and I think of all the

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Johnny Compton: of all those kinds of characters that are actual characters.

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Johnny Compton: I would say it's Freddy Krueger. The only other one that I mean the one that surpasses that. But it's not really a character per se, but it's a monster is the alien from alien which is.

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Johnny Compton: I know, properly supposed to be called the xenomorph, but I'm old enough to remember when it was just the alien, and I just can't get over thinking of it as just the alien as if it is the

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Johnny Compton: the signature version of what an alien species that is a threat to mankind should be. And I've had more nightmares about about that than

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Johnny Compton: probably anything else in my life to this day, so that that one again, not really a character. There's no really personality aspects you can describe to the alien. So when I heard your question, Freddie jumped to mind initially, and I think that that's, you know, just kind of the way I weigh that. But the alien is also highly up there.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I think that the image of movie poster of the alien being super close to Sigourney wavers face is something that is just ingrained into my

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: into my brain that I will never get out, so I totally understand.

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Johnny Compton: Oh, yeah.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So as far as horror books go. Who were your biggest horror? Authors that inspired you, as you, you know, began your writing journey, and throughout it.

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Johnny Compton: So since I got started, so young with love and horror. Stephen King was kind of in the distance to me, because it was like, I, in my mind, told myself, I need to graduate to Stephen King at some point. And again, this was an era when they would do commercials for the Stephen King Book Club, and he was the boogeyman

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Johnny Compton: at the time, and also probably the best selling author of any genre at the time by a pretty wide margin, you know, at least

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Johnny Compton: ranking among the heavy hitters, which was incredible, considering that horror is not usually in that mix these days.

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Johnny Compton: but for when I was 1st beginning to start writing short stories literally, when I was in 10 or in 5th grade, rather in 10 years old

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Johnny Compton: Edgar Allan Poe. Huge influence.

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Johnny Compton: I really was always fascinated by

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Johnny Compton: his stories, and then getting into high school and learning more specifically, and diving deeper into the themes, and I remember just being blown away by the cask of Amontillado, and really wanting to write something like that. And the facts of the case of M. Baldemar

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Johnny Compton: and really wanting to write something like that.

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Johnny Compton: And then

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Johnny Compton: people that influenced me that I didn't even realize the the impact of who they were at the time, but, like Richard Matheson, I wasn't reading necessarily his books at the time, but I was watching a lot of twilight zone as a kid. I loved it and wanted to write the spookier kinds of twilight zone episodes, and I didn't realize at the time who Richard Matheson was and the Titan that he was in the horror genre.

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Johnny Compton: but I was familiar with his work because of the twilight zone, and so many of the episodes that he wrote that I loved.

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Johnny Compton: And

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Johnny Compton: Ambrose Bierce, again, was not necessarily familiar with that. This is who this person is, and how impactful they are. But he wrote this series of kind of stories about somebody mysteriously disappearing that were presented as if they were fact, and they fooled me when I was. I think of a certain age. But then you get older and you realize these are just stories. But I was fascinated by that without realizing at the time who Ambrose Bierce was, and Robert Block, who I read my 1st Robert Block story when I was 7 years old.

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Johnny Compton: and for anybody who doesn't know who that is, that is the author of Psycho, and it was in a short story collection, or an anthology rather called Shutters.

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Johnny Compton: that the cover of it was presented as though this is a book available for children, and it was indeed in my school library where I picked up shutters, and it looks like it's like a hardy boys, mystery or something for anybody who's old enough to remember that.

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Johnny Compton: But instead, it contained all these stories from adult writers who are writing for an adult audience. And they just happened to collect stories that basically if it didn't have any cussing or sex, they were like kids can read it. And so I'm reading a story written by the author of Psycho that is, as twisted and terrifying and violent as you would expect the author of Psycho to be with what he wrote. It's called Sweets for the Sweet, which is one of my favorite short stories of all time, and it has an incredible ending

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Johnny Compton: that I won't spoil. But it. It was the 1st story in the in the collection, and it just blew me away, and I remember again I've wanted to write something like that ever since then. And so these are people that influenced me before I even realized

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Johnny Compton: who they were and what they meant to the genre.

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Johnny Compton: and then, of course, down the road. Eventually I did start reading Stephen King, and that that opened up an entirely different kind of horizon for me of what you can write about, and how you can present longer stories and the character work that you can put into it. And once I got to that level by then I was. I was pretty

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Johnny Compton: ardent in my pursuit of of writing, at least recreationally, without necessarily realizing at the time. That is what I wanted to do with my life.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: A bit of baptism by fire at a young age with the books that you were exposed to, but it worked out super. Well for you. So that's great.

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Johnny Compton: Yeah, I mean, like it was a you know, we we didn't have goosebumps we didn't have. I think Fear Street is a little bit after, like my time, a little bit as well like Fear Street, I think, was like late eighties or nineties, and by then I was like, you know already. I'd already been exposed to it like you said we did have the scary stories to tell in the Dark Book series.

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Johnny Compton: Which everybody loves, but also that's

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Johnny Compton: one of the most you know, challenged books in in school systems, and one of the books that people tried to ban all the time because of the graphic nature of the art, which is, of course, what all of us loved as kids we were like. This is our favorite thing about this, and I remember there being an uproar when they tried to re-release those books with much more subdued art which

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Johnny Compton: no disrespect to that that new artist who is perfectly fine. But the whole purpose of that series which I still have somewhere over here in my book collection, is the artwork, and you know some of the stories in it are also really creepy and just the matter of fact, folktale way that they're presented. But that artwork was what set it apart and absent that you're really missing out on the impact. But that artwork was so

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Johnny Compton: so disturbing that it makes it one of the books that people attempt to ban pretty frequently. So even our books for kids are books that people are trying to ban for horror. Back then.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: The artwork is definitely synonymous with you know what you think of with horror stories and growing up in the nineties. I did have you know the Christopher Pike and Rl. Stein.

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Johnny Compton: 9 bucks.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: But it didn't take me long to, you know. Seek out the scarier things like Stephen King, and so yes, I completely. I completely understand that, you know, urge to find, to seek out the more supernatural and spooky.

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Johnny Compton: Well, and I think Christ, like the Christopher Pike and Orlstein books.

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Johnny Compton: are really underrated for keeping the genre healthy and alive. The way that it is now, because, like you said, those came up in the nineties. And meanwhile pop culturally everywhere else in the nineties horror was kind of waning. The nineties before scream. The reason why scream came out is because Wes Craven thought horror was dying, and this was the death knell, as far as horror. Horror movies go. And he wanted to kind of

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Johnny Compton: do this definitive mocking of the genre on his way out.

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Johnny Compton: And instead it reignited the genre. But there's a reason why he thought it was dying because

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Johnny Compton: people weren't going to movies as much anymore.

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Johnny Compton: Stephen King was still selling, of course, but he's Stephen King, but genre wise. If you went to like a bookstore there was, you know, a good chance that there wouldn't be a horror section. There'd be a section for everything else that was genre, you know. You'd have your mystery thriller. Section science fiction, fantasy, horror, did not have a section nowadays. I go to Barnes and Noble. There's always a horror section. I remember when Barnes and Noble didn't have that because I was a huge horror fan, and just having to, you know, browse the general fiction section, looking for anything that sounded like it might be horror.

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Johnny Compton: And yet you did. Have

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Johnny Compton: you had your Christopher Pike and Rl. Stein holding it down for a new generation that now had something catering to them specifically to get them into the genre. And I do think that that has a lot of

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Johnny Compton: responsibility for helping people discover horror and what all it can be, and getting into it as they're growing up. So

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Johnny Compton: shout out to those books and those writers, because I think that they came in at a time when Hover really needed them, without necessarily realizing the value that they were going to have in that in that space at that time.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Yes, that's a great point. And I mean there's a good chance that many of your readers who grew up during that time, too, started out with Christopher Peggenstein, too. And now they're reading, you know the spite house and everything that you're putting out. So yeah, that's that's a great shout.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So you write about a lot of kind of supernatural encounters, the paranormal in your stories. Do you draw from any personal inspiration that you've had with paranormal or supernatural things, either for yourself or in your family.

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Johnny Compton: Great question.

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Johnny Compton: not per

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Johnny Compton: particular to myself. I am always collecting stories from people family, members, friends, whomever, and I'm always looking for

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Johnny Compton: anybody who's who's

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Johnny Compton: a believer or who's encountered something even non-believers. Frankly, that's even more interesting a little bit when I have somebody who's more of a skeptic, but they're like I did see something one time that made me question it. And then that seems really convincing and eerie to me. So I try and draw on that, and a lot of legends that I grew up with. I try to draw on that, and I haven't had a chance to explore all of those in my stories yet, but I have.

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Johnny Compton: I have one that I'm writing right now in the I'm in the middle of writing the scene for my 3rd book that'll hopefully be out in 2026,

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Johnny Compton: about a haunted hospital allegedly haunted hospital back in Mississippi, where I grew up, and one of the creepiest things I'd ever heard in my life, and I always thought it was really creepy. And then I've had a chance to tell the story of it in 2 different

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Johnny Compton: live panels that I've done in auditoriums.

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Johnny Compton: and just kind of as a test run to see if anybody else thinks this is as creepy as I do, and the response I got from the room, the audible gasps when I got to the part that I thought was the scariest about this legend confirmed to me that this works hopefully. I can capture that same energy on the page, because oral storytelling is different from

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Johnny Compton: from you know literature, obviously. But hopefully, I can capture that same energy on the page when people get to that scene. So I'm drawing from that. And that's a story I heard in my childhood in Mississippi about this alleged haunted hospital, and we had stories about. There's the supposed to be a

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Johnny Compton: a headless pirate haunting an island off the coast of Mississippi, still there to to guard the treasure. And we'd hear all these these fascinating, bizarre stories about all these allegedly haunted places then, and I draw a lot still from that, and I live now in San Antonio, which is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities allegedly in Texas. I hear a lot of local legends about that.

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Johnny Compton: and I haven't explored that as directly as as I could have yet. But it is something I'm kind of keeping in in my back pocket, for when the story is right and I can deploy that

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Johnny Compton: of the 2 books I've had. You know, the Spite House kind of was just its own entity, as far as like a haunted house story to a certain degree, although again, I just kind of taking ideas from little snippets of stories you hear from people about ghosts that they say that they've seen or heard in their house, and you're like, oh, this sounds creepy. And what if this? You walked into a room and you hear a voice? But you don't see anything

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Johnny Compton: and you just kind of leverage that. And then devils kill devils, being more of a monster demon novel.

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Johnny Compton: went more into like my religious background. A little bit of of growing up in a Catholic school, and there's a little bit of that involved as well as other just monster lore that I did a lot of research on in vampire lore that I did did a lot of research on.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So in regards to your research, what is your typical research process like? And how much do you try to do whenever you're writing? Or how do you kind of pull back whenever the urge to just kind of stay in the rabbit hole? Is there.

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Johnny Compton: It's I mean it. It is. There's an urge sometimes to like just kind of linger a little bit too much.

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Johnny Compton: On certain things I do try to. I

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Johnny Compton: I'm leaning into things that I've already researched a lot of the time because I I have a fascination with certain old, you know,

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Johnny Compton: disasters and and old legends, and you know just macabre things. You know. My interest in horror extends, unfortunately to or you know, I don't want to say, unfortunately, but it is a little bit morbid for it to extend into these real world horrors, which is why, you know, I can't judge when anybody's like. Oh, I'm really into true crime, even though that's not my thing, but it's like I get it, you know. I can't judge you for like

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Johnny Compton: being into serial killers when I'm like, oh, I read a lot about if you can tell me a story about a

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Johnny Compton: tornado that wiped a town off the map in certain era, and, like all the details of it, I'll dive into that.

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Johnny Compton: So likewise, with a story of like some some old battle or war, or something like that. All these kind of things, these are the kind of things that have kind of been leaking into.

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Johnny Compton: Some of my writing. So there's a story of a

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Johnny Compton: a massacre here in Texas during the Civil War that plays a pivotal role in the Spite House for devils kill devils. There were lots of different things that I was aware of in history, ancient battles, and some of the most horrific things that you hear about, and I tried to incorporate some of those things

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Johnny Compton: into devils. Kill devils as far as like getting out of the rabbit hole. You get out of the rabbit hole to write because you're for me. I'm just really excited to just write it out. Once I read about something I'm like, or I remember something. I confirm my details. Let's write it out. Let's do it where where it comes into. I think

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Johnny Compton: more of a challenge for me. But this is what I have the luxury of having an editor for is trying to

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Johnny Compton: separate what's valuable in terms of research for the story versus what you're just putting in here just because you're fascinated with it. But it isn't really part of the story. Necessarily. You're just adding things in. And so my editor had to remind me a couple of times. Hey, this is really fascinating stuff. This is pretty cool also. What is the book about?

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Johnny Compton: Oh, that's not about that. Let's go ahead and take some of this out

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Johnny Compton: and or just

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Johnny Compton: minimize it to a certain degree. And if you want to write a book that is more focused on these kind of things. Maybe an add on a sequel, a spin off. What have you? You'll have an opportunity hopefully to do that. But for this book.

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Johnny Compton: try to focus on on what your book is actually about. And so that's part of the journey of the writing, as well, you know, like I said, the vampire lore, for instance, as well in devils kill devils. I got into the weeds of some really bizarre types of vampires, or these African vampires with hooked feet

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Johnny Compton: and metal teeth.

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Johnny Compton: And I was like, that's really cool and creepy sounding. But also are my vampires actually going to have hooked feet and hang from trees upside down and stuff like that? Probably not so. Then what element of this can I take? And even the metal teeth part I'm like, well, how can I incorporate this as a suggestion without necessarily

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Johnny Compton: and incorporated into the story without necessarily literally having it as a giveaway of what these things are, and others that are just so bizarre that it's like this is really cool. But I'm not going to put this in here. The the Eastern European vampires that have one nostril and pointed tongues

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Johnny Compton: that's really cool, sounding and bizarre and weird also, probably just not space in my book for that. But you see other stories. I know Guillermo del Toro's the Strain series, I think.

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Johnny Compton: Take some of that pointed tongue element for their vampires, and incorporates it there. So you know, you take the little things. And this is what I think a lot of authors do. A lot of creatives. Do you take some of these little things. You don't necessarily take it wholesale, but you take little pieces of your research, and wherever you can incorporate it to the service of the story. That's how you plug that in.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So there's a good chance that the folks watching today are interested in the dark and macabre, since they are in the horror genre. But what advice would you give anyone regarding not getting lost in the darkness and heavy subject matter of the research and inspiration for these stories.

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Johnny Compton: I mean, you're always respectful of the idea that if you're doing the research, these were real people with real lives and things that happened hopefully. I mean, this is

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Johnny Compton: again probably a little bit morbid, but hopefully it helps you enhance your story in terms of character, because horror is all about stakes and intimacy, the stakes of usually life and death in some capacity or another, or at least an alteration of your life, a permanent alteration of your life

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Johnny Compton: and the intimacy of the moment. What separates like a lot of horror stories from like a disaster story is that we are focusing in on one person at a time, individually, usually to a certain degree, how it feels in the moment when they're confronted with potential life or death. Consequences versus like

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Johnny Compton: you watch a disaster movie and they can blow up an entire city.

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Johnny Compton: And for each individual in that moment, if you were to imagine being that individual

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Johnny Compton: who's who's there when their city is exploding? That is a horror story for them.

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Johnny Compton: For us it is spectacle.

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Johnny Compton: it is disaster.

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Johnny Compton: And so the difference is

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Johnny Compton: actually stepping into that individual's shoes. And so that requires a certain level of empathy. And so I think, if you're if you're writing certain styles of horror, you know everything is is there's a range of it, obviously. But I think certain styles of horror, especially nowadays. You see a lot more empathy involved in the whether whether somebody's conscious of it or not. If you are spending time with this character and focusing on their fear in this moment, you're being

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Johnny Compton: inherently, I think.

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Johnny Compton: more empathetic about their situation by default than you would be if if you're writing like an action scene where it's just John Wick walks by and shoots a guy, and that guy just you know his head. His head is is blown off and then and you don't know who that was, even though just mooc number one. That's just random bodyguard number, you know, whatever. And he's dead now. And instead, in horror, you're you're like man. That was a person, and and they

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Johnny Compton: had some kind of level of emotion and feeling about this confrontation in this moment. And so I think

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Johnny Compton: you kind of can't.

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Johnny Compton: You can't shy away from the darkness in the morbidity of it, but I think the inherent empathy and intimacy of it should hopefully help you

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Johnny Compton: to navigate whatever emotions you might might be feeling about exploring this. And it's also going to enhance your character work as you're writing, and that will in turn, if you have really good characters that people care about. Typically, I think that tends to make for better horror and more memorable horror. And the stuff that is, it tends to be the favorite works of a lot of people, especially on the page

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Johnny Compton: you can usually get away with.

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Johnny Compton: Get away with a little bit more of a nameless faceless. Who cares random victims in a movie?

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Johnny Compton: But

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Johnny Compton: when people have to spend a lot of time with you in a book, the amount of time that the hours it takes to read through a book.

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Johnny Compton: And you're there. With these characters for that much longer you have to be able to get to know them and be invested. They don't have to necessarily be likable. Quote unquote. I know there's a lot of debate about likability with characters, but I still want to be interested. They have to be interesting, and I want to feel invested, and I want to care one way or another about their fate, and I want them to care about it and feel the fear of it.

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Johnny Compton: And so you kind of have to just lean in and embrace it. And then, just for your own personal mental health, if you feel like it's getting a little too dark, too dark, and you need to step away to navigate it in a different way. You got to be able to judge that for yourself, and realize when things are getting a little bit too grim and gray for you.

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Johnny Compton: I might be the wrong person to give advice about that, because I'll literally just I mean, you guys see the the artwork behind me here. This is like just one of the pieces on the walls in my office. This is like the 1st thing I bought with my advance like I didn't do any crazy spending. And you know any of this stuff. It was like, I want my office to be decorated with

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Johnny Compton: horror. So I have that I have a mural to my left that I can't really show here. Unfortunately, I can't move the camera, but to my left I have a mural of like the scary stories that tell in the dark artwork that we just talked about. I'd always wanted that. I have, like some kind of witch creature surrounded by ravens. I have witches in the woods over here, back over here. There's like kind of a haunted looking cityscape.

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Johnny Compton: Yeah, so this is what I surround. So I'm not afraid of this this kind of morbidity. But even I have like lines like, so there are some people nowadays who are really super into

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Johnny Compton: asmr horror stories to fall asleep to, and that is where I can't. My dreams are already screwed up enough. As it is, I can't fall asleep to somebody whispering scary stories in my ear.

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Johnny Compton: but that's my line in in sand, and I recognize that about me, for how dark it can get for me, and other people are going to have different ones. So you just have to try to, through trial and error, explore that about yourself and realize where you would be crossing the line, and then maybe step on the line. But don't fully cross it to. To whatever your comfort comfort level is.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So when you're bringing that morbidity to the page, how do you find the right balance of you know just the story versus the gore, and the violence, and anything that would be shocking.

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Johnny Compton: This is really interesting, because I tend to think of myself as squeamish. But then I've written some stuff that people have told me is a little bit gnarly, so maybe I don't know myself that well.

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Johnny Compton: I try to in terms of gore, and everybody has their own, their different style, and it depends on the subgenre of horror. You know, there's extreme horror and splatter punk. These are subgenres that are

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Johnny Compton: kind of built around the idea of going to certain extremes. Obviously

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Johnny Compton: for me. I tried to

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Johnny Compton: suggest a certain level of violence when something is happening.

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Johnny Compton: and I want you to feel it. And then

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Johnny Compton: I want it to be, if I can make it to some degree feel relatable.

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Johnny Compton: I tend to think of it like

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Johnny Compton: every time I've seen. And this is this could be a really weird, specific example, probably. But this is the way I always think of it.

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Johnny Compton: There, I've seen several movies and and read stories where somebody bites off like part of somebody's tongue.

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Johnny Compton: and it kind of always feels disconnected from me like it, it happens. And I'm like, oh, that's pretty gruesome.

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Johnny Compton: but like it doesn't really have the same same

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Johnny Compton: impact is just if you've ever. We've all bitten our tongue before.

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Johnny Compton: It's like this feels like it should every time I I read it should be like, Oh, I can. I can

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Johnny Compton: sense what that feels like, but it's so over the top.

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Johnny Compton: Once you've bitten your tongue off that it's like, okay. Well, now, it's a level of pain that I can't even imagine. So I'm no longer

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Johnny Compton: connected. And so am I writing something so graphic and gory that I'm disconnecting somebody from. I want you to still be able to feel a certain amount of it.

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Johnny Compton: So whether it's

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Johnny Compton: a sound effect focusing more on a sound effect whenever something gory happens as opposed to the blood splatter? Or what have you focusing on a smell, focusing on something that connects it and grounds it enough for the reader. And once you've done that, then I feel like I've done my job. So I can just move on.

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Johnny Compton: The other example I think of. And I use a lot of movie examples just because I feel like more people have seen more. People are more familiar with movies, and you can always pop in a Youtube clip and see what I'm talking about. So it's easier as a point of reference. I think of it as like kind of the Scorsese method of violence.

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Johnny Compton: So I remember

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Johnny Compton: the 1st time I saw the movie Casino. There was an infamous scene where a guy's head is in a vice.

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Johnny Compton: and they are torturing him to get information, and they're cranking the vice tighter and tighter.

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Johnny Compton: and eventually, you see his head. His face doesn't look super gory, but it's like purplish, and you know he's bruised up.

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Johnny Compton: And then infamously. His eye pops out because of their tightening device. Now, when I say that that sounds really graphic and gruesome when you and the 1st time I saw it. It was like, Oh, my God! But when you actually rewatch it, it is on screen, for, like less than a blip, I don't even know how to describe how it manages to be so impactful and so brief

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Johnny Compton: at the same time brief to the extent that you just see literally just enough of it to get an idea of what happened and fill in the gaps in your brain. But then that's it.

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Johnny Compton: And it's like I feel like Scorsese does a lot of this with his violence, and I try to incorporate that as well. Whenever I'm writing a violent scene in terms of like, I said

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Johnny Compton: this hopefully feels like

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Johnny Compton: the bitten tongue. I want you to feel that pain. I want you to see it. I want you to feel the impact and be like Oh, God! Oh, I would hate for that to happen to me! And then I can just move on. I've done my job, so I don't have to then keep describing. Then the tongue

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Johnny Compton: dropped on the floor and flopped around, or whatever, and all this other stuff at that point. Now we've we've gotten to a point that I personally feel like I'm no longer connected to the pain I've gotten to a surreal level, and I want it to be visceral, and I want you to feel uncomfortable with it, and the best way to feel uncomfortable for me, at least in my writing style hopefully, is for you to just have enough of it to where your mind fills in the gap, and you just shudder a little bit like Oh, my God! I think that guy's I just popped out, which is really gruesome and horrible, but also like

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Johnny Compton: part of part I want part of you to be like.

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Johnny Compton: I'm not even quite sure what I just read

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Johnny Compton: is that really what just happened there? And so I try to. I try to incorporate that and just kind of make it make it nightmarish in in a very

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Johnny Compton: I don't know a sort of relatable way, for lack of a better term.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Using the readers imaginations to kind of scare them even further

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: to fill in the gaps. Yes, I love.

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Johnny Compton: You can definitely get like a mental overload. I think of Gort where you get desensitized to it. It's it's you know. There's the

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Johnny Compton: I mean again using movie references. And this goes back to the eighties which a lot of the people listening here you might be too young to know about this movie. But Robocop, the original robocop that came out in 1987, I think.

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Johnny Compton: somewhere in there. But it's infamously violent.

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Johnny Compton: And but

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Johnny Compton: the director, Paul Verhoeven, wanted it to be even more violent because he believed if it got over the top it turns into like something silly, and people recognize he's making it a joke and a satire of violence. The censors cut it, and that made it actually worse

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Johnny Compton: in a way. And so there's an early scene where a man is getting shot by a giant robot, and Verhoeven wanted it to go on for like so long that it became like you

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Johnny Compton: get used to what you're seeing. And you realize this is a joke

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Johnny Compton: like, okay, this. This guy's been shot by like a thousand rounds by this machine, and it's silly. And you know it's supposed to be a joke, because one of the characters after this happens, and this guy's very obviously dead. One of the characters shouts like somebody call a paramedic.

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Johnny Compton: and it's like, Well, he's way past that. But the sensors cut it. They cut like 10 seconds over to what have you and Verhoeven lamented like

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Johnny Compton: this makes it actually more violent in a way like the fact that you've cut the violence. So there's a there's an

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Johnny Compton: alternate way of going about it where you go so over the top

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Johnny Compton: that this is the point. And now you've desensitized people to it, and if that's deliberate, then that's

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Johnny Compton: that's effective in that way. But if if you don't realize that that's what you've done, then you've just mistakenly kind of cut, I think some of the potential impact out from your story, if you take it over the top in a way that people think is kind of silly and a joke now without real. If that's not deliberate, you've just done that by accident, then you might have made your story less scary without realizing it.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Jack B. In the chat says, that's a great scene and evil dead. 2 also does the same.

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Johnny Compton: Yes.

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Johnny Compton: great example. Evil dead. 2. Absolutely. It is. It is a splatter flick.

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Johnny Compton: and it is. I mean, it's ridiculous. You have a Guy, chopping off his own hand with a chainsaw to attach a chainsaw to the stump later, and the blood that's all splashing all over Ash's face whenever he does anything in evil dead, too. I mean, it's it's so ludicrous and so over the top. And some of the earlier Peter Jackson films like, is it. I think it was brain dead, I can't remember. But you know, when he was making his movies in New Zealand, and they were deliberate, splatter, fest movies, and if you do it deliberately again, it's like it can be really effective, as like, oh, I

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Johnny Compton: get the joke and I get the I get that this is supposed to be over the top gore that lets me just kind of.

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Johnny Compton: you know. Laugh at how ridiculous it is. But then, sometimes you. You read something or see something that goes so over the top in a way.

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Johnny Compton: that it does, that. It has that effect on you where it's like this is just kind of silly and gratuitous, but that might not have been the intended effect. And so it's just a matter of intentionality, as it is oftentimes, if you know what you're doing, and you're aware of it in advance, I think that you can employ a lot of different techniques to your advantage. So it's just a matter of what your what your intention is in knowing the best way to get there.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So earlier. You mentioned having your characters, and you are not afraid to, you know. Write in multiple Pov, and really just showcase a variety of voices in your works, and which I think really adds to like the mysterious element, too, of the story. But how do you keep track of so many? Do you map them out in advance? How do you make the each voice feel so authentic when you're working with so many characters.

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Johnny Compton: Great question.

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Johnny Compton: I don't. I'm not a

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Johnny Compton: A plotter, a heavy plotter, and map her out of a lot of different story beats per se, or not like in detail, but I am with the characters I do have, like a Microsoft onenote folder for all my characters, and I start giving them lines of dialogue pretty early before I even like write the full story. If I think of something, I think that this person would say in their voice. I'll write it down there and then.

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Johnny Compton: I kind of have that now plugged in. I know this person's voice generally their kind of sense of humor. The way they respond to things, how smart they are! How maybe not so smart they are, etc.

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Johnny Compton: And then from there, if you have like a chance to give somebody a

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Johnny Compton: a distinct characteristic

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Johnny Compton: that helps you stay on track with them.

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Johnny Compton: It's for me at least it was. It was pretty easy to write in that same range. So in despite house.

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Johnny Compton: the father, Eric has a certain sense of secrecy and paranoia, and also, in a sense of inadequacy and fear about his daughters, and so I was able to incorporate that constantly his daughter deaths his oldest daughter.

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Johnny Compton: She

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Johnny Compton: has to grow up fast, and so she's still a teenager, but she's

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Johnny Compton: a little bit more mature, but she's also still a little bit silly, and she you know she's making. She's 1 that makes a little bit more of the jokes.

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Johnny Compton: And so I know that that's about her character, and Stacy's full of wonder, and she's precocious. And so I get to write that pretty distinctly, and the you know, the Eunice character and her paranoia as well, and her fear about her future. I get to write that pretty distinctly, and then with devils kill devils. I was able to incorporate. One of the Pov characters is a several 1,000 year old Vampire.

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Johnny Compton: And so I just made a conscious decision that okay, throughout her chapters

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Johnny Compton: she obviously won't speak with contractions, but also none of the actual pros will use contractions, and it'll be not overly formal, but pretty formalized for these these moments, because I feel like this is

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Johnny Compton: reflective of her ancient wisdom.

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Johnny Compton: And then you contrast that with one of the other villainous characters who's more of a country girl and grew up in the South her whole life, and has certain preconceptions about people, etc. And it's a lot less formalized deliberately so. And then we have our heroine who is

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Johnny Compton: grappling with

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Johnny Compton: reality, being altered as she knew it. And so she, you know, there's a lot of just questioning and reflecting on the past, and kind of wishful thinking about the way things used to be, but also determination to get revenge for what's happened, for to her

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Johnny Compton: being able to distinguish these things and write this early on in that folder and give these characters certain dialogue beats that I might not even include in the story. But I just know this is how they would talk in this scenario helps keep me on track. That's my my personal technique for that.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: That's super interesting. And do you base any of your characters off of people that you know in real life? Did you draw inspiration from your family or friends to kind of shape these characters.

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Johnny Compton: No, not at all. I mean.

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Johnny Compton: there's probably a little bit of of

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Johnny Compton: somebody in some of these characters to a certain degree, but at least so far not not really just in terms of. I try to leverage real conversations that I have with people.

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Johnny Compton: For like dialogue purposes.

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Johnny Compton: hopeful that my dialogue sounds

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Johnny Compton: and I don't want to say like realistic, because I feel like that's nobody in a book sounds generally like the way people actually talk. Because if you actually stop and listen to how people actually talk a lot of ums and Uhs and starts and stops and repetitive.

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Johnny Compton: You know, loops of conversation and stuff.

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Johnny Compton: It's not that interesting. And we want to. We want to write interesting characters and interesting dialogue. So it's not necessarily realistic per se but there is a certain level of hopefully

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Johnny Compton: interesting authenticity nonetheless present there, and I do try to steal that from maybe things I overhear. People say in in polite company or impolite company.

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Johnny Compton: that I can use, but otherwise I'm much more. You know, the the Middle East team character, for instance, in the Spite House was inspired by

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Johnny Compton: a Texas reporter.

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Johnny Compton: by the name of Molly Ivins. And even with that it's not like I was like actually stealing Molly Ivins full bio and incorporating that. But it was like, How do I think Molly Ivins would respond if she had this character's background based on articles I've read of her, based on how she presented herself, based on interviews I've seen.

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Johnny Compton: If she were the one in in this situation.

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Johnny Compton: how would she respond? Do I think? And what would she say, and how tough would she be? And then, at the same time putting my own spin on it to where it needs to fit this character that I've created. But I do a lot more of that, taking from interesting figures outside of my life, but that I've

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Johnny Compton: studied, watched interviews of read articles of read articles written by, etc. And seeing how can I incorporate?

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Johnny Compton: somebody that, interesting into the story in some capacity or another. So that's it's a lot more of that and less people that I actually know in my real life.

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Johnny Compton: Hopefully, nobody in my real life is near is is undergoing anything as horrific as the stuff. I put my characters through.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Yes, hopefully

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: so, for your writing and your drafting and editing processes. What do you find to be the most challenging? What gets you hung up the most during your rounds of drafting and editing.

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Johnny Compton: Wow! Great question. What gets me hung up the most, I mean, I guess, just getting out of my head

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Johnny Compton: getting out of the the mind state of

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Johnny Compton: Am I sure this is what works? And then just writing it and just going for it

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Johnny Compton: and reminding myself I'm gonna have to rewrite it. Anyway.

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Johnny Compton: I'm going to rewrite it several times. Anything you're writing. You're going to have to rewrite several times. Generally speaking, very few people are like, oh, I'm 2 drafts in done. You're probably going to have to go through round after round, whether it's yourself if you get with a publisher, and they have an edit editorial staff, whether you have beta readers and they help you out. You hire your own editor, you trust yourself to do it. Whatever the case is, you're probably going to rewrite several times. And so I have to remind myself of that.

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Johnny Compton: and then say, Okay, let's just go for it, you know, if I have this idea.

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Johnny Compton: I think it'll work. But then I start second guessing it.

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Johnny Compton: Actually, let's just do it. Get it on the page. If I need to rewrite it. That's part of the process. So you never get past it, though, if you don't actually at least try it so generally, that's that's probably the biggest hurdle that I think I have.

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Johnny Compton: otherwise.

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Johnny Compton: Gosh, you know, we talked earlier, you know, getting into the the rabbit hole a little bit of research. Sometimes you just got to pull yourself out, and just I get really over. You go to write. But I probably encounter that every once in a while something along those lines.

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Johnny Compton: Oh! And then, just for me, because I have a

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Johnny Compton: like traffic jam of ideas in my head. So

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Johnny Compton: the other thing is just like staying focused on one thing at a time as much as possible.

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Johnny Compton: Or at least scheduling my week and my days to where it's like, okay.

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Johnny Compton: this is your short story day that you set aside. So

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Johnny Compton: do that. And then if you get done with the story, then you can move on to the other thing, or this is my novel day, or this is whatever it is. Novels are taking the priority right now, but I'm trying to get a short story collection out there. So I have to work in some of that. And so at the same time, it's like

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Johnny Compton: some days. You're like, I really just want to write this other thing, though.

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Johnny Compton: That's what I'm feeling right now, and it's

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Johnny Compton: maintaining a certain level of discipline, because I know I can.

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Johnny Compton: I feel like it's an easy trap to fall into to become neglectful of other things that you have to do.

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Johnny Compton: If you just keep putting aside the thing that maybe doesn't feel as inspired. Quote unquote in the moment as I'm learning and navigating this for me. Personally.

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Johnny Compton: I need to just

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Johnny Compton: write what I need to what I told myself. I'm going to write today. This is what it is. And unless I absolutely for some reason have a severe writer's block, which is pretty rare for me, fortunately. But if I just can't get anything off the page on that today, for whatever reason

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Johnny Compton: in a given amount of time. Then I'll move on to the other thing but a lot of the time.

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Johnny Compton: because I just watched you know whatever. Read whatever. And I'll think, oh, man, that reminds me of this other story that I've been working on that I want to get done. I'm going to start writing that instead. And it's like, No, you have a. You have a designated order of things. You've given yourself a schedule.

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Johnny Compton: be disciplined, stay focused. Write what you know you're supposed to do. Treat it like a job. And it's still fun, obviously. But sometimes I don't want to treat it like a job. I just want to do the silly thing. You know. You want to eat your dessert before you want to.

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Johnny Compton: Eat your meal sometimes, and I have to remind myself to to

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Johnny Compton: finish breakfast before you go on with the rest of your day.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So on the opposite spectrum. What would be the most rewarding piece of you know the the process for you.

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Johnny Compton: I mean for me. Being a horror writer, the most rewarding thing is hearing that I scared people, I mean, I want people to

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Johnny Compton: latch on to my stories, and I hope you love the characters. I hope you love the story. I hope you are moved in a certain direction, because emotionally. I do try to get you invested hopefully, that having been said, I've had a couple of people tell me that I've given them nightmares, and that is easily the best compliment that I've I've ever received. When I was just on my book tour, a lady came up to me and was just like said, man, you're messed up. I was like, thank you.

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Johnny Compton: This is exactly what I was I was going for with it with this particular book, especially with my latest book.

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Johnny Compton: So

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Johnny Compton: when you have a moment or a scene especially that you've written that you're thinking, because fear is so subjective.

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Johnny Compton: as as subjective as so many other things can be like. Humor can be subjective. Obviously the idea of tragedy and love all these things.

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Johnny Compton: But fear is extremely subjective, like I'm I don't like needles.

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Johnny Compton: so anything with needles in it is instantly pretty scary to me. Now I'm biased because of that, so I might think you know, if you ask me what

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Johnny Compton: what's the scariest thing you've ever seen, like scariest movie, I give a variety of answers, but it's probably like audition by Takashi Mike, because it has a scene where needles are very present and being used as a torture device, and like that's made me cringe a lot

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Johnny Compton: but and it's also just a fantastic movie overall, too. So it's not like a bad answer. But I also know that my personal bias against needles is leading me toward that because of that subjectivity. And so then, if you can write something that isn't employing necessarily

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Johnny Compton: a specific fear or phobia that somebody might have

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Johnny Compton: and still frighten people and get feedback from people that are like

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Johnny Compton: man. And multiple people are like that scene really scared me. And that was the scene that you thought going to be the the killer scene, too.

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Johnny Compton: it's that's really rewarding for me, because a lot of the other things I feel like.

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Johnny Compton: I have more confidence in them working, you know. If if you're like, Oh, man, I really felt Eric's journey as a father. I'm like, okay. That that was

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Johnny Compton: one of these things that feels more relatable and kind of universal.

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Johnny Compton: protecting family members. Father, mother, you know, whatever it is, even brothers and sisters. The idea of like I got to protect family members, and I don't know how, and you feel that from Eric and Des, in the Spite house

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Johnny Compton: that makes sense.

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Johnny Compton: and in devil scale devils. I've had people. Oh, you know the story of the grief that some of the characters go through. Grief is such a universal experience for us. So those kind of things I feel it's very rewarding to hear that I executed them well when I hear that, but at the same time you kind of have a grip on these concepts. These are very natural human experiences. But then, when somebody's like man, that that scene in the tunnel scared the hell out of me, and I'm like, that's exactly what I wanted to do.

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Johnny Compton: That's something beyond the human experience. Most people haven't been in a tunnel getting chased by

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Johnny Compton: this horrifying monster, and hearing their friends all around them getting slaughtered. So

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Johnny Compton: some people are going to see that, and maybe just think, oh, it's kind of an action scene. Hopefully it kept kept them engaged. But if you're like that freaked me out, and I'm like that's what I wanted to do. That's extremely rewarding. Because you're you're talking about something that is entirely from the imagination, and that is entirely separate from a natural experience that you don't really have any connective tissue to. So that has been the most rewarding part for me.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Now that you have so many short stories into full length novels out, do you feel satisfied that you stopped that? You stopped the you know the revising and polishing when you did, or looking back, are there things you would still go back and change if you could.

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Johnny Compton: There. There are definitely some things I would probably go back, especially the spy house. Devils kill devils. I haven't had enough separation from, I think

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Johnny Compton: so. There's not much. I mean everything I would change about devils, kill devils is just as much as my. I appreciate my editor making me remove some of the research stuff. I still kind of wish I could go back and add that in the Spite House I would probably go back and

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Johnny Compton: remove, maybe one extra pov. There's a lot of Pov characters in the Spider House, and I know that that's 1 of the I don't really read reviews or anything like that, because reviews are not for writers. Reviews are for readers. As my friend Cabino Iglesias, the great Cabino Iglesias, is fond of reminding other writers of

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Johnny Compton: and that is the truth, like just, you know, that nobody's writing a review. Nobody who's, I guess, probably sincere about it. They're writing a review to help other readers out about the quality of this book. Not, hey? I'm giving feedback to this specific writer.

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Johnny Compton: So I don't really look at that positive or negative, because even the positive reviews can impact you in a way that gets you in your head and makes you think, is this what I need to do just every single time. Then is this what people are that into? And then you end up forcing it. If that's not really what what is in your heart to write, but

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Johnny Compton: that said people.

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Johnny Compton: One way or another he got it back to me that one of the things about the spine house that a lot of people, I think, felt challenged by was the

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Johnny Compton: the many, many Povs of the Spite House, and there are some side characters like Millie Steen, who gets her own

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Johnny Compton: Pov, for instance. The Dana character, I think, is a couple of chapters from her. Pov la fonda. I think it's 1.

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Johnny Compton: I'd probably shave at least 2 of those. I think maybe you could probably tell the same story without those Povs. I think Millie probably is important enough that you have to keep her pov. I don't know if Lafonda or Dana needed pov chapters.

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Johnny Compton: so I'd I'd probably I'd probably go back and adjust something like that, for instance. But that's so far. That's been it.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Do you prefer to also leave your readers with kind of an ambiguous ending, rather than tying it up neatly with a bow? You like to give them that kind of mystery, and let them kind of torture themselves a little bit, trying to figure out the final pieces.

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Johnny Compton: Yeah, absolutely. Just a lot of my.

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Johnny Compton: I guess. Writing instincts lean into.

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Johnny Compton: I think. Still, maybe from the you know, the stuff I've read when I was when I was younger, and

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Johnny Compton: just like just being fascinated by this idea of

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Johnny Compton: this is it. This is where things end. And I mentioned Richard Matheson, for instance, and I remember the 1st time reading duel and

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Johnny Compton: duel gives you a definitive ending as far as the the clash between this man and this mystery Trucker

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Johnny Compton: who has been tormenting him on the road. But we never find out why this trucker was upset with him. Why he decided to torture, torment this poor guy who the truck? We never see the trucker's face. We don't get anything, and then the book just ends as soon as I mean spoilers, I guess, for the end of duel, but the the a little bit of spoiler for the book, and I guess the film, too. But

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Johnny Compton: The action the confrontation completes, and we we

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Johnny Compton: read about one character looking at the other's defeat. And then that's just it. It's just over. How did he get home? What was his life like after that? Probably the Ptsd again the answers, when the police would have arrived

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Johnny Compton: to say, This is what this man this is who this was. We found out this was a psycho killer on the road, or whatever.

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Johnny Compton: None of that. It's just. Matheson was like boom. The story is about this confrontation, and then it's over. And I loved that the 1st time I actually found that book and read it, which is a I think it's more of a novella than a full length novel, but still absolutely been obsessed with that. And then recently, I heard an interview with the great Stephen Graham Jones, who put it in a metaphor that I thought was awesome. He basically said he likes to end books

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Johnny Compton: in terms of like, you're at a party.

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Johnny Compton: and you've realized this is as good as the party's going to get. And so you exit out the side door.

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Johnny Compton: and he's like. That's it, party for me. The party's over now. I don't have to show you the party winding down and then flickering the lights and telling people. You gotta go home.

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Johnny Compton: Here's the Cleanup

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Johnny Compton: hangover the next day.

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Johnny Compton: you know, but you find the girl's number and all that, you know all the good stuff that happens in the aftermath of a party. He's like, no, we just exit side door and presume and let you guys imagine the rest. Now, different people want different things out of out of different stories. Obviously, and so I completely understand people that might want a little bit more out of out of an ending. But I love, I love those kind of endings. I love that kind of style of writing to me. I've done my job. I've taken you to the

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Johnny Compton: point of the ending conflict. Things are done that that dual ending is definitely what I had in mind with the ending of devils kill devil. So if you haven't read it yet, just kind of be prepared for that style of ending.

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Johnny Compton: But I just I love that kind of that kind of storytelling, and I've just I don't know. I just. I like that idea like I said of Stephen Graham Jones. We exit through the side door of the party, and you can still hear the music in the background. But we're done as far as we're concerned. The party's over, and we left on a high note.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We have an audience question from Ashley. Who says, What do you believe is the true distinction between horror and thriller stories? And I think that's

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: relative to what we just discussed with the stylistically horror stories. You can leave them more open-ended, but with thrillers. You have to detail every single thing, every twist, every.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Would you agree with that? Or what? What else would you add to that kind of idea of what the difference is?

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Johnny Compton: I mean, I really love what you said there, because thrillers tend to be a lot more procedural. You know, it's the difference. It's what makes silence of the lambs, even though I think it's 1st of all

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Johnny Compton: I have to present the caveat that I tend to be a like my my horror. Tent is a gigantic circus tent. It's like the size of a city.

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Johnny Compton: Come, one and all. Everybody gets to to join. If you want to call yourself Hover. Come on in

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Johnny Compton: and so I like to snatch up stuff, too, that most people don't consider horror, but something like silence of the lambs, the Thomas Harris books. Red Dragon. These have horror elements blatantly in them.

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Johnny Compton: but the procedural elements

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Johnny Compton: kind of divorce you from

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Johnny Compton: some of the horror, and that like gets into what you just said there, where you get to the endings, and you need to complete because it's a procedural. It's an investigative procedural. You need to complete all of that investigation, and for it to be satisfying. I think the difference would be like a horror version of silence of the Lambs or Red Dragon

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Johnny Compton: would spend more time even with like the the tooth fairy kills all of these families. We basically see that from the perspective of the investigation in the aftermath, and a little bit of the tooth fairy himself.

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Johnny Compton: the intimacy and the empathy that I mentioned previously the victims.

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Johnny Compton: you would see that the initial victimization and you would see these victims in their moments. And that's where the horror ratchets up from that fear. And so then I'm thinking of Red Dragon in particular, like when the tooth Fairy kills. Freddie Lounge is the most to me horrific and most horror story like moment in the book because we're

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Johnny Compton: there with the Tooth fairy

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Johnny Compton: from his perspective, primarily.

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Johnny Compton: But still Freddie's there, and we realize what's going to happen to him, and he realizes it, and he's terrified, and we're living with his terror. And even though we

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Johnny Compton: have come to dislike Freddie Lounge as a character, I remember reading it the 1st time, and thinking I've hated this guy, and I knew he was probably going to die because he's set up as the kind of character you're meant to hate, and then you can't wait for him to die. But then, when the moment came and it ratchets up the fear he's feeling at the torture he's about to undergo. And what's going to happen to him? I started feeling bad for him.

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Johnny Compton: and I was like, this is where horror lives. This is like horror where it's like, even though I don't like this guy this is still in. I've created this person in my mind now.

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Johnny Compton: and I don't want to see him get his lips bitten off and set on fire. This is horrifying, and he definitely doesn't want it to happen to him. And this is where it incorporates the horror.

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Johnny Compton: But then that's like kind of the one moment in that book that I truly feel like

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Johnny Compton: dives into that in that very horror, specific intimacy, empathy, sort of way, and then it it

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Johnny Compton: very skillfully incorporates some some elements of that throughout the rest. But it doesn't really focus on it. And I feel like that. Focus is what separates horror from like a thriller. You get multiple moments like that typically in a horror book. And that is kind of the the through line

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Johnny Compton: in the book is this idea of reminding you what the stakes mean for each one of these individuals, and reminding you of the fear that each one of them is feeling, or at least as many of them as possible, that you can get in an individualized moment what they're feeling as opposed to a thriller where

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Johnny Compton: you might get a dash of it here, a dash. But there, I think another person who writes, you know, more recently in this kind of same.

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Johnny Compton: thriller with horror. Elements kind of style is essay. Cosby and and his books really can kind of go into some really dark places and and feel horrifying in certain splashes. But they're still primarily thrillers. And it's about the investigation and finding out what's happening. More so than maybe examining the fear that people are feeling in in moment to moment. And so I feel like that

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Johnny Compton: again. Yeah, I know I've used this word a lot. But I feel like this is like a really key word for me, for horror is intimacy, and you're one-on-one with somebody so often in a horror story. And or it's just an isolated person. And what are they feeling in that moment, in that intimacy and that empathy

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Johnny Compton: that we're trying to build in for the character at their darkest place at their darkest moment, and lingering with that, I feel like that's what typically to me distinguishes horror from a thriller.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So as a follow up. Ashley says, so horror lives in emotion, and thriller, and explanation.

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Johnny Compton: Yes, I mean, horror is an emotion like the the word horror, horror itself. It's something you experience. It's a it's a feeling.

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Johnny Compton: Thrill is a is an emotion, too. Well, it's it's but it's more of a sensation. I guess I would say it's like I was thrilled. I feel thrilled at like a thrill. Ride. You know you go to a theme park, and you feel a thrill ride, or what have you? So it can have that. But then, from a technique standpoint in terms of what you're you're writing to get to that that thriller element, you are.

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Johnny Compton: to a certain degree, I think, trying to de-emphasize the horror, to give a I feel like thrillers.

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Johnny Compton: typically

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Johnny Compton: give you a greater sense of some level of control, or that characters have some sense of control and a grip

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Johnny Compton: on the situation.

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Johnny Compton: Horror feels more emotional, and emotions can get out of control. And and you know, things feel like they can happen in a more. I feel like

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Johnny Compton: what? What's the word I'm looking for? Just just a list.

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Johnny Compton: kind of contained more experimental or strange way, and a lot of obviously thrillers can get experimental and bizarre, too. But it's I think it's rarer in the thriller space. There's not, I mean, in horror. There's literally like Bizarro fiction, which is just like, how bizarre can you get? And I've really heard of too many like Bizarro thrillers. But it's more about the execution and the procedural element in a thriller versus the emotion I feel like in horror, and I feel like that that hopefully.

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Johnny Compton: at least, in my opinion you'll get different opinions from a lot of different people, but in my opinion that hopefully, I think, sets up the distinction between the 2. But obviously there can be a lot of overlap.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: That was so insightful. I'd like to squeeze in one more audience question an anonymous attendee asks, do you ever think what kind of legacy you want to leave behind about yourself for future readers.

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Johnny Compton: Oh, man!

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: It's a really light, you know, ending thought.

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Johnny Compton: I've actually never truly thought about that before. I mean, like the idea of even just the fact that I'm doing this right now is.

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Johnny Compton: I'm still coming to grips with that. To be frank, you know I've I've been wanting to write stories

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Johnny Compton: in earnest like I said. I started writing my 1st short stories when I was 10 years old, but in earnest, really feeling like man. I really want to try to pursue this, since I was in college.

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Johnny Compton: and I didn't get my first.st I got short stories published for a long time, but I didn't get my 1st novel published. I didn't have a career out of this, the way I do now until 2 years ago. Basically. So I'm still kind of coming to terms with that. So the idea of even having a legacy is is

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Johnny Compton: remarkable to me to even be presented the question frankly. I mean, it's it's kind of mind numbing in a positive way. It's just kind of like, Wow, like that is something I really probably should be thinking about.

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Johnny Compton: I mean, hopefully, I'm I'm building on this genre that I love, which I think is ultimately going to be the legacy that I hope I hope I'm contributing something. Well, people.

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Johnny Compton: whatever comes of my career, even if I never write another book.

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Johnny Compton: that they'll be able to look at this as like he. Really, you could tell how much he really loved it because I've really, sincerely, wholeheartedly love the horror genre. I love reading in general, I read a lot of different stuff. I read everything, you know. People say this all the time, but I genuinely do. I've read romance books that I really enjoy a lot of straight literature, mainstream literature thrillers, spy thrillers. Really really love that nonfiction. Of course, as I mentioned previously, as well.

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Johnny Compton: really enjoy and get so much out of all these different things, my 1st love was horror when I was 5 years old, and I heard a ghost story.

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Johnny Compton: and it has remained so. And that's why that's the art on the walls. And you know this. This is what I've dreamt of.

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Johnny Compton: and so I hope that that passion that I have for the genre, because I do think the genre

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Johnny Compton: has been maligned in the past. Some of that was deserved because it brought it on itself, but I think some of it is just people not necessarily having access to

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Johnny Compton: the the range that horror has because of, you know, a variety of potential factors.

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Johnny Compton: But now I think people are seeing how much range horror has. And it's something that's a lot more open to the world now in terms of like, Oh, yeah, we've always loved these kind of stories. We've always loved to be scared, and now it's just a lot easier to embrace it.

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Johnny Compton: And I hope that my passion for what horror has been and can be, and currently is, is conveyed in what I write, and that my legacy will be just that it.

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Johnny Compton: you know he he loved this genre, and he contributed to it. And

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Johnny Compton: he didn't just try to leech off of it. He tried to hopefully contribute something and add something to it, to to reflect how much he cares about the genre. So that's

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Johnny Compton: that's the 1st time I ever had been asked that question. So I appreciate the question. It's a wonderful question. And I can't believe I actually had a chance to.

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Johnny Compton: to really think about that that

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Johnny Compton: never really kind of opened my, I'm gonna be thinking about that the rest of the day.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Well, we're so glad that you could be here to share all of these insights with us. This was just such a lovely conversation with you folks in the chat are saying they could listen to you all day so, and I feel the same way. Thank you so much for for sharing your time with us, and this has been wonderful.

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Johnny Compton: Thanks everybody for for being here. This has been a blast. Thank you for inviting me as well. This is awesome.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Thank you to everybody for coming to watch the talk and please check out Johnny's books and website. We will have all the links on the hub, and the links are in the chat for you, too. But check out the Spite House and devils kill devils. So thank you, and good luck with the rest of your book. Tour.

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Johnny Compton: Thank you, appreciate it.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Bye, everyone, we have a session starting in just under an hour, so we'll see you soon.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Bye, all.