Authors Electric

  After a few months delving into the classics, I’ve now gone back to reading more in the genre I write – when asked, I usually say ‘crime’ as that’s easier than saying, ‘Well, it’s a mix of dark psychological thriller with occasional horror thrown in, plus a bit of action and adventure on the side.’ The truth is, as I suspect for most of us who write, it’s hard to pigeonhole oneself into a specific box. I write stories; that’s the more honest answer, but give that as an answer and you get a frown, followed by, ‘Well yes, but what sort?’ For me, writing is a way to tell a story. That’s my motivation. It’s a way to explore topics I’m interested in. The genre I write in is secondary to that. I generally choose crime, as I enjoy reading it, and I understand the structure. But another writer may take the same idea and approach it from the opposite direction, with equally valid results. I think the same holds true for the reader – each reader’s life experiences will shape their percep...

On the Halloween that’s just gone, I was fortunate enough to have been granted exclusive access to the normally reclusive Vladimir Poignard, writer of some of the most chilling horror stories to have appeared this century. Poignard is consciously part of a tradition which stretches back to Poe, Wilkie Collins and even encompasses the excrescences penned by the Divine Marquis himself. When I went to meet him, I was surprised to be shown into the parlour of a small terraced house in Wigan by a woman in her seventies. She sat me down, brought through two cups of tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits, settled herself opposite me and said ‘Well, shall we get started?’. In the course of the interview which followed, nothing compared with this revelation that the purveyor of some of the most explicit violence and psyche-shattering episodes in the whole of western literature was, in fact, Ethel Gringe, 78. Her three husbands had all died in mysterious circumstances but left he...

I have written horror and crime for some years now and I do have a reasonable library of books to fall back on but sometimes those little details need to be checked, and it is so easy to do that online.  It occurred to me this week, however, that the browsing history of the average writer must ring bells somewhere on some watcher-server in some secret place.   It goes as no surprise to those who know me that I own up to being a compulsive researcher, spending hours looking into small details that are a sentence – nay half a sentence.  Now on occasion that could be classed as classic displacement activity  -  but then again it never hurts to check. In a recent read the female protagonist catches her skirt on the mistletoe. That sentence pulled me up sharp. Was she tiptoeing through the tree tops? Not that I could see.  A quick search confirmed that mistletoe varieties native to the UK are to be found growing on trees.  A minor p...

Recently I was given this delightful book by my daughter who thought (quite rightly) that it would amuse me. LOST IN TRANSLATION, by Ella Frances Sanders, is a collection of single words  describing mostly, but not always, familiar situations for which, in English, we'd use several. There is, for example: MURR-MA, from an almost extinct Australian language, which means searching for things under water with your feet.      There is the lovely-sounding TIAM, in Farsi, meaning the twinkle in your eyes when you meet someone special, and on the downside: KUMMERSPECK, in German, which literally translates as 'grief-bacon', meaning the excess weight gained by emotional over-eating. The illustrations are fun, too - do check it out. For authors specialising in crime and horror,how are you responding to recent global events which seem to surpass anything dreamed up in a novel? Which of us, writing futuristic fantasy twenty or so years ago, would have invented a let...

They say you've got to see it first before the real magic can happen. So I'm working hard at seeing the boy toy I'll become when I implement the latest of my Very Great Ideas. After starting with thousands of images, the field has been narrowed to these: Now, this was supposed to have happened when I landed a two-book hardcover contract with Tor/St. Martin's after a long apprenticeship. I'd come out of the gate too in champion form: winning a Stoker Award, collecting favorable reviews and appearing in Success magazine. But time certainly seemed to be taking its time in coming through with my reward. Most conversations ended fast when I told folks I worked in Horror. Those that didn't die then did when I confessed to not receiving million-buck advances. All this was grim. But it grew worse when my second agent landed me a contract for two  paperback  horror novels. Now any pretense of being a Serious Writer were gone. Segue to my years in the desert...

In half an hour you and your family will have to leave your home, probably forever. What are you going to take with you? The good news is you have your car, truck or whatever you normally drive. One vehicle containing your family and the essentials of your life. If you only ride a bike then hitch a lift Oh, I forgot to mention that this is not a holiday. You are fleeing certain death, or worse, at the hands of an evil horde of hungry undead and venomous mutants. The good news is that you and your pals stopped off at the shops on the way home and essential food and drink items are already taken care of. So, I packed all my DIY tools, including the brand new ones I have never used but keep because they will come in handy some day. As Mrs R was busy being a mad scientist out at the laboratory, I was free to load all our clothes into the pickup without having to check what would be suitable for which occasion. My son, being a boy scout, had the forethought to grab our sleeping bags and...

Most of us take for granted the fact that we can read and know what it's like to enjoy a good book. But how sad it is for those who have never known the pleasure of reading either because they are dyslexic or they struggle with reading for some other reason. It's so rewarding to a writer regardless of the genre of book they write, when they get positive feedback or a good review. Even more so when the reader is a child or teenager who admits that they don't like reading - yet they loved a particular book that you'd written. But the idea of actually writing for the market of reluctant teen readers was something of a challenge - but also a great experience, and one I hope I'll get the opportunity to do again. It's only something I've been doing for the last six months or so. I was excited to be asked by the publisher, Badger Learning if I would like to try for a series of horror books for 12-15 year olds with a reading age of around 8-9. Wh...

Sometimes I feel like I don’t quite belong to the horror writing crowd. Sure, I call my work ‘horror’ because it’s the most convenient label for it (‘Speculative fiction’ is a bit of an umbrella term and does tend to get me looks of slight derision) but ‘horror’ is very broad. Almost too broad, as anyone attempting to compare say, H.P. Lovecraft, M.R. James and Dean Koontz against one another might find. Any slasher-movie fans reading my work would probably be quite disappointed - there’s no blood, or guts, or… well, horror , really. So I struggle to define it. Then I came across the term ‘fridge horror’. It’s from the marvellous TV Tropes website , where I can spend hours poring over the often hilarious descriptions of character, plot and genre tropes that can be applied to all stories - written or televised - everywhere. It’s kind of nice. It reminds you that, far from it just being you as an author who keeps coming up with ideas that have already been done, there are no new id...

          The 29th day of the month, and the introduction of a new page for Authors Electric.           The 30th - and the 31st, if there is one - have always been given over to Guest Posters, and that will continue, under the very able management of Debbie Bennett. Debbie, Guest Wrangler           The 29th was, until recently, Hywela Lyn's day - but we're sad to say that Hywela has had to resign, because her other commitments make it impossible to keep up with Authors Electric. Blogging is time consuming - thinking of a new subject every month, writing it, rewriting it, finding pictures, rewriting it... (Because writers obsessively rewrite: that's what we do.)           So we well understand Hywela's reasons for leaving us, and we wish her well for the future.         ...