Be ####ing true - Marty Beaudet - Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moments in Writing!

"Hardly a day goes by when some fuckhead doesn't want to shoot me. Today is no exception." This is how my most recent, and most successful, novel opens. The book is written in a neo-noir style, with a hard-boiled, cynical first-person narration.

You might wonder, but it was not a calculated provocation to throw profanity at the reader in the first ten words. The style simply dictated it. The effect this opener has had on my audience has been a real aha! moment for me.

I'm not a person who swears a lot in public. In daily interactions I fear offending people with such language, except in specific environments. My first novels reflected that fear; I censored my characters as I censored myself, not wanting to offend potential readers. But I had to take off the gloves this time because of the nature of the character and the writing style I had chosen to emulate.

I feared at first, that this would limit my audience. On the contrary. People have loved the book! And many have bought it based solely on reading the first line.

Even gray-haired old ladies, those I most feared offending, have loved the book. Three women's book clubs not only chose the book for their monthly read, but they invited me to come speak to them afterward.

The lesson I have learned is this: don't censor yourself. Be true to the character. The character is not you; he doesn't have to behave according to your own personal rules of etiquette. Be real. If you aren't, the reader will feel betrayed. They sense when you're holding back, not being completely honest.

Just lay it all out there and trust your readers. They'll get it.





Marty Beaudet is a freelance writer, graphic designer, and communications consultant. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, he has lived in Damascus, Oregon since 1998 with his husband Chuck, where they have been adopted by a cat named Rudy.

He is the author of the political thriller By A Thread and a novella, Losing Addison, which is a psychological thriller.

He also writes comedic thrillers under the pen name Martin Bannon. You can find him on Goodreads.

Libraries - A Great Place to Connect With Readers - JG Faherty - Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moments in Writing

     As a writer, I am always looking for places to promote my work to potential readers. As part of this, for the past few years I've been putting on readings and presentations at local libraries. But, unlike bookstore readings and signings, the library presentation is usually a very different animal, and in order to successfully arrange regular appearances, there are some strategies I've learned to incorporate.

     Most importantly, your presentation must match well with the library's needs. Libraries are rarely looking for someone to just come in, read a book passage or short story, and then sign and sell copies of their latest novel. Instead, they are looking for presentations that can be worked into their existing programs and topics of interest. For example, I'll regularly speak at several libraries during the Halloween season, but rarely do I read my own stories at those events. Instead, I'll put together a presentation that includes a reading of a classic Halloween tale, such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, or I'll tell stories about local scary myths and fables. In other words, I gear my talk to a topic that has local interest. After that, I might have a Q&A (this works well with children) where I ask participants to tell me their own stories of spooky things that have happened to them or people they know.

     Another strategy I utilize is to talk about being active in promoting literacy among adult and YA readers. I discuss the importance of reading, and I use examples of current horror novels and their popularity to emphasize how horror can be a great tool for promoting reading. This is a great topic for when you speak to librarian groups or adult readers, people who are interested in getting children to read more.

     In either case, my initial approach is similar. I will send an introductory email to the head librarian, stating my qualifications and outlining the different programs I have done in the past. I also mention that I am willing to work with the library on any type of specific need they might have – for instance, some libraries host creative writing classes for children, and might be interested in having a writer come in to either guest teach a class or judge a writing contest. Then, when I do my presentation, I find ways to mention my own books, and I always have samples of my books. If it is a library I've never appeared at before, I'll gift them a couple of my books for their shelves.

     One thing to be aware of before speaking at a library is that this type of presentation is different than a reading. Many people – myself included – have a fear of speaking in public. That fear might not apply during a reading, because you are not 'speaking,' and therefore nerves don't become an issue. But just standing there talking to a group of children or adults (or both) can bring on a terrible anxiety, especially if the audience isn't instantly receptive. Which can frequently be the case! If you want to build a portfolio of libraries for repeat appearances, it's vital to put on a presentation that is both interesting and well-delivered. So if you do suffer from public speaking fears, I recommend practicing A LOT before your appearance, and minimizing the amount of ad-libbing that you do. For me, my fears are the opposite – I hate to deliver readings, and I usually try to avoid doing them.

     My final suggestion is just to make sure your presentation topic is appropriate for your audience. For instance, when I've had to do readings for YA audiences in the past, I bring several different ones with me, each appropriate for a different age group. This is because at libraries, you never know who is going to show, and reading a story with beheadings and disembowelments is not going to go over well with young children or blue-haired library patrons!

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JG Faherty is the author of THE BURNING TIME, CEMETERY CLUB, CARNIVAL OF FEAR, THE COLD SPOT, HE WAITS, and the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated GHOSTS OF CORONADO BAY, along with more than 50 short stories. He writes adult and YA horror/sci-fi/fantasy. His works range from quiet, dark suspense to over-the-top comic gruesomeness. He enjoys urban exploring, photography, watching both good and bad horror and sci-fi movies, hiking, playing the guitar, good wine, and Guinness – not necessarily in that order. As a child, his favorite playground was a 17th-century cemetery, which many people feel explains a lot. You can follow him at Twitter, Facebook, about me, and his website.

I Smell an A-ha Moment - Bev Vincent - Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moments in Writing.

     Several years ago, while I was attending the Bram Stoker Awards Weekend in Burbank, I went to a writing seminar given by David Morrell, creator of Rambo and the author of dozens of novels. Though it was a condensed version of his normal workshop, I still found it to be a valuable experience.

     Of the lessons I took away from that two-hour session, the one that stands out most in my mind was his advice to pay attention to all five senses. We tend to focus on sight and sound, he said, because those are the only senses to which film and television can appeal. A character on the big screen might wrinkle his nose in disgust at a smell, but (absent a scratch-and-sniff card) there’s no way to convey exactly what he is experiencing. At best he might say, “It smells like something died in here.” Or, “That smells like dog poop.”

     In a banquet scene—such as the audacious ones on the TV series Hannibal—the characters might show their appreciation for (or dislike of) their food, but viewers can’t truly share the experience. Oh, we might imagine what that slice of liver tastes like, but we have to do all the work. Banal dialog like “That tastes heavenly” doesn’t help. Similarly, someone in a film can caress his lover’s cheek but how her skin feels and how her body responds to his touch is left to a viewer’s imagination.

     When I returned home from the conference, I looked at some of my work and discovered that I had been guilty of downplaying touch, taste and smell. I started to develop a vocabulary to describe flavors and aromas, and paid attention to how characters might react to tactile sensations.

     This isn’t to say that you should overload your work with sensory descriptions—no more than you would bog down a scene with an excessive amount of visual detail. Deciding what to put in and what to leave out is an art that writers hone throughout their careers. You want the readers to experience a scene as if they were there without bringing an abrupt halt to the action. It’s like adding daubs of color to a painting. Sometimes these highlights are what turn an otherwise flat scene into something engaging and alive.

Bev Vincent is the author of The Dark Tower Companion, The Road to the Dark Tower (nominated for a Bram Stoker Award), and The Stephen King Illustrated Companion (nominated for an Edgar and a Stoker). His short fiction has appeared in places like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, From the Borderlands, The Blue Religion and When the Night Comes Down. He is a contributing editor with Cemetery Dance magazine, is a founding member of the Storytellers Unplugged blogging community and reviews for Onyx Reviews. His website is bevvincent.com and you can also find him on Twitter (@BevVincent) and Facebook.

The Importance of Research - Bruce Memblatt - "Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moments in Writing!"

By Bruce Memblatt

     How many times have you been watching a movie or reading a novel in which a character has a magic gun that never runs out of bullets? How many times have you scratched your head and said “WTF?”  Those head scratching moments are the “aha” moments that every writer should dread because those are the moments readers are being taken out of your story, and, they are being taken out of your story by you. 

      Research in fiction writing is pivotal not only to your credibility as a writer, but it is the thing that makes your work ring true.  Everything about your story is false - it is a creation of your imagination-it never happened- but in order for you to get a reader to feel like it did, it must appear real. It takes good research to make the Impossible seem possible. 

      Research can assume many forms. They can range from factual to the speculative. If a revolver can hold six rounds, that is a fact beyond dispute. In comparison, if you’re researching an historical event, usually there is an array of opinions and views regarding what happened. You have to use your judgment, and chose what is best for your characters. You also have to remember you are writing fiction, not a term paper.  Your use of facts should be limited to those which help move YOUR story forward. I had to perform exhaustive research for my story, “Abandoned,” which will appear in SHADOW MASTERS - the soon-to-be-released anthology from The Horror Zine, because most of the action takes place aboard a slave ship. I also had to use a lot of restraint to stop myself from allowing the facts to overwhelm the fiction.  As a great man once said, “God is in the details.” Too many details can run your ship into the ground.   The key to everything is good judgment; make your research work for you, not against you.

From New York City, Bruce Memblatt joined the staff of the Horror Zine in 2012. A member of the HWA, he has been published over one times in zines, magazines, and anthology books in publications like The Horror Zine, Sam's Dot Publishing, Post Mortem Press, Danse Macrabe, Parsec Inc, Dark  Moon Books, Yellow Mama, Bewildering Stories,  The Feathertale Review, and many others.

His story" Destination: Unknown" was cited for an honorable mention in the 2013 L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future  Contest, and his story "Dikon's Light" is a recipient of Bewildering Stories 2012 Mariner Awards.

Coming up he has a piece called," Abandoned" in Shadow Masters from the Horror Zine and Imajin Books, and  one called, "Stranger than Life : A Post Mortem" soon to appear at  Namless Magazine.

Knowledge is Power - Benjamin Kane Ethridge - 'Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moments in Writing."

      At some point, your mind gets lazy and takes the quick way out. Well, the chilling music building in the background aides the mind. Well, the acting is superb and you really feel for the character. Well, maybe I'm duped into nail-biting because it's a Hitchcock film and I expect it to be intense. You can apply any of those theories to receive a half-baked answer, but the truth is, none of those peripheral things really matter.

     So what does?

     I call them knowledge-bombs. Name it whatever you will-- information distribution, insight, fictional communion. It's all the same idea. Suspense is almost always about what the involved players know and don't know, and that includes the audience. For instance, you *know* there's an item on the ground behind the murderer that will give away the hero's well crafted plan for revenge. The murderer *doesn't know* but all he needs to do is turn around and it's right there. This potential plot-bomb will blow up at that point. So that's tension. Suspense is the prolonging of the tension. In this case, the murderer backs up one step, and the item is literally resting (almost touching) their shoe. They bend down to scratch their leg, their gaze only inches away from the item. The closer we come to seeing this bit of knowledge revealed, the more captivated we are with waiting for it. If the characters are interesting all the better, of course, but even that's not always essential. Sometimes people just want to see a good explosion.




Benjamin Kane Ethridge is the Bram Stoker Award winning author of the novel BLACK & ORANGE and NIGHTMARE BALLAD. For his master's thesis he wrote, "CAUSES OF UNEASE: The Rhetoric of Horror Fiction and Film." Available in an ivory tower near you. Benjamin lives in Southern California with his wife and two creatures who possess stunning resemblances to human children. When he isn't writing, reading, videogaming, Benjamin's defending California's waterways and sewers from pollution.Say hi and drop a line at ben@bkethridge.com

An Editor's Biggest 'Uh-Uh!' Moments - Norman Rubenstein (Senior Managing Editor at JournalStone) - Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moments in Writing

An Editor’s Biggest ‘Uh-Uh!’ Moments

I’ve been asked to briefly discuss a few of those things that, when receiving a story or book submission from an author, will cause even hardened editors to weep and will necessitate the rejection of a manuscript, no matter its ‘potential.’  So, here are two of the biggest ‘Uh-Uh’ moments that editors encounter when receiving manuscript submissions and which writers should learn to avoid.

First, there seems to be an all-too-prevalent myth circulating that so long as a writer’s story is ‘great,’ [frequently so, and solely, determined by the judgment of the writer and a few trusted and friendly ‘first readers’] the writer need not worry about such things as proper spelling, grammar, and/or punctuation and that a writer need not even proof their manuscript, or bother to rewrite/revise a first draft before submitting it – “because that’s what editors are for and it is their job to make all such corrections.” Uh-Uh! If an editor begins to read a manuscript and begins to encounter error after error, numerous typos, spelling and punctuation errors, and/or bad grammar, all of these act to keep pulling the editor out of the actual story. And most editors will rapidly reach a point where they will simply stop reading and set aside the manuscript. There is virtually always a very large pile of submissions in an editor’s “In Box” and editors are also usually under tight deadlines and time pressures. It is far easier to toss aside a problematical manuscript and reach for the next one, knowing that there will likely be more than sufficient numbers of manuscripts in that pile that have obviously been rewritten/refined and proofed to the extent that it is obvious some care was put into the presentation of the manuscript—combined with the manuscript also telling a good story.

In short: don’t submit first drafts of work that you’ve not bothered to proof yourself or have proofed by someone else—who knows what they are doing—for obvious, common errors. This isn’t to say that the manuscript must be perfect—merely that even after a preliminary review for errors, while some errors will invariably still exist within the manuscript, they won’t appear in such numbers and/or so egregiously that they both undermine the integrity of the work and obviously indicate to the editor that the writer really does not care about the work being submitted. Editors want to feel that the writer cares deeply about whatever work he or she is submitting, and has cared enough to make it the best it can be. When the number of obvious, easily discernable such errors on a page begin to exceed the number of paragraphs on the page (and we sometimes encounter manuscripts where these errors begin to exceed the number of sentences on the page), that manuscript is in trouble...Yeah, I hear all you neophyte/newer authors out there whispering—and yes, it is true that a Stephen King or Ramsey Campbell or Clive Barker could get away with turning in a manuscript filled with such errors without fear of rejection. However, it is part of what makes them the successful authors they are that they don’t and didn’t submit such ‘lazy’ work in the first place.

Lastly, some writers are under the impression that if they take some of the most popular elements from various then currently in vogue stories and/or sub-genres within the horror genre and simply combine them, that this constitutes sufficiently original storytelling. This usually leads to clichéd characters, hackneyed story lines, and plot devices that seem to largely regurgitate what has already come before. Note that we are not talking here about an author writing a new title for an established, ongoing and popular series of books—as this constitutes a well-recognized exception, where the audience actually wants to see/read certain returning characters and situations; though even then, with additions and variations on what’s preceded it.

Neither editors, publishers, nor readers wish to read yet another work with the same stereotypical characters, with only name changes, being placed within the same stereotypical situations. Uh-Uh! Writers wishing to submit a manuscript that is likely to be purchased and published will submit a manuscript that contains a unique aspect/hook/plot or character device that differentiates their manuscript from everything that has preceded it.

In short: give us something original. Now, there are a myriad of ways to go about this: sometimes this can be as easy as changing the sex, race, age, species, etc. of your Protagonist and/or Antagonist, you can take some aspect to an extreme, or raise the stakes, or use irony, or create a unique main character/Protagonist, and/or any of a million other things—the range is as unlimited as your creativity. Just try and provide the reader (and thus the editor and publisher) with something appreciably fresh/unconventional/dissimilar/transformative to that which has already been done. Many times, just so altering a single character or plot point or perspective can materially alter a story. The significant difference here is similar to that between human reproduction as opposed to cloning: in the former, the result is something unique, but which shares certain characteristics of those that preceded and gave birth to it, while in the latter, you merely wind up with a nearly-exact copy of that which preceded it.

Obviously, we’ve here only had the time and space to barely scratch the surface of those things in a manuscript that writers, especially the less experienced, should avoid turning in to editors. But I hope it is of some value as a learning experience and as a starting point for continued discussion. In which regard, in closing, though I don’t believe he was entirely correct, I hope that you will read and view what was written above through the prism of these words of Marcus Aurelius (both a Philosopher and Roman Emperor!):

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

Norman L. Rubenstein

Senior Managing Editor-–JournalStone Publishing

Co-Chair—HWA Bram Stoker Awards® Committee

 

 

 

 

 

Rubenstein, a former litigation attorney and Administrative Law Judge in Chicago, IL for over twenty years, brings to JounalStone over seven years experience as an editor, magazine columnist, horror literature and film reviewer, and author and is celebrating his first anniversary as Senior Managing Editor at JournalStone Publishing. Rubenstein previously organized and presented a number of large science fiction conventions in conjunction with the BBC for their Doctor Who television series and was featured on a nationally televised segment of the Entertainment Tonight TV show back in the 1980′s. He went on to co-produce ten stage plays including one, Murder By Misadventure, that ran upon London’s famed West End for six months, and a world premiere of an A. R. Gurney play, The Fourth Wall, starring George Segal and Betty Buckley in Chicago.

As an author, Rubenstein has had extensive work published in numerous publications, including Cemetery Dance, Dark Scribe, Dark Discoveries, and Shroud Magazines, has written regular columns for Fear Zone and Shroud, is and/or has been a regular reviewer for Horror World and Hellnotes  as well as serving a stint as the Reviewer for the Pod Of Horror podcast hosted by author and professional radio host, Mark Justice, and is a frequent convention speaker, panelist, and moderator.

As an author, Rubenstein has also had short fiction stories he’s co-written published in the anthologies Fear Of The Dark, by Horror Bound Magazine Publications (“The Closet” co-authored with Carol Weekes, 20111) and the recent prestigious charity anthology, Horror for Good, Cutting Block Press (“The Widows Laveau” with Steven Booth, 2012), which anthology is a Finalist for the 2012 Bram Stoker Award®. Rubenstein’s work has also appeared in the prominent David Morrell and Hank Wagner edited hardcover Anthology, Thrillers: 100 Must Reads from Oceanview Publishing (2010), and the “Editor’s Foreword” to the Dark Regions Press lettered hardcover edition of Gene O’Neill’s HWA Bram Stoker Award® winning collection Taste Of Tenderloin (2012).

As an editor, Rubenstein has been the editor for numerous works by many prominent authors, including novels, novellas, and collections, a number of which have been named as Finalists for the Bram Stoker Awards®, and one work that went on to win the Bram Stoker Award. Over the last seven years, Rubenstein has edited well over thirty books by authors including: Allyson Bird, Christopher Conlon, Edward Erdelac, Gabrielle Faust, Jim Gavin, Angeline Hawkes, Michael Kelly, Brian Knight, Edward Lee, Rena Mason, Michael McBride, James R. Moore, Lisa Morton, Weston Ochse, William Ollie, Gene O’Neill, Anderson Prunty, Gina Ranalli, Gord Rollo, Steven Savile, Harry Shannon, David Silva, Jeff Strand, Steve Vernon, Carol Weekes, Wrath James White, and David Niall Wilson, among others.

Rubenstein is an active member of both the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and Horror Writers Associations (HWA), has been a member of and then served two years as Chair of the HWA’s Stoker Additions Jury, completed a stint as the Chair of the 2011 HWA’s Stoker Anthology Jury, and has most recently started his third year as Co-Chair of the HWA’s Bram Stoker Awards™ Committee. He is also the editor of the Souvenir Program Book for The Bram Stoker Awards® Weekend 2013 Incorporating The World Horror Convention.

 

One of My Biggest Ah-ha! Moments - Ben Eads - "Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moments in Writing."

One of My Biggest Ah-ha! Moment

by Ben Eads

One of my biggest “Ah-ha!” moments I've experienced as a writer happened about two years after I started taking the craft seriously in 2008. I received a critique from a fellow writer. It was for a short horror story I had written. As I was reading it, I realized--unbeknownst to me at the time--there were places I was interacting with the reader's sub-conscious. Well, folks, that's when I began to realize that writing is, in fact, magic. 

This totally changed the game for me. Myriads of things came from this simple observation. The biggest being this: A reader should feel as if they are co-creating the story as they are reading it. The writer is invisible. 

-Ben Eads

Ben Eads was born in Florida at the meager age of 0, and he still resides, 32 years later, within its semi-tropical suburbs. A true dark fiction writer by heart, he wrote his first story at the tender age of 10, although it is fair to say that it wasn't the best piece of literature to ever flow from a pen, and most certainly never saw the insides of a publishing house. Now, years later, Ben has had short stories published in various magazines, e-zines and anthologies, and is currently working on his first novella.

Ben is one of my good friends and a very good writer. You can find out more information about Ben here and here.

An Editor Talks Shop - Sheri White - "Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moments in Writing"

I've edited a special issue for Morpheus Tales, and I also proofread and edit for them. I am submissions editor at SNM, and review books for several print and online sites.

Something that can turn me off while reading someone's work is when it's riddled with grammatical errors, typos, and punctuation mistakes. Poor spelling is inexcusable - always check a dictionary if you're not sure of a word.

When you're done writing your story, get someone else to read it and proofread it. Never submit until your work has been proofread and edited within an inch of its life. Make sure your story is formatted according to guidelines provided by the editor.

If you self-publish, it is crucial to get a professional editing. I once read an anthology in which the editor obviously didn't bother to proofread. The errors in that book were so bad, I could barely read the book to review. It was as if a child had put it together.

If you want to be taken seriously as a writer, then get serious about your writing.

Thoughts on Writing - JG Faherty - 'Biggest 'Ah-Ha!' Moment in Writing.'

Thoughts on Writing

By JG Faherty

For me, I think there have been two 'aha!' moments: One that was precise, and one that was more general but no less important. The first happened 13 years ago, before I'd ever written any fiction in my adult life (I'd tried my hand at some comics and stories as a kid). I was working as a freelance writer – resumes, proofreading, articles, test questions for standardized tests – and I got a job to write an entire test prep practice book for third-grade language arts. That meant having to write the reading passages as well as the questions that went with them. Half the passages were supposed to be fiction. I did a few of the usual: kid at a baseball game, kid with a birthday coming up, blah, blah, blah. Then I had an idea for a kid who stumbles through a magic mirror and lands in a place where animals talk. It came so easy, and the editor said he'd love to see more of that type of fiction in the prep books. And gave me a four-book extension on my contract. That was the moment I discovered I could write fiction, that I had the ability to take all those ideas in my head and create actual written stories from them. Since then, I haven't stopped.

The second event happened just the other day. And dozens of times in between my first attempt at a horror story (also 13 years ago) and today. I suffer from the belief that the things I write now are not as good as what I wrote 2 years ago, or 5 years ago. And I fall into bouts where I start one project after another and then toss them aside as crap. This goes on until I get to the point where I feel like I should just stop writing forever. But I never do. I bull through. And sooner or later, something hits me, something rattles my brain and clears the fog and I see that I've been doing something wrong, gotten into a bad habit. Too much conversation and not enough action. Too much pre-story at the beginning. Plots that don't make sense once the details fill in. Or perhaps just plain old too predictable.

As I mentioned, this happened just a couple of days ago. I've been working on a sequel to Carnival of Fear, my first novel. And I was stuck. As in, stuck for several years. Each time I pulled it out, I'd get a couple of pages done and then hate it. Last week, I tried again, with the same result. I couldn't capture the feeling of joy I had when writing the first book, yet I knew I had a great idea in my head for the sequel. While thinking, I remembered that for Carnival of Fear, I wrote the entire thing long-hand in notebooks on my lunch hours. And then I had that 'aha!' moment. Recreate that feeling. So I grabbed a couple of legal pads and started writing. Not the whole book, but more than an outline. A one-page summary of what should happen in each chapter. The moment I put pen to paper, everything started to flow, the excitement returned, and in 2 days I had the entire book summary done. Approximately 60 pages or so. And, in the process, I identified several plot twists and events that were just wrong, and I changed things up so there was actual tension and suspense. It meant killing a few people who I'd originally wanted to keep alive, but that was okay. That's how it should be.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, writing isn't an 'aha!' moment; it's a continuing series of them, just like life. You learn, you grow, you change. You overcome obstacles. And so does your writing. Because when the time comes that you are just relaxed and coasting along, not working and fighting and struggling and putting your all into it, that, to me, is retirement. And in writing, that is the equivalent of phoning it in. You've read those books, you know what I mean. The same old plot over and over again from the author. The contrived endings that let you know the author had nothing and just tossed out some crap to be done with it. The moment when your favorite series jumps the shark. Writing isn't easy, and perhaps it shouldn't be. But those 'aha!' moments do make it a lot of fun!

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JG Faherty is the author of THE BURNING TIME, CEMETERY CLUB, CARNIVAL OF FEAR, THE COLD SPOT, HE WAITS, and the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated GHOSTS OF CORONADO BAY, along with more than 50 short stories. He writes adult and YA horror/sci-fi/fantasy. His works range from quiet, dark suspense to over-the-top comic gruesomeness. He enjoys urban exploring, photography, watching both good and bad horror and sci-fi movies, hiking, playing the guitar, good wine, and Guinness – not necessarily in that order. As a child, his favorite playground was a 17th-century cemetery, which many people feel explains a lot. You can follow him at Twitter, Facebook, About Me, and My Personal Site.