(The sound of a pen scratching.) LOGO. Hellooo everybody! Halloween is right around
the corner, which means it's the perfect time to talk about the one genre you've been begging
me to cover, and that's horror! Of all the genres I haven't covered, horror by far has been your
number one request. And I hear ya! The problem is, I'm not a horror writer. Because of this, I decided
to bring in the big guns. Today I'm interviewing international best-selling author Daniel Willcocks!
Dan specializes in dark fiction. This includes sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, and of course, horror.
On top of that, he's one-fifth of the digital story studio Hawk & Cleaver. He's also co-producer
for both The Other Stories and the Great Writers Share podcast. Basically, he's a guy who knows a ton
about the craft of writing, as well as the writing industry. I gathered your questions and polled
my patrons over on Patreon in order to come up with your 10 most popular questions about writing
horror, and Dan is here to answer them today! On top of that, we may or may not be holding a giveaway!
You can win a signed copy of Twisted by Daniel Willcocks, which features 28 dark horror short stories.
I read it myself, it's so good! You definitely want to win! All you have to do to enter is click
the link in the description below and sign up! You only have one week to enter, so do it now! It's in
the description. Get on it! Before we get started, if you like your fiction both dark and fantastical,
don't forget my dark fantasy novel The Savior’s Sister was released just this month! Or, actually,
it was released last month. It's available in ebook, paperback, and hardback at all major retailers! I
have the links listed below. Pick up a copy today! And if you want more writing and publishing
tips, be sure to subscribe to my channel and ring that bell! I post videos on Wednesdays with
bonus content on Mondays. On to your 10 questions all about writing horror. Dan the man, thank you so
much for joining me today! Would you like to take a minute to introduce yourself and tell folks
a little bit about who you are and what you do? (Daniel) Hi, yeah! Thank you for having me on the show!
I'm incredibly excited to be here! I've been watching your content for a while. I think it's
going to be awesome getting the chance to talk to you and answer some of these questions. And
as someone who is currently working through The Savior’s Champion, I just want to say that I am a big fan of
your work as well. (Jenna) Oh, thank you! (Daniel) Thank you for the kind words about me. You're very welcome. So yeah, you said
it. I'm Danny Willcocks. I am one-fifth of the digital story studio Hawk & Cleaver. I am one of the
co-founders of The Other Stories podcast, which is a short horror fiction podcast which has since
its inception in 2016 accrued nearly seven million downloads across the globe. I am a best-selling
fiction author. I've got my own books and novels, and I am recently, as of this year, now the CEO of
a horror publishing imprint which is Devil's Rock Publishing. So that is me! (Jenna) That's awesome! Oh my gosh.
And congratulations! CEO. No big deal! No big deal. (Daniel) Yeah. It's a lot of fun so far.
(Jenna) Would you mind starting things off by giving us an idea of what qualifies as horror? Maybe a bit about
some of the sub genres or how it differentiates itself from other similar genres. (Daniel) Horror stories
tend to be stories that center around, obviously, the scary, the terrifying, usually striking on the
theme of playing with people's fear. It tends to be an atmosphere, a flavor you can get in a lot
of genres. So you can find that you get horror elements in certain stories, and certainly The
Savior’s Champion has a few dark elements that could be qualified as horror. But to get a full horror book,
it tends to be focusing entirely around that theme of fear. They vary a little bit from other genres
in the sense that you don't often get the happy endings, because for some reason freaks like me
like to read the miserable and get to the end and just like to see people suffer. Often times, there'll
be supernatural elements, though not always. Sometimes you can go straight into psychological
horror and really mess with the real world, which I think in many ways can be some of the scariest
ones in horror. And it's very, very character driven. So in order to write a successful horror book, in my
opinion and certainly in the opinion of people across the horror scope, you really want to find
characters that people can identify with. Because if you don't have the emotional connection, the
emotional draw of your main character and your reader, then you're not going to get into their
heads. You're not going to be able to strike that fear that you want to get that really defines a
horror novel. And of course, there's the element of exploring all the macabre and the taboo and all
the dark sides of life that people tend to try and avoid when they can. (Jenna) I talk a lot about how I love
a book with a happy ending, and people will be like, “Even in, like, horror?” I'm like no, no, no! I'm
talking about like adventures or romance. Horror, like, you go into that knowing
that it's not gonna end well. (Daniel) Yeah, it's interesting, because I still find that I'll read
a horror book and there's something about reader psychology where even though I've read dozens of
horror books - hundreds of horror books - even though I write horror, I still go into horror books and
root for people to make it to the end. And as recently as a few months ago, I was reading a book
by a guy called Christopher Golden. The book’s called Ararat. And I got to the last few chapters, and I
really thought the group that was at the end were going to stick together and make it. And spoiler
alert: they don't. But the fact that I can even have those experiences where I'm thinking, “Are they
going to make it?” And then they don't. It's just a testament to what readers feel when they're going
for a journey. (Jenna) So the next question. Number two. I'm going to start with the most obvious question we
have: how do you make shit scary? (Daniel) Now that is a big question, because it will vary for absolutely
everyone. So, you cannot write a horror book that will scare every single reader. I'd say the number
one advice I'd give is try and scare yourself. Because the best way to instill fear successfully
into the heart of the people you're trying to reach is just dig into the stuff that you're scared
of. Are you afraid of the dark? Are you afraid of heights? Are you afraid of creatures? Are you afraid
of death? There's a thousand different things that people are afraid of, and it's about finding those
sort of really raw nerves and finding a way to play with that with your characters to reach
your reader. I tend to find that I like to keep my horror stories very personally focused, so it's not
often a story about say, fantasy, where you explore a lot more of the world. Whereas horror, or the ones
that I read and see a lot more, are the ones that are very focused in on a particular character. It
can sometimes be first person, sometimes third person. I find I love writing first person when
I'm writing short stories because I can really dig into the heart of the reader and really sort
of get across the feelings of the character quite quickly without having to world build. One thing
that I personally love about horror, and part of the reason I write horror, is that I like to explore
the things that do scare the shit out of me, because only in understanding the unknown can you really
get over that fear. So for me, it's a great way to explore death, the fear of losing loved ones. I used
to have a fear of floppy disk drives. They don't exist anymore, so thankfully that's a whole horror
gone for me. I’ll explain that another time... I think people should know this anyway, but
for people who haven't read horror, don't go into horror expecting a good time all the way
through. Certainly, you have to have lifts in the character's journey in order to get the troughs.
At the same time, a lot of it is building that tension, keeping that unsettled atmosphere going
straight through the book. One huge rule is you want to hide the monster for as long as possible.
And this is something that you'll see again and again, particularly in the big works, where you
can tease the monster in the beginning. And by monster, I don't physically mean vampire
or werewolf. I mean like the ‘monster’ being the horror element. You want to hide that for as long
as possible, because nothing is scarier to a reader than the thing that they can't see. So if you have
a room that you're inside, it's black and you have no idea what's there. You can hear it. You can smell
it. You can taste it in the air. That stuff is a thousand times scarier than switching on the light
and showing them what the creature is. The longer you can hold on to that... That is my number
one tip when it comes to horror. The longer you can hold on to that particular moment of, “What the hell
is this?” The longer you have the reader in the palm of your hand. And then, when it comes to the reveal
at the end, that really has an impact. And even when it comes to that reveal, what I do see a lot of
early horror writers do is try to over describe. So you might want to describe this perfect
mix of I don’t know...goblin and werewolf and dragon - all these things thrown in together. It could just be
Pennywise the clown. But the more vague you can get in your description to lead people gently in a
certain direction and leave the rest of it to their imaginations to create, the more you're going
to impact that particular reader because you're not stealing the experience of defining what it
is. You're letting them come up with a horror in their own head. I think that's so, so key when it
comes to writing horror. And the final part, which I kind of alluded to there, as well: play with the
senses, because horror is very, very primal. Fear is very, very primal. And within fear, a lot of that
comes from instinct. A lot of that comes with just our biology. So it might be certain smells set you
off and freak you out. Like, I know friends that particular smells set them off. I know people that hate the
touch of cotton wool. Things like that. If you can really dig into particular smells, tastes, touches,
then you're really going to create a 3D experience in horror for the reader. (Jenna) I loved that you
mentioned even when you reveal the monster, keep it vague, because I can think of this - more so
in movies than books - but when the monster is finally revealed, and then you see it, there have
been so many times where I'm like, “Well, that's not scary to me.“ It was probably scary to whoever
created it, but to me I'm like, “Well, that just looks stupid.” You know? And so if you can keep
it vague... Thinking about specifically movies, the monsters that I found the scariest were the ones
that even when they were revealed, they were mostly cloaked in darkness so you couldn't really see
their whole figure. And you just kind of had a guess in your mind, and I think it, you know, allows
people to envision the monster as something they find scary. So it's like, personally scary to each
reader. (Daniel) For me, it was in the Harry Potter films when they actually revealed Voldemort in the films. Because they built him up. Obviously, they teased him in [Sorcerer’s] Stone and then they build him
up and build him up and build him up. But he just didn't deliver for me when he’s shown
for the Goblet of Fire. And I know people’ll probably be shaking their fist at the screen,
but for me, it didn't, because I saw so much worse in my head. And obviously, they can't do that
for a PG film. (Jenna) I completely agree. So the next question, we're hitting a contentious topic, at least here
on my channel. Planning versus pantsing. How do you plan your horror stories, if at all? Do you start
with a monster and build from there? Do you know the end before you begin? Or do you just pants the
whole thing? (Daniel) I mean, as you probably come across any channel, lots of times, there's no right answers to
this. My method will definitely not be the way that other people work, but I would say that if
it was on a scale of one to ten with one being a pantser and ten being a plotter, I tend to
stick around the three or the four. I love having a premise. I love having an idea. I like
having a feel for a book that I'm trying to write. But I don't like to go too deep into the [inaudible], because I love the process of discovery. I find that with short stories, I will just pure
pantser. I will come up with a vague concept and just run with it. So an example of that is I'm
currently putting together an anthology, which will be live as this episode hits, and in that anthology
the story that I wrote was about six and a half thousand words and the theme is around what comes
after death. So, the afterlife. And for that story, I had an idea of a man sitting on a tiny little
island surrounded by this black sea. Just sitting under the universe, the cosmos, after he's dead,
and different islands springing up around him and different people appearing. And how do you
connect those islands? And him trying to work out how to connect to people and all this kind of
stuff and that was it. That was the idea I went into. I started writing, and I've written a
story now that follows that sort of idea but it twists and turns along the way. It gets a bit
more darker. But with short stories, I tend to just literally sort of run at it, and just give
it a go, because for me short stories are very cathartic. It's very nice to experiment with them
and just see where it goes. With the longer works, the example I'll use here will be my current work
in progress, which is When Winter Comes, which is a serialized version of a horror story. The idea
for that, I literally had the idea for the intro chapter. I came up [in] a writer's group with the idea
of a blizzard hitting a town in northern Alaska. A core group of essentially, children - 14-15 year
olds, and how would they cope under the weight of that storm? So a bit more apocalyptic than horror.
So I get these little threads of nuggets, and I build upon that idea. And then I'll sit generally
for a few hours, maybe a couple of days, and just flesh out some of the characters. Get an idea
of who I want to be in there. How will they link together? What are the tension points
between them? Because if you just have three random characters in a scenario like that, all you've
got is three characters that’re struggling to survive. Whereas if you add maybe a brother and a sister
who are torn apart, or lovers that have fallen out, or someone who's, you know, cheating on their wife
or something... Add those real bits of conflict and that's where you have a story. Because you need
to create the things that are going to pull people together. The things that transcend as humanity
above what that horror in that story is in order to really make it complex, bring it together, and make
the reader interested. You can't just chuck horror at a particular person and hope that everything's
going to be okay. You have to really create it. So that's how I tend to work. I'll create this
sort of web of characters. I'll create a couple of defining features, and then I'll put my fingers
to the keyboard and just go. I will also add as well that for this latest book,
which is the first time I've actually done this in a long while, is I have actually planned the
ending already. Or, at least, I know where the book's heading. And then the rest of it is just sort of
a journey discovery on the way there. (Jenna) I love that. I especially love that you map out sort of the
tension points between the characters, because I'm sort of the reverse of you on the scale of
plotter to pantser. I'm closer to like an eight with being towards plotter. But the things
that I like to discover in the book are how tensions are going to arise between people.
Like, for example, I’ll know these people, these two characters eventually are not going to get
along. But I don't know why or how or what's the thing that's going to set it off. And that's what
I like to discover, is the relationships and I like how yours is kind of the reverse and it just goes
to show that like everyone has their own method and you gotta do what works for you. But I always
find that really, really interesting. (Daniel) Absolutely. (Jenna) So, the next question: horror tends to rely on spooky
visuals and appropriate pacing. What's your advice for creating a balance between providing enough
imagery to make things scary, while also keeping the appropriate pace? (Daniel) So it totally depends upon
the type of horror story you're trying to tell. You can look at works like Shirley Jackson's
Haunting of Hill House where it's a lot more about the house. It's a lot more about these characters
and the way the household responds to them and implies all the ghosts and things. So in those
scenarios, you really want to focus on building a real picture of what the house is. How each thing
interacts with each other. So the intricacies of the layout, the floor plans, anything
that works around there. But then with other books, more sort of psychological horrors - so you
can look at Josh Malerman's Bird Box - you have a bit more in the way of dialogue and people discussing
the threats, of experiencing the threat as it goes. So I think it depends on the type of story
you're telling and it also depends on how you as a storyteller want to tell it. Dean Koontz tends
to be a lot more descriptive of his prose. He'll go right into the architecture, the styles, sort of
the brand. Everything about how he wants you to see the picture. Whereas there are some people that are a lot
more minimal in their writing style, and want you to imagine it for yourself. So there's not really
a right way to go. I think just the important thing is to try and get the peaks and troughs of your
story to try and keep that pace going. One thing that's useful is I often like to paint the
picture of what readers can expect very, very early on. So, in When Winter Comes, that first scene
basically just gives the reader a glimpse at some of the action that's going to be coming up later.
And then there's a bit of a gap in the beginning where we explore the characters, start to get
them into their threatening situations before we see anything again of that first intro scene.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to start off very, very happy for a few chapters and
then go into dark. Because horror readers, they're just not after that. They like to
get straight into, “What is the problem? What is wrong?” And if you spend too long just being
happy and introducing everyone in sort of like a really happy way, everything's lovely, then
that generally doesn't seem to go down well. I mean, you can think of films like Jurassic Park in which
you don't see the dinosaurs for a lot of the film, but that first scene you see something of the
velociraptor in the cage. And just as an opening scene, that builds the tension. That shows you
something's going to happen. It foreshadows later on in the film, and it gives you a bit of an arc
to follow as you go along. And then, when you've got all the happy bits, it's already unsettled
because you know that something bad’s gonna happen. In terms of just keeping pacing going, one of the
basics of obviously, writing, is if you have those short, sharper sentences when you're trying to
have the fast-paced action scenes. Often times, the last few chapters of a horror novel will be very
fast. Like, just the whole thing will just be fast paced. Things are happening. The monster's being
revealed. People are fighting. There's death. There's action. There's a whole lot. So the big chunk at
the end, I think, don't feel as if you're going wrong if you are just getting faster and faster
and faster until you eventually smash into that brick wall. And as I mentioned before, it's easy
to get sucked into over describing, so just try and keep it pared back. Let the reader
do a lot of the imagining. And that will also help you not get bogged down in too many details,
because you'll be surprised how minimal you can go in order to induce horror in a reader. (Jenna) I love that
you mentioned the part about starting the book with a taste of, you know, what's going to come
later. I think, personally, I think that is a rule that is, maybe...I don't like to say anything as, like,
‘definitive,’ but maybe almost universal. Because I don't write horror, and I like to do the same
thing. People always comment like, “Oh, you know it's a Jenna Moreci book because someone dies or
someone gets beat up in the very first scene. The very first scene is someone dying or someone,
you know, getting the shit beat out of ‘em.” And I'm like, “Well, that's because I'm letting readers
know this is what the book is gonna be like, and it just - it might...maybe the next couple of scenes or
the next few chapters aren't gonna be that way, but just wait a second, ‘cause we're coming back to
the blood and guts and everything. So it's on its way!” (Daniel) Like you say, you need to set the
tone of what you're expecting, because if you've got a few, you know, plan three or four chapters of
just people getting to know each other and get to know the world and then you get into horror, people
are gonna feel cheated or they might not know it's a horror book depending on like, your cover and
everything else. It just raises that straight away, and just gets to the heart of what you're
trying to do. (Jenna) The next question: tension seems to be another key ingredient in horror. What advice do
you have for handling tension? (Daniel) So, in horror, I would argue that tension is one of the core components
that threads all of your book together. I think with other genres, you have a lot more rises
and falls, and there are certain elements where readers don't necessarily want tension. You want,
you know, a bit of action, a bit of conflict, and then maybe in the next scene you have your
characters sitting around the campfire and just talking and getting to know each other. And
in other genres, that works because some people really like just building up the the relationship
between the characters and whatnot. But with horror, it's a constant tightrope walk to the
finish. And you have to have the parts where you're almost going to fall off the rope. But ultimately,
you have to stay on that rope. You have to keep that tension nice and tight. And generally,
if there's too much of a lull in tension, that will bore readers. So it doesn't mean to pack every
single second with tension, because again, you have to have moments to breathe to appreciate what's
going on. But ultimately, if you feel like there is a bit of a quiet point, then you can just add a bit of tension there by all means. Have someone, if they're just coming home
from a day at work and they're in the house. Like, it's very, very easy just to say that they're
alone or they think they should be alone, and then hear the shower going off. And then casting all
these aspersions of, “Who's in the shower?” “What is going on?” And all these images. And you can really
dig into the character's head and start to go into what they might be thinking. Like,
is it someone coming to kill them? What if they use this as a weapon? Oh, what happens if they're
going to open the door? Should they phone someone? All of these questions you throw out create that
tension. And you can really take a moment like that, that was previously untense and just string it
together and stretch it out until you really got the reader sort of on tenterhooks wondering, “What
the hell is going on?” So it's finding ways to hook things in. It's finding ways to create the mystery
and intrigue that just keeps driving that plot forward. Ultimately, the best way to create tension
is to keep stringing along that unknown. To have your character ask questions, to dive into their fears
and exacerbate how their fears would apply to a particular situation. (Jenna) Next question: would you
say there is a common formula to writing horror, or specific structural elements that are pivotal
to the genre? (Daniel) The big one that I've seen is 19th century traditional horror, the protagonist is unprepared
for the horror they're facing. So, coming back to that needing to connect with the readers, it’s generally
people in very day-to-day lives or people with typical problems. They might have sort
of a unique and individual job. So coming back to Christopher Golden's Ararat, they are
archaeologists and they discovered Noah's Ark inside of a mountain. So they've got this quite
exotic job, but beneath it all is the relationship between the two characters. They have, you know,
money problems, wealth problems, like family, all that kind of stuff. That's the bond that brings it
together. Horror is very based around humanity and the fundamentals of what makes us human. Because
when everything’s stripped back and, you know, all that's left is who you are...all you have is
your fear, your love, your emotions. You know, hunger. All that kind of stuff. People will die along
the way. That will happen. No one is precious. I have learned; no one is precious. You know, often
times the main character doesn't make it to the end and the proxy will carry his mantle or her
mantle. But yeah, no matter how attached you get to a character, they can and they will all
die. So, other genres will dictate that you have a core group of characters that you keep alive and
you can't really, like, if you kill them the readers will just stop reading that book. I find, as well,
that a big part of it is the deterioration of the mental state. So you start with characters who are,
you know, just in their day-to-day. They're kind of relatively happy with how things are going. The
monster comes. They have to deal with this. Things elevate. The monster gets closer, closer. Takes
people they love. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And towards the end, you have this really - and this is the part that I really like
diving into - is that psychological state of ‘what is fear?’ How do the different characters
react in different situations, you know? Do they get less talkative? Do they get more aggressive? Or
do they just collapse entirely, and just become mute? Like, there's so many ways to
explore it, but generally you can monitor the character's deterioration as you go through
the story. And you could argue that a lot of horror stories do fit into the sort of general three-act
structure. So your Act I would be you set up with the monster and the characters and sort of
introducing the reader to what's going on. Act II would be the monster’s mischief and the monster
having lots of fun and really digging into sort of what problems this monster's gonna be causing to the day-to-day lives of your main characters. And then Act III is obviously the revenge
of the main character, usually at the expense of something they love dearly. So this is where if you
wanna tie a theme of it into [it], maybe the character is struggling to learn to love and there's a
woman that he's, you know, had this sort of close relationship for ages and he just won't commit.
Maybe at the end, he realizes how much he loves her, but it's too late and she's, you know, gone because
it's horror. But you can really sort of play with those things and thread them in. But Act III
is generally, obviously, where the monsters come out in their full force. Generally, they do get
defeated, but there's normally an expensive price to pay. (Jenna) I love touching on this because from my
experience just in terms of, like, critiquing and things like that in the past, usually the problem
that a lot of newbie writers have is structural. They don't understand the structure of their genre.
Next question: one word that's often thrown around by readers is cliche. What do you recommend
for writers who want to create a scary story without relying on predictable horror cliches? (Daniel)
This is probably one of the trickiest questions to handle because you cannot escape cliche, but you
can find ways to work around it. Number one: I think, if you're starting off on a horror
journey and you're either early in your writing career or you're just getting started, don't
be afraid of cliche. I'd argue lean into it. Get familiar with where the monsters came from, what
type of things they can invoke. Play around with the mess and the chaos that they can create. Absorb
yourself in the classic monsters. I mean, obviously, you're looking like zombies, werewolves, vampires.
But yeah, just lean into cliches a bit. Play around with them, because you have to
experiment a little bit with the monsters in order to get to understand the genre. So there are
a thousand stories about zombies, but many of them are different. I mean, you've had the slow-moving
zombie that sort of staggers around, eats brains... You've had the super fast zombies in the film
version of I Am Legend. You have intelligent zombies. You have dumb zombies. A whole spectrum of them.
So these are people who have taken that original concept and then played with them. Same with
vampires and werewolves. You have the traditional, ’only come out at night, turn into a bat.’ And
then you have sparkly Edward, Jacob. (Jenna laughs) (Daniel) You knew it was going there. (Jenna) Yeah! (Daniel) But the point is, you can play with them and
you can put a spin on it. And I think the thing you'll be careful of is to try not to force
something that doesn't feel natural. Trying to force a change just for the sake of it. I think it really
has to contribute to the story you're trying to tell and really make a difference in terms of how
your characters react, what the world will be, and what that change serves as a purpose.
Like, nobody can write Frankenstein twice. If you put Frankenstein in a story of your own, it's going
to be different. There are cliches that you follow, but at the same time you can add enough of what
is you to make it different enough that it's no longer a cliche. (Jenna) People are always asking, “How do I
avoid XYZ tropes?” “How do I avoid XYZ cliches?” First of all, there is absolutely no avoiding tropes
because there are, like, millions of tropes out there. There are going to be tropes in your book. So
whenever I hear people say my book has no tropes, I'm like, “Are you sure? I find that very hard to
believe.” The difference between a trope and a cliche is a trope is a very common situation in
a book. A cliche is when it's done the same exact way it's been done a million times to the point where
it's boring. So exactly like what you said; you just take something that's been done before, but
you put your own spin on it. You make it yours. And that's what makes it fresh and exciting, is when
you take something that's been done a lot and you're like, “Okay, but has it been done this way
before? Has it been done my way?” And that's what makes it special. Or if you take a cliche and you
flip it on its head, you subvert it. I love when people do that. (Daniel) Yes. (Jenna) So, those are some of my favorites. So next
question: if someone wants to write a horror story but doesn't know where to drum
up ideas - we touched on this a little bit before, but what would you recommend? Do you
draw inspiration from your personal fears? I know you do, ‘cause you mentioned that. But do
you also look for genre trends, current events, etc.? (Daniel) Personally, I'd recommend - or my recommendation
would be what I'd say for any reader looking at writing any genre, which is just read that genre.
Find books that you think would interest you. You know, horror is an entire spectrum of different
books, same as any other genre. So there'll be some that are a bit lighter. There'll be some that are
very, very heavy. One good place to start that I'd recommend would be to go to places like the
Horror Writers Association's website where they've got the Bram Stoker Award winners. So if you want
to read the creme de la creme of horror each year, they have the list of all the different winners in
Best Novel, Best Short Story, Best First Novel, all that kind of stuff. So that's always a good place
to sort of see what's resonating with the horror community and get familiar with what horror is.
One thing I would say, as well, is that I personally am not a consumer of horror films, generally. I've
watched a fair amount of horror films in my time. I'm much more of a horror reader. And I would
argue that watching horror and reading horror is an entirely different experience, because
there's something about the written language in horror that I find pulls me in to want to
keep writing, want to keep reading. It's bizarre. And this is something I've always struggled
to explain to people whenever they ask why I write horror. But the fact that you can write a
sentence and make someone feel physically sick. (Jenna) I love that! (Daniel) Do you know what I mean? Like, the fact you can write a sentence
to make someone physically cry, someone physically just, you know, shiver. Just, whatever. The
fact you can use words within like a five, six word sentence and make someone feel that way -
that's what I love about horror. I love finding those pulls, those phrases, those turns of phrases that really sort of connect with the reader and make you feel that emotion. And
you don't quite get that if you're watching, you know, splatter gore porn in some film.
Short stories are a good place to start, as well. There's thousands of short story collections. I mentioned before, The Other Stories podcast, which is mine and the Hawk & Clever’s podcast,
in which we have 20 minute short horror stories every Monday on a podcast feed for free. So you
can check those out. There are literally hundreds of stories now. One of my starting places
before I actually got into writing horror was a collection of short stories by Stephen King called
Everything's Eventual, which for me, that was more of a case of me just falling in love with Stephen
King, as not all those stories are horror. But there was still enough horror in there that I was
like, “Okay, this is what I want to write.” Read some Stephen King - and I say ‘some,’ because you cannot
build a horror career based off of what Stephen King does, ‘cause Stephen King is a brand. He is a
genre. You can't...don't emulate everything he does, but he is fantastic if obviously, you want to see
one of the master’s work at creating horror. Read books like Pet Cemetery or It or Cujo. Like,
Cujo is phenomenal for just building tension and taking such a small situation and just expanding
into this incredible story. There are craft books, as well. So Stephen King has On Writing, which
is more of a general craft book, but there’s some good lessons in there. And one that I haven't read yet
but I have seen and is on my to-be-read list is a book by Tim Waggoner called Writing in the Dark. I'm
sure he'll have some fantastic lessons in there, because I've read some of his stuff and it's
incredible. And as we said, think about what scares you. I'll often have...just going through my day-to-day
life, moments in which a scenario strikes me. I just think, “Oh, this would be fun
to explore.” And people who listen to this are going to be very much judging horror people, but
I assure you I'm a nice person in real life. But one scenario that comes to mind that I literally
had the other day was, I went to the shops and took my son. Did the food shop, came
back, put him in the car, went to go put the trolley back. And in my head, I went, “What if I turn around
and he's just not in the car?” (Jenna) I shouldn't laugh, but I know what you mean. I know exactly what you
mean! (Daniel) So, just, those moments where you suddenly panic, pay attention to what really pulls at your
heart. And, like, at some point I'm probably gonna put that into a story somewhere. And it's not
because I don't love my son, because I do. He's everything. But it's those things you have to be aware of. And that's what I was saying earlier, when you have to be unafraid to explore.
Because you will generally start going into horror in one of two ways. Either too timid, in which you're
worried about grossing people out or affecting people too much, or way too over descriptive
and grotesque. And it's about playing with it. Dialing that back. Finding that sort of sweet spot
for you. And that's the only place you can really start, then, is by putting pen to paper and writing.
(Jenna) I just love that you mentioned, like, ‘I love that I can write a sentence and make people sick.’ Because
I can so relate. Like, when a reader or a beta reader hits me up like, “Jenna, you
bitch! I hate you!” I'm like “Yay, victory! I did it!” And it's funny, because it's like I feel like to be
a writer, you have to be like a little bit sadistic. Just, like, just a tiny, teeny bit. So I can relate. (Daniel)
There's a short story that I highly recommend to anyone who wants to explore this, but only if
you've got a strong, strong stomach. It's a short story by Chuck Palahniuk, who is the author of
Fight Club. And he wrote a short story called Guts, which is pretty much famous for making people
pass out. Because, and I've heard him speak about this on the podcast, he deliberately has parts
in it where he gets your heart racing because of certain points and certain, like, churning phrases
into it, and then the peaks and the troughs are literally psychologically designed to get you to
a certain state and then pull you back down. And I've read it myself. I didn't faint, but I did go
a bit light-headed. And it's, if - I will put a warning, though: please, please consider what you're
getting into before you read that one, because it's a very strong story. (Jenna) Content warning: may make
you faint. If you have health problems, maybe don't. (Daniel) Yes, have someone next to you just in case. (Jenna) Have
lots of water. Be lying down. So, for a lot of genres, it's important to create likable characters. That's
not always the case for horror? How important is characterization in this genre? I think you
had mentioned before, that it’s very important. But what should writers focus on when crafting
their characters? (Daniel) The key thing is relatability. As I mentioned, you want to find a real connection
with the reader, and that's actually the foundation of where the rest of the story starts. If you don't have that connection, that emotional tie, then you're really not gonna get anywhere with
them. Like, if there's somebody in your life that you hate, you don't care what they fear, what they
love, what...you know, all that kind of stuff. So it's about finding the humanity in your character,
and finding the day-to-day things that resonate. I mean, they could be a king. They could be a
prince. They could be whatever. There isn't a restriction to what type of
character you have. Ultimately, it's those raw connections that pull the reader in and make it
so that the rest of the horror works. As I've said, like money, health, family, relationships. Tap into
what makes you human. There's a guy called Kealan Patrick Burke who's got a few novellas. One of
them's called Sour Candy, which is about a general man that goes into the grocery store and there's a
child having a tantrum next to his mum, who looks weary. She's absolutely shattered, haggard. This kid
is just screaming. He wants whatever it is. And the dad just gives him a side glance, walks away. And
this isn't a spoiler - this happens, not the first part of the story, but what eventually transpires is he goes home and his wife is missing. Everyone he knows is missing. But the one person who's there
now is this child. And the child says he’s his daddy, and basically claims him as his daddy. And it's
that...for him, the day-to-day connect in that is the fact that he was struggling to commit to
this woman. She wanted to have children. He didn't. Many people have that battle with with their
partners. Many people have conflicting views when it comes to that kind of decision. It's a big
decision. And so he’s suddenly met with this reality of okay, his girlfriend - who he thought was his
girlfriend, is now saying that she's not his girlfriend. And also, he now has this son that won't
leave him alone. And his entire reality switched around. So it's really playing with what that
situation would be like and exploring it and all the things that he was worried about happen.
And I won't give anything more in the story away, but it's a very, very effective story. And
he's got another story as well called Blanky, which is about a mom and dad whose son dies,
and all that's left is his blanky. And the blanky basically comes to life and starts to try and
kill people, and things. But it's this worry about is his son in the blanket? How does it all tie in?
Obviously, not everyone has been through losing a child, but lots of people have lost people in their
life. So it's really playing with the emotions of what that would be like in that situation.
So just find those key, core, fundamental principles of humanity and just weave them into
your character. (Jenna) I love that you mentioned, you know, relatability, humanity. Because I remember this
one horror book I read. I don't want to say the name because I didn't like it. (Daniel) It was mine? (Jenna) No! I loved
yours. I loved yours! Basically, in the book, the main character was this woman. The reason I didn't
like the book is because I didn't care what was happening to her. I was like...I was just sitting
there, like, “Just kill her. Just kill this woman!” And I thought it was ‘cause I didn't like her, but
there have been plenty of books I've read where the main character - like, for example, one of
my favorite books is A Clockwork Orange - the main character is a sociopath and a horrible
human being, but I really enjoyed that book. And listening to you talk about it makes
so much more sense, because I didn't find that main character relatable in any way.
All of the issues she was going through, there was nothing that I could personally
relate to. And so I didn't really care about her struggles, because to me, she just - she felt
very fictional. It all makes sense now. (Daniel) Beautiful. (Jenna) So the last question: what are some current trends
in the horror genre, and what's your take on them? Do you recommend writing with the trends? Do you
recommend paving your own path? What say you? (Daniel) It's totally up to what you want to achieve as a
writer. I don't think there's a right answer to this. I'd argue that I don't really
follow trends too much. I have certain styles of horror that I like, and that's what I try and
write. Horror is one of those genres, it's very, very cyclical and it comes back in waves. So, you know,
there was a big, big horror push in the 80s. Died down a fair bit during the 90s. It started to come
back particularly over the last few years with social media creating opportunities for horror
readers to come together and share everything they love. If you can write a good horror book, it's
pretty much gonna be good for the ages, because the things that make horror are eternal. So again, just,
once you put something out there, it's just gonna keep coming back and keep coming back. And you'll
get new generations of horror readers, new people that join in, and they just stick. I mean, I’ve
got a shelf full of people behind me from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. The naughties. The 10s. Like, all of
it. Just different horror through the ages. Although, one thing that I have noticed over the past few
years is the surgence of a genre that isn't really a genre, but people are arguing to make a
genre. And I don't know whether or not it's a genre yet, which is elevated horror, which focuses a lot
less on sort of creatures and blood and a lot more on the psychological components. So coming back to
things like Josh Malerman’s Bird Box. Films like Jordan Peele’s Get Out. It's less so about, like, the
gruesome elements. More about the psychological. And so that's quite in vogue at the minute for people
that want to check out something that people argue are a bit more sophisticated. But it's all
horror at the end of the day. There are also, at the minute, a lot of genres tapping into elements
of horror. So if you go onto the horror charts on Amazon, for example, you won't just find horror.
You'll find horror. You'll find post-apocalyptic. You'll find urban fantasy. Thriller. Even some
mystery books. Because, coming back to what we're saying at the beginning, that you have
some books that have the flavor of horror, although that's not their overarching genre.
And it's a path I'm actually looking at going into. Horror is very, very difficult to serialize or
to basically extend past a single book. There are people that can do it in certain ways. You have
to manipulate the genre to make it happen, but if you are looking to sort of write longer horror
and really create a career out of this, then one suggestion would be to write sort of horror within
the other genres. So I have written a few books that are post-apocalyptic with horror, and so you can get
longer stories out of that if you try. Horror is it's a very tight-knit community, so you'll find
that a lot of the same sort of authors mixed within particular circles. And you'll have a lot of
anthologies with the same sort of author names. You'll have...sort of the bigger chart
toppers will tend to be the same. It's quite a niche subject, so the audience is considerably less
than other genres. But they're hungry. If they love you, if you can really get people to love you
as an author, they'll consume everything you read, and that's where that growth
comes from. And yeah, look into communities like the Horror Writer’s Association. You can look at
This Is Horror, which is like a big U.K.-run horror podcast and website and reviewer and publisher.
Horror is eternal, and horror is life, so... (Jenna) Shrek is love, Shrek is life. (Daniel) Shrek is love, Shrek is life. (Jenna) Horror is eternal. Horror is life. I love that. That's
awesome. So thank you so much for answering all of my questions about
horror! You are an absolute legend! (Daniel) Thank you for having me, again! (Jenna) Of course! Where can everyone go if they want
to learn more about you and your work? (Daniel) Yeah, so the best place to go for me is www.danielwillcocks - and that's w-i-l-l-c-o-c-k-s.com. (www.danielwillcocks.com) And you can also check out Devil's Rock
Publishing at devilsrockpublishing.com. (Jenna) Okie dokie! Well, thank you so much for joining
me! It was an absolute pleasure. In case you've forgotten, we've got a giveaway going on! Dan is
handing out a signed copy of Twisted, which is a collection of 28 horror short stories. Gorgeous!
Beautiful! If you want to enter and win a copy of Twisted, all you have to do is click the link in
the description below. You've got one week to get on it! Click the link! I've read it. It's amazing! You
DEFINITELY want to win. Link is in the description. Click it! Do it now! Don't forget to subscribe to
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ring that bell! My number one best-selling dark fantasy romance The Savior’s Sister is available
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Do you really want to face me? If you don't do it, you know what will happen. I'll rip out your
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