How To Scare Your Reader: 11 Tips From 11 Horror Writers

Some interesting ideas here,



How To Scare Your Reader: 11 Tips From 11 Horror Writers

The Nightmare List: The Numinous by Tristan Michie

The Nightmare List: The Numinous by Tristan Michie: Light years away from home drifts a cold, bleak ship; seemingly void of all life....... Markus Clyde woke from Stasis in a lonely, dark ...

Shameless advertising!

The second part of Horror in computer games is coming soon, in the meantime here's some news you may (or may not!) be interested in.
Firstly from the 22nd of September 2015 until the 24th of September 2015 The Numinous will be free to download from Amazon! If you decide to download and read it, please leave a review if you can, all feedback is very appreciated.
Secondly, The Manifesting is now available on:
iBOOKS, KOBO, SCRIBD, INKTERA and AMAZON.

Finally I have decided to start reviewing other indie writers stuff over on my Website. To start with I can only accept short stories, ten thousand words or less, mainly due to real life commitments! Secondly I would prefer stuff that fits nicely in the Scifi/horror genre, mainly as it's my favourite!
If anyone is interested then please let me know here, on my website or send me an email at tmichie78@gmail.com.

Horror in computer games. Part 1.

Throughout my life I've always been a massive horror fan, whether that's books, films or games. It's become a personal goal of mine now to feel fear when engaging in a horror related activity - in the same way as my wife does! But so far the medium that's come closest to achieving this has been computer games, sometimes playing a game, alone in a darkened room can get quite close. Sadly it hasn't reduced me to tears and made me wanna switch it off, but it's gotten the closest!
The following is the first of some of those games that have affected me in some way other the years, and I'll begin with....

ALONE IN THE DARK

When I first played this game, way back in 1992 (I was about 14/15 I think) it blew me away! Up until this point I was only used to C64, Amiga and the 16bit consoles of the time; limited when compared to the PC. Released by Infogrames, it paved the way for the future Survival Horror greats! Now, I should point out here that this game never actually scared me, but the atmosphere was phenomenal. The first thing that hooked me was spotting 'The Call of Cthulhu' on the box, when I knew it was based around H.P. Lovecrafts Cthulhu mythos I loved it all the more! The game was set in the Derceto mansion, the game started with you choosing your character - I forget their names now but it was a male or female, and then proceeding to solve the mystery surrounding the mansion. With a 3rd person view in a '3d' world it was very immersive for its time, multiple cameras angles in all the rooms (I believe) started here. The game consisted of collecting objects, solving puzzles, killing the baddies and slowly piecing together the story. A number of the creatures in the game were also very noticeably mythos based - Deep ones, Cthonians etc. All in all a solid game with an unmatched (at the time) atmosphere. Still recommended to this day!

AMNESIA: THE DARK DESCENT

No article about horror games is ever complete without this absolute classic, this game along with one other has come the closest to actually frightening me! Released by indie devs Frictional games, this is easily one of the most scariest games ever released. Unofficially and loosely based around Lovecraft's works, it tells the tale of your character - Daniel, waking up inside Brennenburg castle; completely unaware of how he got there! The game plays very much like earlier Frictional games, namely Penumbra, but the atmosphere and fear the devs put into this game is unbelievable. Played in a first person perspective using the mouse and keyboard and featuring a very clever use of physics. In this game, in order to open a door you had to actually move the mouse in a door opening fashion! Sounds weird, but having to hold down the mouse button then moving the mouse towards you felt very natural after a few minutes, so opening and closing doors or interacting with the environment was very 'hands on'. And believe me, when you are being chased down a dark corridor by some abomination and can't open the door in the panic of it all - that is where this game shines. Most of the game is played in the dark, if you are lucky you way find some oil for your lantern - otherwise you have a problem. You see, this game has a sanity system. The longer you are in the dark the more it effects your character (hearing strange sounds, seeing things etc) however, due to being unable to fight (there are no weapons in this game) if there is something nasty near you, you need to hide. In the dark. Which makes Daniel sad! It all works really well. There is a lot more to this game which I don't have time to go into here, but if you have never played it I highly, highly, highly recommend it! 

SILENT HILL

Much in the same way Amnesia always needs to appear in any horror game list, the same applies to the original Silent Hill. One of the best games to come out of Japan, when the Japanese attempt American horror, this is the abomination that's born - and that's a compliment! Imagine Resident evil meets David Lynch, that's Silent Hill. Played in the now familiar 3rd person perspective, with multiple camera angles (Alone in the dark anyone?!) the game was set in the town of Silent hill with you out looking for your daughter, after a car accident separated you both. The game then proceeds to take you on a very messed up, surreal 'adventure' through hell. At times literally! What made this game stand out for me (weirdness and atmosphere aside) was the focus wasn't on combat, yes it was there but not in the same way as it was in say, Resident evil. Creating a story and world were the priorities here, a world with no other function than to freak the hell out of you! Most of the other characters you met in game had issues, none of them were particularly normal and that also added to it, never really knowing who was friend or foe. As for the creatures you are up against? They really were the stuff of nightmares, from demon ghost babies to strange monkey things that would chase you through the dark. Oh yeah, the game was dark - you needed a flash light! Much like other Survival Horror's of the time, item collection and puzzle solving were the order of the day. But in silent hill you also had some quite devious riddles to solve as well, all of which kept to the mood of the game and never really felt out of place. Silent Hill never scared me as such but it was definitely an unsettling game, whether that still applies these days I don't know. I haven't played it in years, it hasn't aged especially well - but if you can get a copy cheap, check it out.

Inspiration

Welcome to my first Blog post! I have no idea what I'm doing so bear with me, hopefully this will come out how I want it too!
Anyway, Having never done this before I was worried about what the hell I should write about. People blog about all sorts of stuff, so I wasn't sure how to fit mine in the millions that are already out there- probably writing about much better stuff than me as well as doing it better! What could my first post be about that hasn't been done? How about ME?! I should probably re-phrase that, how about the stuff that has inspired me?
If you already know me, you may also know that I've released a couple 'books', well short story/novella to be more exact. I'm secretly hoping you found your way here due to those books (not because you are on my Facebook friends list!) And I'm also secretly hoping you read those two books and thought, "Well, those two books I read were bloody amazing! I wonder where he got the inspiration to write them?" Well, it seems this is your lucky day, because that's exactly what I'm going to talk about!
I suppose the best place to start would be my debut, or.......

THE MANIFESTING

I started writing this one day because I was bored, little did I know the 'run away success' it was to become! Ok, thats a slight exaggeration, but it did have quite a few downloads and some favourable reviews; which more seriously proved to be a massive confidence booster. But that's for another day. Like I said, I was bored. (Incidently, I've written loads of bits and pieces in the past. The Manifesting was the first thing I ever finished AND was actually proud of - still am) Inspiration, let's get back on track! With this one there wasn't one particular thing that stands out as an inspiration, the works of H.P Lovecraft did inspire me to an extent. As did the film Event Horizon. I went into this story wanting something partially based on real'ish' sciencey stuff but holding back on the 'horror' of what was to come. In a Lovecraftian way, I tried to keep some things vague; ideally with the reader filling in some of the blanks. And of course keeping it first person, to me was important, I think because a lot of my favourite Lovecraft stories were written that way - mine had to be the same! As far as Event Horizon goes, if you've read The Manifesting you'll already know the comparison in certain regards. I really enjoyed the concept of 'Hell' in that film and it's a theme I wanted in my own stuff, I never went into the same detail that the film does; like I said, I was trying to keep things vague! 

I should probably point out now how Lovecraft fans (including myself) are a funny lot and can become quite offended when the term 'Lovecraftian' is thrown around describing everything - I'm no different, so will probably leave a comment slagging myself off later!

Like Lovecraftian stories, which for the most part end on a low, The Manifesting was to be no different. From the start I didn't want a happy ending (I hope that isn't a spoiler if you were going to read it!) To be honest, I don't like happy endings in horror - so don't expect mine to end with rainbows, unicorns and fluffy kittens!

And that pretty much sums up what inspired The Manifesting, Lovecraft and a Sci-Fi horror film. Although there was one little thing that made it's way in and strangely enough inspired from a 'fever dream' my wife has suffered with since she was little, it was only a very small part, but got in anyway!

When I started writing this I was originally going to write about my other story as well, The Numinous. But I think that's best left for another day. The main reason? It's only a few days old, and I really don't want to reveal any spoilers!