Welcome to Part Two of my workshop on how to write your own scary stories! In Part One I talked about ways of finding ideas for a story by looking at your own worst fears – if you write about something that you are afraid of then it will seem genuinely terrifying to a reader! If you haven’t read Part One then check it out here, and as always if you’d like to download the full worksheet that goes with this workshop then you can find it here!

Part 2: What If…?

Okay, so if you’ve been following this workshop from the beginning then you’ll hopefully have a list of things that scare you. These can be anything you like – spiders and snakes, ghosts (or goats), vampires, werewolves and zombies, teachers and homework, vegetables, disease and death and, of course, CLOWNS – the important thing is that you are genuinely scared of them, or they at least creep you out a little!

At the moment, though, these things are just that: things! They aren’t stories yet. What we’re going to do now is look at ways of turning those things into ideas. And luckily we don’t need some kind of sophisticated inspiration machine for this, all we need are two simple words:

What if…?

Most books started life as a what if: what if a boy discovers he’s a wizard and gets sent to wizard school? What if a girl moves to a new school and meets a hunky vampire? What if a boy is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to an underground prison full of monsters? (Er… that last one is mine in case you didn’t recognise it!) What if‘s are at the heart of all stories.

What if‘s are a writer’s greatest tool for discovering ideas, and if you get into the habit of asking that question everywhere you go then you’ll soon have so many ideas for stories that you won’t know what to do with them all. If it sounds a little weird just give it a go. Look out the nearest window, what do you see? Right now I can see a very old building opposite my office: what if it was once the headquarters for a group of monster slayers and beneath the streets is a vault containing dozens of creatures in cages, just waiting to escape? What if I saw somebody running up the street being chased by thugs, and I let them hide in my office only to discover they have stolen a mysterious object that people will kill to possess? What if I went to leave the office (my office is in a very old hotel full of weird corridors and hidden tunnels) and the layout had magically changed, and there was no way out, and ghosts started appearing from the rooms, and… Okay, I’m going to stop there before I freak myself out. But do you get the idea? Just think about all the strangest and scariest things that could happen wherever you are, all of the possible what if‘s.

So, what I’d like you to do now is try and add some what if‘s to your own worst fears. They can be as weird as you like, but try and pick things that would absolutely terrify you if they actually happened. Go crazy! The things that really terrify me are marionettes (those spooky puppets) and porcelain dolls (the single most nightmarish objects on the face of the planet. So some of my what if‘s could be:

What if somebody gave me a puppet as a Christmas present and it came alive and tried to kill me?

What if my sister’s porcelain doll was actually a young girl who had been placed under a curse centuries ago and needed to be set free?

What if a puppet contained the soul of its maker who was trying to find a new body to inhabit?

What if somebody found a way to control another human being the same way a puppet master controls a puppet?

And so on! I’ve just come up with these now, so they could be better, but I just wanted to demonstrate how easy it was! It will take a little while to get into the habit of asking what if, but I promise you if you ask that question everywhere you go, whatever you’re doing, then you will be swamped with new ideas. Of course not all of them will be suitable for a story or a book, and some may have been used before, but sooner or later you’ll have a eureka moment and hit on an idea that could become the new Harry Potter or Twilight (or, um Furnace)!

Take some time and think about what if‘s for each of your worst fears. And next time you’re out somewhere try it then too. One of the best places for what if‘s is at school: what if you’re looking for a book in the library and you discover a pamphlet about how to put a curse on somebody? What if you go to the toilet and your reflection does something that you don’t? What if your teachers started experimenting on pupils? What if your school holiday abroad turned out to be in a zombie plague area?! The pool of ideas is endless!

Check back soon for Part Three, where we’ll be taking a break from ideas and looking at how to create characters that really feel as if they’re alive! And if you have any questions about what if‘s then just ask!

Whenever I do events, I often get asked the same questions. The most popular of these is “Are you rich enough to buy a helicopter?” The answer to this, sadly, is not yet, although I often look at them on eBay and will hopefully one day get myself one. The second most popular question, usually from a teacher this time, is “Can you buy me a helicopter?” Again, the answer is no. Sorry about that!

Anyway, once the questions about helicopters / tanks / ferraris are out of the way, the next most popular question is “Where do you get your ideas from?” I’m sure most writers are asked this wherever they go, and although all writers probably give different answers, most will probably mention that ideas for stories are much easier to find than you might think. When I run workshops in schools I talk about some cool ways to find ideas, but since I can’t do a workshop for every school in the world (the monsters refuse to let me out for more than seventy-two hours) I thought I’d run a workshop here! Over the next few weeks I’ll suggest a few ways of finding ideas and turning them into stories, and it would be great if as many of you as possible joined in!

To start with, I want to talk about ideas! So without further ado I present you with part one of my horror writing workshop! Feel free to use the comments box below to share some of your ideas and stories!

Oh, and if you’d like to download the full worksheet that goes with this workshop then you can find it here!

Part 1: Facing Your Nightmares!

One of the most important things about writing a horror story is finding something scary! There are loads of places to get ideas, but it’s always best to start by looking at what YOU are afraid of. If you’re afraid of something, then when you write about it, it will seem genuinely terrifying!

What I want you to do first is write down some of your worst fears. These can be anything – spiders and snakes, ghosts (or goats), vampires, werewolves and zombies, teachers and homework, vegetables, disease and death and, of course, CLOWNS! Write down as many as you can think of, the more fears you have, the more you’ll have to work with!

Three great places to look for ideas are:

-     Experience: Things that have happened to you – did anything really scary happen when you were younger, like getting lost in the woods, or being woken by a noise that might have been a monster?

-     Memory: Things from your favourite books and shows – what’s the scariest thing you’ve ever read or seen? Is there a way to use that idea but make it your own?

-     What if?!: Crazy ideas – this is the most fun way of looking for ideas. What if… your reflection suddenly started doing things differently, and began trying to take over your life? Or your parents, and everybody else’s, suddenly disappear? Or a neighbour turns out to be a vampire? Learn to question absolutely everything – why is the school basement locked? (What if that’s where the teachers experiment on naughty kids!) What happens when you are hypnotised? (Maybe you are possessed by an angry ghost!) Think up ludicrous and scary explanations for everything!

The idea for Furnace came from all these places: I once visited an old prison beneath the ground and was terrified by it (Experience), I was watching lots of prison shows on television at the time (Memory), and I wondered What If you are accused of a crime you didn’t commit and sent to a terrifying prison? And all of the monsters in Furnace are born from some of my worst fears!

Try playing with some of these idea-making ideas and you’ll have a basis for a story in no time!

Next, we’ll be taking your worst fears and turning them into story outlines. Check back soon for Part Two! And if you add some of your worst fears in the comments section then I’ll try and work them into stories as an example!

Part Two is now available here!

A Demon Hound

Last year Lincoln Book Festival invited me to give a talk on the ‘Folklore of the Lincolnshire Fens’ - that large marshy area on the east coast which was drained for farm land in the 17th Century (incidentally around the same time that Matthew Hopkins was busy hunting witches in the counties just south of Lincolnshire).

Although the Fens have a rich and varied folklore, full of creepy monsters and puckish faeries, it is not as well-known as the folk tales of, say, the West Country, Wales and Ireland. But don’t be fooled – there are many strange creatures that walk these beaches and byways, these fens and marshlands…

One of the most colourful of these supernatural characters is Black Shuck or, as he was more commonly known in Lincolnshire, Hairy Jack. Black Shuck was a goblin dog or hell hound. He has haunted Lincolnshire since the days of the Viking invasion, and some believe that he is a true Dane hound – a monstrous beast that was brought over by the Vikings, transplanted from their Nordic sagas and re-settled on the coast of Lincolnshire. He is a welcome, if somewhat disturbing, immigrant.

Eyewitness accounts have described a great black dog, the size of a horse, with flame red eyes and dripping jowls. Like many devil dogs in mythology, Black Shuck has been identified as an omen of death. A portent of disaster. He has often appeared to travellers on lonely stretches of road, teeth bared, eyes blazing, only to disappear into the shadows. Days later, the unfortunate witness is found dead, seemingly from natural causes.

When seen around marshes, Black Shuck appears to float on the mist. On the Norfolk coast, he is most often seen rising out of the sea – again a reference to his Norse seafaring roots.

Sometimes, in churchyards and at crossroads, he is headless. However, he is not always portrayed in such a terrible light: sometimes in the Norfolk legends Black Shuck is a guardian spirit that will offer his protection to any defenceless maid walking home alone.

Lincolnshire has the dubious distinction of being the county with perhaps the most sightings of devil dogs. By 1958 it was recorded in Theo Brown’s book ‘Folklore’ that there were 47 separate black dog haunting grounds in this locality.

Often these legends have little respect for county borders, and it is in Suffolk that Black Shuck makes his most notable and grisly appearance. In 1577, the same year in which Sir Francis Drake set off on his round-the-world voyage, Black Shuck was making mischief.

In the old church at Blythburgh, the congregation had just settled down for the priest’s Sunday sermon when, without ceremony, the demon hound burst through the heavy oak doors and ran headlong down the nave. The beast stopped only once, in order to wring the necks of an old man and a young boy, before bounding towards the terrified clergyman, its eyes fixed and flaming. A few feet short of the altar table the infernal creature simply disappeared into the ether. The congregation had hardly regained their collective breath when a great rumble sounded from the foundation of the church. Cracks splintered along the walls and the steeple gave way. Crashing through the nave, it finished off most of the Blythburgh parishioners. If you go to the church you can still see the scorch marks at the north door where Black Shuck’s paws burned into the consecrated stone floor.

In another version of the legend it was the devil dog’s master that visited the church. The story runs much the same except, in this case, it was Satan himself that destroyed the church and left his infernal fingerprints on the north door.

The Devil’s Fingerprints?

A very famous writer picked up on the legend of Black Shuck and turned it into one of the most terrifying novels of the 19^th Century. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle transplanted the spectre from the wilds of Lincolnshire to the Devonshire Moors for his most celebrated Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’. Many famous writers have been inspired by the legends of Lincolnshire, including Alfred Lord Tennyson and Dorothy L Sayers. Sayers made use of the well-known Lincolnshire legend of ‘talking church bells’ in her Lord Peter Wimsey detective story ‘The Nine Tailors’. Bells that ring out by themselves in protest against murderers and evildoers are not unheard of in the Fen churches of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire.

But back to Black Shuck and his literary appearances. Those of you who enjoy a bit of Harry Potter might recognise old Blacky from his appearance as The Grim in ‘The Prisoner of Azkhaban’, but it is definitely in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ that he makes his most significant bow…

Coming soon… more terrifying tales from the Fens!

We all know writers have strange working habits. So it pleases me to see some of them represented in the form of a diagram:

This is taken from: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/visual/charts-graphs/working-methods.php

and they appear to have forgotten about one of the most common places where a writer works: a cave. That is common, right? I mean, other writers round the world are also stuck in caves… aren’t they…? It’s not just… us?

Three quick things. First, here’s a link to a piece I wrote for the website of SFX Magazine listing my current Top Ten Favourite Horror Books and Films.

Second, here’s Play With Spider, a jolly little 3D Flash animation that’s fairly self-explanatory. Lead your furry friend by the movement of your mouse, by leaving out juicy flies to munch or (if you prefer) by dragging the poor beast around by a leg. I especially recommend the Options button: adjusting the spider’s scale and ‘leg bounce’ are particularly satisfying. ;D

Third thing… THIS.

Next week – Friday the 23rd of April – I’m to be freed from the caves, for one night only, for a triple bill of chills with fellow horror authors William (WITCHFINDER) Hussey and Steve (CHANGELING) Feasey. It’s THE HACKNEY HORROR SHOW and it’s FREE. Hope you can make it: we’ll be pleased to eat, I mean meet you. Click the link for all the details.

Sam

It’s always very nice to receive fan mail – but it’s more fun when fans go all out to dress themselves as their favourite hero… or in this case, villain!

Here’s Max Stockdale in his sinister guise as Jake Hunter from my VILLAIN.NET books – dressed to impress for his school’s book day.  Go Max!!

As if the monsters around here weren’t terrifying enough – you can now make your computer a petrifying place on which to read about our constant battle for freedom!

On the Scream Street website, you’ll find two new wicked wallpapers to creep up your computer screen – one for Scream Street 7: Invasion of the Normals, and the other for the forthcoming book, Scream Street 8: Attack of the Trolls.

Both wallpapers are available in three different sizes, so you’re sure to find something that’ll suit your screen and your nerves!

Click here to download the latest Scream Street desktop wallpapers!

I snuck out of the cave last night to take my final club level exam at Tae Kwon Do. Assuming I passed, I will be entitled to wear a ‘black tag’ belt from now on. I aim to take my full black belt in Bristol in the Autumn. My examiner for the evening was Master Don Atkins, eighth dan black belt and National Secretary of the TAGB (Tae Kwon Do Association of Great Britain) – scary!

In earlier gradings the theory side of the test was conducted by our club black belts, but for this belt the questions were asked by the senior examiner. Master Atkins also took time to comment on our performance and to offer tips for the black belt grading later in the year. I faced him after the practical part of the exam confident that I had done well up to that point. Master Atkins was kind enough to confirm this before beginning my grilling on Korean terms and history. I knew the answers to all his questions, so I think it fair to assume that I passed. I just have to await my grade now.

For anyone interested in martial arts, I can very much recommend Tae Kwon Do as a great way of learning a powerful self defence system, while getting fit and having fun at the same time. My local club is run by Master Jackson White. If you live in the Midlands, why not come along and join us? Who knows – if I get good enough I might even be able to fight my way out of here!

If you haven’t met already, allow me to introduce one of the most famous and fascinating Japanese monsters, the Kappa.

Handsome, dapper, charming…

…are all words that /don’t/ usually get applied to Kappa.

However, as I’ve just discovered from this video, it turns out that Kappas can be excellent dancers. Click the link to see for yourself.

-Sam

Here’s an interesting article exploring whether it’s more educational for children to play games and read comics instead of ploughing through homework they are reluctant to do.

Discuss!

CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE