Killer Serials Giveaway & Coffin Hop '13 Finale - Four Keys To Frightening Fiction - Pt. 4 - Murderous Tension

Happy Halloween, gang! I'm here to put a bow (or should that be noose?) on this year's Coffin Hop by talking about the final ingredient to writing frightening fiction--creating tension.

But first, I want to share a special giveaway event I'm taking part in…


Just in time for Halloween, some Killer Serials you can sink your teeth into!


Serial and episodic fiction are becoming more and more popular with readers in the digital age. And as many of you know, my Moonsongs series is exactly that, so I'm pretty passionate about the concept.

Who would enjoy serialized stories? Fans of television, for one. Many of these stories are built around the TV model, leaving you craving more at the end of each episode. Others who might enjoy serials are the folks who don't have time to cram entire novels into their daily lives, but would love to read fiction with a purpose. These aren't short stories so much as sagas broken into bite-sized pieces.

I know for my Moonsongs books, I really work hard to give the reader a feeling of fulfillment with each story, but also leave them wanting to see what happens next.
Sound like something you'd enjoy? Luckily, there are several fantastic authors doing them! And beginning today, you can enter for a chance to win some of the most exciting serialized content going--plus, you can sample several of these authors for free. (Including me!)

Here's the rundown of the authors and stories involved in the is special giveaway:

Some Killer Serials you should consider sampling


Andrew Leon: The Shadow Spinner Series 
(34 parts, 40ish pages each) Tiberius has always thought of himself as a normal 10-year-old boy, at least until the day his mother finally decides to tell him about his father, and she tells him things that convince him that one of them is crazy, and he's pretty sure it's not him. That is until the Man with No Eyes shows up and his father falls out of the sky.



Susan Kaye Quinn: The Debt Collector Series 
(9 Volumes, 50ish pages each, all complete, (for you risk-averse readers) first one free) What's your life worth on the open market? A debt collector can tell you precisely.



EJ Wesley: Moonsong Series 
(5th coming in December - no end point necessarily planned, but they are coming in 3-book clusters *6th in January* for satisfying individual story arcs; link to the first one FREE) Jenny Moonsong recently inherited the title of "monster hunter" and an ancient tribal journal/how-to manual passed down by her Apache ancestors. The Moonsongs books follow her adventures as she battles the dark supernatural denizens of the world in a series of action-packed, urban fantasy novelettes.
RaShelle Workman: The Cindy Chronicles 
(4 published of 6 volumes) From a seemingly insignificant word comes the greatest of fairytales... Cinderella is a witch and she's been asked to save a world she never knew existed. 




Hart Johnson: A Shot in the Light Series 
(10 episodes, 100 pages each, 4th available today and the first is free) Deadliest virus in a century, or a social experiment gone awry? Sidney Knight begins to notice inconsistencies in what people are being told and what's going on as half the population dies of the flu... or is it the vaccine?

Visit the authors participating in Killer Serials giveaway:

 Andrew - http://strangepegs.blogspot.com/
Susan - http://www.susankayequinn.com/
E.J. - http://the-open-vein-ejwesley.blogspot.com/
RaShelle - http://www.rashelleworkman.com/
Hart - http://waterytart23.blogspot.com/ 

 And here's how you can enter to win some of these great stories!


a Rafflecopter giveaway



Now to end my first ever Coffin Hop! I've had a blast taking part this year, and I've met a ton of great horror authors. Be sure to check the site and join up for next year if you think you'd like share in the scare! 

 Being a writing blog, I decided to cover what I thought were the basics to weaving a little thrill and chill into your stories. My full hop schedule looked like this:

Monday, 10/28 - The Sinister Senses
Tuesday, 10/29 - Oh So Ordinarily Creepy
Wednesday, 10/30 - Mining The Darkness Within
Thursday,  10/31 - HAPPY HALLOWEEN - A Murderous Tension

Also want to mention that the organizers behind Coffin Hop have put together a fantastic collection of horror stories to benefit an even better cause. All proceeds from the Death By Drive-In anthology will go to LitWorld.org to promote childhood reading.

*click the image below for more details on the anthology*


As for my giveaway, simply leave a comment on any of my Coffin Hop posts and I'll enter you into a drawing for one of the following items:

- 1 Digital copy of Death By Drive-In

- 1 Paper Copy of Death By Drive-In (US ONLY)

- 2 Digital Copies of Moonsongs, Anthology 1 AND my latest, Dragon's Game, Moonsongs Book 4 (1 set to each winner)

- 1 Signed paper copy of Moonsongs, Anthology 1 (US ONLY)

Lastly, I'll be highlighting one of my fellow Coffin Hoppers at the end of every post--so let's get to it!
A Murderous Tension

Tension in fiction is a weird--and often fickle--thing. It can be created or destroyed with a single word, description, or scene. And while it's important for any kind of story, it's absolutely dire for horror and thrillers.

 A reader has to feel the threat pressing down on them like the brutal heat of a summer day in Phoenix, Arizona. An inescapable anxiety has to blanket the story, and the only way out from under it is to read The End. 

 No small task! So how do we do it? Here are few quick cheats:

 Start in the middle - in medias res is a commonly refereed to concept of beginning a story in the middle of action. It creates insta-tension.

 Example: Don't let the reader get all comfy-cozy by getting up to speed with grandma  leisurely driving them through the park on the way to soccer practice. Instead, slap their ass behind the wheel of a car going 150 MPH on the Santa Monica Freeway with a couple dozen well-armed cops chasing them, and a drug lord in the backseat threatening to kill their spouse if they slow down. It works.

Mystery - Uncertainty creates tension. Arriving at a camp known for its unexplained, horrible accidents. A newspaper article about a series of grizzly unsolved murders. Exploring a 'supposedly' haunted house. It intrigues us. It also scares the jeepers out of us.

 False Trails - Let the reader chase their tails a bit. Let them presume, guess, and postulate. Then yank the freaking rug out from under them! If you're going to create a scary, tense story, the reader can never feel comfortable. One way of doing that is by encouraging them to guess wrong.

 Love and hate, get it straight … or maybe don't - Just like real life, when your characters don't get along, it creates friction. And friction creates--you guessed it--tension for the reader! Even if it's THE love interest for your protagonist, have them fight like cats and water! The result will have your reader on edge, and when you throw that werewolf in the mix, it'll send them over it. :)

 How do you work tension into your writing? Any favorite books or films that kept you biting your nails the entire time?

 Thanks again for riding along with my Coffin Hop, and have safe and fun Halloween! 

FEATURED COFFIN HOPPER OF THE DAY 


Author Julianne Snow has put together an awesome eight-part flash fiction piece for her Coffin Hop! The link above will take you to part one--and I highly encourage you to check it from the start. :)

 Like most all Coffin Hoppers, she's also doing a giveaway of some of her work if  you comment. So be sure to give her a click!

You can check the entire hop below:
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Coffin Hop 2013 - Four Keys To Frightening Fiction - Pt. 3 Mining The Darkness Within

Hey, gang! I'm back for round 3 of my 4 part Coffin Hop feature on writing frightening fiction!

So what the heck is a Coffin Hop? Basically, a bunch of us writer types get together to share scary stories, do giveaways, and generally try to get the blog world into the spirit of the season. 

 Being a writing blog, I've decided to cover what I think are the basics to weaving a little thrill and chill into your stories. My full hop schedule looks like this:

Monday, 10/28 - The Sinister Senses
Tuesday, 10/29 - Oh So Ordinarily Creepy
Wednesday, 10/30 - Mining The Darkness Within
Thursday,  10/31 - HAPPY HALLOWEEN - A Murderous Tension

Also want to mention that the organizers behind Coffin Hop have put together a fantastic collection of horror stories to benefit an even better cause. All proceeds from the Death By Drive-In anthology will go to LitWorld.org to promote childhood reading.

*click the image below for more details on the anthology*


As for my giveaway, simply leave a comment on any of my Coffin Hop posts and I'll enter you into a drawing for one of the following items:

- 1 Digital copy of Death By Drive-In

- 1 Paper Copy of Death By Drive-In (US ONLY)

- 2 Digital Copies of Moonsongs, Anthology 1 AND my latest, Dragon's Game, Moonsongs Book 4 (1 set to each winner)

- 1 Signed paper copy of Moonsongs, Anthology 1 (US ONLY)

Lastly, I'll be highlighting one of my fellow Coffin Hoppers at the end of every post--so let's get to it!
Mining the Darkness Within

Write what you know. Popular writing advice that, frankly, I haven't always found to be true. It takes a good imagination to write fiction, and imagination by definition is basically the art of making crap up.

If I really knew how to stop a nuclear disaster, win a fight club, sweep beautiful people off of their feet, or survive a zombie apocalypse, I probably wouldn't be an author.

But I love to read about characters who do those types of things. Thus, I usually default to: Write what you love--then sprinkle in what you know.

However, when it comes to writing scary, there's some very useful knowledge lurking inside all of us. And tapping into it can really go a long way to creating a terrifying reading experience. 

I'm talking about our fears. Everyone has them. They can be highly unique, like being afraid of truck stop urinals. (Okay, that might not be just me…) Or they can be shared by lots of people. I'll boldly say that more people are freaked out by spiders than aren't.

In either case, what we're afraid of, if we can accurately bring our fears to life on the page, is going to scare other people, too. And it's one of the easier emotions to channel. After all, what's more vivid than our darkest dreams and the terrors of our minds?

The tricky part is examining fear honestly, because it isn't always a comfortable process. If you're terrified of snakes, it can make you a little squirmy to think about EXACTLY what it is about snakes that scare you.

But I bet there's something. Maybe it isn't the fangs, maybe it's the dread of feeling their slimy scales spasming over your bare skin. Maybe it's the way their cold, reptilian eyes express nothing but animal calculation. Or perhaps it's knowing that each flick of their demonic forked tongues is the equivalent of you walking along the buffet to see what looks good to eat. :)

Whatever it is, you're going to have an inside track on what makes it so damned scary, and if you can share that with your readers, they'll be scared, too. 

 More importantly, if you can do it for yourself, you can start to easily imagine the deepest dreads for each of your characters.

One of the scariest movie moments for me growing up was an awesome example of sharing an inner fear--something only the character would be able to conjure or imagine--with the audience.

Via Pet Cemetery - Zelda was the sister of one of the protagonists, who she watched die of spinal meningitis as a child. The character recounts her memories in chilling fashion. 



That scene still freaks me completely out! LOL

 So what are you most afraid of? Could you make a list of three very specific things about it (plausible or no--like the tormented long-dead sister coming back to live in your attic) that would frighten you the most?

Come back tomorrow as we'll finish off the hop and celebrate Halloween with a look at creating tension! Plus, a surprise for fans of serial fiction. :)

FEATURED COFFIN HOPPER OF THE DAY 


I had the pleasure of getting to talk with Michele for one of our recent NA Lit Chats. She definitely knows her scary! She's also a part of the Coffin Hop and offering a signed copy of one of her books. 

 Michelle's blog is featuring some ghost stories, and generally has lots of paranormal goodness going down, so jump over and check her out!

You can check the entire hop below:
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Coffin Hop 2013 - Four Keys To Writing Frightening Fiction - Pt. 2. Oh So Ordinarily Creepy

Hey, gang! I'm back for round 2 of my 4 part Coffin Hop feature on writing frightening fiction!

So what the heck is a Coffin Hop? Basically, a bunch of us writer types get together to share scary stories, do giveaways, and generally try to get the blog world into the spirit of the season. 

 Being a writing blog, I've decided to cover what I think are the basics to weaving a little thrill and chill into your stories. My full hop schedule looks like this:

Monday, 10/28 - The Sinister Senses
Tuesday, 10/29 - Oh So Ordinarily Creepy
Wednesday, 10/30 - Mining The Darkness Within
Thursday,  10/31 - HAPPY HALLOWEEN - A Murderous Tension

Also want to mention that the organizers behind Coffin Hop have put together a fantastic collection of horror stories to benefit an even better cause. All proceeds from the Death By Drive-In anthology will go to LitWorld.org to promote childhood reading.

*click the image below for more details on the anthology*


As for my giveaway, simply leave a comment on any of my Coffin Hop posts and I'll enter you into a drawing for one of the following items:

- 1 Digital copy of Death By Drive-In

- 1 Paper Copy of Death By Drive-In (US ONLY)

- 2 Digital Copies of Moonsongs, Anthology 1 AND my latest, Dragon's Game, Moonsongs Book 4 (1 set to each winner)

- 1 Signed paper copy of Moonsongs, Anthology 1 (US ONLY)

Lastly, I'll be highlighting one of my fellow Coffin Hoppers at the end of every post--so let's get to it!
Oh So Ordinarily Creepy
A clown. A little old lady who sits in front of her bedroom window at the same time every day, watching the neighborhood kids play. A caretaker who isn't very sociable and always seems to have something sharp in his hands. A cabin in the woods. A toy monkey playing the cymbals. A kid riding a tricycle…

Nothing extraordinary there. All are pretty much everyday occurrences or items. But, because you know the nature of these posts, I bet the hairs on your arms stiffened just a touch by the time you finished reading that list--particularly if you're a fan of horror movies and books. :)

Why? Because creepy is all about context, and sometimes, the most ordinary things--when viewed from unordinary perspectives--can be terrifying.

Put that clown in a sewer. Maybe that little old lady HATES children. Make that cabin the only shelter in a violent storm, and the caretaker its only inhabitant. 

Put that toy monkey at the scene of a grizzly murder, then have a down-on-his-luck detective take it to give to his son because he forgot his birthday. The kid takes it everywhere with him, and suddenly the boys, the ones who used to torment him while he road his tricycle up and down the sidewalk, disappear. The kid on the trike becomes the harbinger of death!

I've loosely referenced a few Stephen King stories here with good reason: He's an absolute master of turning the commonplace into our greatest fears. And it's all very basic psychology! After all, most phobias are rooted in the mundane.

I'm using a family ghost story I told recently to illustrate a few of the points this week. You can check the entire story out HERE. 

Here's a passage from the story where a few ordinary things--moonlight streaming through curtains, a recliner, and vaporous breath on a cold night--take on a more ominous quality.

"With trembling hands, he inches the covers downward until he can see. He scans left, toward his grandmother’s closed bedroom door, hoping she’ll be standing there looking in on him. She isn’t.

He looks straight ahead to the dining room, but sees nothing but the swirls of his own breath in the cold and moonlight tracing funny shapes on the floor through the curtains.

At last, he cuts his eyes to the right, where he knows he should see an empty recliner, a coffee table, and a black-and-white television. All is exactly where it should be, except the chair isn’t empty. Grandpa is sitting in it, wearing his overalls, just as the boy had seen him do in so many of the old photographs lying around the house."
Another author who does fantastically creepy things with very simple ingredients is Neil Gaiman. Here's a passage from The Graveyard Book where we're introduced to one of the best villains ever, the man Jack:

"The street door was still open, just a little, where the knife and the man who held it had slipped in, and wisps of nighttime mist slithered and twined into the house through the open door.

The man Jack paused on the landing. With his left hand he pulled a large white handkerchief from the pocket of his black coat, and with it he wiped off the knife and his gloved right hand which had been holding it; then he put the handkerchief away. The hunt was almost over. He had left the woman in her bed, the man on the bedroom floor, the older child in her brightly colored bedroom, surrounded by toys and half-finished models. That only left the little one, a baby barely a toddler, to take care of. One more and his task would be done.

He flexed his fingers. The man Jack was, above all things, a professional, or so he told himself, and he would not allow himself to smile until the job was completed.

His hair was dark and his eyes were dark and he wore black leather gloves of the thinnest lambskin.

The toddler's room was at the very top of the house. The man Jack walked up the stairs, his feet silent on the carpeting. Then he pushed open the attic door, and he walked in. His shoes were black leather, and they were polished to such a shine that they looked like dark mirrors: you could see the moon reflected in them, tiny and half full.

The real moon shone through the casement window. Its light was not bright, and it was diffused by the mist, but the man Jack would not need much light. The moonlight was enough. It would do."

Thin black gloves, shiny shoes, misty moonlight streaming through a window--just brilliantly chilling stuff! 

 Have any favorite authors who do simple-creepy well? Favorite scary movies that turn ordinary things into horribly frightening moments? (How about that shower scene in Psycho? I still don't like hotel shower curtains for that reason! LOL)

Come back tomorrow, and we'll take a look at how you can use the things you're afraid of to scare the loafers off of your readers, too. :)

FEATURED COFFIN HOPPER OF THE DAY 


Jeff is an extremely well-read horror fan, and he's throwing out reading recs left and right during the hop. Today, he's talking about books he reads to get in the Halloween mood--including H.P. Lovecraft's "The Rats In The Walls"!

 Jeff, like all Coffin Hoppers, has a sweet giveaway going, so be sure to check him out!

You can check the entire hop below:
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Coffin Hop '13 - Four Keys To Frightening Fiction - Pt. 1 The Sinister Senses

Hey, gang! We are quickly ticking down the days to one of my favorite holidays, Halloween! This year I'm taking part in an extremely awesome blog tour for horror and thriller authors called Coffin Hop. 

Basically, a bunch of us get together to share scary stories, do giveaways, and generally try to get the blog world into the spirit of the season. (Pun most definitely intended… read further to find out why! :)

 As a participant, I can blog on a theme. So seeing as how this is a writing blog, I've decided to share some tips for writing frightening fiction. 

 Beginning today, with a look at how to create terror by engaging the 5 senses, I'll cover a different aspect of writing for frights.

 My full hop schedule looks like this:

 Monday, 10/28 - The Sinister Senses
Tuesday, 10/29 - Oh So Ordinarily Creepy
Wednesday, 10/30 - Mining The Darkness Within
Thursday,  10/31 - HAPPY HALLOWEEN - A Murderous Tension

 Also want to mention that the organizers behind Coffin Hop have put together a fantastic collection of horror stories to benefit an even better cause. All proceeds from the Death By Drive-In anthology will go to LitWorld.org to promote childhood reading.

 *click the image below for more details on the anthology*


 As for my giveaway, simply leave a comment on any of my Coffin Hop posts and I'll enter you into a drawing for one of the following items:

 - 1 Digital copy of Death By Drive-In

 - 1 Paper Copy of Death By Drive-In (US ONLY)

 - 2 Digital Copies of Moonsongs, Anthology 1 AND my latest, Dragon's Game, Moonsongs Book 4 (1 set to each winner)

 - 1 Signed paper copy of Moonsongs, Anthology 1 (US ONLY)

Lastly, I'll be highlighting one of my fellow Coffin Hoppers at the end of every post--so let's get to it!
The Sinister Senses

 If you're going to scare the bejeezus out of a reader, you must put them in the forest fleeing from a machete-weilding-maniac--it's not enough just to tell them about it. They have to live it, or at the very least, be afraid they won't live through it. 

 Fear on the page is only as real as fear in the mind. Which sounds like a lot to accomplish with a few adjectives, but if you've ever been the scared kid hiding under the blankets, waiting for whatever  made the scratching sound on your bedroom window to burst through and eat you, you know the mind can do powerful things.

 The first (and perhaps simplest) way to do this is by engaging the reader's five senses. Using sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste is creative writing 101, yes. But if you're writing to thrill and chill, it becomes much more important than simply adding color to your prose. It's the foundation on which you're going to create the reading experience.

 Hearing the Mothman's menacing garble on the other end of a phone line, seeing a partially severed finger dangling from spaghetti-like tendons, and tasting bitter bile as it stings the back of your throat goes beyond setting the mood. It places you in the story.

 More importantly, those sensory elements are the anchor to reality in what are often implausible situations. We're pretty certain Frankenstein isn't real. But when we can conjure the sickly sweet smell of raw meat--just beginning to turn--that his decaying flesh gives off, and run our fingers over the oozing ridges of the crude stitches crisscrossing his face, our minds are no longer quite so sure. 

 I'll reference a family ghost story I told recently. You can check it out HERE. This was a very real story for me, and just being familiar with the players in it (my living brother, my dead grandparents) is enough to scare  me.

But the folks reading it won't know my grandparents. They haven't met my brother. So I needed to put them in our old farmhouse with my brother. I needed them to feel cold, watched, and threatened.

 Here's the opening passage from the story where I used a few of the senses to try to do those things:

"It’s a mid-winter night on an isolated farm in rural Oklahoma. Inside of an old farmhouse—that was once an even older church—a noise sounds in the dark. A boy stirs, still half-asleep, under a mountain of quilts so thick and heavy he can barely rollover.

His grandmother, who is slumbering in the next room, can’t afford to run the gas stoves at night. There are times the house gets so cold her false teeth freeze in their overnight cleaning solution on the bathroom counter.

The blankets are a practical necessity. But deep inside the child’s groggy mind, they offer something even more important than blessed warmth. They’re a wall of protection between him and the unseen terrors lurking in the void around him."

Come back tomorrow as we'll take a look at turning the mundane into the macabre! (i.e., Clowns and Stephen King's It FTW :D)

FEATURED COFFIN HOPPER OF THE DAY 


Katie is doing a fabulous rundown of each day's Coffin Hop highlights--including notable giveaways! Plus, she's a talented author and blogger, so be sure to hop over and say hey to Katie!

You check the entire hop below:

55.


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*SINGS* Happy Book-Birthday To Me!

Hey, gang! Just a quick note to announce that the latest story in my Moonsongs series, Dragon's Game, is officially on the market!

 It's a paranormal tale of budding romance, friendship, and of course, dragons. Like all of the stories in the series, this one is moderate in length (under 15k words), but big on action, humor, and thrills. (Maybe even a few chills, too.)

 It was a real blast to write, and I hope those of you who read it will have just as much fun running alongside my favorite tomahawk wielding, purple faux-hawked heroine as I do. 

 Special thanks to my friend Melissa for all of her help getting this one whipped into shape. :)

 Also, thank you SO much to everyone who shared my cover last week (or shared the shares ;)... I was in Oklahoma for most of the week (back in Cali now), and I can't tell you how much better you made my trip. The Anthology sale was also a success, and I know I owe a lot of that to you all as well.

 Speaking of, Amazon still has the Anthology discounted to .99 -- so you can get the entire series-to-date for less than $2. (I've no clue how long they'll keep it at that price ... The Amazon kind of does what it wants. :)

 As for today's baby, Dragon's Game is currently available at AMAZON and BARNES & NOBLE for .99 cents.


Jenny Moonsong recently inherited the title of "monster hunter" and an ancient tribal journal/how-to manual passed down by her Apache ancestors. She has already faced a werewolf, witches, and a troll. But nothing could prepare her for her latest confrontation...

Dragon's Game, Moonsongs Book 4, finds Jenny out of her rural West Texas element, searching for an evil witch in an urban Houston nightclub. After attempting to help a handsome and mysterious stranger out of a jam, she finds herself on the run from a ruthless gang who are even more dangerous than they initially appear.

Forced into a twisted game of life and death, Jenny must navigate the complexity of a budding relationship, and somehow survive a night filled with unexpected horror and paranormal mystery.

Dragon's Game is approximately 14,000 words or 45 pages of humor, horror and paranormal mystery. It is the fourth volume of the Moonsongs Books, an ongoing series of New Adult, urban fantasy novelettes by author E.J. Wesley.

~Moonsongs Series List~

Blood Fugue, Moonsongs Book 1
Witch's Nocturne, Moonsongs Book 2
Dark Prelude, Moonsongs Book 3
Dragon's Game, Moonsongs Book 4

Moonsongs, Anthology 1 (Collecting books 1, 2, & 3)

Quick Shouts About Book 4
(Click to tweet, or copy/paste for Facebook.)

New Release: Dragon's Game by @EJWesley - #urbanfantasy #horror #newadult #series http://tinyurl.com/kodn9te

Action, humor, romance, and paranormal thrills - Dragon's Game by @EJWesley http://tinyurl.com/kodn9te #newrelease #kindlebooks #fiction

Halloween Reads - Dragon's Game by @EJWesley - approx 14k words of humor, horror and paranormal mystery. http://tinyurl.com/kodn9te #kindle







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