Let's Write Horror: Breaking the Block

1. Introductions and Information: Hey, there. I'm Mr. Der Stroud and I welcome you to Let's write horror, breaking the block. This course aims to help us identify the blocks we encounter when writing horror, understand why they happen, and what we can do to grow above them. In each video, we will discuss a block we face and how it affects our ability to create horror. I'll give some short exercises to help us figure things out and finally, a task that you'll need to do with your stories. The class project is to submit your work for at least one exercise to the project bolder. They can be in the form of writing, but also art, video, or bit and ritual, pope dolls, whatever you like. I want to stress that this isn't a how to course. I assume that everyone already knows how to write horror and some ideas about how to deal with blocks. My focus is to help you find a new path. I also encourage you to watch every video and try all the exercises as each one builds off of the previous. Finally, creative blocks take time to overcome. Blocks can either be caused by the way we organize the story or our own anxieties, and we need time to figure out which area they're coming from. Sometimes we can get over them fairly quickly, but other times they're a process to manage. Don't be discouraged if you aren't immediately writing. As a shadow worker, I believe that you can be your own worst enemy or your own best friend. Let's try to see how we're both. Preferably the latter. Blocks can also be a sign of something worse like depression or burnout. Please make sure to seek professional help if you find your blocks persisting. This course will contain unsettling and mature topics, so discretion is strongly advised. Let's start now with this first task. Tell me what drove you here. If you can't answer that question right now, then think it over as you watch these videos for the time being, take out the story you have a block with and let's write horror. 2. Boredom and Curiosity: Here you are alone, sitting back and finding anything that's more interesting to do than working on the story you're stuck on, even if it's something you hate. Why? Because thing you can hate can at least make you feel something. That quickie distraction you always go to somehow engages you better. You're watching a horror instead of writing one because it's easier to enjoy than the tortures of creating. Right? Well, hey, we can help with that. If your block is boredom, that means that you are either under stimulated or distracted. You're doing something with your story that's clearly not interesting. What it is ain't easy to pinpoint because it can come from anywhere. So let's start figuring it out with our exercise. Take a horror trope you hate or find predictable and change something about it. You can do this by ranting about the trope to your heart's content, or you can try writing a short story with your new twisted trope. When we're bored or frustrated with a task, it can feel like we're shackled to something unpleasant. Stepping away from your current work and trying something else can help get out of that. The exercise can be of any length, but try to aim for at least two to three sentences. It also tricks your brain into problem solver mode. Pause now and do the exercise. A horror trope I hate is that cabin in the woods trope. Let's change that up, like the cabins on the beach or in the middle of the highway, or smushed between two city buildings. Oh, I know, I know. The cabin in the park. You run along the parks trail on your jog and pass by the Heritage cabin off to the side. A few minutes later, you expect to meet up with roads, shops, and traffic, but only discover the same path and cabin off to the side. Confused, you stop and look back to see more trees behind you. You turn again to see more trees ahead of you. I love this idea so much that I wrote a short story to put in the project bolder. Check it out if you can. Now, you're probably thinking, Well, what's the difference? What's so different about the cabin being in the park than in the woods? They're both playing off the isolation theme, they pretty much are, but in different ways. When a couple goes off to the cabin in the woods, they're seeking out lone time. When we go to a park, a public space, we share with other folks in our community, we're expecting social time. Finding ourselves suddenly isolated without our consent is where the t can subvert our audiences expectations and pick their curiosity and even our own. Also, something I noticed as I was rambling about my idea. I was making decisions, but I wasn't thinking about them too much. I was so invested in all the evil ways I could take this story that the choices didn't seem hard anymore. I was just thinking, how could I make this a total **** show for my protagonist and went with my curiosities flow. Coming up with that twisted trope wasn't any less challenging if I was doing it in some other way. It just felt less challenging because I got to focus on my curiosity instead of all the other stuff I have to do when making a horror. When we're bored with our scary stories, it's because we aren't invested in our fears. We aren't looking at it as something we can be curious about, something we can't get invested with and have fun with. If we go on the idea that most blocks are created by fear, then horror creators have a very unique challenge when it comes to dealing with them. When I write for other genres, I just need to overcome or quiet my fears so I can create. That doesn't work when I write horror, suspense, or dark themes, because the point is to work with my fears and channel those bad boys. For your prompt, I want you to look at your story and see what you're actually curious about. Make a few notes on it where you can. Those things you're curious about, just to focus on making a draft for them. And if there's nothing that picks your curiosity, throw it. And tell me, tell me, tell me. If you didn't answer our question yet, what drove you here? ***** 3. Purpose and Insignificance: Maybe your main block is that you've lost your purpose for writing hover. One way I've realized that this is my block is when I've wanted to create something, but I don't know what I want to create. I see too many paths and too many directions. I overthink. I'm just staring at a blank screen for hours on end, trying to think of anything to put down. If art is communication, then I'm likely struggling because I don't know what I want to communicate right now. There are three possible reasons why you may be struggling with your purpose. One. You might not be interested in writing horror right now, but something else. Two, your purpose for writing horror has changed and you don't know what your new purpose is. Three, you lost your purpose. What was once meaningful to you is no longer there. For your exercise, I want you to answer just one question. Why am I writing for horror instead of any other genre? Maybe you have one reason, maybe you have many. Maybe the reasons are simple, practical, or complicated. Whatever they are, the reasons you give are the things that motivate you. If you're having trouble finding your reasons, a few things you can do is examine your past work, look into the media that got you into horror, or research horror media that you're currently into. Pause now and do the exercise. As we know, people approach horror in different ways. That can be a story about someone facing their fear. It can be a horror, find tragedy, or the journey into the unknown. Don't forget about dark comedies and dark fantasies. Good ****, Those two. All of these are ways that people can approach fear. Horror is a great form of escapism when we want to flirt with our dark sides, tackle societal, taboo or process our vulnerabilities. Homer is pretty free in that way, gives us a good release of that stuff. Agreed. No one is fully good or bad, and Homer gives us another way to express those aspects of ourselves. How we approach the genre is just as important as what we write in it. Yeah. Of course, we only know how to approach something when we understand why we're drawn to it. There are times where I've tried to write happier and lighthearted stories. Sometimes I'm successful, but lots of times I'm not. It's like the story just isn't dark enough for me. Or maybe purity just doesn't mean much to me. Either way, I find some stories that I write just become horrors because I let go and let the stories tell themselves. I think the best way that I can describe it is that when I write sometimes, the most meaningful conclusion I find is the one with a horrifying discovery. Sometimes I focus on how my main character deals with that discovery. Fear is a part of us after all, and Dealing with our personal bogeyman is much more useful than pretending they don't exist. But for some, it's easier to stay in the light, easier to make a happy ending just happen and to inject hope wherever you want, because you can control the narrative. But sometimes, that's not how a story ends, and yet that's what can make a story more powerful. These are the things in the genre I can do that I can't do anywhere else. I write for other genres in media, but I write horrors because sometimes I can't tell my story in any other way. For your prompt, I want you to look at the story you have a block with and ask yourself. What am I trying to express through my story? Is hober the best genre? What are the most meaningful parts? And if you haven't answered it already, what drove you here? 4. Control and Vulnurability: Sometimes you are struggling to write horror because you are struggling with expressing vulnerability, insecurities, or powerlessness. These feelings are important when we write scary stories. It's not enough just to have a hollow dyed monster chasing the main character. The monster needs to be threatening or otherwise out of the protagonist's control. These are the three Ds of horror. Bread, despair, and disempowerment. For the first part of our exercise, we will answer the following questions. What's something I'm afraid of happening? What is my worst nightmare? What is a scenario I'm helpless in? Each question aligns with the three Ds. Your answers can be things that have actually happened to you or scenarios that you are afraid could happen. After you answer these questions, you need to write down why. Why are you afraid of that something? Why is that your worst nightmare? Why are you helpless there? Now, pause the video here and try the exercise. All right, I assume you have tried the exercise. If you were able to give an answer for all three questions, then you don't need to do anything more here. However, if you struggled to answer even one of those questions, then expressing yourself is one of your blocks. Here, this is another way that we can look at the questions. Dread is the anticipation that something bad will happen in a situation. Despair is the realization that something terrible has happened and disempowerment is the feeling that there's nothing you can do about it. If you want to write good horror, we need to know what these words mean to us in practice expressing them. Now, there is a number of reasons why people struggle with these feelings. In my society, I think there's a toxic positivity problem and we demonize these feelings. Because of that, I have found many people who either lapse into denial or they overindulge in these feelings and make victimhood their identity. Interestingly enough, people find comfort and helplessness. Well, I think it's because their idea of helplessness and disempowerment is assured. Like it feels stable and familiar. Story wise, though, that can be a tension killer. Oh, yeah. Knowing stuff like dread and how to use it in a story is one of those little goes along way kind of deals, and horrors the best place where we can indulge in that feeling. Because if we're not doing it to enjoy being a happy little saddist, then we can always do it to give us that space to let out those vulnerabilities and just be human for a little bit, you know? I disagree. Horror is not merely indulging in these feelings, it's controlling them, channeling them into something productive, owning them, and making them your means to wield. However, that comes with the need for sincerity. These exercises will only be helpful to you if you are willing to be honest and vulnerable with yourself. When done right, sincerity is one of your best strengths in writing. I'm going to give it a try myself. I avoid thinking about feeling helpless. I only ask myself such questions to provide solutions because I'm human. I am hardwired to not think about empowerment but where I can find power. I can't empathize with helplessness because I merely don't seek to. That does not mean that I've never faced it. I had let my guard down before and paid the price. The signs were there, but I lacked the experience to notice and take precaution. I'm helpless to the failures I could not find a solution to, not even today. Helpless to the disgust that's threatened to break me. Your prompt is to look over the story you have a block with and see where you are utilizing dread, despair, or disempowerment, or where you are missing them. Use what you find through the exercise to help pace your story and then tell us why are you here? 5. Self- Doubt and Possibilities: Maybe you got a block because you doubt your skills. You think you just don't got the chops to tackle fear, or maybe you're comparing yourself to other people and getting all resentful at their successes. Either way, you seem to be ready to just lie down and let her all end, huh? I find that my self doubt generally stems from a lack of agency with my story. The path is in front of me, but I can't see it, and I'm afraid to take that step forward because I don't know if I'm prepared to deal with writing myself into another dead end today. All around me are my frustrations, despairs, vulnerabilities, and doubts. This exercise, you can pick one from these tasks. One, write a two sentence horror story or short flash fiction. Two, go on a rant about an aspect that you love about horror or three, write one doubt you got when writing horror. Then write why you have that doubt and then what you could do. I recommend task one because self doubt stems from a lack of self trust. I found the best way to build up trust with myself is to do little tasks to remind myself of my strengths with writing. It also curbs over thinking, which I am prone to do with Lauren World Building. I recommend going on a rant about whatever the hell you love about horror because the best way to beat down all that hate and **** is with what we love. Remember, before a character travels into the unknown, you got to establish what's known and normal. You're just doing that for yourself. And also distracting yourself. Nothing wrong with that now and again. I recommend the last exercise because it allows you to identify your doubt and what to do about it. Human doubt is a defense mechanism, so we need to figure out if our doubts are impeding us or protecting us. Then we will figure out what to do about it. It's not so much that we lack agency so much as we lack a plan. Pause now and try the exercise. The most common doubt I've encountered with other horror writers is that they are afraid that their story isn't scary enough. They aren't sure if they are truly creating something fearful. I argue that they take on too much. I'm sure a few of you have caught on by now. Fear is not one thing. It's a complex emotion made up of many other feelings such as dread, uncertainty, and despair. Basically, maybe the problem when writing horror is that we focus on the big feeling of fear when our stories could focus on the little things that make it up instead. Having doubt is not actually terrible. It's certainly not good to drown in it, but it's not always bad. In fact, for a horror writer, doubt is one of the best tools at our disposal, especially if we're trying to write something that's more deeper or existential. To doubt is to lack belief. When we lack faith in ourselves and the world around us, that puts us in a very vulnerable position where we're unsure what is safe, unsafe, or even real. These feelings aren't fun, but it's the exact position that we want our characters to be in for our stories. And then there's the other side. When we are doubtful, we are skeptical. If we allow it, we can turn that into curiosity and that will help us to write again. Or our characters, being doubtful will make them more likely to question what's around them and urge them to descend into the mystery of your tale. They can even use doubt to protect themselves from ignorance. Doubt shows how our characters utilize their agency and perception in a story. Prompt time, use what you did for the exercise to plan out the story you got a block with. The scary short is now a guide. The rant you made is a foundation you can lean on. The doubt you wrote about and the plan you made is now the plan for your story. Everything you did for the past exercises is now a part of that plan. I don't know if you figured out what drove you here yet, but I hope the exercises and prompts you've done now can show other pathways for your writing. In fact, maybe it's not about if you know why you're really here. If you're here, wrapped up in all these frustrations, despair, vulnerabilities, and doubts, you're exactly where you need to be.