Horror and Modern-Day Reimaginings

Lately there have been a lot of modern-day reimaginings of famous franchises. Superhero movies such as the Nolan Batman films or Man of Steel, James Bond for the past three films, the Star Trek franchise’s prequels, the remake of the Hawaii Five-O TV series, and Doctor Who’s revived series. All of them have been rebooted for the modern era in some way or another. And why not, says movie and television producers and executives. These franchises have strong fan followings, they are mainstream, and they’ve enjoyed huge success in the past.

Horror however, has not been as lucky. Horror is not mainstream, the chances of making a success with any horror film is hit-or-miss, especially if you think it’s easy to scare people (it’s not, but that’s a post for another time), and even franchises with strong followings don’t get these sort of reboots because of the image of the horror fan is so negative (creepy teenatgers and adults in basements who like porn and playing the Peeping Tom and are just waiting for an excuse to imitate the killers on screen). Who wants to cater to that sort of audience?

And when there have been modern-day reboots, they’ve either been really bad (check out the remakes for Friday the 13th, Black Christmas, or Prom Night for examples), or they’ve been good but are often compared negatively with the original (Dawn of the Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street) or are ruined by really bad sequels (Rob Zombie’s Halloween II). As a result, there hasn’t been a lot of rebooting for horror.

Until recently that is.

Over the past couple of years, some successful horror franchises, such as Evil Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, have been rebooted with sequel/remakes taking place in modern times, and famous films such as Carrie have even been remade for the modern audience and modern world, with talks about Cujo, Gremlins and Van Helsing also getting the modern-day remake treatment also occurring (though I debate the wisdom of doing that with VH, seeing as the Hugh Jackman original was awesome).

Not only that, but with TV executives finally tapping into the horror fanbase with shows like American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, and The Following, there have been a few reboots for TV as well. During the summers, Teen Wolf acts like a modern-day Buffy the Vampire Slayer with monsters, magic, fighting, romance, and humor, and late season premieres such as Hannibal on NBC and Bates Motel on A&E have been holding steady ratings since their premieres as they bring fresh life to the legends of Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates respectively. And more is on the way, with NBC doing a Dracula reimagining for the fall and other projects based on Hellraiser and Leprechaun on the way as execs start looking to reel in the horror junkies.

Why so many modern-day reimaginings? In terms of TV shows, I think TV execs are finally becoming more comfortable with horror itself and with taking risks on shows that appeal to horror fans. And as many horror fans are watching these shows and raving or debating or criticizing them on social media websites, these same execs are finding more and more ways to appeal to these horror fans. And if that means they must remake a few famous stories and franchises, why not? As long as it does well.

As for movies, I tend to think those movies are usually remade and rebooted by fans of the original franchises who see where those who came before had gone wrong or could’ve done more to improve the overall story, so they try and fix what has been done before. For example, the TCM franchise’s sequel got bloodier and more ridiculous with each movie, so the filmmakers tried to go back to the roots of the story and start from there with TCM 3D. As for Evil Dead, those movies were unnerving even with the really bad special effects. Imagine what could happen with better SFX, said the filmmakers.

Regardless of the reasons though, I think this is a good time for these sort of remakes, and there’s plenty of material for it. Here are some suggestions I have for modern-day reimaginings:

Frankenstein–With the rate of technology these days and the amount of zombie-based works being released these days, I say it’s high-time we have a Frankenstein remake. This could work either as a movie, or better yet as a TV series that could expand beyond the original novel and go in all sorts of directions in terms of story and character development. And who says the monster has to be ugly? We could have a halfway decent-looking monster to draw in the female viewers (I’d certainly go that route).
The Phantom of the Opera–I’m not talking about the musical, but the original novel. The story itself, which I read in high school, hints at several hidden, magical creatures and beings living with the Phantom underneath the Paris opera house. Imagine a drama set around the Phantom and the other inhabitants of the opera house trying to interact with the opera house. And imagine if it was set in modern times, when we are so sure of science conquering over the mysterious and superstitious. Sounds like fun, right?
Labyrinth–How many of you remember the 80′s Muppet-filled musical-comedy starring David Bowie as the goblin king? Imagine if it was remade as a serious story with CGI and animatronics and no musical numbers. That could work very well, especially if we delved more into Jareth’s history and his motivations and showed the goblin’s darker sides.
Tale of the Body Thief–Anne Rice’s fourth book in the Vampire Chronicles was recently optioned for a movie, but the movie never materialized due to differences between the movie studios involved. I wouldn’t mind seeing that movie made. Would you?
Willard–This famous 1971 film about killer rats spawned quite the legacy, including the sequel Ben and its famous theme song by Michael Jackson, several films about killer animals (including Jaws), and a 2003 remake. Imagine what would happen if that movie could be remade today?

Whatever the future holds, I hope it has some pretty good reimaginings of famous works, and plenty of people willing to make and to watch them.

What would you like to see remade and set in the modern world?

Family And Ideas

The second post I wish to finish tonight (assuming SNL doesn’t distract me too much) was inspired by both my dad and my friend and author Pat Bertram (you can read her blog here). I was talking to my father earlier this evening and we had an interesting conversation. He walked into the living room while I was sprawled out on the couch reading a graphic novel and told me he still had his mother’s phone number, the number belonging to my Savta, may her memory be blessed, in his phone even though she died several years ago.

(Savta, for those of you who don’t know, is Hebrew for “grandmother”, and is what I called my paternal grandmother from the time I was young.)

At first I thought he was going to ask me for advice about whether or not to erase the number. But then he asked me what would happen if he called that number…and Savta actually picked up the phone.

I grasped the idea pretty quickly that my father, ever supportive of my dream to become a horror writer, was trying to give me an idea for a short story. I also figured out pretty quickly that my dad had given me an excellent idea for a short story…but Stephen King had already done a similar idea. Well, when I told my dad that, he looked a little disappointed, to the point of crestfallen. I wasn’t sure if he was sad that King had gotten there first or that I had rejected his idea for a short story. Whatever the case though, I tried to let him know I wasn’t rejecting his idea or that it was useless. On the contrary, even if I couldn’t write a story based entirely off of that idea, it was likely to appear in a short story or a novel of mine someday. The idea of the dead picking up the phone would probably swim around in my subconscious for a while before finding itself in a story I could actually use. In fact as I was talking about it, I realized there was a story that the dead calling would work perfectly in and told him so.

Of course, being me I told him in a way like this: “Oh, that could go in that story…yeah, definitely there…uh-huh…definitely could work there.” That and the hand motions I used probably confused my dad and made him want to move the conversation in another direction. But even if I can’t use his idea for a short story, it’ll still probably appear somewhere else, and that would mean my dad contributed something to my creative process.

My friend Pat Bertram recently did a post where she remarked how some writers will give up time with their families to devote to their writing, and how she advised doing the exact opposite of that. Speaking from personal experience, Pat said that she found every moment she spent with her late husband important and stimulating and a boost to her writing (and I am so sorry if I am misquoting you in any way, shape, or form Pat).

It’s moments like the one illustrated above that makes me agree with Pat. Family and friends, whether or not they drive you up the wall, are important and you should spend as much time as you can with them. Because when you make it as a writer, you want these people to be behind you and support you. And in cases like this, they really give you some awesome ideas to incorporate into your work.

Many Ideas On My Mind

This is the first of two posts I plan to write this evening. This one was inspired by my younger sister, who asked me how many stories I’d thought about in my head yesterday as I was helping prepare dinner. Now I’ve mentioned my Ideas list on this blog before, a document on my flash drive that contains a little over fifty different ideas for novels, movies, TV shows, mangas, and even a video game. I keep this list because my memory is amazing on some things but remarkably poor on others (but doesn’t everyone have that problem?). However at various times throughout each day I’m thinking about one or more of these stories and trying to work out various plot points and scenes, even if I won’t write these stories for a long while.

I answered my sister truthfully, “About three or four.” One of them was my science fiction novel Reborn City, which is in its final draft and less than ten chapters away from completion (thank you, Matthew Williams, for your diligence on this project). The other, my thriller Snake, is in the middle of its third draft, and when I had the chance yesterday, I was able to edit a few more chapters. The other two was a possible novel about an assassin with multiple personalities, and a story influenced partially by Sleeping Beauty (by the way, I call stories I write based off of fairy tales and other well-known stories, of which I have many ideas for, ”Fractured Fairy Tales Untold”. Catchy title. A prize goes to the first person who gets where I got the title for this category from).

Anyway, my sister’s latest dream of what she’ll do when she’s an adult is to write, though I think she’s more into fantasy and I’m not sure how deep her devotion is or if this is just one of those passing fancies all kids seem to go through, even during the teen years. She claims she has twenty ideas going through her head each day, which I take to be exaggeration and possibly the hubris all starting writers have when they find they can string a few sentences together to make the bare bones of a story. But the conversation got me thinking, and I’ve been wanting to write this post since then, because there are a lot of writers out there who have a ton of ideas running through their heads and I think it’s a good topic to explore.

Every writer wants to be known for something they’ve written. Some have just the one work and want that to be well known, while others want to be prolific and have lots of famous stories. I think the former dream of just publishing their manuscript, while the latter dream of being the next Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway or Ezra Pound. I also believe the latter tend to have many different ideas brewing at any one time in their head. After all, if they want to be known for a large body of work, they have to have a lot of it in their heads already, right? These authors are always working on something, and they often spend great amounts of time just working on a story, whether by writing or by daydreaming. Not to mention, they also have new ideas coming into their heads, so when they do get a new idea they may spend hours, days, weeks, months, or sometimes years plotting and planning before they start to write it.

Of course, with so much in their head, it’s doubtful they’ll run out of ideas at any point. Or more precisely, it’s in doubt that they’ll finish even a tenth of all the work they’d like to do. I personally view this to my advantage, as it means that I’ll have multiple objects every time I start a new project. Should I start the next volume of a series? Should I work on a new series? How about a stand-alone? Which one? A Fractured Fairy Tale Untold? A psychological thriller? Something with the potential of a sequel should it do well? A science fiction novel with thought-provoking social themes? The options are endless!

Other writers may not have the same view of having many ideas as I do. They may think its better just to focus on the one idea, or perhaps they try to write as much as possible so they can get as much out as they can while they’re still breathing. Or, if your name is James Patterson and you have tons of money on hand, you hire co-writers to work with you so you can get out nine books a year (yes, I’m still a little sore over this, though I thought Alex Cross, Run was one of the better books in the series lately). It’s different for every author.

But like I said, I like having multiple ideas to focus on at any one time. It gives me something to do, and I think as time goes on, like wine, these stories get better with age. And even if I don’t write everything on that Ideas list, even if every manga isn’t serialized, every movie made or every TV show has a pilot filmed, I can still say that I gave it my all while I was writing and that’s enough for me.

Do you have multiple ideas in your noggin? What’s your view on having all these ideas?

The New Fad: Witches

“Film is powerful and powerful is film. Hover on the TV and silver screen. Mwha ha ha ha!”

We’ve had the vampires, cool, collected, tortured, ferocious and merciless while elegant and noble. With so many Twilight knock-offs, they’re out the door, though a few want to stick around.

Ladies and gentlemen, possibly the new face of supernatural fiction, played by Sheri Moon Zombie (Rob Zombie often includes his wife in his work. I bet it does wonders for their marriage).

We have zombies at the moment, metaphors for the numbing effects of society on man and creepy cannibals without brains (fast or slow depends on which adaptation you’re watching/reading). Not sure if this fad is peaked yet, but I think you could make an argument for affirmative and negative on this.

And werewolves, with Teen Wolf and The Wolf Gift rocking critics and bringing in the money, might still get their own fad (I’m hopeful they will, anyway). And why not? They can go from calm, human, and even meek to large, ferocious, and virile in a space of seconds and then back again. There’s something magnetic about that.

However quickly beating the werewolves to the popularity stage and joining the zombies are some ladies I didn’t see coming: witches. Double double, boil and trouble.

With Oz, The Great and Powerful making millions at the box office, a reboot of Sleeping Beauty based around Maleficent by Disney coming out next year, the Rob Zombie movie Lords of Salem starring his brilliant wife Sheri Moon Zombie coming out this coming this weekend, plus a whole slew of other works that I can’t list here and more that I don’t even know about, it’s safe to say that witches are getting their own turn in the supernatural spotlight.

Why witches? it can’t be the Harry Potter fandom looking for something to keep them occupied now that there are no more books or movies, is it? I seriously doubt it. In fact, I think it’s the idea of a woman taking power and fighting back against the cruel world with a tool all her own. Witches–or Wiccans, as they were first called–were seen as mediators between the physical world and and the spiritual worlds, making them objects of both admiration and fear. With the later demonisation of Wiccans, witches gained an official position of being for good or evil. And in the past hundred years, witches have taken a center status in the scale of good and evil, with the evil including the Evil Queen, The Wicked Witch of the West, and Maleficent, while the good include Glinda, Hermione, and Willow Rosenberg (that’s a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference if you didn’t get it).

Until now, portrayals of witches has been somewhat sporadic. But I think now, with the women’s rights movement gaining a new prominence in our world and women showing men that yes, they can do many of the same things that men can do and sometimes even better, studios and authors are using witches to portray women in roles of leadership and power and able to do things that some say only men should do, including saving the free world, and are not usually desperate for love, though they don’t mind companionship in their lives. It’s a stunning archetype compared to women in zombie or vampire films, who are often damsels in need of saving and often only become warriors after a lot of prodding and are constantly looking for love.

I’m looking forward to seeing more of this in the future.

So what can we expect? Perhaps a resurgence in older works centering around witches, like The Wizard of Oz and perhaps Anne Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Wtiches trilogy. There might be a wave of magic-centric books with female protagonists (I know I’ve got one tucked away that I might pull out one of these days), plus movies and TV shows that remind us of Once Upon a Time while they try to be better than that show. And of course, as with vampires and zombies, there will be the detractors and parodies that always acoompany fads in fiction with this.

It’ll be interesting to see what materializes in the next couple of years if this fad takes hold, won’t it?

And as for my own stories about witches (and there are a couple, though only one features a magic that can be used only by women under normal circumstances), I’ll probably wait for a while. I don’t like to follow fads in fiction, which is why I haven’t written a zombie novel yet or released my previous vampire novel (which I’ll rewrite at some point in the future, I’m sure). But hey, look on the bright side: when I do write these stories, you won’t have to worry about my stories being the same as everyone else’s.

Do you think witches will be the new zombies or vampires? How do you feel about that?

Comedy Might Help Me

I’ve seen two comedians live at Ohio State these past two weeks, plus one episode of Saturday Night Live. One of those comics was Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. When he came to Ohio State, he talked about how he put the former of those two books in the humor section. Why? Because people will think it was funny, but as they start reading it, they’ll realize it’s a serious guide to suriving zombies and what not to do during a zombie apocalypse, even if it seems obvious. And he did it all by presenting his work as a stand-up comedy show.

Max Brooks uses comedy to get works about us sold. How weird is that?

People tell me I’m a funny guy.

Or that sometimes I tell good jokes.

Okay, they tell me I can tell a good joke every now and then.

Occasionally.

Once in a blue moon.

The point is, I’ve seen enough stand-up comedy to know how to do it myself. Occasionally I’ve even done my act in front of friends and fellow dorm residents. Usually I get some laughs, and that encourages me. In fact, last night I invited a few friends to my room and put on a show for them based on my own angry sarcasm and my experiences writing horror and how troublesome selling indie horror can be.

Did they laugh? Yes! They laughed, and offered me some good advice that I proceeded to act upon. The result: plenty of laughs.

Could this be the key to selling my work? Through laughter.

So I’m thinking, if I can’t use the horror persona of a creepy but brilliant writer to sell my work, why not be a disgruntled comedian on a stage? It could work.

So this summer I’ll practice, and then I’ll take the stage. Maybe I’ll even get a few laughs and some sales, especially if I use YouTube. One can hope, at the very least.

What do you think? Do you think comedy can help me with my writing?

Happy Birthday to the true home of the Jewish people. May you last for ages to come.

Oh, and before I forget…Happy Israeli Independence Day. The State of Israel was founded 65 years ago today, becoming a beacon of hope for Jews everywhere. It is also one fo the most prosperous, green, technologically advanced and democratic nations in the Middle East (and in Israel, you can say otherwise without getting jailed for it) and I hope it lasts for another 65 years or longer. Happy Birthday, Israel. You’re doing great these days.

The Black Dragon Award

I know what you’re thinking: He got another award? But that’s not the case. You see, I made up my own award! I thought it’d be interesting if I created my own Internet meme and saw how far I went. Hence, the Black Dragon Award, an award for any author who has written any form of fiction that’s got something scary in it.

So here are the rules for the Black Dragon Award:

1. You must have written something scary or featuring something scary in the past year. (This can range from being a simple murder mystery to a full-on zombie novel with a wizard and serial killers mixed in for variety). Note that whatever work you’ve created will be the subject of several of the questions below.

2. You must thank the person who nominated you and then link back to their  blog.

3. You must answer the 10 questions below on your own blog post.

4. Finally, you must nominate at least 5 other authors for the award and then notify them of it.

Okay, time for the questions. Enjoy:

1. What is the premise of the novel you’ve written? My novel Snake, which I spent half of 2012 writing, is about a serial killer hunting down members of a certain Mafia family in New York. Why is he doing this is for the reader to discover as they read. It’s pretty scary.

2. How long did it take you to write it? I spent six months from June to December 2012 working on Snake. It was a lot of fun, but I’m still on the editing phase, and that can be a pain in the ass sometimes. I’m about to start on the third draft (God help me) and I’m going to be adding a lot of material for character history and character development. It’s going to be hard work.

3. Which character(s) are you most like? I think I’m most like the Snake (he’s somewhat based on me, after all). But at times I wish I was like the female lead, Allison. She’s a tough girl, but she’s got her nice side to her. I can’t help but fall for her.

4. What’s the scariest thing you’ve read/seen lately? Honestly, it was that ghost I saw the other night. That was freaky! I wish I could show what I saw to the Ghost Adventures crew.

5. What’s something you’re reluctant to write about? I’m not sure. Perhaps rape scenes. Those are tough, and they really touch a chord that even veteran writers don’t want to touch. If I ever do write a rape scene though, it’ll probably be for the purpose of showing the horrors of rape and the attitudes around it.

6. If you could take characters from other works and insert them into an original story of your own design, who would you take and what would you have them do? I’d like to take Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Jason Voorhees and have them become reluctant allies. I’d probably kill off Clarice Starling early, though (I prefer Will Graham to Clarice Starling). Hey, that’d be the impetus for the events of the story. Jason could fall in love with Starling, and when she dies, Lecter and Jason could go on a revenge-fueled killing spree. That’d be interesting…and fun to write.

7. Do you envision a sequel to your novel? I’d like to write a sequel for Snake, but not for a long while. I like to take breaks when I’m working on a series, put some time between each book in the series. It’s good for my noggin that way.

8. What first got you into writing? And what got you writing scary subject matter? I think Harry Potter got me into writing, but it was Stephen King and Anne Rice who got me into writing scary stuff. I think my mother was happy that I loved those writers so much (we read a lot of the same things) but I think my dad was (and still is) probably worried about some of the subjects I write about.

9. What scares you personally? Spiders. Not the tiny ones, but the ones where you can make out the details on their faces. Close-ups of spider faces I saw back in 4th grade gave me nightmares for ages.

10. What are your future plans? Finish editing Snake, release my collection of short stories The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, and also finish editing and release Reborn City. After that, I’d like to work on RC‘s sequel, if you don’t mind.

Okay, and now for the nominees:

1. Stories by Williams.

2. A Portia Adams adventure

3. nightmirrors

4. Pat Bertram’s Blog

5. self-publish bible

Let’s hope this award takes off–with your help, anyway. Congratulations to the winners and good luck with your own posts.

Snake: A Third Draft Is Needed

I had a bit of a revelation last night, but I haven’t been able to share it until now. So without further ado, here’s my revelation:

Last night I was watching the second episode of the new TV series Hannibal, which for those of you who don’t know is a prequel to the Hannibal Lecter novel Red Dragon. As I watching it I was seeing all these little things they were doing to develop the characters that the author of Red Dragon, Thomas Harris, hadn’t done when he originally wrote the novel. It struck me then that I had committed a grevious error in my own serial killer thriller, Snake: I hadn’t gone into any sort of character development whatsoever.

I hadn’t gone into the pasts of any of the characters, only focusing on the events of the story and what immediately precipitated those events. I had not gone into any detail on why the Snake was so twisted, why the female lead was so defiant and spunky, why the villain was who he was, none of that! I’d left it all up to the imaginati0n of the reader, but now I realize that might’ve been a mistake. I mean, the reasons why we emotionally invest in characters is that we want to know them, not just what they do in a story.

So I’m going to go over the manuscript one more time and see where I can add in more character development. Perhaps then I know it’ll be ready for publication. Heck, my beta reader’s on board with it, so why not?

I’ll let you know how things go after the third draft is done. Hopefully it’ll all go well.

My First Writing Experiences: A Trip Down Memory Lane

I woke up yesterday morning and was filled with memories of some of my old attempts at writing, the first fiction stories I ever wrote, and how they shaped and defined me over the years, and how I got to this point in my writing.. I wanted to write a post about them, but with all that was going on yesterday, I didn’t have the time. Well, better now than never, right?

The first time I tried to write anything, I must’ve been five or six, eight at the most. I had just seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the first time and then read the book, which was infinitely better. My mind was blown, and I could only think to myself, “I want to write something like that”. So I did, creating a similar story to HP1 except with the genders of the characters switched (even then, I had a thing for strong female leads, I guess). I called this obvious copyright violation Amanda Robinson, I gave her a cat instead of an owl, and I planned that the cat was a prince in cat form who would be my main character’s love interest at the end of the book, but beyond that same basic plot as HP1. I didn’t finish this work, either because I had the good sense to stop before I got sued or because at that point in my life I couldn’t keep my focus on any one project for very long. But it did spark my interest in writing, which only grew as time went by.

My next major project was a pirate adventure story called Bane Nycroft and the Maelstrom Pirates (I’m not sure if this one was inspired in any way by Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s a possibility). That story featured a lycanthropic teenage pirate with a stolen Navy ship, leading a band of fellow orphans on the high seas and stealing from rich government banks and fighting monsters and demons. Along the way the pirate picks up a rebellious princess and they discover an island where all sorts of strange and magical creatures reside, and eventually they take on a prince who’s actually a demon in disguise. This one went through several rewrites, each rewrite growing more supernatural as time went by. Eventually I lost interest, but more than Amanda Robinson, Bane Nycroft gave me a taste of what professional fiction writing was like.

After that came the Davis trilogy, a couple of vampire novels that were inspired by the movie Van Helsing. In those novels, which fused a lot of the Buffy mythology to Van Helsing and my own twisted imagination, a teenager commits suicide after seeing his crush with her boyfriend. The teenager makes a deal with the Devil to become a vampire and take over the world and make the girl his vampiric bride. The girl, on her way to becoming a vampire, must band with her boyfriend, her older brother, and her best friend, who happens to be a witch, to stop this horrible vampire from turning the world into permanent darkness. I actually got to the third book with this one, but at that time the slow realization that nobody would want to publish such a confusing story that ripped off so many works came over me. Plus as I got further along the story got more and more sexualized, which sort of corresponded with where I was at that point in my teenage years.

I wasn’t entirely finished with the vampire mythology though, and almost immediately afterward I began work on Mahiro, which in my opinion had the first inklings of the style of writing I have today. In it a teenage boy travels to an alternate universe inhabited by vampires. While there, he is found by Mahiro, the queen of vampires, who takes a liking to him and turns him into a vampire. But before she can finish the ritual and take his soul, he escapes and finds the human resistance, where he assembles a team of crack fighters to help him take on Mahiro and perhaps find a cure for vampirism. At the same time, he must deal with a romantic triangle, being drawn both to his girlfriend, whom he left on the other side of a dimensional portal, and an equipment tech with some terrific sharp-shooting skills. It was promising, but at that point Twilight was hugely popular and was gaining more fans everyday. As a consequence the number of vampire books out there was astronomical, and I didn’t want to compete with that. With that in mind, I shelved Mahiro until a time I could bring out the characters again and rewrite the story. Until then, no vampires for me.

There was also a poorly-researched caveman story and a Frankenstein-esque horror story I wrote in between Bane Nycroft and the Davis trilogy, plus some attempts at zombie literature. Other than that, those were the main works that preceded the creation of Reborn City, which I’ve stuck with up until now and I’m happy to say will be published as soon as the beta reading period is over, I can create a cover, format the whole darn thing, and get a copyright.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot. My writing style’s changed drastically since I started writing fiction, and I’ve incorporated new elements to my work with every author I’ve read and every experience I’ve gone through. I wonder what the kid who sat in front of the old Windows 97 computer hen-pecking out a Harry Potter rip-off would say if he saw me now and what my writing’s like (probably “Why aren’t you living in a mansion yet?”). I hope to continue to grow in my writing and to create awesome and scary works. And perhaps, unlike my previous work, the characters will be college students or even full adults instead of teenagers. That’d be a break from the past!

The Importance of Build-Up And Mystery

What is in that fog? Something wicked this way comes.

I’ve often used this blog to rail against horror movies where filmmakers have spent a ton of money on CGI and making a top-notch movie, and yet the most exciting aspect of the movie is the trailer. I’ve even done lists of what you should and shouldn’t do when making a horror movie (for that post, please refer here: http://ramiungarthewriter.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/what-not-to-do-when-making-a-horror-movie/). Now I think I’ve identified two more factors in horror films that could separate a good scare from a boring waste of $6.50. Those factors are build-up and mystery.

For the first one, I’d like to call attention to the beter films in the Friday the 13th franchise versus the remake, the latter of hich I never get tired of ripping for how really bad it was. In the better films, the filmmakers had a way with building suspense that terrified audiences and made them want more at the same time. The best way to illustrate this technique, if you ask me (and I’m assuming you are, you’re reading this blog post after all), is through stream-of-consciousness from the POV of a moviegoer:

“Oh, she’s going out to that shed. Will Jason kill her there? She’s in and the light’s on. She bends over–I can’t see what’s behind her! Oh, Jason’s not there. Good. Oh, she’s bending over again! I can’t see behind her! Oh, Jason’s not there. Oh, how many lightbulbs does she need? Oh, Jason’s still not there. Okay, she’s heading back to the house. Will Jason get her now? Opening the door…OMG! What was that? Oh, it was just the cat. God, I feel as silly as the actress in that close-up–OMG there’s a machete poking out her front! She’s being lifted up! Yikes it’s Jason! AAAH!”

Somedays his writers do great with him. Other days…you know. All depends on how the suspense is added to the story.

You see there? Through visual dynamics and waiting until the least expected moment, they get the tension really high, make us think that we’ve seen everything to get scared of, and then WHAM! They scare us when we least expect it. In the better Friday the 13th films, this technique would scare the bejeezus out of people, and made the films famous and box-office smashes. Now contrast this with the reaction of me when I watched the remake:

“Okay, the naked chick with the bump on the head is hidden under the dock on the bad side of the lake. Jason’s probably seen her. She’s so dead. He’s on the dock. She’s looking up like he might get her. He steps away from her. Machete through the roof of her head! We see her bare breasts. She’s dead and in the water. Wow, so scary. NOT!”

No surprises in that film. We knew when a character was going to die, and there was no build-up of suspense to make us terrified. There was a reason that fans and critics hated that film. The only reason it did well was because people went hoping that the reviews were just by people who were overly critical and hard to please.

This is why it’s important to get a feel for building suspense like in the better of the Friday the 13th films. it makes the movies that much better, and if you’re really good at it you can keep it going throughout an entire film and even afterwards without letting the suspense and terror abate. And if you do become good at it, you can hopefully become someone in the horror movie industry.

Another aspect of making horor movies that can make a horror movie great is mystery. To illustrate that, I’d like to use The Amityville Horror and its remake (I love showing how bad remakes can be. Maybe people will learn something from it). In the original Amityville Horror, we never get a sense of what exactly is haunting the house. We see flies and hear masculine voices shouting “GET OUT” at priests. Things move on their own, and anyone of a religious nature gets horribly sick near the house. We know the little girl is playing with an imaginary friend named Jodie, who somehow locks the babysitter in a closet (that’s scary as it is), and there’s a room painted red under the basement stairs that causes the very-spiritual family friend to go into hysterics and scream “It’s the gateway to hell!” Later, the male lead sees a pig with glowing eyes in the window, which we assume tells him to kill his family, and later the same guy falls through the stairs into the hidden room and falls through the floor of that into a pit of blood.

Beware this room: its darkness is only rivaled by so little we know about it.

But do we really understand what’s haunting the house? NO! We know that the murder of the preivious residents of the house were killed by their crazy son, but we’re not sure if they’re causing the haunting or if they’re just one small piece of the puzzle. We also hear something of a satanic preacher living on that land many years ago, but it’s not assumed that he’s behind it in any way. At the end of the movie, we’re left thinking: “Oh mygod, I’m so scared! What was with that house? What was in it? And where did all that blood come from? And the pig in the window…what the f*** was with the pig in the window!” You see how awesome the amount of mystery in that movie makes it?

Contrast that with the remake, which is utilizing the whole mythology from all the films based on The Amityville Horror. Right away, we’re made very aware of what’s causing everything. Messages through TV, little ghost girls that manifest themselves in front of everyone and are held by mysterious arms against the ceiling. Messages in blood on the mirror…need I go on? There’s no mystery, except for a supposed-to-be startling revelation about the satanic preacher. At the end, we understand too well what’s causing the haunting, and we’re left very not scared. The mystery of the first film made it awesome, while the lack of mystery stripped the second film of any scariness.

At least that’s what’s happening with this film.

Is that all that is needed to make a scary film? Heck no! A lot goes into scaring anyone with anything, be it a story, a movie, or even a silly prank for Halloween or April Fool’s Day (I speak from personal experience on all but one of these). But these two factors–a build-up of suspense and an air of ever-present mystery–can create a terrifying experience that leaves those doing the experiencing chilled for the rest of the night. So keep these factors in mind when creating your own story (and it doesn’t necessarily need to be a scary story). You might end up creating a wonderful work of art that’ll be remade in thirty years by a high-powered team of filmmakers and debated about by fans in chat rooms for years to come.

A Summary of My Twisted Imagination

This morning I woke up with a memory and an idea: I remembered one time I let a friend of mine, whom I knew would not steal any of my ideas, look at the list of ideas for novels and other assorted creative endeavors. This was midway through high school and I’d probably just started the first draft of Reborn City. He sent it back to me with one note: Interesting.  A lot of ideas using magic here.

That was several years ago, like I said, and that Ideas List couldn’t have had more than 15 ideas on it at the time. Now it’s at 51 ideas and counting, and I thought I’d take inventory again. I went over the ideas, and I found some interesting numbers here. I share them with you now because they give insight into not only the sort of stories I like to write and create, but also gives an idea of who I am, and what my imagination gives birth to.

I’ll list these ideas, occasionally giving some information on why I gave these stats, and then I’ll tell you what I think of all these sorts of story ideas. You’re welcome to draw your own conclusions as well and tell me what you think. Also, please excuse the randomness of some of these stats. I listed them as they came to me. Also be aware that several of these ideas cross over with each other in terms of elements, such as serial killers crossing over with demons, science gone wrong featuring monsters, and so on and so forth.

Number of stories dealing with the supernatural: 29
–Number with ghosts: 6
–Number with monsters/demons: 26
–Number with magic: 24
–Number featuring God(s): 9

Trust me, plenty of stories featuring this sort of creepy stuff.

Number of science fiction stories: 9
–Number with science gone wrong as the main theme/driving force: 7

Number of crime/thriller stories: 17

Number featuring human antagonists: 33
–Number featuring serial killers/rapists/etc.: 25

Number of stories with strong female protagonists: 25

Number of ideas that aren’t for novels: 13
–Number of films: 3
–Number of TV shows: 2
–Number of comic books/mangas: 7
–Number of video games: 1

Number of ideas that are suitable for younger audiences: 1

As I said, I’d provide a little feedback on some of the numbers listed above. The first I’d like to draw your attention to is that most of my science-fiction ideas feature science gone wrong. Why? Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that I sometimes wonder that our society, which is getting more technologically dependent with every passing day is going to find itself in a lot of trouble because of how much we rely on our technology. Although none of these stories feature Terminator-like elements, where the tech actually rises up to get us, I do think the stories do illustrate just how dangerous technology can be if we let it be the center of our existences, and shows just how paranoid I am about that happening. It may also explain why I always wait to try out new technology and social media until everybody else is using it. Makes it safer, I guess, at least in my strange mind.

Also, why did I emphasize stories with strong female protagonists? Because even in the year 2013, there are many novels/TV shows/movies/whatever where the female characters just fill a postition, often times to draw in male readers. And there are plenty of times when the female characters could be replaced by male characters and there wouldn’t be much change to the overall story. Imagine for one second that Hermione Granger from Harry Potter was a boy. How much would it change? The Ron/Hermione subplot would be taken out, but beyond that, there’d still be a smarty-pants character helping Harry figure out important stuff that’ll save his life later. Perhaps the readership, particularly the female readership, would be less, but it might still be a popular story.

Imagine how different this story would be if Katniss were a normal girl or if she were even a bad-ass boy? Not too fun to think about, is it?

So I write a lot of stories where female protagonists are like Katniss Everdeen: they’re indispensable to the plot. Change their gender or make them more meek or in a more traditional role, and you have by far a much less interesting story. Katniss is so popular not because she has two dreamy guys after her affections, but because she’s a kick-ass female with sharp-shooting skills and the determination to fight against a very corrupt system. All without showing off her boobs and butt as well. She’s something female readers want to be, and something male readers can fall for because of how different she is. So many of my female characters become like that, indispensable and not allowed to change or they would change the story for the worse.

By the way, I think that part of me that likes those characters might be due to my childhood, where I had a lot of women and girls around me all the time and where I had a lot of strong female role models in my life, including but not limited to my mother. In addition, a lot of the shows I watched when I was younger involved strong female main characters, most notably Sailor Moon (not afraid to put that out there, by the way). It’s no wonder i have so many strong female characters.

And finally, there’s the fact that one of my ideas is suitable for children. Unusual for a horror writer, right? But I recently discovered some of the old cartoons I used to watch when I was younger, and one of them I relly enjoyed watching again. I hope someday to reboot that as a movie, if I should ever have the money, power and influence to be able to do that. So I list it there, with the hope that I can someday be able to create a fun little movie reboot with jokes for both kids and adults and a plot that’ll draw in any viewer.

I sometimes think my subconscious looks a little something like this. Eerie to behold, right?

So what does all this say about me? Well, without the actual list it’s difficult to pull up any sort of psychological profile about me. But I think it does give you an idea of what sort of stories I’ll put out in the future, and what you can expect from some of them. So either you are either very psyched to read my work or you’ll never pick up a Rami Ungar book as long as you live. Either way, it gives you some idea of who I am and what I like to write. And I think that’s what I want people to get from this post.

Got any questions? Feel free to ask, and I’ll make up an answer as best I can.