July 2015 Plotters Ink Assignment: Horror or Thriller

These two genres hardly need any explanation, given their proliferation via books, films and television shows these days. Truth is, from telling ghost stories by a campfire to watching The Walking Dead  during a storm,  most people enjoy a well-told scary tale. Are you one of them?

Some folks are easy to scare, as are most children. It's hard to scare someone if they're sure of a happy ending, that the "victims" will emerge victorious after undergoing their various trials. But this need not always be the case. More and more authors are opting for the not so happy ending. ( CJ Box 's The Highway and Danielle Trussoni's Angelology come to mind.) Some writers kill off beloved characters while the bad guys sometimes get away (Dumbledore and Lupin in Harry Potter die, while Snape and Draco Malfoy live. So not fair! Just like life.)


For the July 9 assignment, you may choose to write a HORROR story - which usually involves humans pitted against supernatural characters: witches, vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc.(True Blood...)  or you might prefer to scare us with a THRILLER, which can be about murder, espionage, war, or any kind of catastrophe. (Misery....)  In many cases, the genres overlap, as you will see if you click on the links below. No matter which one you choose, or if you choose to overlap them, the point is to build suspense and keep us guessing and of course, give us goosebumps, stand our hair on end, or cause us to scream in terror --if you can do that one one page!

That said, if you enjoy writing your thriller or horror story so much that you want to keep going, why not give us your first chapter during the meeting, and then see where the story line takes you? Who knows, you might turn your idea into a book....we can post it serially as we have been doing with the Underweb Chronicles, or you can try your hand at getting your short story /novel published.

This link just arrived on June 19 - tips that might help you build suspense: http://writerswrite.co.za/a-tense-situation-five-tips-to-help-you-write-a-gripping-read

Please do bring at least 10 copies so that we can read along with you and offer feedback afterward. Above all-as always - have fun with it!

http://www.imdb.com/genre/horror

http://www.imdb.com/genre/thriller