Short Horror Fiction

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I subscribe to the Flametree newsletter. For those that don’t know what it is, Flametree is a publishing house that publishes horror fiction, as well as sci-fi, fantasy, crime and even colouring books! But they also have this awesome newsletter. (You can sign up here.)

The newsletter contains 2 x 1000 word flash fiction stories every month, sent in by subscribers. Each newsletter a theme is chosen and then you’re given a few weeks to write something for that and send it in (submission guidelines here) You also get advanced notification of submission windows for future anthologies, books they’ve got coming out, offers and updates. It’s a cool newsletter and I’ve been subscribed to it for ages and even had a story published in it.

But here’s the best bit – if your story is chosen, you GET PAID.

Actual financial recognition for your work, as well as a large list of potential new readers of your work to get your name out there.

Recently, Flametree sent out their newsletter and there was a call for horror fiction with the theme of DEAD MAN’S WISH.

I figured I could do something for that. I had the time, I’d just sent in a load of revisions to my editor and my slate was clean for a few days.

My first thought process for Dead Man’s Wish initially made me think of Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman from Pirates of the Caribbean. I wondered if I could do something like that? But the idea went nowhere and so I tried to think of other things.

I came up with an idea for the town of Deadman, somewhere in the old Wild West and that there’d be a saloon in Deadman called Deadman’s Wish. I played around with the idea that the main residents of this saloon, the proprietress, the barman, the piano guy, would all be demons and how they’d lure souls. I wrote a couple of pages of notes, but couldn’t think of what the end would be, but figured I’d try to write my way into it, so I started writing.

There is a limit of 1000 words (and no less than 700 words) and I wrote exactly 796, before my fingers stopped moving and just hovered over the keyboard, because I still had no idea what the denouement would be. What the twist might be.

I figured I’d come back to it another day. Sleep on it.

But that didn’t work. I kept opening that document and nothing was happening. My brain had shut down and I began to think that maybe that story was a no-goer?

So I did what I always do when I get stuck and I took my dog for a walk and listened to a writing podcast (No Write Way by VE Schwab, if you’re interested.

And something was said in that podcast. An aside, a joke and I felt a lightbulb go off in my head and I knew how to write a Dead Man’s Wish story that had nothing to do with the Wild West, or a saloon, or a secret demon piano player.

This was something different. A body horror story. Where the aside from the podcast merged in my head with a medical fact that I knew and it was like alchemy! I had that Eureka moment! And I came home and without writing any notes (because I’d already plotted out what I wanted to happen in the story during the dogwalk) I began writing.

I wrote. I tweaked. I left it to sit. I tweaked some more until I was happy with it and then I submitted it.

I won’t know for a few weeks if it has placed. It might not get anywhere, but the story is good, I think and if it’s not successful with Flametree, then I will be able to shop it around to other places.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Nic x

Thoughts on my writing

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Had a brief thought as I began to start scribbling on my horror novel as to why it feels so wrong and so strange.

1. Could it be that it feels wrong because I’m so used to writing in the romance genre?

2. Could it be wrong because it’s simply the wrong place to start the story?

3. Could it feel wrong because I’m so hypercritical and perfectionist?

4. Could it feel wrong simply because I’m writing the wrong genre?

I go through this every time I try to start something new. So let’s look at each “fault” and try to work our way through to the other side.

1. Could it be so wrong because I’m used to writing in the romance genre?

Hmm. Possibly. I’ve written 33 traditionally published romances at this point. I know what I’m doing with those. I write in deep person third POV and I write from either the hero’s POV or the heroine’s. So when I start a horror story, I don’t usually have that and so it feels strange. Uncomfortable. Like trying on a pair of shoes that don’t fit and I’m trying to squeeze my fat toes into them. Trying to force a fit. Romance is comfortable for me at this point and horror is not.

2. Could it be wrong because it’s simply the wrong place to start the story?

Possibly. And I know logically that it doesn’t matter how it starts, because if I ever get to the end, I can go back and rewrite the start. Or realise that the true start isn’t until three paragraphs later. Or I’ll think of a better start, because once I’ve written the end, I can reverse engineer the start, or realise what extra is needed at the start to make the ending so great.

3. Could it feel wrong because I’m so hypercritical and perfectionist?

Oh my gosh, yes. One hundred percent, yes. There is no-one more critical of my work than me. I absolutely believe that I must be able to write perfectly during the first draft, because that’s how my brain works and anything short of perfect is no good at all, so guess how I feel about my work most of the time?

4. Could it feel wrong simply because I’m writing the wrong genre?

This is what I torture myself with as well. Because when the horror storytelling lacks in perfectionism, I absolutely tell myself that I’d be better off writing dark fantasy. Or crime. Or cosy mystery, or any other genre than the one that I’m drawn to.

So, as you can see, I don’t make this easy on myself. I tried to start on the story today. I managed 220 words before the doubt crept in. That’s early. Normally I get to at least a 1000 words before I begin to worry about the words being the biggest load of stinking pus that the world has ever seen.

So, yeah. Go me.

Do I go back to the storyline and tweak it?

Or, do I plough on regardless?

Answers on a postcard, please. Or, you know, in the comments section.

Ta muchly.

Goals for 2024

I know. I’m behind. But this year got off to a shaky start, so … I’m playing catch-up.

So, let’s get straight to the biz.

Goals.

Write the first draft of a horror novel by the end of December, at about 90k wordage. (It’s important when setting goals to be specific. Here I have set myself a clearly defined task, given myself a timeline and a wordcount)

Write at least two short horror stories and enter them for competitions and/or magazines. (So, shorter work, but I haven’t specified word count here, simply because various magazines and competitions have different requirements and until I discover the market I am looking at, I can’t know the final wordcount figure until closer to the time.)

That’s it. Boom. Thank you for your time and goodbye.

Joking.

I’ve deliberately kept the goals short and sweet. No point in giving myself a long list of ambitious targets, because I know myself, plus, my recent diagnosis of ADHD has helped me realise why I’ve so often failed before and it’s because I give myself too much to do, thinking my brain thrives on having a gazillion tabs open all at once, but apparently that doesn’t at all. It just gives me overwhelm and I shut down. Deep down, I always knew this, but I so wanted to be one of those productive people, who uses their time perfectly and never has a single wasted minute.

Now I can laugh at that and realise it’s just not me. Accepting who I am and my own personal limitations has been a task in and of itself.

So. Yeah. Writing on Scrivener for those that want the deets. 12 pt font, probably Times New Roman. I set myself fifteen minute timers (anything longer than that and my attention wanes considerably), then when the alarm goes off I stop for five minutes. Get up. Stretch. Grab a cup of tea. Doomscroll through TikTok for a minute or two and then I set the timer again. And again. And again, until I feel done for the day.

So far, I’m working on notes. Ideas. Anything that I consider that could be in the story gets thrown into the melting pot. When I’m done, I’ll consider what to keep. What to deepen. What to throw away. Make sure that I have a well considered synopsis/plotline, otherwise I just know I’ll screech to a halt after about chapter three and freeze with overwhelm and start something new, which leads to nowhere and a computer full of chapter ones.

So, follow along if you’d like. It will be nice to have company when the giant spiders take over.

Tiktok – @nicdracas

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Stirring the Pot

So, I’ve been playing with an idea for my first novel. Last week the idea came to me and I made a few notes in Scrivener.

Yesterday, I had a couple more fresh ideas and wrote those down.

But then today out on a dog walk? I was listening to The Bestseller Podcast, Episode 481 (Jake Lamar – Make It Sing) when I suddenly had a lightbulb moment on how I could twist that first idea into something infinitely better.

Now, I wholeheartedly subscribe to the rule that you don’t ever go with your first idea for a story, because usually, that first idea is a knee-jerk reaction to needing something and is usually obvious. It’s never well-thought through, but it hooks your interest because, hey, it just might fit what you need, right?

But I firmly believe in letting ideas marinate (marinade?) to see how much stronger and tastier they can be. (perfect metaphor, lol)

And as I was walking the dog and thinking about how hot I was getting in my winter coat and perhaps I didn’t need to have put it on, a fact from a TV program I watched years ago (Thank you, X-Files) popped into my head and aligned perfectly with my first idea, if I was willing to change it to fit.

I was a willing participant.

And so, I’ve spent the last two hours turning the story this way and that to create a protagonist, an antagonist, a setting and a bit of backstory, with a generous helping of science.

This confluence of ideas has legs. Which makes me happy. Which is making me feel excited for this story and when I feel this level of excitement, I know I have a story that I can delve into. A story that should keep me going for the months I have planned out (see previous post re schedule) to write it.

I’ve put the story back in the fridge to marinate some more. I want to know my beginning entry point into the story and I want to know my exit point. My big finish. Once I know those, I can plan out the connecting points in-between.

So back in the fridge it goes until I work out what the other ingredients will be.

And then I can start to cook.

Nic x

The Lion’s Share

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Doesn’t he look handsome?

(Sod the lion, Nic. Where have you been?!)

Er … well … let’s see now (tries to dream up a fascinating story about how I got transported to another world, fought goblins and ghouls and slayed dragons, but got hit on the head and lost my memory and forgot all about this place) what actually happened was this:

I lost my mojo. My writing bug. It went. Disappeared. Vanished. Leaving me floundering. Leaving me to question my very purpose, because if I wasn’t a writer, then who was I?

It was a dark time.

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This was me, looking for inspiration and not finding it.

It took months. Months to drag me out of my stupor, but slowly, it came back and here I am, with a plan, rejuvenated and raring to go.

I’m going to go indie. Or, at least become a hybrid author. I have a day job, as a romance author, traditionally published, but guess who gets the lion’s share of every book that gets sold?

Not me.

I get a tiny percentage and I do the majority of the work.

So, I’ve decided to change this and this is the first step.

Want to hear of my evil plan to take over the world?

I’ve made a schedule. A schedule that allows me to write two horror books a year, allowing time for writing, editing, marketing, cover design, publication (hoorah!) and then attain the lion’s share of any sales to my purse and no-one else’s.

This makes me sound like I’m only doing it for the money. I’m not (See above re lost sense of self) This is my purpose. I am a writer. It is who I am. It is who I have always been meant to be. I can’t not write. It’s what makes me happy, but in this world, your job has to at least contribute to putting food in your stomach and keeping a roof over your head, right?

I’ve sold my horror short stories. but longer works – novellas, novels – are what I need to focus on now and I’ve banged my head against the wall of traditional publishing for horror long enough. Time to go indie/hybrid. I’m not getting any younger and maybe, if I’m good enough, then I’ll sell well enough to allow me to keep on writing.

So, yeah. Here we go again.

Thanks for your patience. You probably didn’t even miss me, but … you’re going to see me a bit more in the months ahead. I’ll try to keep this place updated and free of cobwebs, but feel free to do a little dusting and push the hoover about on your own.

Nic x

May Update

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I thought I’d include a little round-up of what I managed to achieve in May, writing-wise. It’s not in any way to brag, or to bemoan, just a little insight into what I achieved as a writer.

In 31 days, I had 12 days in which I had stuff that didn’t contribute to my writing total. This included trips up to Nottingham, cat and house-sitting for my brother (who’d gone off on a jolly to France) as well as one mental health day taken that I absolutely needed.

So, 19 days of writing this month.

In those 19 days, I wrote 27,935 words, which I’m really happy about. Especially this last week, where I really knocked it out of the park. In this last week, my word counts were 1922, 3023, 2076, a revisions day, a second revisions day, 2918 and today I wrote 2053.

In this month, I completed two lots of revisions. Three days worth at the beginning of May and two days this past week, when second revisions on the same story arrived. Most of these were quite short and easily changed, though I did have to delete quite a bit and rewrite.

One day, I actually might try to count my wordage when doing revisions, but it’s never going to be accurate, due to how much you have to delete and rewrite, but we’ll see.

My lowest wordcount for a day was May 17th when I wrote 755 words. My highest wordcount was on May 26th, when I wrote 3023!

I’m actually really pleased.

Do any of you keep wordcounts for the day/week/month?

How did you get on in May?

Mortal Engines

The first book in the award-winning Mortal Engines quartet. 

In a dangerous future, huge motorized cities hunt, attack and fight each other for survival.

As London pursues a small town, young apprentice Tom is flung out into the wastelands, where a terrifying cyborg begins to hunt him down.

• Mortal Engines launched Philip Reeve’s brilliantly-imagined creation, the world of the Traction Era, where mobile cities fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic future.
• Mortal Engines won the coveted Gold Smarties Award.
• Now a feature film of the same name, starring Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan and Hugo Weaving. Produced by Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson.

I really enjoyed this story and raced through it in a couple of days. It was completely different to anything I’d read before and loved the twist of towns that actually moved around to hunt and eat other cities, in a town eat town world.

There were great heroes in this. Tom Natsworthy, a grunt a level three historian apprentice; Hester Shaw, the tragically scarred young girl, Katherine Valentine, daughter of Valentine the Great Historian and her pet wolf, Dog; Bevis Pod, the bald Engineer apprentice and Anna Fang, the Anti-Tractionist rebel!

Each character in this tale is used to the full. No-one is mentioned casually and then doesn’t appear to be important later. The history of the world and the geography was hugely impressive and well thought out, Clearly an awful lot of work went into this before Phillip Reeve began writing. At least, I’d imagine so. If he pantsed this, I’d be very impressed!

Mortal Engines is part one of four follow up stories – Predator’s Gold, Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain (and also has three prequels!) Fever Crumb, A Web of Air and Scrivener’s Moon. He also wrote a selection of short stories that took place in this world called Night Flights. And if you’re interested in the artwork, there’s an Illustrated Guide to the World of Mortal Engines.

The Story Corpse

Following hot on the heels of the last post, I wanted to share this video I found of one of my absolute, favourite writers in the whole world – Victoria Schwab.

Victoria speaks about how to construct a story using a metaphor of the Story Corpse.

Now this is not a video for a pantser, though you might get something from it, but as a plotter myself, I got a huge amount from this video.

She has four steps in constructing a story corpse.

You start off with the bones. The bones of the story are what makes the skeleton. You cannot have a body -a corpse – without bones and bones are the plot. She suggests that you at least know the beginning bone and the end bone and it probably helps to have a few middle bones, too. Maybe 5 or 10. Then, if you’re not a big plotter, you can begin writing from there, but if you’re like me and don’t want a saggy middle spare tyre on your corpse, then maybe think about making sure if all your bones connect.

Each bone needs to be an aspect of the plot that excites you. If you have gaps between bones, think about what bones you can put there to join them together. Then, when you feel you have all your bones, check to see if you have a cohesive skeleton. If you do? You move to adding muscle and flesh.

Muscle and flesh is the first draft of the story corpse. using your skeleton, you flesh out the bones, building your body of work. You may discover that you need to move a bone. Or perhaps you don’t need that bone you thought you’d need, but instead need another. That’s okay. All bodies are differently abled. You write from your beginning, through to the end. Or, you write whatever bone you feel like writing and put it all together at the end, until you have a body.

Next, you get to add the skin.

Skin is revision and like skin has many layers.

You revise for different things. The first readthrough, maybe for the timeline.

The second readthrough, may be for checking character arcs.

The third readthrough, may be for checking the plot arcs.

Until you feel your skin is watertight.

Then you reach the final phase of the Story Corpse. You add nice clothes and makeup by going through the manuscript line by line, looking at rhythm and cadence and word choice.

You make it pretty.

This video has helped me think about how I create my stories and how I want to tackle them and it also tells me that I don’t need to worry about my first draft being perfect. No first draft is perfect. Ever. I can write and get everything down and beautify my corpse when it is done.

I just thought I’d share this novel way of looking at constructing stories, in case it helped anyone else!

Tell me what you think to it!

Writing Wishlist

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What do you want your writing to achieve?

That’s the question that has bugged me for a few weeks and it was suggested to me, that I write down what I want my writing to do. What I would like it to give me. What I want to achieve with my writing and at first, I thought it was quite the pointless exercise.

I mean, I want to be published, right?

But it was only when I began writing this letter about what I wanted, that I realised just what a huge, fucking massive BURDEN my writing carries and how it was no wonder that I often got “blocked”.

This was my (somewhat selfish and pride-filled) list below:

1. To be published.
2. To get on bestseller lists.
3. To create a fanbase of readers who would eagerly await each new book from me.
4. To create a fanbase of readers who would come to hear me talk.
5. To create a fanbase of readers who would want to have their books signed by me.
6. To entertain.
7. For readers to think, “Wow! What a story! What a twist!”
8. To support me financially.
9. To write full-time.
10. To be beautifully written prose.
11. To immerse my readers in my worlds and make them forget that they are reading.
12. To win awards.
13. To give me joy each and every writing session.
14. To make me want to rush to my desk every day and write.

And there was more!

I flit from idea to idea. Sometimes horror. Sometimes Sci-Fi. Sometimes fantasy. I’ll read a superbly written book (say crime) and think, ‘Hey, I’ll write a stunning crime book, too!’

My mind jumps from idea to idea, without giving any idea time to settle and I’ve recently discovered that maybe because I might have ADHD. My youngest has ADHD and Autism, so it is in my genetic makeup somewhere.

Basically, I want to be a perfect writer and that can never be, because there isn’t one. And yet, I put all this pressure, all these overwhelming thoughts about how good I want my stories to be on my writing, so that I keep abandoning my first drafts, because they’re not perfect. Not beautifully written. Not worthy of a reader’s gaze and so I start something new, convinced that THIS TIME, this story will be written beautifully and perfectly.

And then it’s not.

Because there’s too much pressure.

So, I’ve tried to tell myself that I need to find the joy again. I need to dismiss all of these writing goals that I have held so dear for all of these years, because they are not helping me. They are in fact, dragging me down. Like a millstone around my neck. Or concrete boots.

I need to write the story of my heart. I need to write for me. And just me. Only me. With no expectations of publishing or awards or fandom or any of those crazy ideas that haunt the internal cave that is my skull.

I need to not think of the market. Not what is popular. Not what might get published. Not care whether it’s beautiful or not.

I just need to write. No burden of wordcount each day. No burden of time I must sit at my desk for.

Just write.

For the joy of it.

For the joy of creating something that’s just for me and no-one else. Dig it out of my soul.

And not care if it isn’t beautiful or stylish.

I just need to go on a journey of discovery. Find what makes me happy. Add whatever the hell I want to it. Dig into all of it’s elements. No editing. No reading back. Just … writing.

Positive forward momentum.

One word a day, if need be.

That story is in there, somewhere. Beneath all the crap that I’ve laid on top of it for all of these years.

Mixed Nuts

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This is how I imagine I look when I scream. Slightly stylish. All in black. The light catching my face just so. In reality, it’s not quite like that. In reality, I’m hiding under my hoodie, weeping silent tears and glaring at anyone who dares to come within a five mile radius.

That’s how my week’s been. By now, I expected to have 30k on a horror novel. Guess how much I’ve got? A big gold star to anyone who guessed at a number a lot less than that.

24k.

It’s not terrible. It’s not way off and I have had family issues going on this month that have stopped me from being productive. A trip up to Nottingham to see my mum, who I had admitted to hospital on the day of my arrival. Finding out that if I’d left it a few more hours, the levels of potassium in her blood would have killed her with a massive heart attack. Staying up there for a week and doing daily hospital visits. Coming home for a bit. Going back up to Nottingham again this week (a nine hour fricking drive, due to accidents, abandoned cars, contraflows and general shitty traffic levels) only to discover the next day that she doesn’t actually remember me visiting. Constant phone calls from her because she’s frightened and doesn’t know where she is, or a nurse calls to say she’s been wandering and upset and can I talk to her to calm her down? (My mum, not the nurse.)

So, you know. Fun stuff, like that.

So, 24k isn’t too bad, considering. Am I giving myself an easy time about it?

Of course not! I’m beating myself up daily because I haven’t done more.

What is that all about? When did we get into this hyper-productivity culture? Where we all have to constantly fill our lives with activities? Is it because of social media? Your streams and your walls are filled with pictures of your friends and families going out places, having fun, doing activities, filling your newsfeed with culture and music and flowers and hey, look at the things we found in this museum! On Youtube, you actually have productivity influencers. Students who will put in eight, ten, twelve hour study days, all beautifully time-lapsed with shots of them studying, working hard and making pretty coffees or cups of tea.

Do. Do. Do!

24k isn’t too bad at all. And let’s remember productivity gurus, that I’ve also been writing my romances, too, so the word count is much higher than that for last month. Plus I had revisions come in for my last romance story which I worked on and I had to complete an AFS (Art Fact Sheet, to help them choose a cover) as well as complete two blogs and prep for a course I’m teaching for the month of June, helping aspiring writers, write romance.

That’s a lot.

And yet still I beat myself up about it. That I could have done more. That I should have done more.

I’m nuts.

So, where the hell is my hoodie?

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