abstract / horror writing sources ?

[333.thi...@googlemail.com]

Hello I'm curious if any one here has any suggestion for ways in which
to increase your knowledge or origniality of horror writing ?

Usually I just try to explore my own real life fears, or events I am
familiar with but I am interested in how I could perhaps interplay
words or use certain approches , techniques to create landscapes that
are more abstract in nature.

Examples of this would include Lewis Carrol , Edward Gorey..

If any one has any ideas of sources I'd be interested to hear them .

thanks

33

[Varizo.]

Your probaly asking that in the wrong NG. I think that yourll be
better off asking that in rec arts horror movies, in this NG you
probaly wont get any sensibal answers.
V.

[Charlotte]

<333.thi...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1132360093.0...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

> Hello I'm curious if any one here has any suggestion for ways in which
> to increase your knowledge or origniality of horror writing ?
>
>
> Usually I just try to explore my own real life fears, or events I am
> familiar with but I am interested in how I could perhaps interplay
> words or use certain approches , techniques to create landscapes that
> are more abstract in nature.
>
>

I can't recall the author of the book offhand, but if you do an internet
search, there is a great little book called _Voice Lessons_ . It has
exercises in diction, imagery, tone, etc., using quotes from many different
types of authors as inspiration. I use it quite frequently to teach these
techniques to my Advanced Placement English Literature classes. The book
not only teaches them to recognize effective examples of each technique, but
gives them a chance to create examples of their own.

Hope this helps!

Charlotte

[333.thi...@googlemail.com]

thanks for your suggestions :)

33

[nmstevens]

Well, it's probably not a very original answer, but the first step
toward increasing your knowledge of horror writing is to increase the
scope of your horror reading.

Now, since I don't know how widely you've read, it's impossible for me
to say how useful that advice is. But if Lewis Carroll and Edward Gorey
are the extent to which you've looked for "landscapes" then you could
certainly look much farther.

Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, William Hope Hodgson, Clark Ashton Smith are
all renowned for the use of language in creating alternate and
fantastical worlds.

More modern authors, like Ramsay Campbell have also created work along
these lines that's worth reading.

The more widely you read, the more sense you have of the sorts of
things that have been done, the sorts of areas that have been explored,
the techniques that have been used by others to explore those areas,
then you become more grounded in the territory that you wish to
explore.

Any landscape, whether it is a physical one in which we live, or an
internal landscape of dreams and nightmares, only becomes convincing to
a reader when we come to know the world ourselves -- when that
landscape, real or imagined, becomes a real place to us.

NMS