My next volume in the Bram Stoker Award-Winning Writing in the Dark series for the good folks at Raw Dog Screaming Press is called Let Me Tell You a Story. It’s scheduled to come out Oct. 5th, 2023, and I thought I’d post the foreword here on my blog to give you a taste of what the book is about.
As
of this writing, Let Me Tell You a Story
is available on NetGalley, so if you’d like to review it – and I hope you do – go
snag an early copy!
https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/301093
Description
from Raw Dog’s Website
In
Let Me Tell You a Story Waggoner presents stories from his own
publishing career and uses them to illustrate techniques and point out ways to
improve. “In both Writing in the Dark and Writing in the Dark: The
Workbook, I included a short story of mine and critiqued it based on the
principles outlined in those books. Readers responded well to this feature, so
I decided to focus a new book on critiquing stories drawn from throughout my
career, discussing what worked, what didn’t, and what I might do differently if
I had the chance to rewrite the stories. I hope readers will find Let Me
Tell You a Story to be as interesting – and most importantly as useful – as
its predecessors.”
There
are fourteen stories in the book, five of which have never been reprinted after
their initial appearances.
Review
Quotes
“Tim’s
writing voice is like that of a teacher who really cares about his students and
their writing journey—however far along you may be.” —Sadie Hartmann, Mother
Horror, 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered
“Offering
sensible, actionable, and invaluable tips for developing craft, Tim Waggoner’s
Writing in the Dark guides feature on my list of must-read texts for all
students and teachers of writing. Scarily good advice from a master of horror
practice.” —Lee Murray, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, co-author of the Path
of Ra series
“You
can trust Tim to teach you not so much how to write, per se, but how to think
like a horror writer. This basically means that you’ll instinctively know how
to chill someone with a disturbing idea, outsmart them with an outrageous twist
ending, or caution them with a clever moral lesson, and it will all come
naturally to you. He’s a masterful educator on the dark side.”—Michael A.
Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Play Dead
LET ME TELL YOU A STORY
FOREWORD
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
ANOTHER DAMN WRITING BOOK?
After Writing in the Dark, I swore
I’d never do another how-to-write book. Once I finished it, I thought I’d said
all I had to say about writing fiction in general and horror in particular.
Sure, as the years passed and my knowledge (hopefully) increased, I might feel
inspired to do another how-to, but for now, I figured my blog posts and
newsletter articles about writing would be more than enough.
Then I wrote Writing in the Dark: The
Workbook.
One of the things readers liked most about
the first volume was the exercises that appeared at the end of each chapter.
That got me thinking . . . Could I write an entire book of horror-writing
exercises? I wasn’t certain, but it sounded like a fun challenge – and
obviously there were readers who’d like to have such a book – so I decided to
give it a go. Writing in the Dark poured out of me like water when I
wrote it, and I was surprised to find that the workbook did so too. But when I
finished the workbook, I vowed that I wouldn’t write another follow-up – at
least for a while – and I fully intended to stick by this.
I’ve been writing about writing for
decades. In my late teens, I began reading Writers’ Digest religiously,
and my favorite part of the magazine was Lawrence Block’s monthly column on
writing fiction. (This is why I dedicated Writing in the Dark to him.) I
became fascinated by the art of writing about writing, and after I began
selling fiction and articles professionally, I decided to give it a go. I
published a number of how-to-write articles over the years, and when I started
a blog over a decade ago, I decided I’d use it as an outlet for writing about
writing.
Still, I wanted to do my own how-to-write
book, so I wrote various proposals and gave them to my agent to send around,
but no publishers were interested. Then I came up with the idea of writing a horror
how-to, and John and Jennifer loved the idea, and the rest is history. I told
my agent to forget about the previous how-to-write proposals I’d sent her, and
I went back to writing fiction full-time. A couple years passed, and my agent –
who hadn’t deleted my old proposals – remembered one for a book called Let
Me Tell You a Story. I’d originally intended it to be an overall volume on
writing fiction, but I’d incorporated so much of that kind of material in Writing
in the Dark, I abandoned the idea of writing a generic how-to. My agent
sent the proposal to Jennifer, who liked it, and offered a contract – for a
book I had no intention of writing.
I’ve been writing professionally for too
long to immediately turn down a publisher’s offer without at least thinking
about it. And my previous two experiences working with Jennifer and John were
wonderful, so I was excited by the prospect of working with them again. But
what the hell would this new book be about? I knew I couldn’t write the generic
how-to-write book I’d originally envisioned for Let Me Tell You a Story,
but there was nothing about the title that suggested a way to turn it into a
third volume on writing horror. I decided I’d figure something out eventually,
so I signed the contract.
Days, weeks, months passed. I worked on
other projects, but I kept thinking about Let Me Tell You Story and
wrestling with what the book should be. More time passed. The deadline for
turning in the manuscript approached, and I still had nothing. This was very
unlike me. Usually when I’ve contracted to do a book, I finish it early. But
not this time. I told Jennifer, and she kindly understood and gave me an
extension, but I was afraid I’d never figure out a way to move forward with Let
Me Tell You a Story. If I couldn’t, I’d have to back out of the contract,
which was something I’d never done before. But, as so often happens in my
writing life, when I thought all was lost, an idea popped into my head.
I’d written Writing in the Dark: The
Workbook solely because of reader feedback I’d received on the first
volume. Was there anything else readers liked about the first two books that
might serve as inspiration for a third volume? Yes, there was. In each of the
previous books, I included a short story of mine and critiqued it based on the
principles outlined in the books. I talked about what worked, what didn’t, and
what I might do differently if I had the chance to rewrite the story.
What if I focused an entire book on
examining a collection of my stories, discussing their origins, my intentions
for them, how well they’d worked, and what – if anything – I’d change now. Such
a book would be an odd duck, part short story collection, part how-to-write,
part memoir, and part career retrospective. The idea of working with a hybrid
format like this appealed to me. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t encountered
similar books before. One of my favorites is science fiction writer Mike
Resnick’s Putting It Together: Turning Sow's Ear Drafts Into Silk Purse
Stories. In it, Mike presents several of his stories and shows how they
went from idea to multiple drafts to finished version. The idea behind his
approach was that any how-to-write book can tell you how to create
developed characters, write engaging dialogue, etc., but by detailing his
writing process, he could show you how to do it, or at least how he did
it. And of course, Stephen King’s On Writing is a blend of how-to and
memoir.
As I contemplated this new approach for Let
Me Tell You a Story, I had some concerns. What if readers viewed the book
as one long ego trip on my part? Check out all these fabulous stories!
Aren’t I a great writer? What if readers didn’t give a damn about my
fiction and only wanted how-to-write advice? What if, by being neither fish nor
fowl – not fully a writing instruction guide or a short story collection – the
book failed to find an audience? I’ve always enjoyed reading authors’ story
notes in collections, though, and I feel I learn more when authors share
specifics about how they create their work as opposed to offering generic
advice, so I figured, what the hell? Why not go for it?
So I did.
How did I choose the stories included in
this book? I decided to include stories that were pivotal in my development as
a writer, stories where I learned important lessons or made mistakes that I
only recognized in hindsight. I’ve arranged the stories in chronological order because
that seemed simplest, and because that will hopefully create a portrait of my
development as a writer as well.
In terms of the type of stories I’ve
included, while I’ve written in different genres, I’m known primarily as a
horror/dark fantasy author, so I stuck to those genres rather than put in a
fantasy or science fiction story here and there. It seemed to make more
thematic sense to me.
And after each story, I’ve included commentary/reflection,
as well as a couple writing exercises so you can take the focus off my work and
put it on yours, where it belongs.
You’re welcome to read and use this book
however you wish, as writing instruction guide, as short story collection, or
as an inside look at how one writer created his stories and what he thinks
about them today. It’s as much a portrait of an artist as it is a how-to, and I
hope whatever you came here for, you find the book both enjoyable and useful.
STORIES INCLUDED
“Huntress”
Tamaqua, Winter/Spring
1990. Reprinted in The Mythic Circle, Fall 1993.
“Alacrity’s
Spectatorium”
Figment, Spring 1992
“Mr. Punch”
Young Blood, Zebra Books, March 1994.
“Daddy”
Horrors: 365 Scary Stories,
Barnes and Noble Books, 1998
“Keeping
it Together”
Between the Darkness and the Fire,
Wildside Press, 1998
“Ghost
in the Graveyard”
All Hallows, June 2000
“Joyless
Forms”
All Too Surreal,
Prime Books, 2002
“Broken
Glass and Gasoline”
Vivisections, Catalyst Books, 2003
“Waters Dark and Deep”
Masques V, Gauntlet Press, 2006
“Swimming
Lessons”
Delirium Books website, 2006
“Long
Way Home”
Thrillers II, CD Publications, 2007
“Sharp
as Night”
My Bloody Valentine, Great
Jones Street, 2017
“Til Death”
Don’t Fear – The Apocalypse. 13Thirty
Books, 2017
“How to be a Horror Writer.”
Vastarien 2, Grimscribe Press, 2018
DEPARTMENT OF
SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Let
Me Tell You a Story Order Links
If
you order the book at the Raw Dog Screaming Press site in either hardback or
paperback, you’ll get a discount until Oct. 5th, 2023!
https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/let-me-tell-you-a-story/
Amazon
Paperback:
Amazon
Hardcover:
Barnes
and Noble Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1143990468?ean=9781947879645
Barnes
and Noble Hardcover: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1143990468?ean=9781947879638
Scheduled
Appearances
Beyond
the Book Festival. Sept. 30th. 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The Starke
County Public Library. Knox Indiana. For more info: https://scpls.org/beyond-the-book
Butcher
Cabin Bookfest. October 18th. 5pm – 10pm. Pivot Brewing, 1400
Delaware Ave, Lexington, Kentucky.
Scarelastic
Book Fair 2: March 2nd. 12pm – 6pm. Scarlet Lane Brewing. 7724 Depot
Street, McCordsville, Indiana.
StokerCon
2024. May 30th to June 2nd. San Diego, California.
Where
to Find Me Online
- Newsletter Sign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm
- Website: www.timwaggoner.com
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- Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/
- YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark
- X (formerly Twitter): @timwaggoner
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@tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net
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