One of the criticisms of genre fiction is that it primarily
copies other authors’ work, and there’s some degree of truth to this. Every
genre has its major writers who paved the way for the rest of us, writers whose
work is original and influential. Some are sui generis, and some work
within a chosen genre and transcend it. To mention a few . . . Horror: Shelley,
Poe, Stoker, Lovecraft, Jackson, du Maurier, Bradbury, Bloch, Matheson, King, Rice,
Straub, Barker, Campbell, Ketchum, and Ligotti. Mystery: Conan Doyle, Christie,
Sayers, Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane, Stout, Gardner, Highsmith, Rendell,
and Block. Science Fiction: Verne, Wells, Burroughs, Heinlein, Bradbury,
Asimov, Herbert, Clarke, Dick, and Gibson. Fantasy: Baum, Howard, Tolkien,
Le Guin, Lewis, Pratchett, Gaiman, and Martin. Romance: Austen,
Radcliffe, the Brontes, Steel, Roberts, Jenkins, and Sparks. Western: Grey,
L’Amour, Cather, Portis, and McMurtry.
(Don’t yell at me if your favorite author isn’t
listed, especially for Romance and Western, since I’m not as well read in those
genres as I am the others.)
These writers employ individual styles, tropes, and
themes in their writing, and if the tropes are shared ones – such as first
contact with an alien civilization – they do something different with them,
something that’s an expression of their own creativity and not merely echoes of
others’ work. But that’s the main tension in genre writing: individual work vs generic,
especially when it comes to commercial fiction. Be too individual and
your sales suffer, be too generic and your work will have little impact (and
probably not sell very well either). The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle,
of course, producing work that no one else but you could write but which also
clearly belongs to a recognizable genre. It would take me an entire book to
talk about how a writer can accomplish that (seemingly) miraculous feat. (And
for Christ’s sake, don’t tell John Edward Lawson and Jennifer Barnes at Raw Dog
Screaming Press I said that! If you do, next thing I know, I’ll be signing a
contract for Writing Original Horror in the Dark.)
But I can choose one element of horror writing that I
think will have the most immediate impact on your fiction to talk about – and that’s
avoiding and reworking clichés.
A genre has a collective group of character types
(both protagonist and antagonist), setting types, story types, etc. These elements
are called tropes, and they’re the shared tools genre writers use in their
work. In Horror, an abandoned graveyard is a setting trope. A curious, naïve,
and ultimately doomed scholar is a character trope. You get the idea. Tropes are
effective when they’re first created/used in a story, but the 3000th
time? Not so much. (This is one of the reasons readers can get sick of a genre.
When they first start reading in it, all the tropes are new to them, and thus
interesting and exciting. But after they read a number of books in the genre,
they start to realize that the same old tropes are used all the time, and they
get bored.) There’s a word for an overused trope that has lost its power and impact.
Cliché.
This is the reason that old pros like me advise new
writers to read widely in their chosen genre and seek out the best, most
original work via reviews and word of mouth. (This is one of the most useful functions
social media serves – it makes you aware of some really cool shit to check
out.)
A word of warning:
Know your chosen genre for what it is – and isn’t. Readers of genre fiction
often read for the comfort of familiarity. Romance readers expect certain
things from a Romance story, especially an HEA (Happy Ever After). Same for Mystery
readers. There must be a murder and a solution to that murder in a category
Mystery novel. A Western must take place in the Old West (whether a realistic
or mythic version). So trying to be super creative and innovative in those
genres (at least regarding certain expected elements) is going to be a big fail
with publishers and readers. Fantasy should be freer, as the presence of
some kind of magic is the only element necessary for a story to be Fantasy, but
market-wise, most Fantasy novels are still based on Medieval European culture
and myths. Science Fiction and Horror are the genres that allow for the most
innovation and originality (which is why I think they often work well when blended
together).
Moving on . . .
Once you’ve identified overused tropes, you can avoid
including them in your work. Better yet, you can transform them into something
new and powerful. Allow me to elucidate.
Choose a New Signifier
One of the most common tropes in horror is darkness/shadows
as a signifier of evil or a threat. It makes sense, since not being able to use
one of our strongest senses puts us at a huge disadvantage in a dangerous situation.
But darkness has been used so often in horror that it doesn’t have much power
anymore. Maybe you could choose a different sense to indicate evil in your
story. How about cicada song? Or a slight stickiness on surfaces in a place tainted
by evil? (A stickiness that gets worse the closer you get to the source of the
evil.) Corvids are used as harbingers or servants of evil in horror. What if
you used hummingbirds instead?
Reverse a Trope
Haunted houses are often portrayed as old and
abandoned. Let’s reverse this trope. Older houses are safe from hauntings/demonic
infestations because they gain psychic shielding from the long-term presence of
living beings inside them. So only new structures are susceptible to hauntings/demonic
infestations. In Frankenstein, a living being is fashioned from parts of
the dead. Reverse this: an immortal being who can instantly heal any injury seeks
death by trying to find a way to permanently disassemble their body.
Make a Trope Smaller or Bigger
Stephen King goes bigger in Salem’s Lot.
Instead of one vampire (as in Dracula) being the threat, we get an
entire town of vampires. Go smaller: A man believes there’s a mosquito in his
house who drains a significant portion of his blood every night, which is why
he’s so tired all the time. Instead of a worldwide apocalypse, what if you wrote
about an individual apocalypse, one that affects only a single person
(and perhaps anyone connected to that person)?
Use a Trope from Another Genre
One trope from Romance is Enemies to Lovers, a story
where the two leads go from . . . well, you get the idea. You can use that trope
in any genre. (And you can also reverse that trope, make it smaller or bigger,
etc.) Red herrings are a trope in mystery, but they can work great in horror too.
(Just don’t write a version of a Scooby Doo mystery where the audience is led to
believe the threat is a supernatural being, but it’s always just Old Man Jenkins
in a mask.) Horror already does this well. The SF trope of a rogue robot is
used in the horror film M3gan, the Horror trope of a ghost/haunting is
used in the film Transcendence. This latter example can also work well to
illustrate the next technique . . .
Put a Fresh Coat of Paint on an Old Trope
I’ve mentioned this technique before in articles and
workshops. Take a trope, distill it down to its core, then create a new “shell”
for the trope to make it feel fresh and original. For example, Freddy Krueger is
the archetype of a Devil. He’s associated with fire, has a demonic/monstrous
appearance, wields a trident in the form of his famous glove, and torments his
victims in nightmarish scenarios in another hellish dimension. His original
motivation was to punish Elm Street’s children for their parents’ “sin” (burning
him to death). Freddy works because he has all the power of a Devil archetype
without any of the baggage. Did Wes Craven purposely build Freddy on a Devil
archetype or was it just a lucky happenstance? Who knows? Who cares? The point
is that Freddy works, and we can learn from his example. Duel takes the
human vs monster trope (or, if you prefer, knight vs dragon) and uses a semi
truck (with an unseen driver) for the monster and an everyman driver battling it
on desert highways. Ricard Matheson created a powerful story (and Spielberg created
a powerful film) by stripping the human vs monster trope down to its essence
and modernizing it.
Use Elements from Your Life to Create
Tropes
I do this a lot. My thinking is that if I use something
personal to create a trope, I’ll write a story that no one else on Earth but me
could. I almost drowned when I was nine, and water is a common trope in my
horror fiction. I don’t consciously plan to use it; it just shows up in my
stories from time to time. I try not to rely on it too much, though. I don’t
want my own trope to become my own cliché. I also use strange things I observe
to create new tropes. One chilly October morning a few weeks ago, I saw someone
walking down the street in front of my house in a suburban neighborhood. I went
to the window to get a better look, and I saw a person wrapped in a large blue
blanket, walking barefoot, toeing leaves in the gutter as they went, sometimes pausing
to look down at them motionlessly for a few moments before slowly moving on. The
blanket was over their head, and I only saw them from behind, so I have no idea
what gender or age the person was. The odds are I was the only horror writer on
the planet who saw that. I haven’t used the Blanket Walker in a story yet, but
it will make a great version of a mysterious, sinister figure trope – maybe a
ghost, maybe an alien, maybe something from another dimension, maybe something
else entirely. But however I use it, it will be original (or at least appear
original).
Combine Elements from Different Tropes
George Romero’s zombies are a perfect example of this
technique. Romero and his writing partner John Russo took several tropes – the classic
voodoo zombie, the flesh-eating ghoul, vampiric contagion (passing on the infection
to victims), and the monster apocalypse from Matheson’s I Am Legend –
and created one of the most powerful and successful horror tropes of the 20th
Century. You can do the same. Reduce some tropes to their core essence, throw
them in your mental Mixmaster, hit the ON button, and see what you get.
List of Horror Clichés
Following is a list of Horror clichés from fiction and
film. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and there’s no order to it. I wrote
them down as they came to me or as I found them while researching. These are clichés
you should avoid using in your fiction (at least not without putting a fresh, interesting
spin on them), but you can use the techniques above to transform these clichés
into original ideas to write some kick-ass horror.
If you think of any more Horror clichés, feel free to
put them in the comments!
·
The priest who’s lost his faith.
·
The creepy child.
·
Creepy parents.
·
The cabin in the woods.
·
Hostile locals.
·
Occult reference book.
·
Not calling the police.
·
Stupid reason cell phones don’t work.
·
Evil twin.
·
The jaws of sex (sex partner kills
you).
·
Ghost seeking revenge on its killer.
·
I’ve been dead all along.
·
I’ve been the monster/killer the
whole time – and didn’t know it.
·
Old haunted house.
·
Abandoned asylum/hospital.
·
Evil medical professional (doctor,
nurse, dentist, etc.).
·
Evil psychologist.
·
Evil scientist.
·
Evil clergy.
·
Cults.
·
Circus/carnival.
·
Magic mirrors.
·
Evil/dangerous forest.
·
The Apocalypse.
·
Standard monsters (vampires, werewolves,
mummies, etc.)
·
Serial killers.
·
Aliens.
·
Possession.
·
The sentient animated severed
appendage.
·
Creepy/killer doll.
·
Animals attack.
·
Cannibals.
·
Creepy family.
·
Curse.
·
Mental illness as evil.
·
Someone’s physical form, appearance,
disability shows evil.
·
Evil inanimate object.
·
Evil machine.
·
The Bad Place.
·
Torture/mutilation.
·
Let’s play a game.
·
Memory loss.
·
Maze.
·
Country people are scary.
·
Educated people are scary.
·
Rich/Upper class people are scary.
·
Poor people are scary.
·
Homeless people are scary.
·
Old people are scary.
·
Necrophilia.
·
Living shadow.
·
Rape.
·
Scary town.
·
Occult detective.
·
Behind the scary door.
·
Angels and demons.
·
Transformation/mutation.
·
Dark secret.
·
Time and/or space loop.
·
Last person/people on Earth.
·
The one magic (or scientific) weapon
that will defeat the evil.
DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Let
Me Tell You a Story
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In Let Me Tell You a Story, I
present stories from my own publishing career and use them to illustrate
writing techniques and discuss ways writers can improve their own work. It’s a
how-to book, but it’s also a career-retrospective short story collection, and a
memoir as well.
You
can order Let Me Tell You a Story directly from Raw Dog Screaming Press
here:
https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/let-me-tell-you-a-story/
But if you’d prefer to order from
Amazon or B&N . . .
Barnes and Noble Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1143990468?ean=9781947879645
Barnes and Noble Hardback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1143990468?ean=9781947879638
Alien
Omnibus
My
novel Alien: Prototype appears in The Complete Alien Collection:
Symphony of Death alongside two of Alex White’s Alien novels: The Cold
Forge and Into Charybdis. This is your chance to get three
great Alien stories in one book!
Titan
Books:
https://titanbooks.com/71675-the-complete-alien-collection-symphony-of-death-the-cold-forge-prototype-into-charybdis/
Amazon
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Alien-Collection-Prototype-Charybdis/dp/1803366583/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1699122041&sr=1-4
B&N
Paperback:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-complete-alien-collection-alex-white/1143185107?ean=9781803366586
The
Atrocity Engine up for Preorder
The
Atrocity Engine,
the first volume in my new series for Aethon Books, will be out April 30th,
2024, and it’s currently available to preorder. Here’s the publisher’s
description:
Men
in Black
meets Hellraiser in this rollicking mash-up of urban fantasy and cosmic
horror from four-time Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Tim Waggoner.
Creatures
from dark dimensions infesting your home? Demonic beings trying to drive you
insane? Alien gods attempting to destroy your universe?
Just
call Maintenance.
This
underpaid and overworked secret organization is dedicated to battling forces
that seek to speed up Entropy and hasten the Omniverse’s inevitable death.
Neal
Hudson is a twenty-year veteran of Maintenance. A surveyor who drives through
the streets of Ash Creek, Ohio constantly scanning for the deadly energy known
as Corruption. Since the death of his previous partner, Neal prefers to work
alone, and he’s not happy when he’s assigned to mentor a rookie.
But
they better learn to get along fast.
The
Multitude, a group of godlike beings who seek to increase Entropy at every
opportunity, are creating an Atrocity Engine. This foul magical device can
destroy the Earth, and they don’t care how many innocent lives it takes to
build it. (Spoiler alert: It’s a lot!)
Just
another day on the job. . .
I
don’t believe all the order links are up yet, but here’s what’s available so
far:
Amazon
Hardback:
https://www.amazon.com/Atrocity-Engine-Tim-Waggoner/dp/1949890899/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1699124447&sr=1-2
B&N
Hardcover:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book/1144299910?ean=9781949890891
Lord
of the Feast
My new horror novel is available for
preorder. It’s due out April 16th, 2024.
On of my main goals for Lord of the
Feast was to do a dark magic take on a Frankenstein story. The book does
connect to many of my other novels via the mythos I’ve created over the years,
but you don’t need to have read any other books of mine to enjoy this one.
Synopsis:
Twenty years ago, a cult attempted to
create their own god: The Lord of the Feast. The god was a horrible,
misbegotten thing, however, and the cultists killed the creature before it
could come into its full power. The cultists trapped the pieces of their god
inside mystic nightstones then went their separate ways. Now Kate, one of the
cultists’ children, seeks out her long-lost relatives, hoping to learn the
truth of what really happened on that fateful night. Unknown to Kate, her
cousin Ethan is following her, hoping she’ll lead him to the nightstones so
that he might resurrect the Lord of the Feast – and this time, Ethan plans to
do the job right.
Flame Tree Press Paperback and eBook: https://www.flametreepublishing.com/lord-of-the-feast-isbn-9781787586369.html
Barnes & Noble Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lord-of-the-feast-tim-waggoner/1143636012?ean=9781787586369
Barnes & Noble eBook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lord-of-the-feast-tim-waggoner/1143636012?ean=9781787586376
SCHEDULED APPEARANCES
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
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