Writing Horror Fiction 2024
Back by popular demand, author Kirsty Logan is returning to W&A in 2024 to deliver this five-week online course dedicated to the craft of writing horror fiction. How to Write Horror Fiction is designed to take you through the steps essential to writing in this genre. Attendees will explore how to develop the seed of an unsettling idea, discover - through plotting and writing techniques - how much one can leave to the reader's imagination, and analyse what makes a good horror story for the 21st century. Through a combination of discussion, analysis and plenty of fun-but-challenging writing exercises, you'll leave each class with more ideas to pursue. Come ready to think, discuss, create and write!
This course includes:
- Five online sessions, 1.5 hours in length, for a maximum of 20 students
- Practical workshops with takeaway exercises to be applied to your own work and put each session's learning into practice
- In-depth analysis of the horror genre, using books, films and TV shows as reference
- Course materials available to view ahead of each session, including stories and excerpts to read, plus catch-up recordings. A reading week will take place at the mid-point of the course to give students a chance to get familiar with these materials.
- A private online Slack forum, to share discussion and writing throughout the course
- A copy of the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2024
- A horror fiction book bundle from Bloomsbury Publishing
As an optional extra at a cost of £50, you can get bespoke feedback from Kirsty on up to 2,000 words of original writing (one-page synopsis can be included)
Schedule
Week 1 - Monday 22nd April
Looking outwards: revisiting, reworking, reimagining
We’ll hit the ground running by analysing extracts from horror books, leading us into a lively discussion about classic tropes such as monsters, slashers, and the gothic. Where did these stories come from, and why do we keep returning to them? And most importantly, how can we use them to produce our own unique, original and terrifying work? In analysing what’s been done before, we can choose what we want the next steps in horror fiction to be.
Week 2 - Monday 29th April
Looking inwards: your psyche as story
We’ll dig a little deeper in week 2, asking ourselves: what are we really afraid of? What are the real roots of common fears? And how can we use that knowledge to construct vivid, compelling, emotionally real stories that will connect with readers? We’ll play with a combination of universal human fears and your own unique viewpoint to construct brand new stories.
Week 3 - Monday 6th May
Making it worse: conflict is story
Without conflict, there is no story. But how do we create conflict? The answer is that we don’t create conflict itself: instead we construct the characters, world and events in perfect opposition so that conflict is inevitable. We’ll explore how to move the sliders of the various elements of story to amp up tension, enrich the narrative world, and make characters live and breathe on the page. As always, we’ll do timed writing exercises to ensure you have a strong start to work on for the rest of the week.
Week 4 - Monday 13th May
What we really want to say: theme and meaning
A story always says something, whether we mean it to or not - so it’s important that we’re always in control of our stories’ meaning. We’ll analyse books and films to discover what they’re about - not what happens, but the underlying meaning of the story. Then we’ll play with some timed writing exercises, exploring how altering small details can drastically change how a reader understands the meaning of a story.
Week 5 - Monday 20th May
The actual words: prose and syntax
Now we know what we want to say - but how do we say it? We’ll discuss our favourite sentences and paragraphs, then explore words with our senses: sounding them in our mouths, forming them with our pens, looking at the use of blank space on the page. We’ll experiment with different writing styles to see what effect this brings to our stories. Finally, we’ll end by selecting our best idea from the many we’ve developed over the course, and discuss how to make it the strongest it can be. You’ll end the course inspired, prepared and raring to put the finishing touches on your brand new stories.
JOINING INFO
You can download Teams free on your computer, or join via the web: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/microsoft-teams/download-app
READING
Below you can find the list of books and TV/film clips you'll be analysing. These are entirely optional – you'll be looking at extracts and clips during the class provided by Kirsty, so don't have to read/watch anything in advance. It's just in case you want to be extra prepared or fancy a good horror marathon!
Week 1:
It - Stephen King (1986 book and 1990 TV adaptation)
You Are Not My Mother (2021 film)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991 film)
It Follows (2014 film)
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson (1959 book)
Crimson Peak (2015 film)
Session 9 (2001 film)
Week 3:
The Shining - Stephen King (1977 novel)
The Shining (1980 film)
Barbarian (2022 film)
Léon (1994 film)
Femme (2023 film)
Week 4:
The Sound at the End - Kirsty Logan (2022 Audible audio drama)
Suspiria (1977 film)
28 Weeks Later (2007 film)
Optional extras (you won't be looking at these in class, but they're useful for learning how to write better horror): https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/kirsty-logans-horror-reading-must-watch-list
Kirsty will also be sharing a PDF with any links and extracts after each class.
BOOK BUNDLE
As part of your course fee you are entitled to a book bundle which includes the Writers & Artists Yearbook 2024 and two books from Bloomsbury’s imprint Raven, which specialises in books with a touch of the dark side!
Please reply to this email with your address, and the two books you would like to select. You can find the available selection at the following link: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/discover/superpages/fiction/raven-books/. Please ensure you select paperbacks that are under the £9 mark. Please send me your address and your choices by Monday 29th April, and we will get your books in the post!
SLACK
Finally, we will be using Slack during the course, which is a free, easy-to-use platform that enables everything related to the course to be stored in one place. Please click on the below link to gain access to the Slack workspace that we’ve created for this course:
https://join.slack.com/t/writinghorror-lab9190/shared_invite/zt-2eywtcbpc-QdhQkRseGTSu7tAhX944pg
When you arrive in Slack you’ll see the workspace is called ‘Writing Horror Fiction 2024’, with several channels within that workspace. A quick bit of guidance on how these different channels will work:
- Course Etiquette: We’ve put together some course etiquette guidelines. Please have a read and comment to confirm that you’ve seen them.
- General: This is a general discussion board. Kirsty, James and myself will all have access but it’s not something we’re going to get involved in. This is for you guys to chat amongst yourselves, discuss, share advice and book recommendations! A great way to start would be to introduce yourselves, share info about your writing journeys so far and let the rest of the group know what you’re working on and why you’re here.
- Writing Course: We will be sharing the homework in here each week for your reference, as well as recordings of every class.
Everyone involved in the course will have access to all channels by default. It’s therefore important to make Slack work for you, so please take a bit of time to manage your notifications. You can do this by right-clicking on the channel and then selecting ‘Change notifications’.
We will also be sharing recordings and homework by email, but this is a space for you guys to connect with each other and build your writing community. Myself and James will also be available via email so if you’d prefer to reach out to us via email then please do get in touch.
