Addendum: Upon further reflection I can add what I call "creature" stories to the list as well. This would include stories like Frankenstein, the Mummy, wolf-men, and Dracula. The more imaginative the monster/creature the better, which may be why Lovecraft is quite fun.

Did this ruin the movie for me? I'm not sure. It did leave me with a very different experience than with the first movie, and I will need to re-watch it in order to really judge it, now that I know how to watch it. I will have to conclude that for a first-time watcher who knows a little about the Batman universe, I thought the story was over before the director did, and that is probably not a good sign as far as I'm concerned.

So I've been trying to figure out just what to say in only two paragraphs, and trying to decide just how long I'll make my paragraphs. Not to sound too pompous but like most people I'm rather more complex than just two paragraphs. I have three major passions in my life, a small handful of hobbies, and thirty-one years of personal history that may or may not be relevant. I'm at a loss for what to say in only two paragraphs.

Oh well. I guess this means they won't get to know me very well from my bio. Maybe it won't matter. After all, they will only read my words and hear my voice (or snores, as I'm sure to have some early morning meetings).

There are good programmers out there, ones far better than I, and I want to find some. I would love to work alongside at least one before I retire from this industry. My only question now is who are these programmers and how can I be exposed to their work? I'm open to suggestions.

I happen to like this style of story telling. It's one I've seen in many different places, and one I would like to emulate some day. It does not detract from favorite episodes, which are self-contained, but adds to the corpus.

If Christians want to avoid participating in anti-Christian behavior, then I will proudly nod in agreement. If they want to do that by creating some Christian branded form of the same behavior then I must look at them askance and ask, "What part of this is overtly Christian such that we should call it thus?" I wonder, are the Christians around me trying to not befriend the world but going to far as to secede from the world?

So here's the timing bit: they are considering leaving the state. My buddy is applying to seminaries, and his first pick is Denver. So I may have lost a chance to introduce a new style of gaming to some friends and play a cool game while I'm at it.

Timing, it just passes me by like I'm standing still.

Lovecraft's stories are detective mystery stories. The stories I gravitate to are the ones where something unexplained has happened and now the protagonist will go about figuring out what is going on. It is the same reason I like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and a host of other detectives. What I like more about horror mystery-detective stories is that the story is not about a murder and a who-dun-it.

So now I know. I like stories where something inexplicable has happened. An impossible thing has occurred and our protagonist will seek to uncover the truth. She may be an unwilling protagonist, caught up in an event far beyond her ken or control. He may be an intrepid investigator on the trail of a great mystery, soon to engulf him in a world of madness. They are tales of the bizarre and the unreal, but made real, and told to reveal the mystery (but not quite!) in a detective sort of way.

The question I have, what would you say [to your unborn child]?

Edited: There's been some apparent confusion regarding the question. I've added the implied direct object.

The haunt is not as important as the atmosphere. The thing about weird fiction that makes it great is the atmosphere it paints, the way in which the haunt is revealed, and how much is revealed. The author may know that the thing in the dark is just a misunderstood trans-dimensional creature scared out of its mind and looking for it's mommy, and while that isn't weird or horrific the presentation can be.

Will this mean I can find some banal source for the weirdness in my Halloween story, and still tell a chilling tale come the end of this month? I'll find out!

Armed with this I hope to write 10,000-20,000 words this month in preparation for next month, and in order to have a story to share come this Halloween. I'm excited! Now . . . if only I could find an idea around here somewhere. . . .

I will state for the record that I am not interested in writing as a business. I write stories that I want tell, not stories I think I can sell. Granted, I would love to have a wider audience, and I acknowledge that people read published material more readily than "unpublished". There is a balance in there somewhere, but if I am ever to make money at this little hobby of mine, that will be a bonus, and probably will not affect anything in my life.

What I really wonder, is how all this will play out in the future. The Internet is full of vast possibilities, and if I were happy with an audience of 100 faithful fans it seems all to trivial to accomplish that in light of the Internet. This of course needs more thought.

So now I wonder how my stories would differ if I were to think of my stories as a series of scenes, each one having a conflict that drives it, and each scene resolving it's conflict and progressing to the next.

What is it about bedtime? There is something about staying up past your normal bedtime that for me brings about a relaxation I cannot achieve at any other time of day or night. Even if it's dark and I can turn down the lights, close the curtains and pretend it's past bedtime it still doesn't feel the same.

Late nights is when my creativity sparks. I feel the most productive, the most alive, and the most relaxed late at night. But why?

I have two reasons for not liking either of these. The first is this sounds more like work than fun; in this case I'd be working on the craft and not the art of writing. The second is my general distaste for re-tellings; be original for crying out loud.

This does not mean I won't do either of these, the second one appeals the most as it seems the most helpful to me, but it does mean I probably will not share them and will despise myself at some level for stooping so low. (Can we see why I don't write much?)

There are a good many weird tales out there which I have passed over because they lacked impact; they fell flat; they were uninteresting. Over the last couple of weeks I've thought about those stories that did grab me and those that didn't and did a quick mental comparison. I found that the essential story in either case was not all that different. Even the most atmospheric ghostly tale is still quite banal under a microscope. The deciding factor was the atmosphere.

In my opinion really good weird fiction will have it's own atmosphere, and will not require you to create your own. I have read such stories, and it's a bit of a thrill to sit in a parking lot in the middle of the day and still feel the foggy, creepy, haunting atmosphere of a story.

If I may speculate, I'll suggest that this aspect of "horror" literature is what makes it so difficult to write (and if you write horror in order to scare I think you're doubly challenged). I can be more relaxed about atmosphere in my sword swinging fantasy stories, and atmosphere is not what people generally look for in a good sci-fi yarn. Yet when a story will either fall flat or resonate with the audience due in part to the atmosphere, frankly I find that a bit of a task. In all my writing classes not once was setting stressed beyond plot or characters, nor was atmosphere really discussed.

There is more to a weird tale or a horror story than at first glance. I have more respect for those authors who write them well.

Allow me to invoke Lovecraft yet again, for his stories are a shining example of what I'm looking for in horror stories. First and foremost Lovecraft didn't write horror; he considered his stories "weird fiction" (two of his essays claim that anyway). I don't read stories to scare myself, I just don't think it's possible. But I do like reading weird stories; for me it's another aspect of imaginative fantasy; it's another escape into the unknown away from the mundane.

Now it seems to me that a good synopsis of your average horror story will in some way spoil the story. You can't ruin the suspense of a story without ruining the story, and from my reading most horror stories are about that "Gotcha!" moment, and so often it is that moment that turns me off to the story with a "too lame" comment.

Could it be that I can't find a good horror story because good horror is hard to come by? Could it be that I need to find a better classification for what I want to read (weird fiction)? It is just too hard to give readers advance warning about a horror story without giving it away? Or is horror too encompassing as a classification and thus it will always have the problem of finding readers. A ghost story isn't a monster story, nor a vampire chasing werewolves story; horror, like fantasy, is a broad category which can encompass many themes.

In the end maybe the problem is all about theme and thematic elements. Maybe that's all it is, or maybe it's still more than that. Thoughts?

Disclaimer: I have read far more fantasy and sci-fi than horror. This could very well be an anomaly due to lack of exposure.

In particular the author of the post accused that Lovecraft fell into a stylistic rut of having a lone survivor present his testimony after the fact, and then meet some horrific end. These are exactly the stories that excite me and scratch that aforementioned itch; likewise this is the type of story I want to write. From my perspective these kind of stories make perfect sense, so allow me to defend them.

In my opinion a first person narrative carries more emotion, more immersion, more atmosphere, and more identity than a third person account. A first person account is personal; it's easier to believe the account was left behind just for you, and no one else, and that alone can add weight to the tale. A first person account is just like sitting down with a friend and having him recount some grizzly tale, and it's always more frightening when he's telling his own tale and not someone else's: it's easy to distance yourself from and dismiss a story that is in the third person.

I've thought about first person narratives and it seems to me the only tense that makes sense is aorist, or perhaps a perfect tense (one year of Greek and already I'm erudite). The events have to have taken place in the past; it would make sense if they were currently happening; if that were the case there would be no story and you would be there in person witnessing it all firsthand. So now it seems the only way to tell a first person story is if you lived through the events long enough to write about them, hence you will be reading the accounts of a survivor (possibly lone). You could mix it up and have a ghost tell the story, but that's just a gimmick and one I dismiss as weak.

For me these are the kinds of stories that really strike my fancy. They are the only things that have come close to creeping me out. Maybe I'm alone in this, but any writer who does not write for himself is missing out on the joy writing can bring. In the end I'll probably not feel comfortable widely sharing my stories that emulate this style. Too bad too because I wonder what Lovecraft would have said.

"One cannot, except in immature pulp charlatan-fiction, present an account of impossible, improbable, or inconceivable phenomena as a commonplace narrative of objective acts and conventional emotions. Inconceivable events and conditions have a special handicap to over come, and this can be accomplished only through the maintenance of a careful realism in every phase of the story except that touching on the one given marvel." -- H. P. Lovecraft (Notes On Writing Weird Fiction)

I wrote about this once before, this time Lovecraft explains why, and I cannot argue with him. When your monsters are commonplace they lose that special quality which makes the story otherworldly, weird, or supernatural. In some sense we have made the supernatural natural and thus removed the mystery and appeal.

(I'd recommend reading that essay of Lovecraft's. "Google" it. I'd like to link to it but I don't want to mess with ambiguous copyright status.)