Weekly Posts from The Horror Tree for 1/21/22
Jan 21, 2022 10:46 pm
Hi there,
Word of the week: Elysian – beautiful or creative, divinely inspired, peaceful or perfect
Hello, and happy Friday! If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ll know I’ve been on a bit of a flash fiction binge as of late. Flash Fiction Online released their 2022 anthology, and after I finished reading it, I wanted more. As we enter the final weeks of January, remember that next month is Women in Horror Month. Here at The Horror Tree, we will be posting interviews and other content in celebration. Whether you are an avid horror reader, or you only read the genre on occasion, I challenge you to pick up a novel, novella, or collection by a female horror writer and show your support next month.
As always, you can find me (Holley Cornetto) lurking on Twitter @HLCornetto. Now, onto the latest articles on writing from around the web.
Horror Tree / Trembling With Fear Update (This section updated by your fearless editor and chief, Stuart C.!):
Hi there! I just wanted to quickly chime in on a couple of things. The FIRST and most important is that next month is Women in Horror Month! We're eagerly looking for guest posts from women in the horror community. Authors, reviewers, editors, readers, fans. If you have a topic that you'd like to talk about, we'd love to share it with our readership! Please reach out here at contact@horrortree.com or use our contact form.
Secondly, when it comes to Trembling With Fear, we did have an influx of drabble though I wouldn't complain if we had a few more come in. Have a 100-word speculative fiction story laying about? Please do send it in! (Same contact details as above!)
Lastly, another HUGE thank you to our Patreons. We had lost a few when the year started and thanks to new ones joining, we're only down a dollar a month. It is you the community that keeps us paying our hosting bills, writers, and those who submit fiction to the site. THANK YOU!
This week's newsletter sponsor:
Generation X-Ed is coming out this month and is inspired by the lives of those who are known only as... Generation X...
Articles:
This week’s articles include information on the old writer’s adage “Kill your darlings.” If you’ve ever heard this phrase, but aren’t sure what this means or how to accomplish it, then perhaps the article from Writers Helping Writers will clarify. I found some of the word substitution suggestions quite useful. Lisa Hall-Wilson has an article about creating tension through response to uncertainty. In this piece, she lays out what different types of uncertainty are, and how you can use them in your fiction. I’ve also included an article on finding time to write, which seems to be an issue for many writers who juggle too many responsibilities. The last article this week comes from Richard Thomas, who is a font of knowledge and experience in the publishing industry. His article discusses elements of story that highlight your voice as an author.
Craft:
Writers Helping Writers: Writers, Grab a Knife: How to Kill Your Darlings
Lisa Hall-Wilson: 4 Responses to Uncertainty that Create Tension in Fiction
Writer's Digest: How Writers Can Apply Business Tools to Their Writing
General:
Kindlepreneur: How to Find Time to Write: 10 Additional Strategies
LitReactor: Storyville: What Makes Your Stories Uniquely You
Free Fiction Roundup:
While I usually try to vary the story lengths I include here, this week, all of the stories in the round up are in the flash fiction range. The first is a fantasy story called “A Single Feather” by Jeff Gard. Though I knew where the story was going, I was still surprised by the ending. Rebecca Birch’s story, “Tie a Ribbon on the Fairy Tree” is another fantasy flash piece. I loved the atmosphere and emotional resonance that Birch was able to create in such a small space. In addition to fantasy, I’ve also included two horror tales this week. “Harbinger,” by R. Michael from Dark Recesses, and “On His Way Out” by Ali Seay at Dreadstone. Seay’s story chilled me, reader. I hope you enjoy this week’s picks!
Now, on to the fiction:
“A Single Feather” by Jeff Gard. The Arcanist.
“Tie a Ribbon on the Fairy Tree” by Rebecca Birch. Every Day Fiction.
“Harbinger” by R. Michael. Dark Recesses Press.
“On His Way Out” by Ali Seay. Dreadstone Press.
If you post any writing content during the week and think it would be a good fit for us to feature, do reach out and let us know at contact@horrortree.com
Thank you Patreons! As always, the site's lifeblood is in your hands and we truly appreciate your support.
Looking To Help Horror Tree?
Here are the main things we're looking for:
- Advertising and either Site or Contest sponsorships!
- Someone to help create videos for social media (we have tools, but not time!)
- Article writers (articles, interviews, reviews, crowdsource compilations, etc.)
- Sharing guest posts with us or reaching out for us to be a blog tour host.
- The obvious one here is also to become one of our Patreons!
If you're interested in contributing and think you have something that would help out PLEASE don't shy away from contacting us! (contact@horrortree.com)
🗒️ Taking Submissions: Grandpa’s Deep-Space Diner
Deadline: March 31st, 2022.Payment: $5 USD per 1000 words Theme: Speculative fiction food stories!
My grandpa had a drive-in diner in Rupert, Idaho in the 60s called Chuck’s In-and-Out.
It was well known and all the kids went there.
My aunt served the burgers (sans roller-skates—Grandma put a stop to that notion!
) and Grandma made the best french fry sauce in the galaxy....
🗒️ Taking Submissions: Specimen 6 Magazine
Deadline: April 30th, 2022 Payment: $.01 per word Theme: Any theme of horror and slashes, MUST be set in the Specimen 6 universe.
Call for submissions!
Perfect Ratio Productions is opening submissions for a Specimen 6-themed magazine.
Unstoppable monsters, glory kills, few win by escaping, most die.
Give us your gore, your bloodshed, the madness and mayhem that is found within the Specimen 6 universe!
Give us the Necronomiconic, the unfathomable, the bloodthirsty, give us the stories where even the flesh and bone quenches not the hunger of the immortals, where even the dreams and souls of their victims must be destroyed.
This anthology is expected to release in late 2022. Submissions will be accepted until April 30, 2022.Details Accepted lengths: 500 words to 5000. No minimum when the work involved is poetry....
🗒️ Rethinking Portrayals of Mental Illness in Horror Fiction
Rethinking Portrayals of Mental Illness in Horror Fiction “We all go a little mad sometimes” is a famous line from the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho, inspired by the real-life murders of serial killer Ed Gein and the novel by Robert Bloch.
The word “psycho” is a derogatory way to describe a mentally ill person, with connotations of violence.
The killer of the film, Norman Bates, is ultimately diagnosed with “split personality,” a phrase used to describe the then-misunderstood mental condition of Dissociative Identity Disorder.
As our understanding of mental disorders has evolved in reality, it is hoped that fiction will reflect this.
Ed Gein Let’s take a real-life person with mental illness as an example.
Serial killer Ed Gein inspired the novels Psycho, Silence of the Lambs and the film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
(All of which were adapted into films.
) Gein is called a serial killer, even though he has only been connected to two murders, and the term is usually aimed at those responsible for at least three....
🗒️ Literary Artifacts: What Are These and How to Use Them in Your Essays
Literary Artifacts: What Are These and How to Use Them in Your Essays Looking for ways to evoke curiosity in your readers?
Communicate a specific meaning?
Express your thoughts more clearly and powerfully?
All of these things are possible if you use relevant literary artifacts to support your opinion.
They allow you to engage with the material on a deeper level and draw stronger conclusions....
🗒️ Taking Submissions: Ghostlore: An Audio Fiction Anthology
Deadline: February 6th, 2022 Payment: £0.04 per word, with a minimum payment of £10 per accepted piece.
Theme: Original stories related to ghosts AND folklore Note: Apologies for the short window, I only stumbled across this one just now I’m delighted to launch an exciting new project in collaboration with the fantastic Alternative Stories & Fake Realities podcast: GHOSTLORE: An Audio Fiction Anthology And we’re now open to flash fiction submissions!
Ghostlore is a genre of folklore concerning ghosts, and I can’t wait to read creative responses to this.
The anthology will form part of Alternative Stories & Fake Realities’ Season 6, in Spring 2022, and will link to a folklore discussion panel on a similar theme.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR Original stories related to ghosts AND folklore – stories should contain at least an element of both....
🗒️ Taking Submissions: Winter Enchantment
Deadline: January 31st, 2022 Payment: 0.5 cent per word Theme: Hopeful stories that take place during winter in the following genres: fantasy, slipstream, magical realism, and fabulism Note: Apologies for the short window, this just hit my inbox.
Iridescent Words seeks short stories between 800 and 5000 words for our upcoming anthology.
Send us well-crafted, polished gems.
Writing that is ethereal and dancing with imagery, evocative and enchanting.
Stories that glitter with dark magic, exuberant, luscious, melancholic or hopeful....
🗒️ Taking Submissions: Reader Beware!
Deadline: August 1st, 2022 Payment: $0.01 per word for new stories and/or $25 for reprints.
Theme: Fear Street appreciation.
YA horror steeped in late 80s-90s nostalgia.
Note: Reprints Welcome WELCOME TO FEAR STREET You’ve heard the stories about Fear Street—the unexplained mysteries, missing people, the things that lurk in the dark—but wouldn’t you rather experience them for yourself?
You aren’t scared, are you?...
🗒️ Taking Submissions: Elements Book One: Earth (Early Listing)
Submission Window: February 1st – 28th, 2022 Payment: ¢1 per word CAD Theme: Horror stories with a theme of Earth Earth Elements Book One: Four-part series Open date: February 1st Close date: February 28th Stories of horror with the theme of ‘earth’ – Rated R welcomed Welcome to our four-book series, dedicated to horror from the elements.
Each quarter has been assigned an ‘element’.
Please review the elements and open submission windows below.
Each quarter submission window is only one month, so please make sure to submit during that specific time period Patreon members will be allowed to submit one week early, and be given a one-week extension to each quarter call.
Although there can be some fantasy elements tossed in there, the overall feel of the stories must remain in the horror genre.
Aim to scare.
Each part will be approximately 70,000 words and have its own ebook and paperback....
🗒️ Novellas, the Bogeyman of Publishing
Novellas, the Bogeyman of Publishing by Cassondra Windwalker Literature and publishing are forever squabbling like impassioned parents, leaving readers to look on morosely from their hiding place behind the couch.
In this case, the argument is especially silly, as its conclusion has been decidedly proven on the best-seller lists already.
Still, agents and publishers will claim that books must be a minimum of 70,000-80,000 words long to even be considered for publication, while authors point miserably to the insistences of successful writers from Beatrix Potter to Truman Capote to Ernest Hemingway to Charles Bukowski, each of whom loudly proclaimed the superiority of paucity.
Brevity is especially well-suited to horror.
Horror, like seduction, relies more on the imagination of the reader than the dictation of the writer.
Should the writer give in to her self-indulgent desire to painstakingly explain and describe every detail of every scene, to plumb the depths of every motivation, she would remove the reader entirely and leave them outside the pages, a mere observer....
🗒️ Short List of Books that Aspiring Horror Writers Must Study
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels Short List of Books that Aspiring Horror Writers Must Study If you have a vivid and active imagination, perhaps, there’s no better work for you than fiction writing.
Words possess extremely potent power, allowing you to tell nearly anything you can imagine.
And when there are no words to describe what you want to tell, you can always make up words and even languages to have it your way.
One of the most important things for every writer and creative person overall is, of course, inspiration.
To write a good story, it’s a good idea to read one first....
Enjoy,
Horror Tree
