I mentioned yesterday that our writing group had an excellent workshop with published author, Polly Hall, during which she gave us some writing exercises. They were very interesting and quite challenging – especially when we had to read out what we’d produced and I struggled to read my own handwriting!
Polly has written a couple of books and her genre is horror – now this is something most of the writers in our group haven’t experienced producing, so to have this workshop was an exciting challenge. I guess many people who don’t read it would think it’s all about blood and guts and gore and ghastly things happening to people who can’t escape from the dreadful situation in which they are trapped. Well, some if not much of it could be described in that way – this is what Wikipedia says:
Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as “a piece of fiction in prose of variable length … which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing”. Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society.
There were only half a dozen of us there – some of the group had unavoidable appointments and I think a couple were discouraged by it being a horror writing workshop – which was a shame because psychological, Gothic, thriller, ghost stories et al can all have aspects of horror. The exercises Polly gave us were open to interpretation, but obviously we were trying to write in a specific way to fulfil the aim of the workshop!
She handed out slips of paper each with a couple of sentences on them, which we had to use to produce something, bearing in mind what we were trying to do. A great challenge for us all – to do something different from what we normally and comfortably write. In the discussion leading up to us pulling out our pens, sharpening our quills and dipping our nibs, we had explored ideas. Hpwever, only the horror specialist in the group, Fenja Hill, set to the challenges with any great confidence, although the rest of us attacked the tasks with determination and furrowed brows.
I think we all did really well, a couple actually had some quite brilliant rough drafts which I hope they develop into something for our next meeting. Some were very creepy and shivery, and there were definitely goosebumps and hairs rising on the backs of necks.
The opening sentences of my first story:
There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. It used to trouble me, but now Ijust slap it down and pour another glass of wine.
But maybe it’s something I should confront.
There’s a phrase about killing the thing we love – to be honest, I’ve not actually killed anything yet, although Stanley is still in intensive care.
I set the story here in Weston-super-Mare, not exactly the murder capital of the world, nor even the crime centre of the south-west. I imagined the nameless narrator wandering along the sea front and coming across an open air art exhibition on the Beach Lawns. I chose this very ordinary setting thinking it would be more unexpected to plunge into horror than to be in a ‘spooky’ situation.
The second challenge was something about the house or garden next door… to be honest, my story so overtook my imagination that I can’t remember exactly what the stimulus was:
Mum didn’t tell me that Aunty Sybil had died – she told me she had gone away for a holiday, but I heard Mrs Blaney from the other side of Aunty Sybil’s house tell Mum that Old Sibyl had snuffed it. I didn’t exactly know what that meant and I couldn’t ask Mum because I was under the table and she didn’t know I was there because of the table cloth.
This story about the young girl, Molly is a ghost story – so I guess that isn’t really horror, but it is still something very different from what I usually write. If I do write more it will be a children’s story, similar to my Peggy story but obviously different girls. Molly goes out to play in her gaden and accidentally throws her ball over the tall fence into Aunty Sibyl’s garden. She is just wondering whether she could stand on the coal box and somehow get into Aunty Sibyl’s garden when the ball comes flying back over the fence followed by another ball she had previously lost. Intrigued. Molly climbs on the coal box and finds there is a girl a similar age to her standing in Aunty Sibyl’s garden. I think this other girl is going to be a ghost – maybe Sibyl as a child!
Here is a link to Polly, to find out more about her and her books: https://www.pollyhall.co.uk/
– and here is a link to Fenja’s books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Fenja-Hill/s?rh=n%3A266239
My featured image is of Fenja at Camarthen Castle at Laugharne
Lois Elsden 