These two books by Stephen King will help you become a horror author
Stephen King taught me how to write.
Not in person, of course. I haven’t met him.
Yet.
But he taught me how to write horror with two books that get looked over when people are talking about the best King works. I’d honestly say that anyone who wants to write horror should be required to read these books before they ever pick up a pen.
Today, we’re talking about Danse Macabre and On Writing.
Let’s start with On Writing. If this book is new to you, are you even a King fan? It’s broken into two parts. Part one is an autobiography. It’s King explaining how he became a writer. It’s also about how he became an alcoholic and drug addict, then a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.
If you’re an aspiring author, the first part of On Writing is one of the more comforting things you can read. From writing short stories on a typewriter in his childhood bedroom to having hundreds of stories beloved by millions of people, he for sure struggled. Do you remember the railroad spike of rejection letters from the first episode of The Stand? That was right from King’s youth.
The second part of On Writing is possibly the most entertaining writing manual you will ever read. Sentence structure isn’t generally riveting material for most people. But King writes with such a funny, conversational tone that the information is absorbed right along with the great stories.
Once you’ve got the basics from On Writing, it’s time to move onto Danse Macabre. This book is a primer for understanding the horror genre. It digs deeply into the roots of TVs, movies, film, books and even radio shows that have scared the shit out of people for six decades.
There is a whole chapter digging into some of the most classic archetypes of the genre. The vampire, the werewolf and the thing without a name. King also references the ghost as a fourth one but doesn’t show it as much attention. He discusses the roots of the archetypes, how they’ve evolved, and semi-recent examples. (The book did come out in 1981.)
Another big theme of Danse Macabre is a question so many of us have explored just as horror fans.
Why would someone want to watch/listen to/read that sort of thing? Kids getting sucked into sewers, crazy women intentionally breaking a man’s legs so he can’t run away, cocoa puffs that eat the universe. Why do we enjoy these things?
The easy answer is that we just do. Scary stories are fun. We’ve all known that since the first time some kid at a slumber party asked, ‘Have you heard the one about the guy with the hook for a hand?’.
The more complex answer is an explanation of socioeconomic pressures and a deep-seated need for cathartic exploration of death. One that anyone who wants to write horror needs to understand. And one that Danse Macabre explains perfectly.
Finally, Danse Macabre will leave you with homework. There are so many books and movies referenced in this book that you will just have to experience for yourself. The first time I heard of the cult classic Freaks was in this book. When you finish with this book, you’ll find yourself with a to-read list that is daunting. But what great, gruesome stories you’ll discover.
There is no book that you can read and become a perfect writer. But if you want to write horror, start by reading these two books.
Remember if you want to buy the books just click below and if you do, we get some $ from Amazon.
If you have been searching high and low for a book in which a devil named Rick, who is the spitting-image of Billy Zane, impregnates a male porn star so that his spawn can finally get into heaven for once, then I’ve found the book for you. From the opening pages, The Devil’s Gunt, by Gerald Dean Rice, launches action sequences, body parts, blood, guts, cum, and vomit at the reader faster than they can dodge, and Dean’s constant clever innuendos (“temptation reared its mushroom-shaped head”) had me laughing out loud at multiple points throughout the book.
What Exactly is The Devil’s Gunt it About?
The Devil’s Gunt follows Median, a current-day porn star, after he finds out he was impregnated with the devil’s spawn. With the help of his roommate Joe, his estranged wife Mary, and a disembodied head in a box, they investigate out how and why the pregnancy occurred while dodging Rick and his demons at every turn. Interspersed throughout this story, we follow Alfred and Milo, from their origins as two supernaturally-gifted boys enslaved on a plantation, to their mysterious involvement in the current day devil-baby debacle.
This horror-comedy-sex-thriller explores almost every subcategory of horror: body, supernatural, family trauma, historical, medical, action, and more. For example, when we first meet Rick the devil (there’s many devils in hell, apparently), he’s impersonating a pony-tail-wearing abortion doctor with a cache of menacing medical tools. Or, after this initial run-in, the trio must flee from demon-shadows that atomize any person they come in contact with. There’s even an interlude in which Alfred and Milo disguise a violent encounter within a mob stampede after the 1929 stock crash.
The only place where The Devil’s Gunt seems to hold back is in the details of the cursed pregnancy itself. How, exactly, is there a baby in there? Where does it come out? How did it get there in the first place? Perhaps in the vein of Frankenstein, Rice leaves the most scientifically confounding, humanly gruesome aspects of the situation up to our imagination.
The Devil’s Gunt is chock-full of subversions of ideas about angels, devils, possession, heaven, and hell. So if you are curious about concepts such as robot-devils or “Scooby-doo Court”, you’ll have to read it for yourself.
(4 / 5)
“It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts.
‘The Werewolf.’
Published way back in 1979, Angela Carter’s short story anthology The Bloody Chamber is now considered a classic by many people. It is also thought of as one of Carter’s more, if not most, controversial fictional works. It is common knowledge that fairy and folk tales of old are a lot darker than the cartoon versions we are familiar with. Carter takes this darkness to a new level. These stories contain common themes of sexual desire, violence and love. Many of these stories depict explicit sexual descriptions. If you are a person who takes note of trigger warnings be aware. These stories contain scenes that discuss and depict abuse, bestiality, rape, incest and paedophilia.
The Stories.
Each of Carter’s ten stories in The Bloody Chamber collection are based on fairy or folk tales. In several of these stories this is obvious. For example, the collections eponymous story, ‘The Bloody Chamber’, is undoubtedly based on the tale of Bluebeard and Carter’s Puss-in-Boots keeps its original name. We see Beauty and the Beast represented obviously in both ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ and ‘The Tiger’s Bride’.
There are other stories here that only pull at the loose threads of existing fairy or folk tales; taking a single thought or idea and running with it in another direction completely. There are actually several that seem to mashup a combination of stories in one. For example, in ‘The Lady of the House of Love’, the plot as a whole feels like a take on Sleeping Beauty, but there is an obvious reference to Jack and the Beanstalk. The Countess reciting the ‘fee, fi, fo, fum’ rhyme of that story to her victim.
Highlights.
I am a sucker for both fairy and folk tales and as such the highlight here for me was seeing characters and parts of plots that are somewhat familiar in a different light. This sort of ‘re-telling’ (for want of a better word) invites the reader to ask ‘what if’ and I think that that is a very powerful thing to do.
There was a certain dark, wintery aesthetic to all of the stories in this collection that was also big highlight for me. The rain, the wind, the snow, I could feel the chill rising off the pages. The repeated images of birds and birdcages, mirrors and roses created ominous feel and really ticked all of the gothic horror boxes.
Drawbacks.
There were two issues that I had with reading this anthology that really made me struggle to get through to the final pages.
The first was the style of Carter’s writing. Yes, I understand that these are adult fairy tales and there is a level of flowery, descriptive writing that is expected to encounter as a result. But I just felt like I was drowning in dense description in several of these stories. So much so that my brain zoned out several times and I had to stop and rewind, turning back to reread several pages at a time.
My second issue was that it often felt like the violence was skimmed over due to the length of some of the stories, one being only two pages long. The reader barely has time to process what has happened before the story had ended and a new one begun. It often felt like getting punched in the face. For some this point might land in the highlights section, but for me it was a big drawback.
Final Take.
The stories in The Bloody Chamber anthology are divisive. Some love every single one of them, others have a strong aversion. For me, I liked a few. My attention was held by ‘The Erl-King’ and the story of ‘The Bloody Chamber’ itself was an enjoyable read.
Overall though, I think this one missed the mark for me. It might only be because the prose was so heavy with description that I had trouble concentrating on the stories themselves. Despite this, The Bloody Chamber is one of those books that everyone should read at least once in their life.
(2.5 / 5)
“The problem with family is that they know where all the levers are that make you move. They’re usually the ones who installed the levers in the first place.”
Published in March 2023, T. Kingfisher’s cozy southern gothic horror novel, A House With Good Bones has won many awards, including the 2024 Lucus award for horror and the 2023 Dragon award for horror. The story pulls a quirky and likeable main character back into family drama that she believed was long dead. It asks the reader consider questions about family history, the uselessness of polite society and in a roundabout way, the ethics of science.
The Story.
When Sam Montgomery, an archaeoentomologist (yes, apparently a real job!), finds herself without a roof over her head when her latest dig is put on hold, she returns to her childhood home to stay with her mother in rural North Carolina. It’s a home of unhappy memories. Sam’s grandmother is twenty years dead, although those twenty years are not long enough for Sam. Grama Mae was a tough-love grandmother who was overbearing, often menacing and in possession of an acid tongue. She frequently threatened her grandchildren with the terrifying ‘underground children’ when they misbehaved.
Arriving at the house Sam notices her mother is ‘not quite right’, she begins to worry about early onset dementia. But as the layers begin peeling back we realise that all is not what it seems. Sam’s family holds dark secrets at its roots.
Highlights.
There was so much to love about this book. The story serves up everything a reader expects from a southern gothic horror; perfect southern hospitality, creepy house vibes, family secrets and bizarre flora and fauna.
What I enjoyed most about this book was the way that it turns that overused idea of the rose being a symbol of love and beauty on its head; these are not your mother’s roses. In the acknowledgements T. Kingfisher reveals that she got the idea for the books while tending to her rose bushes, of which she has a love hate relationship.
Also worth mentioning as a highlight is the insect and bird life. From the first scene there are vultures watching the Montgomery home. Also, and unexpectedly very creepy, are swarming ladybugs, who knew lady bugs swarmed?
Another highlight in this story is the main character. Sam is the first to inform readers that she has never fit in in her hometown, and throughout the novel reflects on past incidents to prove her case. However, all of her self-proclaimed faults make her all the more endearing and only prove to be assets as the novel draws to an end.
Drawbacks.
T. Kingfisher’s horror books tend to lean toward the cozy horror genre, and with this comes frequent doses of wry humor and sarcasm. In A House with Good Bones this comedy is mostly delivered via the internal monologue of our main character Sam. Unfortunately, I feel that this more often than not missed its mark, creating moments that were cringy and uncomfortable (and not in a good ‘horror-ey’ way).
Another issue with this story is the attempt at a romance subplot between Sam and her mum’s handyman Phil. There was an attempt at a ‘meet-cute’ at the start of the novel and then repeated misunderstandings between the two that just miss the mark. It just felt too intentional and forced, as if T Kingfisher was set on including some sort of romance whether the plot needed it or not.
Final Take.
Despite having several drawbacks, I really did enjoy A House with Good Bones and actually read it in one sitting. The writing flows easily and the characters are relatable. Anyone who enjoyed T. Kingfisher’s, The Twisted Ones, will love this as well. Readers who make it to the gruesome end may be tickled to find is dedicated to T. Kingfisher’s grandmother “who was actually pretty awesome”.
This one is an easy 4 out of 5
(4 / 5)
