I love this time of year. I love the crisp air and the changes in the leaves. I love hot chocolate and pumpkin spice and gingerbread. The nights are drawing in and it’s time for snuggling down. I stock up with as many candles as I can get away with, drag out all the blankets, and enjoy the feeling of being safe and snug away from the weather. All the spooky stuff that comes with Halloween is a wonderful bonus.
I can never keep away from the supernatural when writing, and this time of year I embrace it with enthusiasm. In the last few years I’ve made a thing about posting loads of stories in October and I want to continue. And of course I’ve also signed up to the amazing October Frights again, which is always good fun.
This year I’ve decided to go ghostly. One of my favourite characters is Kane, the quiet, unassuming, somewhat shy lad who can talk to ghosts. Well, it’s more like the ghosts insist on talking to him whether he wants to listen or not. He’s such a sweetheart. I thought I would spend some time with him this October and I’ve made some provisional plans. I’ll be the first to confess that my ability to stick to plans is spectacularly bad, but I’m quietly confident on this one.
I’ve decided to share six new stories about Kane during the October Frights. I’ve had these ideas rattling around for a while and I thought it would be a good time to take him in a slightly new direction. The poor lad doesn’t know what’s coming for him. As a way of celebrating the spectral season, I’ll be republishing one of Kane’s old stories every day in October outside of the October Frights for a trip down memory lane. I really enjoyed revisiting them as I was reminding myself of his journey, so I thought I would share. The first story featuring Kane was back in March 2019, and as all his stories had been scattered around with months in between, I thought it would be nice to have a reminder.
While I’m talking about Kane, please send me all encouragement and I hope to finally get a novel with Kane as the hero out before the end of January. He deserves a little bit of the spotlight and possibly a chance of romance. I can’t see it being a series, and I’m sure that I’ll write the occasional short story afterwards, but I think he deserves to be a hero for at least a little while.
October won’t be only about Kane, though. I still plan to keep up the instalments of ‘Invitation Accepted’ and the guest posts for #HazardousToYourSanity and perhaps a post or two on research as I’ve had a few ideas about that. Mind you, I’ve mentioned how abysmally awful I am at plans.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and if you have the same soft spot for Kane. Let me know what you think of the plans – and the chances of me managing them!
Personal question; what made you decide to write supernatural tales and those about elementals? lighthearted and readable 🙂 but I don’t think my own imagination could do it
In the 60’s we read Dennis Wheatley which I recall was scary but I can’t recall what about.
Never read lord of the rings or saw the film…
Saw all the Harry Potter, but I thought they got blacker and blacker both in content and dimness of lighting🫢
My soft stuff is really about hoping for something more beyond ‘this’
I do have a leaning towards faeries though🙂Not that I’ve knowingly seen one ( but they might not be as tiny as we imagine though.)
You may have explained this elsewhere -sorry if you have. This is simply curiosity xx
That’s a really interesting question – it makes me think about things.
There are a lot of different strands. First, I write the stories that I ‘hear’ in my head and for some reason they always seem to have a hint of the supernatural or otherworldly, so I suppose that’s just part of how I see the world. My attitude isn’t clear or sensible and I suppose can be summed up as ‘I don’t believe in Second Sight and there’s a lot of it in my family.’ I always have the sense that there’s something magical just a sliver of space away but I don’t always approve of the feeling. I’ve given up trying to explain away contradictions in that – people are full of contradictions so I just accept it and save my energy to worry about something else. On that note, I write scarier stories than I’m comfortable reading. I’m not good with horror stuff, even though I write it quite happily. My story Dinner at Dark would terrify me if I read it, as it deals with themes that freak me out. I wrote it quite happily.
Second, I feel that the more supernatural the story, the stronger the feel for reality you should show to give contrast. So someone always has to wash the dishes or take out the bins and no matter how unreal and uncanny the story is, toast will always land butter side down. I also feel, in my modern day stories, that if there are werewolves and vampires and dark creatures among us, that they still have to pay the rent. They will still need a driving licence if they use a car. I feel that any vampires around may cheat death but they would never cheat taxes. HMRC are scarier than any horror movie and will never, ever give up. There may be werewolves, but they will have to find a way to pay their bills.
I have quite an academic leaning (all self taught) and I’ve read historical accounts about faeries cursing children, blighting crops, stopping the butter coming etc so my view is that they may be behaving at the moment but that they have their own little ways and are not necessarily like us. In Iceland, belief in elves blocked a road project and there were apparently accidents associated with the site until it was sorted out. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-31987941
I have written stories that aren’t supernatural, but I don’t think that they’re as good and if I want to try and make money at writing, I’ll need to focus on the stuff that I do best.
Thank you for the question. I hope it answers the questions but please add anything else that you would like to know or would like clarified. xx
An interesting answer. I sometimes get the bones of an idea and then overnight my brain puts it together.
I don’t disbelieve about anything supernatural. But aspects of it are quite scary. So although strange things have happened to me I can’t offer an explanation and I suppose I wouldn’t be any good at all at what and how you write.
You can step back as you create
– I think I would even be worrying about the characters – good or bad? Could I control them😄
I’ve never had much control over my characters. They seem to have a habit of going their own way. It usually makes for a better story and it’s more fun for me that how. To be fair, I usually start with a sense of how that character is and they usually stay true to that – more or less.
I feel that anyone who writes is a writer. I feel that anyone who tries to put pen to paper is already facing challenges. I strongly feel that there isn’t a right way or a wrong way but perhaps there could be a right way or wrong way for them. If you feel right now that you want to write I believe that you should go for it! Let me know if you feel like sharing!