Pushing The Envelope…

I struggle with finding the balance in my writing. I like to scare people…A LOT!  I consider it my personal goal to make the reader suffer.  I know I am doing my job right when the reader is both terrified and excited about what they may find on that next page.

Easily the most talked-about chapter in my thriller Asylum Lake is the one in which a twelve-year-old boy pays a special visit to a young family. According to JournalStone Publishing's review of the book,

"I do love a good horror story, and Asylum Lake fits the bill.  It reels you in while developing the storyline and main character and then slams it home with one of the more horrific murder scenes I have read in a long time.  Hello, has anyone seen the twin's hands and feet lately.  Try looking in the kitchen sink if you have the stomach for it...definitely one of the more entertaining reads I have picked up in awhile."

What an honor – to have a chapter from my novel described as one of the more horrific murder scenes this publisher had read.  I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I read that review. Just imagine if they had read my original draft where I went into even more excruciating detail!

But, you see, that's just it. I knew when I was pushing the envelope and eased off the accelerator a bit.  As much as some readers enjoy the gore and entrails, others do not. I want my horror to be more of the mind than of the eyeballs. I need only provide enough detail with words to let the reader's imagination take completely over.

In Grave Undertakings, the much-anticipated sequel to Asylum Lake due out in May of this year, the story is darker…and bloodier. But that's not to say there's more gore. They key is to make the reader's stomach churn with anxiety and anticipation..not heave with sickness.