Friday Freewriting – August 6, 2021 – Robert

Posted on August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Well, we’re going to need some content warnings this week. With a prompt like this, what would you expect?

Character: Monk
Object: Candy
Genre/Tone: Horror

To tell the truth, I’m not a fan of gore or slasher-movie horror. I’m more into the creepy existential and cosmic horror that Lovecraft made popular and that’s carried on today in books like T. Kingfisher’s The Hollow Places. But when you have a timed exercise, you sometimes surprise yourself with what comes out, and what came out of me was… the violent destruction of a human body. If that kind of thing triggers you, please check out Megan’s less gory and more creepy story based on the same prompts.

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Friday Freewriting – August 6, 2021 – Megan

Posted on August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Monk Contemplating a Skull by Thomas Couture

Character: Monk
Object: Candy
Genre/Tone: Horror

For this tone I tried to draw from the feeling I got from a couple of nightmares I had nearly 20 years ago. In the first one I knew I was dead, and I was in a strange lightless country, but I had the sense that life was just a millimeter away behind an invisible barrier, that I should be able to cross, if I could only find it again. I woke up before I did. The second, I was in a room, and the door wouldn’t open, and the light wouldn’t turn on. And I realized that I was never going to escape from that room. Some deep part of me was terrified, but the most dominant part just felt numb disappointment and acceptance.

I was aiming at keeping at least a grain of hope for Brother Gustav’s entrance into realms of light. So I don’t know if this could be considered true horror.

If you try this or any other of these prompts, please share it with us, if you’re comfortable!

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Friday Free Writing – Megan – May 21, 2021

Posted on May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Epic Book Club

I went with the genre-blend generator today to choose what sort of story we’d be writing. I like the horror-Pygmalion direction that I took with my story, but I’m wondering how much creepier I could have made it if I’d written from the sculpture’s point of view.

Charater: Art Student

Object: Glue

Genre: Horror/Romance

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – May 21, 2021

Posted on May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Image from page 115 of "Mouldings, mirrors, pictures and frames." (1884) — Photo by Internet Archive Book Images

I need to start this week with a content warning: the genre prompt was horror/romance, neither of which I’m all that comfortable with, and I was surprised at the places my mind went under the pressure of the exercise. So, the following story contains obsession and stalker behavior, as well as themes of captivity and objectification of people.

As I said, I’m not sure what all this says about the way my mind works; but I suppose I’d like to emphasize that these are things that creep me out, that horrify me, not things that I find romantic.

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